Are Americans Really Funding the Tories?
A Scientist | 27.03.2010 12:16 | Analysis | Globalisation | Workers' Movements
The Upcoming election will be vicious. Made more so by the Internet. The Conservative Party is being lauded as the best users of their Web presence. The Tories seem to think the Internet is their own private army. Closer investigation begins to reveal worrying connections with American Oil and anti-healthcare campaigns. Have the Tories made promises we will regret them keeping?
Many on Indymedia will be unhappy about an article on the forthcoming election. Yet, the election will take place anyway. There are some who are taking a practical accommodationist approach - such as the None Of The Above (
http://www.noneoftheaboveparty.org.uk/) Party. Which would ensure that spoiled ballots would have an officially recognised status by campaigning for a "none of the above" box on ballot papers. This article is not about such progressive electoral reform but about the old fashioned parties. If that does not appeal, stop wasting your time and read elsewhere.
The Conservative Party has launched a website called "Cash Gordon" ( http://cash-gordon.com/). Essentially, this site wanted to rouse up nostalgia for 1979 by creating a media storm about Trade Union finance of the Labour Party. In particular, Unite and Charly Wheelan come in for some sustained attention. The website claims it is a campaign on single issue. Realistically, this is intended to distance it from the the Conservative Party. A quick trawl over the site shows that the presentation is very much the same as a US Political Action Fund (PAC). This is the standard US Lobbyist technique for funding a party campaign without contributing directly to the Party.
The site is not just similar, but uncannily identical to a US website lobbying against carbon-trading legislation ( http://noenergytax.com/). This website is funded by oil giants such as Chevron and Exon Mobil. Another anti-healthcare website ( http://operationwaitinggame.com) that is currently not available, also bears huge similarities. What they have in common is the web platform ( http://act.ivi.st/) "activist". As created and managed by the David All Group ( http://www.davidallgroup.com/) company whose business address:
David All Group
1212 New York Ave.
NW, Suite 550
Washington, DC 20005
(p) (202) 289-8811
(f) (202) 289-8787
makes them of extreme interest as lobbyists. Indeed, they make no secret of their association with the Republican Party ( http://www.davidallgroup.com/about) or of their political agenda ( http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/lydia-dishman/all-your-business/fine-art-trust-makeover). Realisically, there is a question to ask about why a US agency is spending so much effort supporting Conservative Party efforts through such a campaign as Cash Gordon.
Anybody who has ever taken a look at US politics since Nixon will be aware of the Political Activist Campaign Funds (PACS). These are ways to channel money to a campaign, frequently through non financial "in kind" donations - such as time or expensive resources. Maybe even software. Or Tweets ( http://thehill.com/homenews/house/58351-wilson-hires-a-pro-to-tweet) which might not seem relevant to UK politics.
Until you discover how badly the act.iv.ist platform was set up for the Tories.
What the Tories are learning is what a lot of Indymedia people already know: the Internet is not your Private Army. Certainly, Anonymous know that. What the Tories did was create a website that feeds into Facebook and takes a feed from Twitter and gives "players" facebook connect points. The problem was their tweet feed was originally uncensored ( http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23cashgordon). This allowed all sorts of merry pranksters to play as they will. The Tories are blaming a whole range of pornographic links and, images and redirections on Labour party activists. The truth is, that Labour Party Activists would have done a good deal more damage than simply disrupting tweets. Anybody can tweet at #cashgordon. Anybody.
Given that the site is effectively a US Lobbyists efforts, there are serious questions about what they will get out of it. The site claims to be a response to the way Unite the Union has taken financial control of the Labour Party. Which makes such questions as, "who controls the Tories", fair game. It also makes questions about who is participating in the UK elections very fair game ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me2g5QQPiiQ and http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23cashgordon) and what their motives are.
While this all sounds like conspiracy theory nonsense, it is not. It is about participation. Many people on Indymedia do not have their views represented at all (anarchists spring immediately to mind) while others do not wish to have their views regarded as mainstream (anarchists again spring to mind) while others deserve their views being made understandable and unpenalised by the mainstream (anarchists again spring to mind). What is happening is not a conspiracy but the inevitable consequence of the Internet being international.
