If you still have doubts about the agenda of Gov. Walker of Wisconsin, you might be interested in the Center for Media and Democracy's story on his connection with David and Charles Koch, family of the founder of the embarassingly extremist right-wing John Birch Society. See Lisa Graves, A CMD Special Report: Scott Walker Runs on Koch Money, Feb. 18, 2011. And Koch money is what is behind the pseudo-populist "tea party" movement.
David Koch was the founder and chairman of a front group called Citizens for a Sound Economy, which received at least $12 million from the Koch Family Foundations and which is the predecessor of the group Americans for Prosperity.
As Jane Mayer reported in the New Yorker, the Kochs do not deny funding Americans for Prosperity (the amount is not disclosed) but assert that they provide no funding "specifically to support the tea parties." "Specifically" is the key word in that sentence that does not deny what is known in the non-profit world as "general support," meaning general funding or endowments, for an organization's operations and overall mission. ...
Americans for Prosperity provided “Tea Party Talking Points” as the Tea Party was launched around tax day in 2009, and this weekend it is providing talking points to those coming to Madison for a pro-Walker protest it is helping to stage. Media watchers can expect to hear Americans for Prosperity protesters get equal time on the news, and more than equal time on FOX, using phrases to cloak union-busting as merely getting workers to accept "paying a fair share" through "modest but critical reforms" that end "strong-arming politicians for exorbitant benefits." The spin will also likely include a trumped up statistic claiming that private sector employees in Wisconsin earn 74 cents for every dollar paid to "overpaid" state union members--you know, teachers, firefighters, police, social workers, nurses, and other civil servants. An "unofficial" theme, a drumbeat of the Bircher baby propaganda efforts bankrolled by the Kochs, is calling opponents "socialists," a smear heard with increasing frequency as the Kochs' influence has expanded in the past two years.
Notably, Americans for Prosperity bragged that it was going to spend nearly $50 million across the country in the November elections. As one of the groups exploiting the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision to allow unlimited spending by corporations to influence election outcomes, it does not disclose its donors and it does not report its expenditures on so-called "issue ads." It did run such ads in Wisconsin last fall.
As commenters on the CMD post note, Murdoch and Koch each spent $1 million on the Republican attack ads. The Koch's spending $50 million to buy electoral races is just one clear piece of evidence of the "unspeakably foolish SCOTUS decision [Citizens United] to allow unlimited, unseen campaign funding from unknown entities." Reagan's war on the middle class is coming to fruition in this takeover of our democracy by corporate money.
Recent Comments