Tea Party Billionaires
The right is always better organized than the left. There always seems to be the shady moneybags, standing anonymously behind the astute political director who guides the outrage and feeds the talking points to the mob with impressively coordinated precision. This is no more democracy than the “blue” and “green” riots in Roman days constituted democracy. It is carefully directed, carefully orchestrated, and usually serves the interests of the ruling class.
In the Clinton years, we had Richard Mellon Scaife providing the money and Roger Ailes and Drudge calling the shots. Today, the new moneybags are some of the most sinister people you have never heard of – billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch, who preside over a $35 billion fortune, exceeded only by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett in the United States. The brothers are old-school industrialists from an old-school industry (oil and lots of it) with decidedly old-school views about economics. They are wedded to a pre-New Deal liberalism and support lower taxes on the wealthy, minimal social services, and less oversight of industry, especially environmental protection. And they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting their pet political causes, and fun the shady psuedo-grassroots outfits that form the backbone of tea party ideology (such as Americans for Prosperity). But while Soros is a media hound and fully transparent, very few have heard of the Kochs and what they are doing. And unlike Soros, their activities all seem geared to making Koch Industries even more profitable and wealthy.
The Kochs feel especially nervous about climate change, fully cognizant that theirs is an industry of the past, and future profits will come from a different source. Hence they have become, as Greenpeace puts it, the “kingpin of climate science denial”. The goal is to raise so much doubt over climate science that support for mitigating measure will fall. Hence all the ink and airtime devoted to the nonsensical “Climategate” non-scandal. They’ve done this before – one of their outfits was calling acid rain a myth back in 1990. And Koch Industries has been fighting tooth-and-nail to prevent the EPA from classifying formaldehyde (which they make in great quantities) as a carcinogen, while David Koch (probably on the basis of his large charitable donations) sits on the National Cancer Advisory Board.
There is a particular reason they hate the Obama administration - they remember the Clinton administration, which took a tough stance with big polluters like Koch Industries. Back then, the Justice Department filed two lawsuits against Koch Industries in connection with 300 oil spills. They paid a record $30 million fine. In 1999, Koch Industries was found guilty of negligence when two teenagers were killed in an explosion. And in the final Clinton months, the Justice Department indicted the company for covering up the leak of carcinogens from one of its refineries. But when the Bush administration arrived, the good times were back for the Kochs. They received friendship and huge subsidies and tax breaks, thanks to Dick Cheney’s backroom deals. They benefitted from about $100 million in government contracts since 2000. Not bad at all.
And now the Kochs are the brain trust behind Americans for Prosperity - which supports low taxes, low regulation, and low social safety nets – and Patients United Now, which whipped up some of the most frenzied protests against health care reform. Not surprisingly, Americans for Prosperity has a particular loathing for cap-and-trade legislation. As well as obfuscation on the facts, they adopted another tried-and-trusted technique on the right – make it personal (in this case, against Van Jones, Obama’s “green jobs” tsar).
Why should we care about this? We should care because democracy is being subverted, and because the wealth of incredibly wealthy industrialists is being used to nudge policy in a direction that benefits them personally. The Church has criticized this concentration of power, with the laissez-faire liberalism that facilitates it, since at least the time of Pope Leo XIII. It subverts solidarity, it subverts subsidiarity, it subverts justice. It’s time to reclaim our moral voice in the economic sphere.
I’m less concerned about the fact of the Koch brothers than I am about the fact that conservatives speak for the little guy.
Of course money will always speak in politics, and there is money on the left as well as the right (Warren Buffet and George Soros to name name conservatives favorite bugbears).
What I think is corrosive is that no matter how the right organizes, they ALWAYS portray themselves as the plucky little underdogs. They aren’t.
For example, in the conservative mind, George W. Bush was a regular guy who understood the values of the working class because he was one of them. Whereas Obama is an arrogant privileged elite who has had everything in his life handed to him on a silver latter. This does not even approach the truth.
I don’t mind billionaires funding conservative political action.
I bitterly resent being told that this is what “real Americans” think.
“The right is always better organized than the left.”
