The money behind the scenes
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010
Shadowy oligarchs pulling the strings behind the scenes…it sounds like the cliched plot of a political mystery novel, the kind you'd read on the beach, something with a dash of David Baldacci and a dose of Vince Flynn. But it's all true, as documented at length this week in The New Yorker, where reporter Jane Mayer chronicles the backstage manipulations of the billionaire Koch brothers, whose bottomless largess has helped create the tea-party movement. This article – which highlights the eternally troubling issue of big money in politics – is the best political read of the summer. Despite a certain dearth of perspective.
Charles and David Koch (oil, lumber, Dixie cups, all kinds of the stuff) are worth roughly $35 billion (the third largest personal fortune in America, behind Bill Gates and Warren Buffett). They have long protected their corporate interests by bankrolling dozens of conservative think tanks and groups with innocuous titles (Americans for Prosperity, Citizens for a Sound Economy), all dedicated to the libertarian proposition that government should do squat. Among political insiders, this far-flung ideological network is known as the Kochtopus. And there would be no tea-party movement without the millions of dollars in Kochtopus seed money, plus the training and organizing sessions conducted by groups financed by the Kochtopus.
Conservative economist Bruce Bartlett told the magazine, the Kochs are "trying to shape and control and channel the populist uprising into their own policies." And a Koch-affiliated tea-party official pointed out, "Ideas don't happen on their own. Throughout history, ideas need patrons."
Ideas need patrons – that's exactly right. But the article gives that theme remarkably short shrift. What about all the rich patrons who have bankrolled liberal and Democratic ideas?
While the Kochs are seriously, perhaps uniquely, formidable backstage players (their political spending far exceeds $250 million), a broader perspective is clearly required. The article does provide a little – albeit in a single paragraph, buried near the midpoint:
Of course, Democrats give money, too. Their most prominent donor, the financier George Soros, runs a foundation, the Open Society Institute, that has spent as much as a hundred million dollars a year in America. Soros has also made generous private contributions to various Democratic campaigns, including Obama’s. But Michael Vachon, his spokesman, argued that Soros’ giving is transparent, and that "none of his contributions are in the service of his own economic interests."
That struck me as a tad thin. Rich patrons have all kinds of interests, not merely economic; Soros himself has long financed liberal groups that share his belief that America should stress international cooperation rather than muscular unilateralism. He has been a major player, via his seed money, in the recent formation of a new liberal policy infrastructure, spearheaded by Washington groups like the Center for American Progress. Another liberal patron, insurance billionaire Peter Lewis, has helped bankroll these groups; in addition, Lewis in recent years has put up big money for a slew of marijuana decriminalization referenda. A rich investor named David Gelbaum has done sugar daddy duty at the Sierra Club and the American Civil Liberties Union.
The article might also have noted that Democrats for decades enjoyed the lavish bounty provided by TV producer Norman Lear, computer pioneer Max Palevsky, and Stewart Mott, who generously shared his General Motors money. Eugene McCarthy's antiwar presidential candidacy in 1968 may never have jelled without the crucial financial help of Stewart Mott.
Granted, the Koch brothers' power is impossible to ignore. They have even succeeded as puppeteers. Last year, their Americans for Prosperity group coined the term "Porkulus" as a descriptive for the Obama economic stimulus plan – and, sure enough, within weeks, conservative citizens were parroting the word in the comments they posted on political blogs. In some key respects, the ostensibly bottom-up tea-party movement is very top-down. The more the tea-partiers fulminate about "socialism," the better the Koch brothers' prospects of safeguarding their economic interests from federal oversight.
But liberals shouldn't seethe about the Kochs without at least acknowledging that all ideas are seeded by patrons, on the left as well as the right. This will always be true.
In fact, my own perspective on this issue was forever underscored in June of 2004, when I watched George Soros address a thousand giddy Washington liberals, all of whom had gathered in a hotel ballroom under the auspices of a group called Campaign for America's Future (a recipient of Soros money). They loved it when he boasted, "I've put my money where my mouth is." And they nodded approvingly when Senator Hillary Clinton stood and declared: "He's using his resources to make sure that his opinions are heard in the marketplace, and that is in the great American tradition!"
There it is. The Koch brothers would certainly agree.
Such a baddddd man.
U.S. financier George Soros has made a $100-million matching grant to Human Rights Watch through his New York-based Open Society Foundations.
The global recession has taken a heavy toll on humanitarian contributions.
"Our purpose is to promote the development of open societies or more open societies – that is, societies where more open points of view can be expressed, the rule of law is observed, minorities are treated fairly," says Aryeh Neier, president of Open Society Foundations. "Those are the general aims of the foundation."
A bad, bad man. An awful thing to do. Perhaps the Kochs can help.
From Frank Rich's rehash of Jane Mayer's recent hit piece on the philanthropizin' oilmen Charles and David Koch:
>quote>When David Koch ran to the right of Reagan as vice president on the 1980 Libertarian ticket (it polled 1 percent), his campaign called for the abolition not just of Social Security, federal regulatory agencies and welfare but also of the F.B.I., the C.I.A., and public schools — in other words, any government enterprise that would either inhibit his business profits or increase his taxes.
