Arthur Schaper: Who’s Pushing the DePetro Boycott?
Friday, January 10, 2014
Monday, Monday, can’t trust that day.
So sang the Mamas and the Papas in the 1960s. They were busted and disgusted with their sudden superstar, drug-addled rock status, and everyone got fat, except Mama Cass. As for WPRO and John DePetro, they were singing a different tune, not like a fat lady, this past Monday, January 6, 2014:
I’m hooked on a feeling, high on believing, that you’re in love with me.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTAfter eleven thousand votes in a ProJo poll, 75% for keeping DePetro, it would appear that Rhode Islanders more than not support DePetro, or at least they support his right to speak on the radio, regardless of the reaction or recrimination of his opponents, or his targets. More specifically, individual activists have declared that they do not want public sector unions and politicians, no matter where they stand, deciding who can speak on the Providence airwaves. At this time, a petition to retain DePetro in the face of union bullying has taken to the Internet, RI, hosted by Barrington resident Peggy Price. Contacts with her have not yet been returned.
Letters in the local press abound with support for the radio host. Go Local Mindsetter Russell Moore commented earlier this week that no matter what people on the outside may thing, it’s all about the money. Perhaps the controversy has only emboldened the station to keep DePetro. A succès de scandale is still a success.
Who is behind this momentum to bring down the independent conservative shock-jock? Yes, there’s that wonderful list at the bottom of the website outlining the steering committee, and yet where are they getting their money?
Does Checkmate Consulting play a role in this smear campaign? If this political group is pushing the DePetro boycott, then what we have is nothing more than fake grassroots paid with public money: AstroTurf, Big Labor style.
Last year, DePetro fingered Brad Dufault and Ray Sullivan, both of whom have leadership connections with Checkmate Consulting Group, the same firm which helped pass gay marriage in Rhode Island. Calls and emails to Checkmate Consulting were not answered. Pouring over the Twitterverse, Checkmate Consulting is re-tweeting the tweets from For Our Daughters, so at least there is evidence of comity, if not collusion.
Now, on to For Our Daughters. . .
Taking a closer look at the “For Our Daughters RI” website, one finds a hasty patch-up with the word “Hate” more prominent than the allegations of wrongdoing.
I contacted the Rhode Island Secretary of State for some background information on this “grassroots” organization. Despite its stately status, the Secretary of State provided me in a timely fashion the election results for the 2010 and 2012 Providence, Rhode Island elections, both the assembly and state senate seats in play along with the mayoral results, and even the tallies for federal offices. They had no information on the group, and even the representative with whom I spoke was at a loss for whom I should speak with about “For Our Daughters”.
For all the talk about transparency in campaigning and government, For Our Daughters acts in just as elusive and specious a manner as many corporate entities. What gives? At the bottom, the steering committee lists individuals related to public labor, including Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals Liz Larkin, Alert Communications Controller Paul Harrington, Roy Coulombe of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, RIFT Director of Political Activities Maureen, and Robin Covington, a lobbyist for the Rhode Island League of Women Voters. Contacts with these individuals were not returned, either. ProJo reported that these members of the For our Daughters Steering Committee, but after attempts to contact all them, none of my calls were returned, nor my emails answered.
For the sake of argument, even if one assumes that John DePetro is a depleted misogynist and guilty of the very charges of sexual harassment leveled against him from individual claims, the personal character cannot determine whether public sector unions and politicians should decide who gets to speak and who does not in a free society. In fact, speaking with local and statewide residents on the matter, they have voiced strong opinions about protecting DePetro’s right to free speech, even if they believe that he is a “despicable human being” or they have heard reports of other salacious allegations against the radio host.
Returning to the website, For our Daughters, the first sentence claims:
John DePetro's reputation as an abrasive misogynist is widely known, but his latest attack on women can't go unanswered.
The radio recording with the “W” comments were released in September, yet two months later, a petition emerges to threaten local companies to tell WPRO to fire the radio host. Two months later? If this man poses such a threat to the integrity and proper treatment of women, where was NOW? Why did these determined petitioners wait for two months?
“It’s because they’re smart!” one local media affiliate told me. But that’s precisely the point and the problem: "they". Who are they? Why won’t they acknowledge who is paying for this DePetro boycott?
Arthur Christopher Schaper is a teacher-turned-writer on topics both timeless and timely; political, cultural, and eternal. A life-long Southern California resident, Arthur currently lives in Torrance. Follow him on Twitter@ArthurCSchaper, reach him at [email protected], and read more at Schaper's Corner and As He Is, So Are We Ministries.
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