Obviously that wasn’t true leading up to the ’08 elections. But it is usually the case once the left takes power and average people realize that giving the left free rein was a huge mistake. Clinton’s first half-term was almost as good an example as Obama’s.
Are you really suggesting that only right leaning benefactors are corrupt? Are all rich progressive benefactors “transparent”? Do you have any idea how ridiculous this sounds?
(The first line should read
“I’m less concerned about the fact of the Koch brothers than I am about the fact that conservatives THINK THEY speak for the little guy.”)
And they spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year supporting their pet political causes
Each year? That’s quite a misreading. Mayer only claims that the Kochs “poured more than a hundred million dollars into dozens of seemingly independent organizations” between 1980 and now. You’re conflating a 30-year figure with an annual figure.
Come on Minion. This is painful. Try to be honest with yourself and you’ll find that there is more to truth than your own self-affirming assumptions. The day you realize that the right and left are equally morbid places to reside intellectually the better off you’ll be.
“The right is always better organized than the left.” What???
Hmmm… Please See: moveon.org, the answer coalition, organizing for america, the list serves your colleagues are getting talking points from, Saul Alinksy, the AFL-CIO, AFCME, the long history of Democrat ‘get out the vote’ machine superiority (also see Howard Dean’s many remarks claiming falsely that the Republicans were starting to catch up finally all the while trouncing them in 2006), the French Revolution, the Bolsheviks, and Che. Just to name a handful. Frankly, by comparison, this is one indisputable area where the right is woefully inept.
BTW, The first three are bank-rolled all by well known billionaires, which is why I led the list with that.
“The right is always better organized than the left.”
Of course. That’s why we’ve been so successful in overturning Roe v. Wade, cutting down on state and federal bureaucracy, lowering taxes, and decreasing the rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock childbirth. Nothing else but that stellar organization could explain the sweeping successes made in every major issue over the last 20 years.
That, or “the right” is being conveniently defined so as to almost completely exclude conservatives. If your definition revolves around rich guys, isn’t it kind of a self-fulfilling prophesy that you’re seeing rich guys at the helm?
Fine, the “each year” was an accident, the text is now fixed.
I most certainly believe the right is far better than the left at shaping the narrative. Just look at the past few years. After the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, fueled by excessive greed – which in turn derived from deregulation and a general shift in social norms toward laissez-faire individualism – and after a textbook case of how reckless tax cutting can lead to fiscal ruin, the right has managed to shift back the economic narrative in their direction. They did this by carefully crafting a message that would be repeated over and over again, regardless of factual basis.
And now, with record unemployment, after 8 years of falling wages and rising poverty under Bush, with inequality still rising, after a consistent patterm of Republicans increasing public debt, with the financial sector re-exerting is muscle, the right is having some success convincing people that the Democrats are behind their economic woes, and that giving more power to corporations and lower taxes to the super-rich is the way out. It’s stunning, and no accident, due to superior organization. At some level, you have to take your hat off to them.
And yes, I find the dominance of politics by corporate money to be the real problem, and this affects both sides. But far more than on the left, corporations donate to the Republicans to support their own narrow economic interests. The Kochs are textbook cases of this.
Jared: I really wish you would not use the term “conservative” to describe the modern right. They are laissez-faire liberals on the economy, utopian idealists on foreign policy, and post-modern nihilists in their approach to governance. There isn’t a conservative bone in the body of the entire movement.
And yes, I believe the aim of the modern Republican party is simply power for its own sake, or to reward their vested interests. Otherwise, one would have to conclude that they actually believe the economic nonsense they are peddling. I don’t think they are stupid, so I’ll go with nihilistic. They can whip up the mob to suit their own interests.
“Well known billionaires”, RR. But that is precisely the point. Everybody knows George Soros and he is the whipping boy on every Fox News show, and every tea party rally. But who has heard of the Kochs? WHo has heard of Scaife? Very few. It’s a more shadowy world.
Rightwing blowhards do not “think they speak for the little guy” any more than casino craps dealers “think” they’re trying to help you beat the house.
