A guide to David Horowitz's DiscoverTheNetworks

As journalist John Hamilton reported, alleged California highway shooter Byron Williams -- who reportedly told investigators that “his intention was to start a revolution by traveling to San Francisco and killing people of importance at the Tides Foundation and the ACLU” -- recommended David Horowitz's conservative website DiscoverTheNetworks.org (DTN) as a source of information about financier George Soros and Tides. DTN has attacked Soros and accused the Tides Foundation of wanting “America destroyed” and of laundering money to radical leftist causes.

Williams recommended DiscoverTheNetworks as an information source

Williams cited DTN as a source for information about Soros and Tides. From John Hamilton's "Progressive Hunter":

In his letter to me, Byron writes: “I have been praying for a media advocate; one, to make people aware of why I'm in here (public opinion could help me), and two, to make people realize that corrupt killers are in power, and want re-election! I was also fearful that this issue would be 'burried.'”

Byron writes, “You want to know about Soros and Tides, yes, Glenn Beck is doing very well uncovering his wickedness, check his 'June' programs for 'Petrobraz', also look into 'DiscoverTheNetworks.com.' ”

[...]

Beck, of course, isn't alone in his war against Tides. As Byron told me, those interested in “Soros and Tides” can visit DiscoverTheNetworks, a website run by David Horowitz.

Horowitz, a conservative ideologue, is a frequent guest on Beck's broadcasts. Discussing Beck's tirades against organized labor, for example, Horowitz said that teachers' unions, the SEIU, and AFSCME are “communist unions.”

DiscoverTheNetworks calls itself a “Guide to the Political Left”

DiscoverTheNetworks identifies itself as a “Guide to the Political Left,” and describes itself as follows: “It identifies the individuals and organizations that make up the left and also the institutions that fund and sustain it; it maps the paths through which the left exerts its influence on the larger body politic; it defines the left's (often hidden) programmatic agendas and it provides an understanding of its history and ideas.”

DiscoverTheNetworks states that its database catalogues how “radical” liberal activists began moving into the political mainstream:

The database will readily answer many questions that previously would have required volumes of printed text to establish. The primary question is: “Is there a left?” Since the early 1970s, radical activists began referring to themselves as “liberals” (in part to distance themselves from their failures as a socialist left. A sympathetic media culture went along with this deception, with the result that the word “left” has all but disappeared from the political lexicon. The spectrum of views is now regularly described in the media culture as extending from “liberal” to “moderate” to “conservative” or right, as though a left did not exist or was so marginal as not to matter.

[...]

The database provides a complete guide to all the principal groups responsible for organizing the national protests against the war, their leaders, their core agendas and beliefs. (Follow the guide icon, which is shaped like a heptagram on the homepage, by clicking on GROUPS and then ANTI-WAR). While the database cannot account for the motivations and beliefs of all the individuals who participated in these protests or who came in an unorganized fashion to oppose the war, it can describe with reasonable certainty the identities and agendas of all the principal anti-war groups and leaders who initiated these protests, organized their events and shaped the political debate. Inspection of the database shows that without exception the agendas of these groups and the individuals who ran them were anti-corporate and socialist (often Marxist-Leninist), rather than pacifists and non-violent or merely liberal, as described in the general media. Their opposition to the war went well beyond the issue of the war itself.

The relational aspects of this database reveal the paths by which these radicals were able to influence institutions like the Democratic Party that are not radical (See Shadow Party.) Using the information provided in the base, one can thus trace the progress of a radical menu of leftwing policies and complaints into the heart of the American political mainstream.

DiscoverTheNetworks is a project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which states that its mission is “to institutionalize his [David Horowitz's] campaigns against the Left and its anti-Americanism.” Horowitz is an ex-“New Left” member turned conservative activist.

Horowitz has frequently lobbed incendiary rhetoric against progressives. For instance, Horowitz has claimed that former SEIU president Andy Stern is a “Leninist” and teachers unions, SEIU, and AFSCME are “communist unions;” that President Carter is an “anti-Semite,” and blacks are “the human shields of the Democratic Party”; that Democrats are “apologists for terrorists”; and that Obama is “the Manchurian Candidate.”