You might be wondering why the author thinks a campaign that wanted to abolish the FBI and CIA was "to the right of Reagan." It looks like Rich is just recycling Mayer's New Yorker story here: Mayer wrote that the Ed Clark/David Koch ticket "was running against Ronald Reagan from the right."
In fact, Clark is pretty much the sole Libertarian presidential nominee to have consciously presented himself as running from the left. (The only other case that even arguably comes close is Michael Badnarik, the party's standard-bearer in 2004, who played up his antiwar stances and established a friendly relationship with Green nominee David Cobb.) Clark told reporters he was a "low-tax liberal" (which, whatever else you think about it, rolls more trippingly off the tongue than "liberaltarian"); he issued white papers that presented a liberal-friendly, gradualist approach to shrinking the state; he got Eugene McCarthy to appear in a campaign ad and to write the intro to Clark's campaign book. (And then McCarthy turned around and endorsed Reagan, wrecking his lefty street cred. So it goes.) Frank Rich's description of what the "campaign called for" is drawn from the radical platform adopted by delegates at the Libertarian convention, not from the Clark/Koch campaign's own statements. Look at those and you'll find calls to reduce government spending to Kennedy-era levels, a suggestion that welfare need not be cut until unemployment is eliminated, and an education plan centered around the idea of a tax credit for "voluntary educational alternatives."
That was the Kochs' center-left side. In the Carter years, much of the brothers' libertarian largess went to projects with a far more left-wing flavor. Radical intellectuals and investigative journalists contributed to the Cato Institute's Inquiry magazine; Students for a Libertarian Society devoted most of its energy to opposing conscription and nuclear power. In June 1979, such activities prompted National Review to run its own contribution to the Koch-conspiracy oeuvre, featuring the immortal cover line "Anarchists, backed by corporate big money, infiltrate the freedom movement." Before Mayer was tracing the money trail from the Koch brothers to global warming skeptics, NR's Lawrence Cott was warning conservatives that Koch funds were linked to the Campaign to Stop Government Spying, the leftist Institute for Policy Studies, and members of "the apparat that exposed the American agent who was murdered in Athens." To give you a sense of how excitable Cott could be, that scary-sounding line about the "apparat" was a reference to some Inquiry contributors who had also written for the anti-CIA magazine CounterSpy.
If you combine the accurate elements of the Cott and Mayer articles, you'll have the rudiments of a much more interesting story, one that may begin with the brothers' Bircher background and end with the rise of the Tea Parties but will take some unexpected detours along the way. The new narrative wouldn't be so easy to fit into a simple left/right, Red/Blue framework, let alone the pinko conspiracies of Cott's imagination or the corpo-conservative cabals of Mayer's. But the tale just might tell you a few things about the vast world to be found outside the Crossfire format.
Jesse Walker
In 1999, Koch Industries was indicted on 97 counts of violating the Clean Air Act, and related criminal laws. Why? Because Koch's Corpus Christi oil refinery had dumped 91 tons of benzene, a carcinogen, into the environment.
Four Koch employees faced up to 35 years in prison. And Koch was liable for $350 million in fines.
But 2000 was an election year. So Koch dragged out the case, and spent $900,000 to help get George Bush and other Republicans elected. Not to mention doling out $20 million to right-wing think tanks, which churned out anti-Gore propaganda.
And guess what? Two months after John Ashcroft was sworn in as Bush's Attorney General, the Bush Administration settled the case for less than six cents on the dollar. John Ashcroft – the best Attorney General money could buy. The money that Koch spent on the 2000 campaign bought Koch a 'Get Out of Jail Free' card.
David Koch learned an important lesson about government in 2001. If you can't beat it, buy it.
From:
Rep. Alan Grayson
A Member of Congress should really have more respect for facts and logic. Rep. Grayson commits a basic logical fallacy here. Just because one thing happens after another, does not mean it happens because of it. The Koch case did not settle due to the election of Bush/appointment of Ashcroft.
A little research on Grayson's part would reveal that: 1) the case was settled by career staff at DOJ with no involvement from AG Ashcroft; 2) the case had to settle because the government lost a major motion in court; 3) Koch self-reported the lone count to which it ultimately pled guilty.
Why isn't it more reasonable to think, after all but 1 count out of 97 were dismissed, that perhaps there was improper political motivation for bringing the case in the first place?
Please show your source for your information regarding NO involvement of Ashcroft.
When you have serial polluter's like the Koch's who also finance Global Warming deniers, it is not a far cry to believe with all their funding of"like minded" politicians (those bought off)that they were let off the hook.
Some other of their "greatest hits"…
Koch Industries Environmental Record
On this page
Page – March 29, 2010
The Koch companies have a notorious environmental record.