These are highly paid shills whose job is to stir up anger & and convince people to direct it toward Democrats. When little people are screwed over by conservative policies, they will become angry at liberals. Convoluted to the point of insanity but it works until something inconvenient happens, like the economy imploding on Republican watch. Then a janitor of questionable origin will be hired to clean up the mess. But not to worry, the country can be “restored to honor” under the direction of the Noise Machine.
The nouveau riche Beck & Palin have nothing in common with the little guy since Beck sobered up and crawled out of the gutter and Palin took her boring government job and shoved it. They and the other celebrity carnival barkers are multi-millionaires whose wealth will always protect them from the rightwing nonsense they spew. As Leona Helmsley famously said: That’s only for the little people.
This should be an op add in a local newspaper. You should put up pictures of them. Are you trying to beat the right at their own games? You’re right. Soro’s is the whipping boy of Fox News. You could teach people how to fight fire with fire. Bring them out into the light.
Obviously the right is better organized than the left. How else to explain the fact that not everyone is a leftist?
“I believe the aim of the modern Republican party is simply power for its own sake, or to reward their vested interests.”
Honestly Minion, I mean this sincerely. I find it difficult to take you seriously. From time to time I come to VN but I can’t take the “Democrats are good, Republicans are Evil” meme. I used to think there was a good and evil side to American politics as well, but then I grew up and got a little wiser. They’re all post-modern nihilists. The whole lot.
Thank you for this post which I find balanced and clear. The right is more organized, which I echo not to be divisive, but rather to state one of many problems. It is not about who wins as much as it is about the subversion of democracy, which I think you are on point about.
. But far more than on the left, corporations donate to the Republicans to support their own narrow economic interests.
In the past that was true, but not any more: http://www.seattlepi.com/opinion/379678_campaignfundsonline19.html
The day you realize that the right and left are equally morbid places to reside intellectually the better off you’ll be.
RR is right, but this is like banging one’s head against a wall. No matter how often one can show that corporations support Democrats to the same or, in the case of the 2006 and 2008 elections, a greater degree than they do Republicans, MM simply will not concede the point. To him, Republicans are evil and Democrats are virtuous. What he doesn’t seem to understand is that this kind of Manichean dualism – white hats v. black hats – smacks of nothing so much as, dare I say it, Calvinism.
I’ll say what I’ve said before: The Republican and Democratic parties, and the political axis they represent, are two dead ends in the same blind alley. The only people who can’t see that are true believers on either side.
MM, honestly, this post is practically a cry for help. Every partisan thinks the other side is well-organized and funded by shady billionaires (unlike their preferred party), and that the other side is a master at controlling the narrative for reasons savory and unsavory (generally unsavory!). The type of claims you make above are found on every political web-site on the internet by partisans of every stripe (although generally from fringy commenters rather than the author of the post). As political analysis, this post is nonsense.
Mark, I actually don’t have much time for the Democrats and the regrettably limited choice facing Americans – how many posts have touched on the absence of Christian democracy in the American tradition?
But with the current situation, one must make do. Either that, or withdraw from public life, and that’s not what the Church teaches. I believe sincerely that – despite all their faults – the Democrats have a history of thinking with Catholic social teaching, especially in the New Deal era through the early 1970s. Of course, the 1960s individualists messed things up, and now everything is seen through the prism of individual rights rather than the communal interest (and don’t even get me started on their embrace of American exceptionalism and military adventurism). What is left today might be a pale shadow, but you can still see it if you look closely enough.
But if the Democratic party is a shadow, the Republican party is a wraith – it is wholly underpinned by a liberal individualist mentality and it is moving more and more toward fact-free nihilism and accepting of violence in word and deed. I look at it and see nothing that resembles Catholic social teaching. Thye deny science, they deny intellect, they distory economics, and they worshsip military might. As Cardinal George once said, the Democrats might have lost their soul, but the Republicans never had one.
For what it’s worth… I, for one, am exceedingly weary of being presented false choices by the masquerading one party system and choosing the “lesser of evils.” For years I’ve done this only to watch the diminishing returns. I’ve made the decision to vote my conscience without compromising essentials. I write in when necessary. Some of the people I vote for are dead, and even dead they would be better officials than what we have now. (Orestes Brownson was my last presidential candidate of choice.) In the last election not one person or referendum that I voted for won, but I will continue.
