GMW: GRASSROOTS VS ASTROTURF - biotech's anti-activist-activist

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GMW: GRASSROOTS VS ASTROTURF - biotech's " anti-activist-activist "

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Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:32:40 +0100

 

 

 

 

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A version of this article was first commissioned by an Australian

broadsheet newspaper and then killed.

 

QUOTES: " Once these ideas were at the edge of sanity, now they're at

the edge of policy. "

 

" Only an organisation that has wholly alienated itself from the public

would even consider attending an event like this. "

---

GRASSROOTS VS ASTROTURF

reportage / Katherine Wilson

Overland 183, pp.13–17

http://www.overlandexpress.org/183_wilson.html

 

There's a man in Canada who thinks I'm a terrorist. He was in Australia

this time last year, presenting workshops around the country. They were

titled, 'The best strategies to win against activists'. On his ad he

called himself " Controversial Canadian PR consultant Ross Irvine " .

 

But a text scan of media around the world revealed no controversy

surrounding any bloke named Ross Irvine. Not until he arrived in

Australia, where the West Australian dubbed him " Rambo Ross " and ABC

Melbourne's Jon Faine called him " the anti-activist-activist " .

 

Still, I booked into Irvine's Melbourne workshop. Held in a plush

seminar room at a city business school, it cost A$595 for four hours,

payable to the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA).

 

In this workshop, I'd learn how to create bogus community groups,

false statistics, and links with " far-right-wing nutso activists " . I'd

learn to conflate " activist " with " terrorist " and " security threat " .

 

Controversial or not, Irvine had pulling power. Filing in to see

him was a Who's Who of powerful industry and government flacks. David

Gazard was there. He's adviser to the Federal Treasurer [Australia's

finance minister Peter Costello]. Special Minister of State, Eric Abetz's

adviser was there, too. And PRs from Rio Tinto, Shell, Dow Chemical,

Avcare, the Victorian Farmers' Federation, Department of Primary

Industries, Bayer, GrainCorp, Dairy Australia, Nufarm (distributes

Monsanto

herbicides) and Orica (industrial explosives).

 

There was Clayton Ford, a cheerful chap in a fluorescent tie from

Diageo, parent of big-brand liquors. Why was he there? " There are

teetotalers, " Ford explained. " And objections to marketing alcohol to

teenagers. "

 

There was Tattersall's (gambling objection issues), the Port of

Melbourne Corporation (channel-deepening issues) and people from PACIA

(Plastics and Chemicals Industries Association). There were Socom staff,

PRs for the insurance and building industries and local councils. And

there was a young City of Darebin (local council) PR named Shannon

Walker. " Development objections, " he explained. " Tram stop

advertising. That

kind of thing. "

 

Finally, there was Don D'Cruz from the Institute of Public Affairs

(IPA), wearing a gold tie-clasp and a stout suit, and smelling of

cigarettes. Funded by many companies there, as well as federal government

grants, his organisation lobbies against activities of non-profit bodies

including the ABC and charitable NGOs (non-government organisations).

 

We'd all gathered to hear a man who claims that proportional

representation is " a bizarre thing " and that " corporate responsibility

is a

weakness. Corporate responsibility is letting someone else set the

agenda. " We'd learn that sustainability is " an extremist position " , that

science's 'precautionary principal' is " extreme " , and that maintaining

biodiversity " turns back the evolutionary clock millions of years and

eliminates humans from the face of the Earth! That's extreme! " Animal

protection bodies, we'd learn, really want to " sever all contact between

humans and animals! "

 

Dealing in absolutes (health advocates are in fact 'immoral!'

Conservationists are really 'anticapitalist!'), when it comes to

convictions, Irvine's a relativist. Challenged earlier that day on ABC

Radio, he

admitted, " There's a little bit of hyperbole in some of this. There's

also a bit of fun. "

 

You'd hope so for $595. By the time we'd registered and eaten our

roasted eggplant pides, it was clear most of us knew each other. There

were twenty-nine of us here, and too many Daves. As well as those from

the Coalition camp, there was David Hawkins from the PRIA, a bouncy man

who introduced Ross Irvine. Irvine's trip, he told the group, was

funded by the IPA (the industry lobby group) and PACIA (the plastics and

chemicals body). Irvine's background, we learned, was as a PR adviser for

the biotech (GM) crop industry.

