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Loading...The Money Behind Tea Parties: Get to Know Koch Industries
The Tea Party, you know, that “grassroots” movement of libertarian/conservative folks who are adamantly against health care, education, taxes, immigration, environmental concerns, and pretty much any idea that the current administration will ever put out, has been making a lot of news, even if their candidates aren’t really making a lot of headway in elections.
But as more media are beginning to delve into who is really behind the funding of these efforts, we are learning that this “grassroots” movement really is just another corporate-backed attempt to influence policy to help businesses make more money.
Case in point, this new article from The New Yorker about the Koch Brothers, who fund Americans for Prosperity Foundation, an anti-business regulation, anti-tax,anti-environment interest group. The brothers claim that the Foundation has no link to the Tea Party antics, but a recent conference paints a different story:
At the lectern in Austin, however, [conference organizer Peggy] Venable—a longtime political operative who draws a salary from Americans for Prosperity, and who has worked for Koch-funded political groups since 1994—spoke less warily. “We love what the Tea Parties are doing, because that’s how we’re going to take back America!” she declared, as the crowd cheered. In a subsequent interview, she described herself as an early member of the movement, joking, “I was part of the Tea Party before it was cool!” She explained that the role of Americans for Prosperity was to help “educate” Tea Party activists on policy details, and to give them “next-step training” after their rallies, so that their political energy could be channelled “more effectively.” And she noted that Americans for Prosperity had provided Tea Party activists with lists of elected officials to target. She said of the Kochs, “They’re certainly our people. David’s the chairman of our board. I’ve certainly met with them, and I’m very appreciative of what they do.”
Venable honored several Tea Party “citizen leaders” at the summit. The Texas branch of Americans for Prosperity gave its Blogger of the Year Award to a young woman named Sibyl West. On June 14th, West, writing on her site, described Obama as the “cokehead in chief.” In an online thread, West speculated that the President was exhibiting symptoms of “demonic possession (aka schizophrenia, etc.).” The summit featured several paid speakers, including Janine Turner, the actress best known for her role on the television series “Northern Exposure.” She declared, “They don’t want our children to know about their rights. They don’t want our children to know about a God!”
During a catered lunch, Venable introduced Ted Cruz, a former solicitor general of Texas, who told the crowd that Obama was “the most radical President ever to occupy the Oval Office,” and had hidden from voters a secret agenda—“the government taking over our economy and our lives.” Countering Obama, Cruz proclaimed, was “the epic fight of our generation!” As the crowd rose to its feet and cheered, he quoted the defiant words of a Texan at the Alamo: “Victory, or death!”
No, of course the brothers have nothing to do with the movement. Despite, as the New Yorker mentions, the fact that they even offered up talking points to the party itself:
Americans for Prosperity has worked closely with the Tea Party since the movement’s inception. In the weeks before the first Tax Day protests, in April, 2009, Americans for Prosperity hosted a Web site offering supporters “Tea Party Talking Points.” The Arizona branch urged people to send tea bags to Obama; the Missouri branch urged members to sign up for “Taxpayer Tea Party Registration” and provided directions to nine protests. The group continues to stoke the rebellion. The North Carolina branch recently launched a “Tea Party Finder” Web site, advertised as “a hub for all the Tea Parties in North Carolina.”
It makes perfect sense for large corporations to be back-door backing these allegedly “populist” events, as the every thing the movement stands for is something that benefits big business. Corporate tax cuts, drilling for more oil, making health care something businesses don’t have to add to their bottom line, eliminating federal oversight, these are all interests that don’t have much if any positive trickle down effect on the average citizen, yet allegedly there is a groundswell of common everyday voters clamoring for it?
Or, as one conservative economic analyst put it very succinctly in the article, the brothers are “trying to shape and control and channel the populist uprising into their own policies.”
So much for the grassroots.
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+ add your ownRead the New Yorker article find out about their history and all they own and adjust your buying habits accordingly. Here's a snippet:
"The Kochs operate oil refineries in Alaska, Texas, and Minnesota, and control some four thousand miles of pipeline. Koch Industries owns Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra, among other products. Forbes ranks it as the second-largest private company in the country, after Cargill, and its consistent profitability has made David and Charles Koch—who, years ago, bought out two other brothers—among the richest men in America. Their combined fortune of thirty-five billion dollars is exceeded only by those of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.
The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation."
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all#ixzz0y1ZKIqHf
See all there have there grubby fingers in one their own website and be frightened - be very frightened.
http://www.kochind.com/IndustryAreas/default.asp
Big business is really in a major snit since President Obama is trying to rein them in for the benefit of all of us!! And omigod!!! What if all those gazillionaires have to pay more taxes!! Imagine the horror of it!! These sleazebags should be grateful they have all that money and be glad to pony up a little more for the benefit of all the middle class and poor citizens of our country that are suffering so much.
I love Bounty towels and have been using them for years, but I WILL be trying out new brands now. That's my tiny little protest to the impossible mess our country is becoming. I'll tell you one thing, we all have to do everything now and in 2012 to get out the vote for the Democrats or we are going to be sailing at top speed back to the middle ages!! The ones who scream the loudest about our President are the ones who would suffer the most if the Republicans get back in power. It terrifies me!!
This makes sense to me. I knew whoever was feeding the frenzy had an agenda. It is criminal what these people do to citizens that are having a tough time and they take advantage of them by feeding into their anxiety. As a psychology major it REALLY disturbs me. It is a type of WAR FARE to me. Propaganda mind control, it is not just for other countries anymore.
I do not want to be represented by these people or any Teabagger Party. They don't speak for me nor do I share their thoughts of how a government should be run. I fear I will be destitute if any of their plans are put into place. I'm a hard working middle class Mom, it's tough just living let alone thinking of pleasurable expenses. Anti-Tax and Anti-Socialism? are you kidding me? who is going to come to their rescue when their house is on fire, they're in a car accident or Grama has a stroke? Fire, Rescue and Police Depts are socialist groups that are paid by hard earned tax dollars.
Rachael Maddow showed the Koch Bros and others supporting the Tea Party and other groups.
Stephen A. says: "The Democrats were a front for the Soviets" because they both wanted the Democrats to beat the Republicans in elections, and there were cases of collaboration in campaigns.
back up this claim with verifiable proof that the soviet union collaborated with the dems in campaigns and that they wanted the dems to beat repubs.
AWESOME!
I think the Tea has been brewed too long - it tasted bitter.
"So hows all this hope & change working for you ????? I for one dont pay my taxes so people who dont pay them can have a better life than me .... if Germany is soo great move there..."
No, it's not the change I'd hoped for. Reason: the party of NO, read Republican, has frustrated any meaningful change. As far as moving to Germany.... I might suggest the same--if you don't like the way things are going with the Obama administration--LEAVE. Personally my income would have to increase by a factor of 5 before I'd be eligible for any of the Bush tax cuts. And, BTW, I have worked full time and paid taxes all my adult life.
how come in every picture of a the tea party idiots they are fat as hell or obese?
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