Aspirational J Street: Changing the world is an expensive undertaking [Image Source] |
In the US world of liberal public radio, there’s considerable agitation in reports emerging yesterday (like “Did $100K grant to NPR help sell Iran nukes deal?” from the website of an NPR affiliate) that large swags of cash were instrumental in the process of making that pro-JCPOA echo chamber of which Ben Rhodes recently boasted.
It turns out NPR got $100,000 of that, which is making some people in NPR’s world uncomfortable and for good reason. How do you do an honest job when someone is sending you cash to do it in a specific way?
Ploughshares boasts of helping to secure the deal. While success was “driven by the fearless leadership of the Obama administration and supporters in Congress,” board chairwoman Mary Lloyd Estrin wrote in the annual report, “less known is the absolutely critical role that civil society played in tipping the scales towards this extraordinary policy victory.” The 33-page document lists the groups that Ploughshares funded last year to advance its nonproliferation agenda.
a San Francisco group started in the 1980s to resist nuclear war between the U.S. and Soviet Union. The nonprofit group has invested more than $7 million in the past four years in think tanks, media organizations and activist groups focused on championing diplomacy with Iran. The Ploughshares coalition includes a former Iranian government spokesman, the liberal Jewish organization J Street and a group of former American diplomats who have held private talks with Iranian government officials.,, [“Barack Obama Ramps Up Lobbying on Iran as Deadline Looms“, Wall Street Journal, March 29, 2015]
How do we do it? By funding organizations and people who promote the elimination of nuclear weapons, prevent the emergence of new nuclear states, and build regional peace.
- National Iranian American Council: $281,000
- The Arms Control Association: $282,500
- Brookings Institution, $225,000
- Atlantic Council, $182,500
“J-Street, the liberal Jewish political action group, received $576,500 to advocate for the deal.” [AP]
Leave a Reply