 

" Public Relations is war, " Irvine announced, in his curly-r accent.

He was wearing an elegant suit coat, a white shirt, and colourful tie.

Trim, 50s, clean-shaven, with steel-rimmed spectacles and a pleasant,

broad face, he flashed a boyish smile. " Don't be afraid to attack, " he

warned. " If you learn nothing else today, this is the message: 'Fight

networks with networks'. "

 

Activist networks, he said, include supporters of NGOs like

Community Aid Abroad, the Conservation Foundation, consumer groups,

organic

farmers, health advocates, Greenpeace, church groups and 'civil society

groups'. These groups demand transparency, accountability, democracy and

disclosure from business. " If NGOs demand transparency, " he asked,

lapsing into a whisper, " should NGOs be transparent too? "

 

People were nodding. " Yet NGOs are largely unknown entities. And

it's fair for business to demand transparency from NGOs. " He repeated

this many times, adding, " It's only fair. It's only balanced. "

 

But then we learned that detailed NGO records are available for

industry PRs to gather intelligence. " There's a lot of information they

have to file, " he said, projecting their strategies – available online –

overhead. " Here are their salaries, here are their tax receipts,

marketing, lobbying, that sort of thing . . . their board of

governance. " And

then he shot us a conspiratorial sideways glance. " You might find, " he

said, " that this person on this NGO board – might be on the board of

another organisation! "

 

To help us combat NGOs, Irvine referred us to the teachings of the

Rand Corporation, a US national security think-tank. This was when

'activist' became confused with 'terrorist', 'criminal', 'guerilla' and

'security threat'. Don't be fooled, he warned, when activists claim

they're about third world hunger or the environment or public health. " If

you're in business and you support biodiversity, " he said, " beware of

what

you're really supporting . . . look beyond their immediate intentions.

Their goal is a much larger concept that business, media and

politicians must address! "

 

Some of us questioned Irvine's generalisations. Why see activists

as the 'enemy' (a word used many times today)? Can't industry engage

with moderate activists? Some people agreed, others shook their heads.

No,

warned Irvine. Once you cave to one demand, they'll come up with " a

whole bunch " of others. Which will eventually threaten capitalism itself.

" You will really screw yourself in the end. "

 

A mess of complaints followed. Legal threats aren't working against

activists – look what happened to McDonald's. Tanya Pittard, from the

Victorian Farmers' Federation, said that even when industry and

government are victorious, activists have 'won' by forcing them to

spend money.

The Grand Prix organisers, she said, had to deal with Albert Park

residents and 'crazy little old ladies', spending 'thousands of dollars

combating their crap'. Irvine said that in Ontario activists are winning

also. " You can't smoke anywhere now . . . 'Public health' is becoming a

banner to implement a lot of restrictions on people these days, like

foods in the dispensers in schools. It's becoming a banner to do all

sorts

of things . . . things I personally find questionable. "

 

It was starting to feel like therapy. The moustachioed PACIA man

shared his issues with the group: " An activist group can go outside the

private house of a CEO of a chemical company, roll up there and say,

'you're a baby-killer'. But if the same chemical company paid their

workers to go outside the house of green activists and say, ah,

'you're a gay

lesbian who does naughty things to whales', ah – we couldn't do that. "

The City of Darebin's Communications Officer, Shannon Walker, corrected

him. " 'Gay lesbian' is a tautology, " he said.

 

To combat the problem of activist letters in newspapers, Irvine

urged PR folk to engage more people to write letters. " If there are three

letters in there in one week saying, 'GM [foods] are good', the

politicians think, 'hey, that's pretty neat'. " Costello's people,

sitting up

the back, said nothing. They looked bored.

