Please Hit

Folks, This is a Free Site and will ALWAYS stay that way. But the only way I offset my expenses is through the donations of my readers. PLEASE Consider Making a Donation to Keep This Site Going. SO HIT THE TIP JAR (it's on the left-hand column).

Thursday, July 31, 2014

UNCOVERED: Secret Group Comprised of Media and Activists Planning Progressive Agenda


A low-profile Google group used by over 1,000 members of the progressive aristocracy has been discovered thanks to Wisconsin’s open records law. The group, named Gamechanger Salon, includes activists from organizations such as Planned Parenthood and the AFL-CIO as well as reporters such as Amanda Terkel and Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post.

Discovered by Media Trackers, which was provided with a membership list via a request through the Wisconsin’s open records law, Gamechanger Salon, is "an online community that provides a forum for left wing activists and leaders to share tactics, strategies and opinions." According to the group's overview,  Gamechanger Salon is comprised of:
...experienced change makers from different ‘worlds’ of the movement to share stories, honest reflections, interesting articles, and provocative ideas on how we build a stronger, more coordinated, more game-changing movement for the 21st Century” according to the policy manual.

The group’s policy manual directs members to abstain from forwarding emails to recipients outside the group. It does warn, however, that with 1,000-plus members, anyone emailing the group should not say anything “you wouldn’t want to be subpoenaed by a Grand Jury or broadcast on Fox News.”
Similar to the Journo-list discovered in 2009, the purpose of this group is to discuss strategy for promoting progressive goals. However, Journo-list was only composed of left-wing media figures. Gamechanger includes not only media figures but also the leaders of progressive organizations including but not limited to Damon Silver, Policy Director for the AFL-CIO; Benjamin Joffe-Walk, Chief of Staff at Change.org; Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK; Elizabeth Rose, Director of Communications at the Economic Policy Institute; Philip Radford, Executive Director of Greenpeace until earlier this year; and Ilyse Hogue, President of NARAL. Other members come from anti-Israel organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace and J-Street as well as Amnesty International; the Canadian group which was a leader of Occupy Wall Street, Adbusters; and the Sierra Club. Ironically, even the Sunlight Foundation, a group dedicated to transparency in politics, is a member of this secret group.

What makes this group dangerous is that some of the media, which claims to be reporting the truth, is also involved in these discussions. In addition to the prominent leaders and activists listed above, Gamechanger Salon also includes members of the left wing “media” such as Terkel, Senior Political Reporter and Politics Managing Editor at The Huffington Post and Grim, Washington bureau chief for The Huffington Post and also an MSNBC contributor. Other media members come from outlets such as The Nation, Al Jazeera, The Atlantic, and Wikipedia.

A full list of the membership is embedded below

No comments: