=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #361
—October 28, 1993—
News and resources for environmental justice.
——
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
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PR FIRMS FOR HIRE TO UNDERMINE DEMOCRACY
Congress will take a final “yes or no” vote November 17th on
NAFTA –an issue that will profoundly affect the environment of
the North American continent for decades or centuries to come.
NAFTA is short for North American Free Trade Agreement, a formal
arrangement to reduce tariffs and other trade barriers between
Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.
It is time for each of us to be asking: What do the people who
represent ME in Congress think about NAFTA? Push has come to
shove on NAFTA and it’s time to let Congress know what YOU think.
We have previously written about the environmental destruction
that NAFTA will initiate (see RHWN #303, #304,
and #305). Since
then, President Clinton has added “side agreements” to NAFTA but
they are weak and will be challenged in court, so seem unlikely
to change NAFTA at all.
The Mexican government and Mexican business groups have spent
more than $25 million persuading Congress to say “yes” to
NAFTA.[1] It helps to get the size of this lobbying campaign
into perspective. Before the NAFTA campaign, the 3 biggest
lobbying efforts had been these:
**In 1990, Hill & Knowlton (the largest Washington PR firm) was
paid $10 million by the Kuwaiti government to persuade the
American people of the need for military intervention in the
Persian Gulf.
**In 1987, after a Japanese company illegally exported high-tech
equipment to the Soviet Union, Japanese corporations spent $9
million for a lobbying drive to prevent legislative retaliation
by Congress.
**In the late 1970s, in a scandal that became known as
“Koreagate,” South Korean rice broker Tongsun Park acknowledged
that he had distributed about $850,000 in gifts and cash to 31
members of Congress from 1967 to 1977.
Mexico’s pro-NAFTA expenditures have already exceeded the
combined resources of these 3 “largest ever” lobbying campaigns.
Whichever way NAFTA goes, it can serve as a “wake up call” to the
role of big-money lobbying by PR firms. There are now 170,000 PR
employees in the U.S. (there are 40,000 more “flacks” than there
are news reporters). These PR flacks work relentlessly to
manipulate news, public opinion, and public policy.
Fortunately, we now have a new tool to help us understand how
these flacks work: a new newsletter has just appeared, called PR
WATCH, published quarterly. The editor is John Stauber, who says,
“The corporate flacks, hacks, lobbyists and influence peddlers,
the practitioners of modern PR… have become a kind of
occupation army in our democracy….
“The ascendancy of the PR industry and the collapse of American
participatory democracy are the same phenomenon. The growing
concentration of economic power in fewer and fewer hands,
combined with sophisticated marketing techniques and radical new
electronic technologies, have come together in the past decade to
fundamentally re-shape our social and political landscape….
“When the corporate status quo is threatened by ‘the rest of us’
(seeking better working conditions, national health care, fair
prices for farmers, safe food, freedom from toxic pollution, and
social justice), the PR flacks, lobbyists and trade associations
mobilize to crush or co-opt the outnumbered, outgunned reformers.”
Under the headline “Spies for Hire,” the first issue of PR WATCH
highlights one particular PR firm that specializes in gathering
“intelligence” about activists: Mongoven, Biscoe and Duchin (MBD)
in Washington, D.C. MBD employs 20 professionals and 14 support
staff keeping track of activists for Fortune 100 clients.
Documents published by MBD contain the following description of
the company in its own words: “MBD assists corporations in
resolving public policy issues being driven by activist
organizations and other members of the public interest community.
We help clients anticipate and respond to movements for change
in public policy which would affect their interests adversely….
“Forces for change often include activist and public interest
groups, churches, unions and/or academia….
“MBD is committed to the concept that it is critical to know who
the current and potential participants are in the public policy
process, to understand their goals and modus operandi, and to
understand their relative importance. To this end, MBD maintains
extensive files on organizations and their leadership…”
According to company documents, MBD routinely monitors subject
areas such as “dioxin,” “incineration,” and “landfills” and
organizations such as Greenpeace International and Friends of the
Earth.
PR WATCH reports that an MBD staff person, such as Kara Ziegler,
“spends long hours on the phone falsely representing herself as
‘a writer for Z Magazine’ or a friend of a friend” gathering
intelligence from and about unsuspecting activists. We spoke to
Ms. Ziegler by phone October 26 [(202) 429-1800]; she confirmed
that she had read about herself and MBD in PR WATCH, then excused
herself from the phone with a promise to call us back with
comments on its accuracy, but we did not hear from her again.
MBD co-founder and vice president Ronald A. Duchin gave a speech
to the 1991 convention of the National Cattleman’s Association.
His talk was titled, “Take an Activist Apart and What do You
Have?”[2] The talk described how corporations can defeat public
interest activists.
Duchin says activists fall into 4 categories: radicals,
opportunists, idealists, and realists. To defeat activists,
Duchin says, corporations must use a three-step
divide-and-conquer strategy. The goal is to isolate the
radicals, “cultivate” the idealists and “educate” them into
becoming realists, then co-opt the realists into agreeing with
industry.
Here are excerpts from Duchin’s talk, as reported in the June,
1991, issue of CALF NEWS CATTLE FEEDER:
“[T]he activists we are concerned about here are the ones who
want to change the way your industry does business–either for
good or bad reasons: environmentalists, churches, Public Interest
Research Groups, campus organizations, civic groups, teachers
unions, and ‘Nader-ites.’”
The Radicals
“[Radical activists] want to change the system; they have
underlying socio-economic/political motives; [are]
anti-corporate–[they] see the multinationals as inherently evil;
winning is unimportant on a specific issue; [they] can be
extremist/violent; [their] involvement in a particular issue can
be a diversion from pursuit of their real (unarticulated) goals.”
The Opportunists
“The public policy process breeds opportunists because the
process offers visibility, power, followers and, perhaps, even
employment…. The key to dealing with opportunists is to provide
them with at least the perception of a partial victory….
[Opportunist activists] exploit issues for their own personal
agendas; [are] only involved in an issue if personal gain [is]
available; can be, but not normally, extremist/violent….”
The Idealists
“Idealists want a perfect world and find it easy to brand any
product or practice which can be shown to mar that perfection as
evil. Because of their intrinsic altruism, however, and because
they have nothing perceptible to be gained by holding their
position, they are easily believed by both the media and the
public and, sometimes, even the politicians.
“Again, because of their altruism, the idealists are hard to deal
with. As long as their motivation remains pure their credibility
for the positions they support will be viable. Idealists must be
cultivated and one should respect their position. It has been
arrived at through a sense of justice. They must be educated.
“Certain of the idealists,… e.g., churches,… have a
vulnerable point. If they can be shown that their position in
opposition to an industry or its products causes harm to others
and cannot be ethically justified, they are forced to change
their position.
“Once the idealist is made fully aware of the long-term
consequences or the wide ranging ramifications of his/her
position in terms of other issues of justice and society, she/he
can be made into a realist.
“Without support of the realists and the idealists, the positions
of radicals and opportunists are seen to be shallow and
self-serving.
“Thus, while a realist must be negotiated with, an idealist must
be educated. Generally, this education process requires great
sensitivity and understanding on the part of the educator.”
The Realists
“[Realists] can look beyond the issue at hand; understand the
consequences; can live with trade-offs; [are] willing to work
within the system; [are] not interested in radical change; [are]
pragmatic.
“The realists should always receive the highest priority in any
strategy dealing with a public policy issue. It is very
important to work with and cooperate with the realists…
“In most issues, it is the solution agreed upon by the realists
which becomes the accepted solution, especially when business
participates in the decision making process. If business opts
out of the policy process, the voices of the idealists and the
radicals take on more strength…. [R]ealist leaders and groups
are the best candidates for constructive dialog leading to
mutually satisfactory solutions. Idealists often can be convinced
over time to take a more realistic view. If your industry can
successfully bring about these relationships, the credibility of
the radicals will be lost and the opportunists can be counted on
to share in the final policy resolution….”
Grass-Roots Organizations
“The Grassroots Organizations… are very important… due to
their commitment to a radical change in the way America governs
itself…. These organizations do not trust the… federal, state
and local governments to protect them and to safeguard the
environment. They believe, rather, that individuals and local
groups should have direct power over industry. Not only does
this make these groups difficult to deal with, it makes it
impossible to predict with any certainty what standards will be
deemed acceptable. I would categorize their principle aims right
now as social justice and political empowerment–using the
environment as a platform.”
GET: PR WATCH, 3318 Gregory Street, Madison, WI 53711; phone
(608) 233-3346; fax: (608) 238-2236. $60/yr. for individuals and
non-profits; $300 for corporations.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
===============
[1] Charles Lewis and Margaret Ebrahim, “Can Mexico and Big
Business USA Buy NAFTA?” THE NATION Vol. 256 (June 14, 1993), pg.
826.
[2] Joel Bleifuss, “PR Spies,” IN THESE TIMES September 20, 1993,
pgs. 12-13.
Descriptor terms: public relations; pr; nafta; mexico; trade
barriers; non-tariff barriers to trade; ntbs; pr watch;
environmental movement; mongoven; biscoe; duchin; mbd; backlash;
wise use movement; intelligence; spies; spying; john stauber;
north american free trade agreement;