 

It's hard for companies, said Irvine, because activists recruit

people like " climate-warming, tree-hugging, salmon-loving,

gay-woman-loving maybe " geneticist Dr David Suzuki. (Suzuki has said,

" Any politician

or scientist who assures you that GM products are safe is either very

stupid or lying. " ) What would Dr Suzuki know, asked Irvine – Suzuki

studied fruit flies! A PR for the GM crop industry, Irvine told us that

millions of people have consumed GM products for years " without a

sniffle! " .

 

There are in fact many documented cases of the adverse effects of

consuming GM products. The most recent is the CSIRO pea case in

Australia, and the most serious is the Eosinophilia-Myalgia Syndrome

(EMS)

case, in which around 5000 people across North America experienced a

previously unknown disease, causing lifetime paralysis and fifty deaths.

Showa Denko conceded a GM component of its product was responsible, and

paid $1.2 billion in compensation.

 

But agribusiness and biotech spin doctors were nodding. Activists

have time and resources to do things that corporates don't, said one.

Irvine agreed. " The smaller groups often get a tremendous amount of power

and influence that they don't deserve . . . Quite frankly, business

doesn't have the resources and capability that activists do. "

 

Liza McDonald, Stakeholder Relations Manager for the Port of

Melbourne Corporation, didn't agree. " You're presuming all activists are

wrong. Sometimes they're not. " Her frustrations, she said, stemmed

from the

Corporation spending $12 million on an environmental impact statement,

" and we didn't get the result that we wanted " . Referring to the

Corporation's contentious plans to undertake 'test' dredging, she said

that

unless you go ahead and channel-deepen, 'you can't demonstrate entirely

that nothing will go wrong " .

 

To this, the PRIA's David Hawkins said, " The challenge, I think,

from what Ross is saying, is . . . we need to work out how we can break

the law to do these things. " (The Port of Melbourne Corporation is

obliged under several State and Commonwealth Acts to assess environmental

impact.)

 

To a complaint that chemical companies are legally obliged to consult

with community, Irvine said: " This is a process that activists have put

in place over years! What they've gradually done to the State! "

 

" What Ross is saying, " added Hawkins, " is that we need to be

activists too, expand our networks to actually change the legislation. "

 

Quoting Margaret Thatcher, George W. Bush, Fox News, Rand and the

IPA, Irvine warned participants of " a very anti-business ethic going

through society, I think it's going through the school system a whole

bunch, too. I find that a little bit frightening, I think it's at the

university level . . . boy, this sounds pretty bizarre and paranoid but I

think there's a left-wing sort of thing. "

 

This claim, hammered daily in newspapers around Australia, can be

traced to IPA campaigns and those of US neocon think-tanks. " The wild

claims of far-right groups like the IPA drag the spectrum of political

debate to the right, " says Monash University economist Tim Thornton.

" What was once a moderate position is now depicted as ultra leftist,

while

extremist propaganda seems reasonable, particularly when it's dressed

up as fact. " Referring to the ideology behind the Draft Charities Bill,

imported wholesale from the US, he says: " Once these ideas were at the

edge of sanity, now they're at the edge of policy. "

 

At the end of Irvine's seminar, we split into groups for exercises.

One was challenged to " assume the position of moral leadership " , a

lesson from Irvine's work with the biotech (GM crop) industry. When

the GM

crop industry faced health, environmental, economic, legal and social

challenges, it mounted a higher moral ground campaign: GM crops will

save third world children from malnutrition and starvation. The stratagem

is to promote not with facts, said Irvine, but values. This, he

claimed, is what activists do, and what industry must do better.

" There are

some real immoral people on the anti-biotech side, " he said. " Activists

say, 'let the kids starve'. That, to me, is totally immoral and amoral

and everything. That, I'm sorry, that just brings out, I get really . .

.. " he inhaled and shook his head.

 

Another group was charged with finding ways to discredit activists.