Horowitz: DiscoverTheNetworks shows “that there are only a couple of degrees of separation between anybody on the left and the terrorists.” In an interview about DiscoverTheNetworks published March 24, 2005, in The Washington Times (accessed via Nexis), Horowitz said:

For 20 years, I dreamed of writing a book about the left, based on the reality I carry around in my head, as somebody who spent decades on the left or studying it. ... The Web provides a wonderful format, because you can put up hundreds of tables of contents, indexes and links, and you can even provide visual maps, which will show you the network on one screen. ...

What I've shown is that there are only a couple of degrees of separation between anybody on the left and the terrorists - and that includes people in the Democratic Party, even those who are anti-terrorist.

For example, the coalition of civil liberties groups that attacked the USA Patriot Act are thoroughly penetrated by pro-terrorist radicals based in organizations like the National Lawyers Guild and the Center for Constitutional Rights. This doesn't mean that every Democrat or every Republican who opposes the USA Patriot Act is a “useful idiot.” ... But it does mean that they need to be more mindful of the arguments they are being presented with and supporting.

DTN pushes Soros oil conspiracy, attacks Soros

DTN pushes Obama-Soros $2 billion oil conspiracy. Like Glenn Beck, DiscoverTheNetworks pushes the conspiracy theory that Obama is trying to enrich Soros through a Brazilian oil company. DTN writes:

In late August 2009, President Obama agreed to lend $2 billion to Brazil's quasi-public national oil company, Petrobras, to fund its exploration and drilling of 270 sites in the Gulf of Mexico, one of the richest oil fields in the world (where environmentalist objections had historically thwarted any drilling proposals by U.S. companies).

Petrobras has been run since 2005 by José Sergio Gabrielli, a firebrand socialist member of Brazil's leftist Workers' Party. Brazil's socialist government holds 40 percent of Petrobras' shares of stock. The Communist Chinese government - which was guaranteed a supply of 200,000 barrels of oil per day for ten years by the Brazilians in exchange for a $10 billion loan earlier in 2009 - also owns a significant stake in Petrobras. Petrobras' largest individual shareholder, by far, is the leftist billionaire (and close Obama ally) George Soros, whose hedge fund had dramatically increased its holdings in Petrobras just prior to Obama's loan announcement.

The theory is based on the false claim that Obama issued a loan to Brazil's Petrobras oil company; in reality, the loan was approved by appointees of the Bush administration to the Export-Import Bank of the United States. Kevin Varney, senior vice president and chief of staff of the bank has reportedly said that the decision to approve the loan “did not even rise to the level of presidential awareness.” Furthermore, Soros decreased his stake in Petrobras before the funds for the loan in question were distributed.

John Hamilton reported extensively about Williams' belief in the Soros-Obama-Petrobras oil conspiracy.

DTN quotes Horowitz collaborator claiming Soros pushing for transformation of America into a “socialist hive.” DiscoverTheNetworks writes:

According to Richard Poe, co-author (with David Horowitz) of the book The Shadow Party:

“The Shadow Party is the real power driving the Democrat machine. It is a network of radicals dedicated to transforming our constitutional republic into a socialist hive. The leader of these radicals is ... George Soros. He has essentially privatized the Democratic Party, bringing it under his personal control. The Shadow Party is the instrument through which he exerts that control.... It works by siphoning off hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions that would have gone to the Democratic Party in normal times, and putting those contributions at the personal disposal of Mr. Soros. He then uses that money to buy influence and loyalty where he sees fit. In 2003, Soros set up a network of privately-owned groups which acts as a shadow or mirror image of the Party. It performs all the functions we would normally expect the real Democratic Party to perform, such as shaping the Party platform, fielding candidates, running campaigns, and so forth. However, it performs these functions under the private supervision of Mr. Soros and his associates. The Shadow Party derives its power from its ability to raise huge sums of money. By controlling the Democrat purse strings, the Shadow Party can make or break any Democrat candidate by deciding whether or not to fund him. During the 2004 election cycle, the Shadow Party raised more than $300 million for Democrat candidates, prompting one of its operatives, MoveOn PAC director Eli Pariser, to declare, 'Now it's our party. We bought it, we own it....'"

