Frank Rich has a column inspired by the New Yorker article by Jane Mayer on the Koch Brothers who bankroll such things as the “grass root” Tea Party movement.
It remains to be seen whether Mayer will be the Koch Brothers’ version of Ida Tarbell whose expose of Standard Oil mobilized public sentiment against it and John D. Rockefeller. But, Rich points out that the Kochs & the Tea Party is nothing new in American history.
All three tycoons are the latest incarnation of what the historian Kim Phillips-Fein labeled “Invisible Hands” in her prescient 2009 book of that title: those corporate players who have financed the far right ever since the du Pont brothers spawned the American Liberty League in 1934 to bring down F.D.R. You can draw a straight line from the Liberty League’s crusade against the New Deal “socialism” of Social Security, the Securities and Exchange Commission and child labor laws to the John Birch Society-Barry Goldwater assault on J.F.K. and Medicare to the Koch-Murdoch-backed juggernaut against our “socialist” president.
Here’s to hoping the immune system of our body politic is up to fighting off this kind of thing again.
Corporate players finance lots of stuff, leftish and right, that strikes them as in their best interests.
John D. Rockefeller reportedly bankrolled the WCTU to kill the possibility of cars running on Apple Jack instead of stored ancient sunlight. Was that left or right? It certainly was consequential.
Corporate America was a big fan of women in the workplace. Sounded left, arguably works right – suppress wages and keeping much of our population functioning as wage slaves.
Do the Koch brothers take the Tea Partiers for Libertarians? Or do they just like hearing others say “Obama is a Socialist”?
Doug: I can’t find where either article states that the Tea Party is being funded by the Koch Brothers. Can you point it out to me?
Here is a link-filled compilation of Tea Party funding sources if you’re interested. Looks like the Koch money primarily makes its way to Tea Party groups via “Americans for Prosperity.”
Doug: call me a doubting Thomas, but I was looking for a bit more.
All your link states is that “reports indicate….” Well, what reports indicate? The only specific article it mentions on the subject is from “thinkprogress”. If this information is true, I would expect better than that.
I’m open to be convinced otherwise. Do you think the Tea Party is the beneficiary of major funding sources and, if so, what do you think they are? Or is it just a bunch of small donors organizing from the grass roots up?
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/right-wing_backers_koch_industries_we_dont_specifi.php
Rachel Maddow explains some of the Koch-Americans for Prosperity-Tea Party stuff. AFP got $5.8 million or so from Koch Industries.
Doug, I can only speak to what I know, and what I know is that the local tea party has meetings in low-cost locations and passes a bucket around for everyone to chip a $1 or $2 to pay for them. At these meetings, topics like health care reform, property tax caps, and gun rights have been discussed (sometimes with a speaker).
I know the speakers are generally concerned local citizens, not big names or corporate schills. I think the local TP has a few people that went to D.C. for the rally (which might have been funded by Koch for all I know), but these concerned local citizens took a bus, carpooled, or flew on their own dime.
Based on that knowledge, I don’t think that money is making it to the local “grass-roots” organization, which truly is a group of concerned citizens.
I would not be surprised if AFP may have funded events like the recent Glenn Beck event in DC. However, I don’t think that means the tea-party movement is corrupt.
Just watched the video. Curiously, the video (which I believe to have been produced in Feb/March 2010) mentioned contributions from Koch to AFP during the 2005-2008 years. This timeline is obviously well-before the Tea Parrty movement started.
So, it would seem unlikely that Koch funded AFP with the intention that this money would be provided to the TP, yes?
It really is interesting watching the Tea Party. I really feel most of it is really grass-roots, to the pure definition of the word. That’s why we see so many different viewpoints that sometimes even conflict with each other.
The sad part is that in some cases, I feel like the traditional politicians have come in and sprayed tons of fertilizer combined with their own variety of grass seed, to preserve that analogy. IMHO, that is why sometimes the Tea Party comes off like extreme Republicans and sometimes looks like a group of diverse citizens.
I wouldn’t consider myself as a Tea Party supporter, but I hate to see something that appears to truly be created out of concerned citizens turned into another sterilized branch of an existing party. It is sad.
Hey, bro, completely unrelated, but I’m pretty sure that you were mentioned by name in this wire piece picked up by my local paper.
http://www.post-trib.com/news/2650862,new-deboer0829.article
I was all like, “Hey, I know that guy!”. ;)