There’s a counterpoint to the Koch article over at Volokh Conspiracy:
http://volokh.com/2010/08/30/brouhaha-over-the-koch-brothers/
Why should we care about this? We should care because democracy is being subverted, and because the wealth of incredibly wealthy industrialists is being used to nudge policy in a direction that benefits them personally.
This reminded me of BigPharma’s support for the Democratic healthcare bill – now my memory may be rusty, but wasn’t it the case that regardless whether you were in favor or against the bill, both sides acknowledged that BigPharma had ensured that there would be certain provisions in the bill favorable to it?
I’m with RR and Mark Gordon: “the right is always evil and the left isn’t” theme gets tiring. Let’s just note that there are sinners and hypocrites on both sides, and that there are well-meaning people on both sides.
John Henry – You’re talking about the demonization of the Other. In a fair fight, my ideas should win, so the other side must not be fighting fair, right?
“Thye deny science, they deny intellect, they distory economics, and they worshsip military might.”
Don’t mince words, MM, tell us how you really feel. Balance, reason and spelling just hold a man back when he’s wrapt in the powers of TRUTH.
But really, everything you say is true. I couldn’t say it better. Everyone would agree with me as well, if only rich and powerful forces operating in the shadows didn’t pull the wool over their eyes and convince them to the contrary. Get the money out of politics and there would be 300 million DarwinCatholics in this country.
MM:
The Republicans have two separate parties within it: the social conservatives and the fiscal conservatives/libertarians. I don’t think a party thus divided can be better organized than the Democrats.
it is wholly underpinned by a liberal individualist mentality
I’m still waiting for the Democratic justification based not on individual good and more on the common good.
and it is moving more and more toward fact-free nihilism
The left has its truthers. There are plenty of those on the left who blind themselves towards truth,
and accepting of violence in word and deed.
Judging by Obama’s actions in the war, I’d say the Democrats are just a little more subtle about their embrace. And I bet if Obama starts a war, the sides will switch.
I look at it and see nothing that resembles Catholic social teaching. Thye deny science,
Judging by the left’s pursuit of embryonic stem cell research rather than adult stem cells-which have scientifically proven effective-the left doesn’t have such a love of science either.
they deny intellect,
I think most Republicans accept they have an intellect. However, I think you mean to say that they deny the worth of intellectual commentary. I think it’s more that they disagree with you what intellectuals they like, as they’ll readily quote an economist intellectual.
“Every partisan thinks the other side is well-organized and funded by shady billionaires (unlike their preferred party), and that the other side is a master at controlling the narrative for reasons savory and unsavory (generally unsavory!)”
John Henry so true – it is of course a bit nerve wrecking to observe what seems to be a larger and larger fraction of people cutting down the complex reality to fewer and fewer hot topics.
What to make of medicare recipients screaming against ‘socialist’ medicine? What to make of the pro life activist ready to kill and torture adult humans and full of hate for the other side. Over in Fr.Z’s comment section a person found it for example funny to mix up “killing time” with “time to kill”
“Whew! For a moment there I thought you were referring to a time to kill. I wondered what Pelosi did this time?”
But of course this cuts both ways – What to make of the pro choice activist more ready to protect a tree sapling than an emerging human life. What to make of the Gore’s of this world living the big carbon lifestyle yet making a nice profit sweet talking about how to reduce such excesses.
One has to trust that the community of free people ,despite all the excessive bickering actually find a positive humane way forward – for me one fine example of this is the steady change in percentage of average heterosexuals supporting freedom of expression for our homosexual brothers and sisters.
In my view the fact that our society can continue to find ways to overcome such historical prejudices like this is very positive.
It is sad that our official church is not exactly front and center in this – it will be interesting however to see the dam break.
Overall this liberal is not too worried. Historically todays progressive idea seems to be tomorrows reality.
The claim that both parties are the same is getting tired, and it is counterproductive. The right, I think, is far worse than the left in this country, and further from Catholic social teaching. The ONLY thing the right agrees with the church on is abortion. On everything else, it is quite wrongheaded.