" Discredit the ideology and defeat the terrorist, " advised Irvine. The

group came up with: " Call them suicide bombers . . . make them all look

like terrorists . . . tree-hugging, dope-smoking, bloody university

graduate, anti-progress . . . " and " Spot the flake. Find someone who

would

represent the enemy but clearly doesn't know what the issue is . . .

find a 16-year-old " and " distract the activist with side issues . . . and

make enemies within the enemy camp so they spend all their time

fighting and that helps to deepen their disorganisation. "

 

Our group was charged with 'empowering others' to support a cause.

The cause was the Port of Melbourne channel-deepening. Once we had

determined who we will 'empower' (unions, farmers' groups, retailers),

the

PRIA's David Hawkins suggested marginalising the environmental

argument. This could be done with what Bush flacks call 'the fire hose

method'

– bombarding the media with issues, information and press conferences

so they don't have the resources to interview alternative sources.

 

To the suggestion that the case for channel-deepening should be the

voice of reason, Hawkins replied, " No, no, let's be the voice of

unreason. Let's call them fruitcakes. Let's call them nut – nutters. You

know, let's say they're . . . "

 

" Environmental radicals, " suggested Darebin's Shannon Walker.

 

" Exactly. You know . . . say they represent 0.1 per cent but they

dominate, you know, let's absolutely go for them. "

 

Our group discussed astroturfing. Named after a synthetic lawn,

astroturfing is the creation of bogus community groups or independent

authorities who endorse industry practice, recruit lesser-informed

citizens, confuse the debate and make the real community groups appear

extreme.

The Guardian uncovered one case in which one of Monsanto's public

relations companies, Bivings Woodell, fabricated science 'experts' and

online 'scientific communities' who successfully discredited genuine

peer-reviewed science reports about the dangers of GM crops. Protest

movements

were also invented, including one at Johannesburg's World Summit on

Sustainable Development, widely reported as a demonstration by 'third

world' farmers chanting " I don't need white NGOs to speak for me " .

 

The University of Wollongong's Professor Sharon Beder says

'astroturf' of this kind is rapidly propagating in Australia. " You

need to know

any particular issue very well to be able to distinguish the astroturf

from the genuine grassroots groups, " she says. " For example, in mental

health there are several front groups funded by pharmaceutical

companies but they have a great deal of public credibility. Unless you

know the

issue well, you wouldn't be able to pick them. " Those alleged by

academics to be front groups include the Forest Protection Society

(funded by

the logging industry), Green Fleet, the Institute of Public Affairs

(IPA) and Mothers Against Pollution, which campaigns against milk bottles

and is funded by the Association of Liquid Paperboard Carton

Manufacturers.

 

To arm the workshop's pro-channel-deepening astroturf, it was

suggested that research and statistics could be featured on its

website. The

PRIA's David Hawkins responded:

 

No, that's – you don't need the research at all . . . you say, '50 per

cent of the workforce will go if this doesn't happen' . . . You just

say 'we believe' – we don't know if it's true or not – but we say 'we

believe' . . . if they say, 'can we have a look at your research?'

then we

just run. We don't answer, we just close down the website and open

another.

 

In our group was Bernadette Basell, senior partner of KPPR, which

represents the mobile phone industry. She didn't share Hawkins' approach,

saying later that " misrepresentation and deception, such as astroturfing,

is deplored by most in the public relations industry. Community groups

usually have genuine concerns that need to be addressed. "

 

I later learned that Basell then alerted Hawkins to the possible

motivations behind my line of questioning. Later still, Hawkins sent me

an email to clarify what he'd said at the workshop. " It is totally

unacceptable and unethical for any PR practitioner to pretend to

represent

another organisation that they do not represent or to fabricate a

community group or identity, " he wrote.

 

His public relations company, Socom, a firm with mostly Labor and

some Liberal government clients across Australia, has set up community

groups, but there's no evidence to suggest these are astroturf. It's

acceptable, Hawkins wrote, for PR firms " to assist members of a community

set up a group " .

