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--- Begin Message --- Title: Message -Caveat Lector-As alwys the establishment starts the war and creates and controls the opposition.The Washington Times
Foundation cash funds antiwar movement
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030402-42181748.htm
Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published April 2, 2003
The American antiwar movement is decked out with all the elements of the
counterculture, but it is getting some very establishment funding.
In a few months, foundations and donors have kicked in millions of dollars to
help antiwar groups stage demonstrations, take out expensive newspaper and
TV ads, maintain Web sites, hire and pay staff, and lease office space in
high-rent New York, Washington and San Francisco locales.
Most work under the umbrella of sympathetic "fiscal sponsors," groups with
tax-exempt status that have also lent out staff and office space. For instance,
Code Pink Women for Peace, a feminist movement known for its pink clothing
and awarding of "pink slips," or pink lingerie, to legislators they deem pro-war,
operates under the aegis of Global Exchange, a San Francisco organization
with a $4.2 million budget.
Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin, a director for Global Exchange, says
they are paying a bargain $400 a month for a cubicle office at 15th and H streets
in the District. More space for Code Pink is on loan from two organizations
down the hall, the National Organization for Women and the Institute for
Policy Studies.
Code Pink has raised $70,000 to $80,000 in its four-month existence, mostly
through its www.codepinkalert.org site and sales of Code Pink buttons and T-shirts,
"which we can't keep in stock," she adds.
The Institute for Policy Studies, a left-wing think tank, has released a drumbeat of
antiwar essays in recent months. The institute has a $2.2 million budget for 2003
provided by the Turner, Ford, MacArthur and Charles Stewart Mott foundations,
among others.
The brunt of the peace funding, says institute director John Cavannagh, is being
done by smaller foundations able to quickly shift funds from other programs.
"Individual peace groups have all gone out and raised funds," he says. "It's a lot
of money, but I don't know how much. There's a pooling of resources between
peace groups I've not seen before, which explains the large numbers of
demonstrations and peace marches created."
For instance, the institute's 2002 foreign policy budget of $400,000, which
includes antiwar activism, received $50,000 from the HKH Foundation, $50,000
from the Arca Foundation, $20,000 from the Samuel Rubin Foundation,
$15,000 from the Solidago Foundation and $50,000 from the
MacArthur Foundation.
Gordon Clark, the sole staff member and national coordinator of the Iraq
Pledge of Resistance Network in Silver Spring, has run his organization
during the past six months on $32,000 in grants from donors and institutions.
"I think this war has a greater air of illegitimacy around it than other wars,"
he said, "so there have been greatly increased contributions."
Not all antiwar groups are forthcoming about their finances. One of the
leading organizers of antiwar demonstrations, International ANSWER (Act
Now to Stop War and End Racism) refused to divulge its funding sources.
But TrueMajority.com, an Internet activism group founded during the
summer by Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, boasts of its fund-raising
prowess. TrueMajority.com says it is bringing in substantial amounts of money
thanks to high-profile newspaper ads. These started in November, when 150
members of its related nonprofit corporation, Business Leaders for Sensible
Priorities Inc., ran a $40,000 antiwar ad in the New York Times.
That brought in $80,000, partly because "we had the foresight to include a
coupon," executive director Gary Ferdman says. That revenue helped pay for
a $170,000 ad in the Jan. 13 Wall Street Journal national edition and later a
$40,000 ad in the Journal's New York metro edition. Thanks to the Turner
Foundation and the San Francisco-based Plowshares Fund, TrueMajority.com
says, its $1.5 million operating budget helps pay for five full-time staff and
six consultants.
"People have been so concerned about the war and outraged enough to
express their dissent," through contributions, Mr. Ferdman says. "Our
problem is the more successful we are, the more expensive this becomes."
TrueMajority.com webmaster Andrew Greenblatt, who has free office space
at the National Council of Churches headquarters in uptown Manhattan, says
the site brings in several thousand dollars a month. "It is not rocket science,"
he says. "You ask for money, and people give it to you."
Because U.S. tax laws allow at least a year's grace period before a nonprofit
must file a 990 tax form revealing who its donors are, most antiwar groups
will not have to reveal their funding sources until 2004.
The San Francisco-based Tides Foundation has given $1.5 million to antiwar
efforts since September 11, 2001, including a salary for former U.S. Rep. Tom
Andrews of Maine, who directs the 38-member Win Without War coalition.
Win Without War, which announced its formation at a press conference
Dec. 11, has drummed up $1 million in support, founder David Cortright says.
Mr. Cortright is also president of the Fourth Freedom Foundation in
Goshen, Ind., which has provided substantial antiwar support.
Moveon.org, a Web site that raised $3.5 million for liberal political candidates
in the 2002 election, has also raised $1.3 million for large newspaper ads
against the war, says Eli Pariser, its international campaigns director. Its
legendary fund raising from its 2 million members includes $400,000 raised
in 48 hours to fund a Jan. 16 antiwar TV spot that accused President Bush of
risking nuclear war. The ad, styled after the notorious Democrat "Daisy"
commercial of 1964, shows a girl plucking petals from a daisy, along with
a missile launch countdown and a nuclear mushroom cloud.
Moveon.org's operating budget, he adds, is $300,000 a year for four staff
and consultants. On average, donors give $35, Mr. Pariser says. But the
donor volume has been so high that "we've turned off our log-in [mechanism]
because it was blowing out our servers. We must be the only organization
in history to have a ratio of one staff member to a half-million members."
As for the type of donor, "These are mainstream folks who have not been
active before, but because of the scariness of Bush's policy, they need to
do something about it," he says. "The urgency level is so high that if
money is what it takes to make a difference, they will make
a contribution."
United for Peace and Justice (UPJ), an antiwar coalition of 200 groups
formed Oct. 25, farms out its staff to other nonprofits, such as Peace
Action and Democracy Rising. Its finance committee chairman, Van Goss,
is the organizing director of Peace Action and a professor at Franklin and
Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa. As of March 1, he said, they had raised
"several hundred thousand dollars" with the help of several foundations that
kicked in $5,000 and $10,000 donations to fund a large antiwar rally in
New York on Feb. 15.
UPJ raised less than $30,000 from the demonstrators themselves.
"By breaking us up and penning us in little holding pens over 50 city
blocks, that directly interfered with the key component of any large rally:
the fund-raising pitch," Mr. Goss says. "What we got was a minute figure
from what we could have raised from that crowd.
But UPJ recouped some of its losses by raising $65,000 at a rally
March 22. "People," Mr. Goss says, "are very willing to give."
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