But leaving my own opinion aside, the problem with the constant claim that “both sides are equally bad” is that catholics in this country at this time are in no danger of voting for the democrats. You either vote republican or you don’t vote. You are OUTRAGED when someone suggests that you are rightwing partisans, but the fact of the matter is that all your sympathies are with the right and the republican party.
The claim that both parties are the same is simply a rhetorical device to deflect criticism from the right.
The church right now is very hostile to Obama and the democrats for very little reason. Bush was a terrible president by catholic standards, but you never really lost your sympathy for him.
If you genuinely want to be “above politics” and “non-partisan” that means. . . for most catholics, I would say. . . a genuine criticism of then right. You know what is wrong with the left, and you never hesitate to say it. But your support for the right never really wavers.
Phos – Abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, and private schools come to mind. Very few on the right want to eliminate the safety net entirely; the question is one of extent. I don’t see financial prudence and subsidiarity as opposed to Catholic social teaching.
phosphorious, you are simply wrong. First, it is not true that “catholics in this country at this time are i no danger of voting for the Democrats.” President Obama won a majority of the Catholic vote in 2008. I live in a state that is at once the most Catholic and the most Democratic: Rhode Island. So, you are wrong.
You are also wrong that those who point out the relative unworthiness of both parties are shilling for the Republicans. Speaking for myself, my critique of the GOP and the right wing has been constant, thorough, and severe; as has my critique of capitalism and American imperialism.
MM says we “must make do,” by which he means choose his side – the party that relentlessly promotes abortion and corporate power – over the other side – the party that relentlessly promotes war and corporate power. That’s not an acceptable choice. We aren’t called to be left or right; we’re called to be Christians who embrace the ENTIRETY of Catholic social teaching. The obligation is on us to build a new politics.
“Phos – Abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, and private schools come to mind. Very few on the right want to eliminate the safety net entirely; the question is one of extent. I don’t see financial prudence and subsidiarity as opposed to Catholic social teaching.”
But the problem is that the “conservative movement” actually does very little to advance any conservative issues. . . yet catholics will vote for them anyway.
THIS is the problem.
“MM says we “must make do,” by which he means choose his side – the party that relentlessly promotes abortion and corporate power – over the other side – the party that relentlessly promotes war and corporate power.
But see. . . this is an example of the false equivalence. The liberal attitude towards abortion is NOT the same as the conservative attitude towards war (at least as it was manifested by the last president).
Liberals do not INSIST on abortion; if a woman doesn’t want to have an abortion, liberals would not force her. The very fact that I have to say that suggests that conservatives are not quite sane on this point.
But look at the Iraq invasion. If you suggested at the time that this war was not a proper response to 9/11, you were called a terrorists sympathizer. Conservatives at the time INSISTED on the war. Diplomacy was openly scoffed at. Some catholics did the scoffing.
Bush took action that directly caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Obama took action that failed to prevent women from having abortions. . . but of course that doesn’t cause them to have abortions.
Conservatives, and conservative catholics especially, simply fail to see this assymetry. Treating both sides as “the same” is disingenuous to say the least.
Everyone here is assuming that orthodox Christians MUST be roped into supporting either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. Why can’t there be a Christian Democratic Party in America, and why can’t you start one? Why can’t Catholics unite together in a new party that is “socially conservative” but pragmatic and compassionate, as well as respectful of the American tradition of separation of church and state?–that is “distributive” but not blindly and cruelly deferential toward economic liberalism? and that is insistent on adherence to the “just war” teachings of mainstream Christianity? I really don’t understand the passivity of you American Catholics. Don’t you understand that, unless it is countered, the prevailing direction of the American State is to become a Moloch–an ANTICHRIST–which is a clear and present danger to all traditional human wisdom-cultures and indigenous societies and cultures–including indigenous religious cultures (like the Catholicism of MOST of the Catholic peoples)–everywhere on earth? It is your RESPONSIBILITY to offer alternatives to what’s going on in your society!
“Textbook cases,” eh, Morning’s Minion? Ha ha. Let’s see you name the textbooks then.
Face it, RR busted you at 11:25.