AlterNet: Big Business's Hidden Hand in the Smear Job on Van Jones

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Big Business's Hidden Hand in the Smear Job on Van Jones

By Adele M. Stan, AlterNet. Posted September 8, 2009.

How Americans for Prosperity, the astroturf group that organized town-hall thuggery, teamed up with FOX News to force out Van Jones.




If you thought the targeting of Van Jones for vilification by the right was about his race, his youthful flirtation with socialism, or a petition he signed about the 9/11 attacks, you'd only be a little bit right. And if you think it was about the Color of Change campaign against Glenn Beck's show on FOX NewsChannel, you'd really miss the mark.

The racism and red-baiting suffered by Jones at the hands of Beck and his admirers are simply key elements in a marketing strategy designed to serve Very Big Business -- the oil and other business interests that support the astroturfing group Americans for Prosperity. The strategy is simple: prey upon the worst fears of the right-wing folks who live next door in order to get them to organize against their own interests.

When word of Van Jones' resignation from his White House post hit the airwaves, Americans for Prosperity's Phil Kerpen, the group's policy director, wasted no time in taking personal credit. In his column on FOXNews.com, Kerpen wrote, "The Van Jones affair…is one of the most significant things I've ever had the honor of being involved in."

Progressives first became familiar with Americans for Prosperity because of its role, along with Glenn Beck's 912 Project, in organizing the disruption of town-hall meetings across the country at which members of Congress were scheduled to discuss pending health-care reform legislation with their constituents. Many assumed the AFP astroturfers, who are not required to disclose their funding sources, were aligned specifically with health-care interests -- and indeed they may be aligned with some. Look a little closer, though, and you'll find at the top of their agenda the derailment of energy reform, especially the cap-and-trade formula for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/politics/142481/big_business%27s_hidden_hand_in_the_smear_job_on_van_jones/