It is also a measure of how cynically entwined the Conservative Party is with Right Wing Politics. Not only Centre Right politics but the whole array of political movements from the EDL and BNP to the Banks that "place" reports with the BBC. Politicians repeat the mantra "lobbyists will be the next big scandal". What they should be saying is, "the tories want lobbyists to be a labour scandal". That would distract from the Tory lobbyists.
While we all obtain software from around the world, there is an obligation for political parties to obtain software that we can trust. That is to say, software of the highest standard that is open to scrutiny by the electorate. Any other quality of software - or software supply process - will inevitably create mistrust and questions about motives. The software that the electorate can trust is part of the public scrutiny of political life that politicians should know will happen. Indeed, the parties should be registering their software for licence purposes anyhow - it is not a far step to making that register a public record.
Which is all very well and good, but how does it affect radical activism? Well, if the tories win the next election there will be a profound return to the bully boy politics of Thatcherism. That, combined with the bully boy politics of New Labour, will heral the end of such open debate as Indymedia. Yes, Labour are not liked by many, and will end up making deep cuts in public services in order to shore up banking profits. The Tories will do exactly the same. Both parties have painted themselves into a corner by bailing out businesses that should have failed.
What differentiates the Tories from NuLabour is what else they will do. The CashGordon website signals a return for the tories to class war against those they can crush, humiliate and discard. Read the site, it nostalgically talks about Unite as "the new militant" and points out this person was a communist (a sop no doubt to American PAC Funders) . They are much more likely to follow a US inspired (or Republican dictated) agenda of ending all forms of welfare and indenturing anybody without some form of wealth.
That is how it affects radical activism: it returns class war in a new and much more effective form to politics. Having spent decades preaching the mantra of "individualism" the Tories (and the US Republicans) have a wide range of small groups that they can pick off. Each one picked off they can move on to the next. And all the time those small groups will be shouting about how they do not wish to be picked off instead of becoming one big group.
It happened in the US with the Obama campaign: all the small groups banded together behind a big issue. Currently the US is preparing for Mid Term Elections. Where better to test out new methods of propaganda than in an English Speaking Democracy during an Election? Where better to hone techniques of splitting the issues and dictating the agenda. Except it failed.
The cashbrown website is not the same website that was launched. The Tories are claiming it was bought down "labour activists". Funnily enough, the history of the tweets shows differently. The history of the tweets shows that it was a diverse number of people and reasons that shut it down. The Tories misjudged the Internet. What that shows for the diverse groups of the left is: being behind a single issue can work. It worked for Obama's election on the basis of healthcare. It can work to dicate a more democratic government enters parliament.
It is not a dead mainstream media story but a vital lesson in how those who will need to tolerate whatever government is elected can influence events.
http://www.noneoftheaboveparty.org.uk/) Party. Which would ensure that spoiled ballots would have an officially recognised status by campaigning for a "none of the above" box on ballot papers. This article is not about such progressive electoral reform but about the old fashioned parties. If that does not appeal, stop wasting your time and read elsewhere. The Conservative Party has launched a website called "Cash Gordon" (
http://cash-gordon.com/). Essentially, this site wanted to rouse up nostalgia for 1979 by creating a media storm about Trade Union finance of the Labour Party. In particular, Unite and Charly Wheelan come in for some sustained attention. The website claims it is a campaign on single issue. Realistically, this is intended to distance it from the the Conservative Party. A quick trawl over the site shows that the presentation is very much the same as a US Political Action Fund (PAC). This is the standard US Lobbyist technique for funding a party campaign without contributing directly to the Party. The site is not just similar, but uncannily identical to a US website lobbying against carbon-trading legislation (
http://noenergytax.com/). This website is funded by oil giants such as Chevron and Exon Mobil. Another anti-healthcare website ( http://operationwaitinggame.com) that is currently not available, also bears huge similarities. What they have in common is the web platform ( http://act.ivi.st/) "activist". As created and managed by the David All Group ( http://www.davidallgroup.com/) company whose business address: David All Group
1212 New York Ave.
NW, Suite 550
Washington, DC 20005
(p) (202) 289-8811
(f) (202) 289-8787
makes them of extreme interest as lobbyists. Indeed, they make no secret of their association with the Republican Party (
http://www.davidallgroup.com/about) or of their political agenda ( http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/lydia-dishman/all-your-business/fine-art-trust-makeover). Realisically, there is a question to ask about why a US agency is spending so much effort supporting Conservative Party efforts through such a campaign as Cash Gordon. Anybody who has ever taken a look at US politics since Nixon will be aware of the Political Activist Campaign Funds (PACS). These are ways to channel money to a campaign, frequently through non financial "in kind" donations - such as time or expensive resources. Maybe even software. Or Tweets (
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/58351-wilson-hires-a-pro-to-tweet) which might not seem relevant to UK politics. Until you discover how badly the act.iv.ist platform was set up for the Tories.
What the Tories are learning is what a lot of Indymedia people already know: the Internet is not your Private Army. Certainly, Anonymous know that. What the Tories did was create a website that feeds into Facebook and takes a feed from Twitter and gives "players" facebook connect points. The problem was their tweet feed was originally uncensored (
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23cashgordon). This allowed all sorts of merry pranksters to play as they will. The Tories are blaming a whole range of pornographic links and, images and redirections on Labour party activists. The truth is, that Labour Party Activists would have done a good deal more damage than simply disrupting tweets. Anybody can tweet at #cashgordon. Anybody. Given that the site is effectively a US Lobbyists efforts, there are serious questions about what they will get out of it. The site claims to be a response to the way Unite the Union has taken financial control of the Labour Party. Which makes such questions as, "who controls the Tories", fair game. It also makes questions about who is participating in the UK elections very fair game (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me2g5QQPiiQ and http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23cashgordon) and what their motives are. While this all sounds like conspiracy theory nonsense, it is not. It is about participation. Many people on Indymedia do not have their views represented at all (anarchists spring immediately to mind) while others do not wish to have their views regarded as mainstream (anarchists again spring to mind) while others deserve their views being made understandable and unpenalised by the mainstream (anarchists again spring to mind). What is happening is not a conspiracy but the inevitable consequence of the Internet being international.
It is also a measure of how cynically entwined the Conservative Party is with Right Wing Politics. Not only Centre Right politics but the whole array of political movements from the EDL and BNP to the Banks that "place" reports with the BBC. Politicians repeat the mantra "lobbyists will be the next big scandal". What they should be saying is, "the tories want lobbyists to be a labour scandal". That would distract from the Tory lobbyists.
While we all obtain software from around the world, there is an obligation for political parties to obtain software that we can trust. That is to say, software of the highest standard that is open to scrutiny by the electorate. Any other quality of software - or software supply process - will inevitably create mistrust and questions about motives. The software that the electorate can trust is part of the public scrutiny of political life that politicians should know will happen. Indeed, the parties should be registering their software for licence purposes anyhow - it is not a far step to making that register a public record.
Which is all very well and good, but how does it affect radical activism? Well, if the tories win the next election there will be a profound return to the bully boy politics of Thatcherism. That, combined with the bully boy politics of New Labour, will heral the end of such open debate as Indymedia. Yes, Labour are not liked by many, and will end up making deep cuts in public services in order to shore up banking profits. The Tories will do exactly the same. Both parties have painted themselves into a corner by bailing out businesses that should have failed.
What differentiates the Tories from NuLabour is what else they will do. The CashGordon website signals a return for the tories to class war against those they can crush, humiliate and discard. Read the site, it nostalgically talks about Unite as "the new militant" and points out this person was a communist (a sop no doubt to American PAC Funders) . They are much more likely to follow a US inspired (or Republican dictated) agenda of ending all forms of welfare and indenturing anybody without some form of wealth.
That is how it affects radical activism: it returns class war in a new and much more effective form to politics. Having spent decades preaching the mantra of "individualism" the Tories (and the US Republicans) have a wide range of small groups that they can pick off. Each one picked off they can move on to the next. And all the time those small groups will be shouting about how they do not wish to be picked off instead of becoming one big group.