Media Matters has documented factual errors and doctored quotes in Horowitz and Poe's book.

DTN suggests Soros will instigate a coup in America. DiscoverTheNetworks writes:

Soros had previously experienced considerable success in effecting “regime change” elsewhere in the world. For instance, he helped fund the 1989 “Velvet Revolution” that brought Vaclav Havel to power in the Czech Republic. And by his own admission, he helped engineer coups in Slovakia, Croatia, Georgia, and Yugoslavia.

When Soros targets a country for “regime change,” he begins by creating a shadow government -- a fully formed government-in-exile, ready to assume power when the opportunity arises. The Shadow Party he has built in America greatly resembles those he has created in other countries prior to instigating a coup.

DTN directs readers to articles vilifying Soros. DiscoverTheNetworks links to numerous articles vilifying Soros, such as: "George Soros: A Bridge to Radicalism;" "The Hidden Soros Agenda: Drugs, Money, the Media, and Political Power;" and "Soros: Republic Enemy #1."

DTN on Tides: Money laundering to radical leftist groups

DTN on Tides: They “launder” money to “radical” groups. In the opening paragraph of its Tides profile, DiscoverTheNetworks writes:

Established in 1976 by California-based activist Drummond Pike, the Tides Foundation was set up as a public charity that receives money from donors and then funnels it to the recipients of their choice. Because many of these recipient groups are quite radical, the donors often prefer not to have their names publicly linked with the donees. By letting the Tides Foundation, in effect, "launder" the money for them and pass it along to the intended beneficiaries, donors can avoid leaving a “paper trail.” Such contributions are called “donor-advised,” or donor-directed, funds.

Through this legal loophole, nonprofit entities can also create for-profit organizations and then funnel money to them through Tides -- thereby circumventing the laws that bar nonprofits from directly funding their own for-profit enterprises.

DTN: Tides “is a major funder of the Shadow Party, a George Soros-conceived nationwide network” of progressive groups. DiscoverTheNetworks writes in its Tides profile:

Immediately after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Tides formed a “9/11 Fund” to advocate a “peaceful national response.” Tides later replaced the 9/11 Fund with the “Democratic Justice Fund,” which was financed in large measure by the Open Society Institute of George Soros, who has donated more than $7 million to Tides over the years. Reciprocally, the Tides Foundation is a major funder of the Shadow Party, a George Soros-conceived nationwide network of several dozen unions, non-profit activist groups, and think tanks whose agendas are ideologically to the left, and which are engaged in campaigning for the Democrats.

DTN: Tides supports “leftist agendas” and “radical” causes. DiscoverTheNetworks writes:

The Tides Foundation promotes a multitude of leftist agendas, as evidenced by its assertion: “We strengthen community-based organizations and the progressive movement by providing an innovative and cost-effective framework for your philanthropy.” Among the crusades to which Tides contributes are: radical environmentalism; the “exclusion of humans from public and private wildlands”; the anti-war movement; anti-free trade campaigns; the banning of firearms ownership; abolition of the death penalty; access to government-funded abortion-on-demand; and radical gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender advocacy. The Foundation is also a member organization of the International Human Rights Funders Group, a network of more than six-dozen grantmakers dedicated to finaning leftwing groups and causes.

