Murdoch and the Koch Brothers: Billionaires Co-opt the Tea Party

[citizenx]

The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party
By FRANK RICH
Published: August 28, 2010

 ANOTHER weekend, another grass-roots demonstration starring Real Americans who are mad as hell and want to take back their country from you-know-who. Last Sunday the site was Lower Manhattan, where they jeered the “ground zero mosque.” This weekend, the scene shifted to Washington, where the avatars of oppressed white Tea Party America, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, were slated to “reclaim the civil rights movement” (Beck’s words) on the same spot where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had his dream exactly 47 years earlier.

Vive la révolution!

There’s just one element missing from these snapshots of America’s ostensibly spontaneous and leaderless populist uprising: the sugar daddies who are bankrolling it, and have been doing so since well before the “death panel” warm-up acts of last summer. Three heavy hitters rule. You’ve heard of one of them, Rupert Murdoch. The other two, the brothers David and Charles Koch, are even richer, with a combined wealth exceeded only by that of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett among Americans. But even those carrying the Kochs’ banner may not know who these brothers are.

to read more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html/hp

[citizenx]

Ron Paul's Shocking Message to the Tea Party

Ron Paul has some surprising news for the Tea Party:

You’re being taken for a ride.

At least this is what many libertarians like Ron Paul believe when they see someone like Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin trying to lead the Tea Party at the “restoring honor” rally this weekend. In fact, Ron Paul believes, if you’re looking for real freedom, you should really go back to the core of the constitution and the bill of rights, which Beck and Palin do not fully endorse when you really look at their beliefs. Whether it be Palin’s support for starting more wars or Beck’s beliefs on paying the private Federal Reserve MORE interest on our money by means of a VAT tax.


To read more:

http://www.digitalmeetingcenter.com/ron-pauls-shocking-message-to-the-tea-party/851883/

[JT Coyoté]

The "REAL" Tea Party was born in the the months, weeks, and days before the 234th anniversary of the original Boston Tea Party.

This "rebirth" was called "Ron Paul Tea Party '07" and raised the largest amount of money in 24 hours of any political campaign fund raiser ever... $6.04 million. Have a look.

JTCoyoté

"The probability that we may fall in
the struggle ought not to deter us
from the support of a cause we believe
to be just; it shall not deter me."
~Abraham Lincoln
 

[citizenx]

Oh, JT, I think it has just been quite recently the last year or so that the Tea Party has been co-opted by the billionaires, globalists, and demagogues like Beck and Palin and Republican Party machine hacks.  Before that, I think it was a great organization -- and was truly an attempt at the grassroots level to restore consitutional government and return the  country to small and republican (small r) government.

There has to be either some way to take it back or start something else like it.

[chrisfromchi]

The whole billionaire thing coming from the left side is interesting since most of their own organizations are funded by soros correct?

are these koch guys...in competition? also globalists? trying to make a move on soros?

Are we stuck in a battle of billionaires?

Cause watching the left claim that the tea party right is controlled by a couple of billionaires in a conspiratorial funding way is an interesting route they took.

Or am i missing something?

[citizenx]

Oh, the first article from the New York Times defenitely has a left slant.  No argument here.

Nevertheless, the less than flattering background on the Koch brothers is certainly cause for concern -- though it is Murdock and Beck that cheese me off the most (and Palin) for their concerted hijack of the Tea Party and the mantle of grassroots activism for small government -- which neither Beck nor Palin really represents.

The second article shows that even RP is aware and concerned about this hijack now.

Yes, Soros is their ahole (and their problem).  I don't really want any part of any organization he is funding.  I think the Tea Party might still have some redeeming features -- minus the demagogues who have effectively taken it over.

If RP runs, and the movement doesn't support his candidacy -- well, in my opinion, the salt will have lost its savor.  Time will tell.

Unfortunately, the Tea Party seems to be  becoming just another soapbox for the histrionic Beck and his idiot sister  -- both fame-obsessed talking heads.

[chrisfromchi]

Just cause "Koch brothers" seems to be a talking point emunating from daily kos (I actually think these guys came up with that angle) and huffpost only from the last two weeks do i really bring it up.

It amuses me to watch them primarly bring up these billionaires and concoct even more elaborate theories than we have, while not looking at their own, who has without a doubt built their infrastructure since the 1990s. Not to mention other billionaires we don't know about.

We know glenn's flock is mostly neocon friendly funded.

An billionaire battle royale is pretty funny to envision tho.

[agentbluescreen]

The whole billionaire thing coming from the left side is interesting since most of their own organizations are funded by soros correct?

are these koch guys...in competition? also globalists? trying to make a move on soros?

Are we stuck in a battle of billionaires?

Cause watching the left claim that the tea party right is controlled by a couple of billionaires in a conspiratorial funding way is an interesting route they took.

Or am i missing something?

They are just buying the liar politicians they need to populate our movement with to make sure that nothing changes for them regardless of who we think we are voting for, for whatever reasons.

Their moneyed noble-CFR "left brigade" is merely taking the heat (Media Spotlight)  to throw more counter-Obama reactionary voters back to the minions of their corrupt political-neocon RepublicRAT monopoly.

