Klein Online

Look who’s claiming police brutality: Public relations firm images for Soros, MoveOn.org, antiwar groups.

Posted on October 27, 2011 at 11:34 PM EST

By Aaron Klein

An anti-war group whose recent project was aided by the same controversial public relations firm that crafts the public strategy of MoveOn.org has now joined the Occupy Wall Street movement, claiming police brutality against one of its activists.

Fenton Communications has come under newfound scrutiny after KleinOnline published a series of exposes tying it to Occupy Wall Street, including how one of its senior employees represented the anti-Wall Street march past millionaires’ homes in New York two weeks ago.

Fenton works closely with the George Soros-funded Tides Foundation. Another grantee of Tides is the Adbusters magazine, which is reported to have come up with the Occupy Wall Street idea after Arab Spring protests toppled governments in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. The Adbusters website serves as a central hub for Occupy’s only planning.

MoveOn.org is also funded by Tides while it has been represented by Fenton. MoveOn announced last week it is planning to launch a protest movement of its own to complement the Occupy Wall Street momentum with the stated goal of “make[ing] Wall Street pay” and rebuilding the entire U.S. financial system.

Yesterday, MoveOn.org sent out a mass email claiming police in Oakland, CA “aggressively used ‘nonlethal’ rounds to disperse peaceful protesters from Occupy Oakland.”

“Their violent overreaction seriously injured Iraq war veteran Scott Olsen, leaving him hospitalized with a fractured skull,” continued MoveOn.

Olsen is a member of the Iraq Veterans Against the War antiwar group, which has joined in the anti-Wall Street Crusade. The antiwar group called for vigils for Olsen at local Occupy throughout the country.

Iraq Veterens Against the War is one of three sponsors of another antiwar group calling itself Appeal For Redress.

Appeal was unveiled in an October 25, 2006 conference call for reporters organized by Fenton Communications.

Fenton also has crafted the public-relations strategy a who’s who of far-left causes, organizations and activists, from Soros himself to Health Care for America Now to a litany of anti-war groups.

Proof! Occupy Wall Street no ‘spontaneous movement’

The Occupy Wall Street march past millionaires’ homes was first announced in a press release entitled, “Community Groups and Progressive Organizations Join Together to Plan ‘Millionaires March’ with Occupy Wall Street Protestors.”

The release detailed how a group calling itself 99 New York was joining the Occupy Wall Street movement as a partner. The 99 organization is purportedly a coalition of unions and community organizations, such as UnitedNY, Strong Economy for All Coalition, N.Y. Communities for Change, and the Working Families Party.

It was the 99 New York group, which claims to represent the will of 99 percent of the U.S. population, that led last week’s Occupy Wall Street march down the streets of New York.

The press release was sent to reporters and was also posted in various Occupy Wall Street affiliated websites, including StrongForAll.org.

The release listed contact information for 99 New York’s spokesmen: Doug Forand of Red Horse Strategies, a firm that has represented scores of Democrat politicians; and Doug Gordon, senior vice president of Fenton Communications.

Gordon’s Fenton email was provided on the release. Prior to joining Fenton, Gordon worked for years on Capitol Hill and in Democratic politics. He spent seven years as the top aide to Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich.

Soros, Fenton, Tides

Fenton Communications works in conjunction with the Soros-funded Tides Center that funded Adbusters, which was reported to have started the concept of Occupy Wall Street.

The Tides Center acts like a massive clearinghouse of donations to a slew of liberal groups. Critics have alleged the center acts to obscure the ultimate sources of donations by collecting significant sums of money from a few large donors and then funneling the money to thousands of liberal causes.

Soros’ Open Society Institute is a prominent Tides Center donor, giving the group $3.5 million between 2007 and 2009 alone.

Fenton Communications was founded in 1982 by David Fenton, an activist who served as a photographer for Bill Ayers’ domestic Weather Underground terror group.

Fenton used the Tides Center to set up Environmental Media Services in 1994. Tides reportedly originally ran EMS’ daily operations.

David Fenton serves on the board of numerous Tides-funded groups, while his firm represents more than 30 Tides Center grantees, as well as Soros himself and the billionaire’s Open Society Institute. Fenton helped to craft Moveon.org’s attacks on Gen. David Petraeus.

An example of the close public relations relationship between Fenton and Tides is the Social Venture Network, which was established and operates as a project of the Tides Foundation, while its strategy is represented by Fenton. SVN’s board has included Tides’ founder Drummond Pike as well as Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink.

Another group, September Eleventh Families For Peaceful Tomorrows, is an antiwar organization founded by individuals who lost loved ones in 9-11 terrorist attacks. The group’s campaign was coordinated by Fenton while the group was funded by Tides.

Also represented by Fenton is the Win Without War group, which was funded by Soros and Tides.

KleinOnline found more than 30 recent examples of Tides grantees whose strategy was coordinated by Fenton.

Fenton, Obama, Ayers ties

While David Fenton first photographed Ayers in the 1960s, he later served alongside both Ayers and Obama on the board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago nonprofit which channeled money to a slew of progressive groups, including the Tides Center and the Alinsky-style Midwest Academy training outfit. Obama served as a paid director on the Woods Fund board from 1999 to 2002.

KleinOnline recently reported Midwest’s founder, Heather Booth, has been training unions on how to use the economic crisis.

Citizen Action of Wisconsin, an arm of Booth’s Midwest Academy, is part of the Moving Wisconsin Forward movement, one of the main organizers of the major Wisconsin protests in February, as KleinOnline first reported.

Fenton’s managing director, Ira Arlook, also served as director of Booth’s Citizens Action.