AARP advocates homosexuality and disdains American soldiers

[JRob]

Interesting piece on how big business continues to wage war on everyone, the AARP set in this case... Link to full article below.

The Artful Codger
Trashing the AARP with Grandma Green.
By Michael Scherer
Mother Jones
July/August 2005 Issue

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ANYONE VISITING THE SENIOR center in Woodbridge, Virginia, on a Tuesday runs a serious risk of being ignored, Tuesday being the appointed day for the weekly Spanish lesson, the arts-and-crafts hour, and the champion pingpong team practice. But when Flora Green, a.k.a. Grandma Green, paid a call one recent Tuesday, she outdrew all competitors. Two dozen seniors packed the main hall to listen with a mixture of reverence and awe to Green’s message of political redemption.

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Meanwhile, she’s shaking her fists at the AARP for all other seniors to see. The AARP is suffering many thorns for its opposition to the Bush administration’s plans to block drug importation and privatize Social Security. In a recent ad, USA Next, a conservative seniors’ group dreamed up by the same GOP direct-mail wizard, Richard Viguerie, who dreamed up the Seniors Coalition, suggested that the AARP advocates homosexuality and disdains American soldiers. Although the Seniors Coalition has split with Viguerie, Grandma Green sings in a similar—if less shrill—chorus. “I’ll come right out and say it,” she declared, speaking of the AARP as she walked the crowd at Woodbridge, handing out autographed pictures of herself next to an American flag. “They don’t like me.” She pronounces AARP as one syllable, like a small dog barking.

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The real pedigree of the group Green represents is hidden under layers of PR and politics. The Seniors Coalition was cofounded in 1989 by conservative activist Dan C. Alexander Jr., three years after he was sent to prison for arranging construction kickbacks as an Alabama school-committee member. Today, its top outside lobbyist is C. McClain Haddow, a former Health and Human Services official who spent time in prison with Alexander for failing to file a timely ethics waiver when he gave his wife a government contract. Haddow has also lobbied for generic-drugs manufacturer Mylan Pharmaceuticals.

The organization’s Washington activities regularly blur the needs of seniors with the agendas of corporate donors. After it took money from Microsoft in 1999, the coalition lobbied on antitrust litigation, and after it took money from Lottery.com in 2000, it lobbied on a bill that would restrict Internet gambling. Money also poured in from the American Petroleum Institute and the American Public Power Association—just as the coalition spoke out against the Kyoto Protocol and lower gas-mileage standards.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2005/07/the_artful_codger.html