On the bright side, hopefully they will split both their lying DeMOBlican and RepublicRAT monopolies and we can then elect some more true Independents

[JT Coyoté]

Oh, JT, I think it has just been quite recently the last year or so that the Tea Party has been co-opted by the billionaires, globalists, and demagogues like Beck and Palin and Republican Party machine hacks.  Before that, I think it was a great organization -- and was truly an attempt at the grassroots level to restore consitutional government and return the  country to small and republican (small r) government.

There has to be either some way to take it back or start something else like it.

As long as the majority of the people remain unaware of who the enemy is... and/or as long as those at the head of organizations are susceptible to buyout... or just sellout when the funds get low... the Bastards will undermine every thing we do.

Late last year some patriots decided to start the Coffee Party... It didn't do much yet it started to grow slowly.  Then, early this year an Obamanoid, using a bunch of globalist money, started an Obama supporting coffee party they promoted in the mainstream media to counter and destroy the fledgling Coffee Party... all of this was topic here for a few days about 6 months ago.

The Tea party has been co-opted by the right wing of the gobalist duopoly... Here was Alex's counter attack last winter... check it out...

http://www.therealcoffeeparty.com/

Oldyoti

"We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress
and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but
to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."
--Abraham Lincoln

[donnay]

The "REAL" Tea Party was born in the the months, weeks, and days before the 234th anniversary of the original Boston Tea Party.

This "rebirth" was called "Ron Paul Tea Party '07" and raised the largest amount of money in 24 hours of any political campaign fund raiser ever... $6.04 million. Have a look.

JTCoyoté

"The probability that we may fall in
the struggle ought not to deter us
from the support of a cause we believe
to be just; it shall not deter me."
~Abraham Lincoln
 

I was there!  I can attest to it!   

[Kilika]

Yeah, the Tea Party concept and movement was quickly highjacked by Fox and Beck, and then it just went downhill from there.

"American politics" has become an absolute joke. These people have managed to completely clog the works with their party biases. The federal government has laws against discrimination but even that is limited apparently because the very politician that says you can't discriminate is tell you you can't be at their convention because your not one of them. And the party decides who runs under THEIR platforms and if you don't "tow the party line" you out, no matter what party. And seeing they have both the majority of voters and the media behind them, the R and D have the system slocked up, preventing any other pparty to have any real chance. It's simply a biased playing field and they know it and gloat about having "control of the House". Double-mindedness is a disaster in waiting.

[donnay]

Yeah, the Tea Party concept and movement was quickly highjacked by Fox and Beck, and then it just went downhill from there.

"American politics" has become an absolute joke. These people have managed to completely clog the works with their party biases. The federal government has laws against discrimination but even that is limited apparently because the very politician that says you can't discriminate is tell you you can't be at their convention because your not one of them. And the party decides who runs under THEIR platforms and if you don't "tow the party line" you out, no matter what party. And seeing they have both the majority of voters and the media behind them, the R and D have the system slocked up, preventing any other pparty to have any real chance. It's simply a biased playing field and they know it and gloat about having "control of the House". Double-mindedness is a disaster in waiting.

Yes, the Tea Party movement has been hijacked and now they are just making noise.  All sound and fury-- signifying nothing.  That is Glenn Beck and the neocon agenda to keep everyone wrapped up in the fake left/right paradigm just making noise.

I am glad Alex is going to expose him in a new film!

[JT Coyoté]

Yes, the Tea Party movement has been hijacked and now they are just making noise.  All sound and fury-- signifying nothing.  That is Glenn Beck and the neocon agenda to keep everyone wrapped up in the fake left/right paradigm just making noise.

I am glad Alex is going to expose him in a new film!

You mustn't give Beck so much credit, There were several internet neo-con sites and groups that entered the Tea Party in the days and weeks after Obama's election.  They infused their "...19 hijackers dropped the buildings -- wipe out Islam -- the Fed's okay once we get the Arab oil -- war with Iran is good -- we must control the world to save the world" globalist right wing philosophy, weaving and winnowing it into the original Constitutional message of Ron Paul and the Patriot Movement.

Dick Armey's Army was one of these groups... Beck, the mouthpiece, came along later, and I will bet you a Washington silver quarter,  Beck has not explored the foundations of the "party" in any of his diatribes, his pontifications from the globalist puppet microphone...

Oldyoti

"Here, without contemplating consequences,
before high heaven and in the face of the
world, I swear eternal fidelity to the just
cause, as I deem it, of the land of my life,
my liberty, and my love."
~Abraham Lincoln

[Valerius]

I am ignorant of anything necessarily per se wrong with the  "Koch brothers."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_H._Koch

[Rebelitarian]

Yeah when they start banning ideas of 3rd parties you know the movement has been hijacked.

[JT Coyoté]

Yeah when they start banning ideas of 3rd parties you know the movement has been hijacked.

How correct you are..!

As the "2000 Reform Party" (3rd party) presidential candidate put it...