DTN article: Tides “Fund the Subversion and Perversion of America's Youth.” DiscoverTheNetworks posted a January 3, 2007, article by Linda Kimball attacking the group Gay-Straight Alliances and those “allowing” them into schools. Under a section headlined “Marxist-Progressives Who Fund the Subversion and Perversion of America's Youth,” Kimball attacks Tides as funneling money “to the New Left's matrix of communist front groups”:

Marxist-Progressives Who Fund the Subversion and Perversion of America's Youth

On the bottom of the GSA homepage it states, “GSA is a project of the Tides Center.” (http://www.gsanetwork.org/)

The Tides Center/Foundation funnels money from wealthy international and national donors--both individuals and foundations/institutes--to the New Left's matrix of communist front groups. Essentially, the New Left is the “hired assassins” doing the dirty work for wealthy progressives who want America destroyed and don't care about the criminal methods employed, but who don't want to dirty their hands. Among wealthy individuals who donate to Tides is Teresa Heinz Kerry, who has donated more than $4 million. Another donor is multi-millionaire George Soros and his Shadow Party and Open Society Institute.

“The Tides 'family' of organizations is a nerve center of radical Shadow Party activity. George Soros has given more than $17 million to the Tides Center since 1999.” (''The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party,'' by David Horowitz and Richard Poe, p.126)

The article concludes that “as a people united by the principles of freedom and personal liberty, we must commit ourselves to the long and arduous fight to recapture every square inch of our culture, laws, and government and cleanse them of the corruptions caused by the Church of Criminal Orthodoxy.”

DTN links to “resources” vilifying Tides. On the left-hand side of its Tides profile, DiscoverTheNetworks links to several articles vilifying Tides. One profile, by the conservative organization Western Center for Journalism, states that “there exists a large network of far left philanthropists and foundations in America dedicated to destroying the American way of life, our Christian-based culture and our free enterprise system. They seek to remove America from its constitutional foundations and move it toward a European-style socialism. Much of this effort is coordinated by a little known group called the Tides Foundation and its related group, the Tides Center.” The profile adds that Tides gives “hundreds of millions of dollars to anti-free enterprise groups, gun control groups, anti-private property groups, abortion rights groups, homosexual groups, groups engaged in voter fraud, anti-military groups, and organizations that seek to destroy America's constitutional basis.”

Another link goes to a profile of Tides by “Ron Arnold's Left Tracking Library,” which contains an address for Tides and a picture of the Tides office. Arnold states that Tides is the “Command center of the most potent left wing money machine in the world. No officer receives compensation from Tides Network, but they are compensated by other Tides entities controlled by Tides Network. Tides Network is a non-profit holding company, a shell for other organizations, so it has virtually no funding itself - even though it controls one of the largest financial networks of left wing activists.”

Beck touted DiscoverTheNetworks on his program

Beck: “Please look at this website.” During the November 23, 2009, edition (from Nexis) of his Fox News program, while discussing progressives, Beck hosted David Horowitz and recommended DiscoverTheNetworks:

BECK: David Horowitz, editor of “Front Page” magazine and a Website that is not only this one, but also -- I can't remember the name of it.

HOROWITZ: “DiscoverTheNetworks.”

BECK: Yes. OK. “DiscoverTheNetworks.” It is fantastic if you want to find out who is connected to whom and what who is going on. “Discover the Network” -- please look at this Web site.

All right. So David, this is the trick that they have been using. They just shout things, that whether they're true or not, if they can stage like a die-in and they can call somebody a racist or whatever, they have won. You're saying now if the right will use these tactics, the left won't know how to deal with it.

HOROWITZ: Oh, exactly. I mean, you're inverting the whole paradigm and the left will be caught off guard. Actually, this is what Saul Alinsky argues. You catch the other side off guard.

But it is exposing the reality. The reality is that liberals, so-called - of course, they're not liberal. They are socialists. They are intolerant. And leftists and progressives are the oppressors of minorities and the poor. They control all the big inner cities in America, and they have for nearly 100 years.

And these programs they're putting in -- they run the schools. There is a jobs program for adults. There are millions of poor, black and Hispanic kids whose lives are being destroyed by their policies and they don't care.

Beck: DiscoverTheNetworks documenting that “it's the same players in all of these little organizations.” During a June 8, 2009, segment about “ACORN and its alliance with very wealthy people,” Beck touted DiscoverTheNetworks as a website that has been documenting that “it's the same players in all of these little organizations.” From the program: