A public relations firm closely partnered with the George Soros-funded Tides Foundation represented last week’s anti-Wall Street march past millionaires’ homes in New York, WND has learned.
Fenton Communications has been behind the public relations strategy of a who’s who of far-left causes, organizations and activists, from Soros himself to Health Care for America Now to crafting strategies for MoveOn.org and a litany of anti-war groups.
Fenton, which works closely with Tides, first made its name representing communist dictatorships in the 1980s.
Fenton’s founder is tied to President Obama and to a slew of Saul Alinsky-style community organizing groups directly involved in recent U.S. street protests, including in Wisconsin and New York.
Fenton’s fingerprints on promoting and organizing the march bring further evidence suggesting the anti-Wall Street movement is a well-planned campaign and not the spontaneous uprising its leaders claim.
Already, questions have been raised by the news media about Adbusters, the magazine that is reported to have come up with the Occupy Wall Street idea after Arab Spring protests toppled governments in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. The media has been probing Adbusters’ source of funding – the Tides Foundation.
Tides 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.
Press release
Last week’s 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, NY 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, includingStrongForAll.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 was founded in 1982 by David Fenton, an activist who served as a photographer for Bill Ayers’ domestic Weather Underground terror group.
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.
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.
WND 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.
WND 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 WND first reported.
Fenton’s managing director, Ira Arlook, also served as director of Booth’s Citizens Action.