"The Democrats and the Republicans are the two
wings of the same bird of prey, that is feasting
upon the Constitution and the American people."
~Pat Buchanan -- From his campaign speeches as the
Reform Party candidate for president in 2000.

JTCoyoté

[citizenx]

I am ignorant of anything necessarily per se wrong with the  "Koch brothers."

"While Koch foundations donate to cancer hospitals like Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York, Koch Industries has been lobbying to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from classifying another product important to its bottom line, formaldehyde, as a “known carcinogen” in humans (which it is)."

From the above New York Times article quoted in the first post.

I'm thinking right now of all the Fema-formaldehyde trailers, for example.

I question all billionaires.  (And I assume all are globalists until proven otherwise, though I have yet to see one absolute example of that.)

[Rebelitarian]

How correct you are..!

As the "2000 Reform Party" (3rd party) presidential candidate put it...

"The Democrats and the Republicans are the two
wings of the same bird of prey, that is feasting
upon the Constitution and the American people."
~Pat Buchanan -- From his campaign speeches as the
Reform Party candidate for president in 2000.

JTCoyoté

I went to this one tea party website and I got banned within 2 weeks of posting there.  I went back and got banned again. Surprisingly there were a few who felt as I and they had left for other sites.  I mean even after I explained it to them how both parties are Bilderberg controlled they still wanted their Republican icons in there leading them. 

[citizenx]

September 8, 2010 by Creators.com
Two Multibillionaire Brothers Are Remaking America for Their Own Benefit
by Jim Hightower

There's a difference between being paranoid and being suspicious. Paranoia is mental disturbance; suspicion is a rational deduction.

For example, if you suspect that America's economy, politics, government, media, judiciary and practically every other system has been wired to favor corporate interests over every other interest in our country, you're deducing, not hallucinating. From the infamous Wall Street bailout to the Supreme Court's shameful decree that corporations have more political rights than humans, we see again and again that corporate might overwhelms what's right.

This is not by accident, but by the deliberate, relentless efforts of corporatists to bend our nation's institutions to their will. Take one huge corporation you've probably never heard of, even though your consumer dollars are financing its right-wing agenda.

Do you buy Northern tissue, Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups or Vanity Fair napkins? These well-known brands are owned and produced by Koch Industries (pronounced "coke") in Wichita, Kan. Koch is also a major producer of oil, gas, timber, coal, cattle, refined petroleum, asphalt, polyethylene plastic ... and much, much more.

Charles and David Koch, who control this family-owned empire, have a net worth of $14 billion each, ranking both in a tie for the 19th richest person on the planet. They boast of being "self-made" billionaires, though they had a little help from Daddy. Fred Koch started this namesake business, and his sons got a leg up on their climb to billionairedom by inheriting Fred's company. They also inherited something else: a burning ideological commitment to right-wing politics (Daddy Fred helped found the John Birch Society).

Charles and David have used the wealth they draw from Koch Industries to fuel a network of three Koch Family Foundations, which have set up and financed a secretive army of political operatives dedicated to achieving the brothers' antigovernment, corporate-controlled vision for America.

This force includes national and state-level think tanks, Astroturf front groups, academic shills, university centers, political-training programs, fundraising clearinghouses, publications, lobbyists and various other units useful to their ideological cause. They spend freely on dozens of ideologically grounded right-wing groups to influence schoolteachers and high-school curricula, state and federal judges, lawyers and legal scholars, conservative policy thinkers and media producers, city-council candidates and local party activists...



...Americans for Prosperity, the third-largest recipient of Koch foundation largesse, is the brothers' overtly political unit. Essentially, it is a front group for mass-producing front groups. Much like McDonald's churns out Big Mac franchises, AFP can pop out a grass-rootsy-looking, cookie-cutter political operation on demand. Its menu includes such garnishes as hoked-up studies, alarmist talking points, deceptive attack ads, divisive hate messages, celebrity and religious endorsers, and a menagerie of media stunts.

Consider the "tea bag" rebellion. No one professes more hatred for the two-party, business-as-usual political system in Washington than those angry Americans who're caught up in the tea-bag rallies. Yet unbeknownst to most of the mad-as-hellers who have showed up, it was AFP's Republican-tied lobbyists and political functionaries who cynically financed, organized and orchestrated the very first tea-bag protest. AFP has steadily co-opted the tea-bag faction to make it a front for the corporate agenda, and many of the tea-bag groups have devolved into subsidiaries of the Republican Party...



...It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you - and they are! While such corporate elites as the Kochs are a tiny minority of Americans, they are able to hide their own selfish agenda behind front groups, surreptitiously skewing our public debate, agenda and policies to serve themselves. Ultimately, what they are out to get is nothing less than America's essential uniting ethic of the common good, replacing our democracy with their corporate kleptocracy.


For whole article go to:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/08-6

[redeux]

I was there!  I can attest to it!   

yep... it was then fostered through C4L as a true grassroots movement to reform the rePUBICians....

[worcesteradam]

sounds like a conspiracy theory to me
maybe this Koch guy is a lizard man

[citizenx]

Koch guys, plural.

Maybe.