It happened in the US with the Obama campaign: all the small groups banded together behind a big issue. Currently the US is preparing for Mid Term Elections. Where better to test out new methods of propaganda than in an English Speaking Democracy during an Election? Where better to hone techniques of splitting the issues and dictating the agenda. Except it failed.
The cashbrown website is not the same website that was launched. The Tories are claiming it was bought down "labour activists". Funnily enough, the history of the tweets shows differently. The history of the tweets shows that it was a diverse number of people and reasons that shut it down. The Tories misjudged the Internet. What that shows for the diverse groups of the left is: being behind a single issue can work. It worked for Obama's election on the basis of healthcare. It can work to dicate a more democratic government enters parliament.
It is not a dead mainstream media story but a vital lesson in how those who will need to tolerate whatever government is elected can influence events.
A Scientist
Comments
Hide the following 12 comments
Yes but, no but, yes but. My friend Vicki said
27.03.2010 16:34
IM is obviously being used to prop-up one of the two main 'commodity' parties. Doesn't matter who you think this has been posted by or whether they work for or against either commodity its just short-hand for 'think about the big two, choose one or another'.
This is the thing about supporting either Tory or Labour. They are the same thing. One represents big business and the relationship between the 'worker' and his/her overlord and the other represents big business and the relationship between the 'worker' and his/her overlord!
One does it by playing the businessman and the other does it by playing the lowly downtrodden worker. What you as a voter get by supporting either party is defined not by what each party stands for but by the fight they are perpetually having with each other. Its like a whirlpool in a bath, you can be on the right or the left of the vortex but in the end you all go down the same plug hole. The big two main parties are ALWAYS a trap, that's why they are there! One complements the other.
Be interesting to see you prostrate yourselves here on IM over the next few weeks though. We do like a laugh!
A scientific scientist!
Okay, they look the same ...
27.03.2010 17:19
style sheet
More likely?
27.03.2010 18:02
The "connection" need not be any more than one person asking another "who did you get to design that website of yours?"
MDN
Even More Likely?
28.03.2010 11:40
The company who did the first one, has done some cold-calling around along the lines of:
"We've done this site for X which achieved Y & Z, I'm in your area next tuesday, fancy a meeting to discuss how we can do this for you?"
steff
Cold Calling? Cold Fusion is More Likely.
28.03.2010 17:05
The idea of software developers cold calling is quite funny. The idea that I am prostrating myself desparately attempting to get anarchists to prop up mainstream parties is equally as funny. Neither is likely to be true. The software was developed for Right Wing Interests by Right Wing interests. It is part of the systems development lifecycle where systems are regarded as "mature" and can simply be rolled out as a service. So, basically, the look and feel is regarded as being part of the underlying branding.
The mainstream parties have a huge problem in that all of the disparate "no party single issue groups" could simply decide to band together behind a single brand name, banner or logo (call it what you will) and decide to throw out the incumbents. Not replace them with a different set of incumbents, just throw em out.
The creeping consolidation of the US Republican Party and the Conservatives (or the Democrats and Labour if you wish to be so inclined) is a worrying and anti-democratic trend. By democracy, I was never suggesting that parliamentary democracy is the one only, true and without challenge. I was talking about democracy as in the will of the real living people.
The use of technology to create a media landscape in which there is one choice (between labour and tory) is a real threat to democracy. This is a point of the article, not to persuade people to cast their cross for the old crowd.
A Scientist
Silly me
28.03.2010 18:07
Oh. I thought it was just a web page ...
cascading style sheet
Cascading Style Sheets, XML and CMS
28.03.2010 20:02
The comment that it is just a web site is like suggesting that Indymedia is just a website. But, when it is a website that suggests the Government of the day is being controlled by an external agency that "just a website" comment ceases to be anything other than facile apologism.
The content management system costs to buy and install. Off the shelf it appears as the Tories used it. There are additional management features that are not "just a website".