 

Yet the PRIA (of which Hawkins is Victorian director) has been

accused on Crikey.com of being " a secretive organisation " with

" questionable " political links. " The Institute purports to be a

professional body, "

wrote one practitioner. " They are ill-equipped for the task. Individual

members are themselves open to claims of dubious ethical behaviour. "

 

Shannon Walker summed up the PRIA workshop as " weird " , saying he

didn't learn anything he could use. Hawkins said " If Ross was to return

to Australia I would definitely consider running another workshop " .

Asked why he partook in the workshop, Costello's adviser, David Gazard,

declined to comment.

 

But government employees – be they federal or local – have no place

in a forum that promotes ways to stop citizens participating in the

democratic process, says economist Clive Hamilton. Hamilton heads the

Australia Institute, a public policy research body funded by grants from

philanthropic trusts and staffed by economists. (The Institute claims to

be neither left nor right wing.) Given an audio recording of the

workshop, Hamilton responded, " Why a government agency would attend a

seminar

like this is beyond comprehension. These agencies are owned by the

public, yet by attending seminars to learn how to beat citizens'

groups by

means fair or foul they are turning on their owners. Only an

organisation that has wholly alienated itself from the public would

even consider

attending an event like this. "

 

Not all at the workshop agreed with Irvine's methods (the Port of

Melbourne Corporation's Liza McDonald said later, " It would be a very

terrible world if there weren't activists " .) But the Australia

Institute's survey of 290 NGOs suggests the PRIA event is part of a wider

campaign to silence dissent. Seventy-four per cent of NGO respondents

believe

they are being pressured to make their public statements conform with

government policy. Ninety-two per cent said they disagree with the view

that dissenting voices are valued by government as part of a robust

democracy. Ninety per cent believe that dissenting organisations risk

having their funding cut. " You toe the line or you risk getting

defunded, "

one respondent said. Another said: " It is clear from our funding

contract with Government that it sees our role not as a peak body in a

democratic society but as a mechanism to help the Government 'get its

message

out' and help the Government implement its policy objectives. "

 

This comes at a time when the federal government has slashed funds

to larger NGOs but boosted funding for its own advocacy, spending more

money than any Australian government in history on public relations

consultants. It is also a time when, depending on which statistics you

believe, 30 to 90 per cent of news content is PR-driven.

 

At the workshop wrap-up, Irvine handed out his business card,

ink-jet printed on flimsy stock, with a pedestrian logo – '?' over 'NGO'.

He's 'President' of ePublic Relations, a corporation with online

marketing and 'net-wars' expertise, but its website design is amateur,

with

links that don't work. Asked how to get around spamming laws, he has no

idea. And ePublic Relations' address in Guelph, Ontario, is a modest

house in a suburban street, with, according to one source, " no indication

of business activities " .

 

Some advocacy groups suggest that Irvine is SuperAstroturf,

imported by industry front groups to seed a lawn of propaganda. " For

some time

right-wing think-tanks have been developing a campaign to discredit and

undermine the work of NGOs, " says Hamilton. " The attack on their role

in the democratic process is being taken up by conservative governments.

The Howard Government is playing footsies with the IPA, which itself is

associated with the far right in the USA. "

 

The IPA's campaign to strip charitable NGOs of their tax exemption

status if they engage in advocacy (or 'activism') is the essence of

both Irvine's workshop and the Draft Charities Bill. The Howard

Government

paid the IPA $46,000 to develop 'advice' for this Bill because, it

claims, NGOs have too much influence on government.

 

Tim Thornton calls these claims: paranoid nonsense, an ideological

obsession that sits badly with basic reasoning and observation. The

evidence reveals that humanitarian and environment groups enjoy wide

support among the electorate, but they actually have little influence on

policy compared with business lobbies. Yet they have to be at least as

accountable as these lobbies.

 

Clive Hamilton says the campaign to silence dissent and defund NGOs who

criticise policy " would destroy many of them, and that's what John

Howard [Australia's Prime Minister] and Peter Costello want. It's soup

kitchens or nothing. "

 

A version of this article was first commissioned by an Australian

broadsheet newspaper and then killed. Those wishing to obtain an

electronic

recording of the Ross Irvine workshop held in April 2005 can email

requests to: <wilson.kath.

 

 

 

 

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