A Scientist
dumb
28.03.2010 23:19
lol, you idiot. im a software developer and I did plenty of cold calling when i started up my own small business. There wasnt anyone to do it for me. And i know plenty of small companies on the business park i was based on also did cold calling. It probably remains one of the best ways of getting work aside from word of mouth. Do a project and then demo it to other similar companies. Make 50 calls, get 5 meetings, get 1 job. Not exactly rocket science
developer
and dumber
29.03.2010 01:18
I said the idea of developers cold calling is quite funny - not that cold calling did not happen. The vast majority of serious development work is effectively cold calling - except when it is part of the very active, very dynamic, UK IT contracting sector.
The five to one ratio between talking to and working for people seems very low - maybe mainframe developers are in more demand so they get a two to one ratio.
A Scientist
Not news.
29.03.2010 10:39
So a right-of-centre party in the UK - which has openly talked about adopting techniques that have worked for right-of-centre parties in Australia and the US (and even, at the last election, borrowed staff from them) - uses a website which has worked for Republican politicians.
Big whoop. It would be weird if it didn't. The Labour party (and the Tories) are trying to copy from Obama's internet campaign approaches too.
However, to leap from that to "It must be in the pay of US lobbyists!" is a massive, silly, leap.
You might as well say, "this Labour MP has a profile on MySpace - and MySpace is owned by Murdoch who owns the New York Post - therefore they are secretly in the pay of the right-wing. Oh - is as is every band on MySpace."
I'd be more freaked out by the Tories' European links to right-wing groups, but everyone on here gets so much more excited if it's a US based Bush-linked conspiracy (even if it's palpable nonsense).
Norvello
It's not about conspiracy
29.03.2010 19:17
Dear Norvello,
If I were to be convinced that this is a big story I would be far more excited about it. Truth is that it is minor news - albeit news. Truth is that it is very difficult to get people to be very excited about abstract things such as the Conservatives adopting the political fundraising behaviours of the American Right. It is difficult to get people to understand that Right Wing politics is becoming more cohesive across borders and this is one of the indications of that unification. The same quality of fundraising behaviours helped to scupper the American Friends of the BNP when people realised just how easy it would be for right wing bigots in the US to fund Right wing bigots in the UK. It's about recognising pattern: something science is quite good at.
It is not about conspiracy. It is about participation and transparency. The website is about the cynical character assassination of a politician. Nothing new there. The campaign could be, for example, the same sort of character assassination of a popular actress involved in a campaign for migrants. It indicates the kind of authoritarian managerialist approach the Tories are taking. Essentially, it is an indicator of the contempt for non-tories that is starting to underpin that party.
Which, as you say, is relevant to their links to European Far Right Bigots. But, what I see that you dismiss is that the links are no longer isolated and fringe but central and vital to the Tories. It is not about conspiracy but about the future capacity for all the strange and varied groups regarded as being "the left" to actually participate in politics. If you ask the Democrats, who attempted to protest at the Republican National Convention, how the campaign was for them you might get a very different picture to how the election was won (or lost).
You might like your little left wing niche that accommodates you and half a dozen other like thinking people. What the failed website shows is that the Right are learning the techniques of management. So the story is trivial, but the trend is not. The trend is for the ruling parties to become less transparent in their dealings with their masters (that is the electorate), less open in their motives, less honest in their practices and less accountable in how they behave.
It is not a conspiracy and it is not a big story. The fact that it is not a big story could well be a bigger story: the story of how the left has capitulated because the "centre left" and "centre right" have left them no room to manouevre. The big story is that the left has not been radical in at least a decade. But that is not this story. This story is more a few column inches saying: "oh look how crappily your masters treat you"
A Scientist
@ Scientist
30.03.2010 08:48
Thanks for your well-reasoned response.
I think if you'd put it more like that originally, I'd have been more sympathetic.
What made me tetchy was the question-headline: "Are Americans funding the Tories?" - to which the answer appeared to be "Well, no - you've not provided any evidence for that at all. If anything the Tories seem to be paying the Americans to use their website system."
It's also a bit far-fetched to say there's a lack of transparency, when the designers of the website template have their name in 18 point letters at the bottom of all the sites and anyone can Google them to read past stories.
But you're right that it is good to draw attention to these links, just as it is to look at the broader ways the right-wing works together.
Norvello