Some of the more egregious examples include:
* In 2009, the US Justice Department and EPA announced in 2009 that Koch Industries' Invista subsidiary would pay a $1.7 million penalty and spend $500 million to fix environmental violations at facilities in seven states, in an agreement with the US EPA and Department of Justice.
* In May 2001, Koch Industries paid $25 million to settle with the US Government over a long-standing suit brought by Bill Koch – one of the brothers bought out in 1983 – for the company's long-standing practice of illegally removing oil from federal and Indian lands.
* In late 2000, the company was charged with covering up the illegal releases of 91 tons of the known carcinogen benzene from its refinery in Corpus Christi. Initially facing a 97-count indictment and potential fines of $350 million, Koch cut a deal with then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to drop all major charges in exchange for a guilty plea for falsifying documents, and a $20 million settlement.
* In 2000, the EPA fined Koch Industries $30 million for its role in 300 oil spills that resulted in more than three million gallons of crude oil leaking into ponds, lakes, streams and coastal waters.
* In 1999 a Koch subsidiary pleaded guilty to charges that it had negligently allowed aviation fuel to leak into waters near the Mississippi River from its refinery in Rosemount, Minnesota, and that it had illegally dumped a million gallons of high-ammonia wastewater onto the ground and into the Mississippi.
* Koch's negligence toward environmental safety has led to tragic losses of life. In 1996, a rusty Koch pipeline leaked flammable butane near a Texas residential neighborhood. Warned by the smell of gas, two teenagers drove their truck toward the nearest payphone to call for help, but they never made it. Sparks from their truck ignited the gas cloud and the two burned alive. The National Transportation Safety Board determined that "the probable cause of this accident was the failure of Koch to adequately protect its pipeline from corrosion" and the ineffectiveness of Koch's program to educate local residents about how to respond during a pipeline leak.
So, Mark, is it reasonable to believe that all those cases with convictions were only "improperly politically motivated?"
Does NOT sound "reasonable" to me! You may want to learn the definition of reasonable, Mark.
"The Koch brothers go to great lengths to hide their contributions. Really? How?
By serving on the boards of, and often chairing the boards of, the Cato Insstitue, the Reason Foundation, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Americans for Prosperity and other groups they fund?
By running for Vice President on the Libertarian Party ticket?
By funding a scholarship, a public policy internship and a public policy fellowship that bears their name?
By listing all of those activities in their corporate biographies as well as on their biographies provided by their charitable trust?
Yep, just hiding in the background they are.
I find this all to be a joke. Leftists are obsessed with the influence of money when it doesn't accrue to their benefit. Right wingers are obsessed with money in politics when it doesn't accrue to theirs. Someone like Mayer is just a disingenuous ideologue throwing out red meat for the stupid left as surely as the innumerable people obsessed with Soros are on the right. She's not a part of any solution, she's part of the problem.
Do not confuse Dick Polman with a Liberal. After listening to him on Radio Times this morning, I believe he does more harm than good when he is ostensibly put in that position as counter to the conservative voice. Like many a mainstream news person, he does his best to be balanced at the expense of liberalism. To wit; conflating the influence of the monies of Soros on the left and the Koch's on the right.Anyone who knew the history of the activism favoring democracy that Soros has fought for with his fortune and the Capitalistic selfism of the Koch's political causes- designed always to enhance their corporate holdings at the expense of society- more pollution , deregulation in order to destroy land and pay no price for it, pay less if any taxes.
So these very different personalities and ambitions were offhandedly posed as just 2 sides of a same coin by Polman. No wonder "Liberals" are in trouble. Dick- get the clue.
Typical blog technique: get all the points intellectually tangled. Revelations about the Koch Bros. means that this is an opportunity to beat up the Left? That's what he's trying to 'pull' here, and I spit it back! Sure he makes some valid points about the Left, but this blog posting is awful lacking in putting any heat onto the Koch Bros., or any of the monied influences of the Corporate Media Industry [very much leaning Right], or the insane influence games of the Repubs. over the last decade – Enron, Tom Delay, Jack Abramof,[sp.?] GE/NBC, NEWS CORP/FOX NEWS.
Another poster commented on how the Left is much more forward about their support. Why is the covert ways of the Right's cash influence always a reason to beat on the Left whenever it is pointed out.
Did WHYY hire a Conservative for this position? If so, I will work to get you fired! Why is the public never consulted before positions like this are created? And you want my donations?
Please check the lean to the Right on Fri.'s Radio Times 'Political Analysis' show!
F.I. : I think the term "puppeteers" would be more appropriate to the Kochs than Soros simply because, unlike a real puppeteer, Soros is upfront with his support when you see his face in front of events (or with his name attached to them). Have you ever seen the Kochs hand-in-hand with Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann at one of their events? Soros could simply be just an egomaniac, but at least you know who's involved. We only know the Kochs are involved because good reporting has dug it out over time.
which is why we need full disclosure for campaign ads. The argument put forth when the DISCLOSE act was shot down was that "well, you can look up the funding for these groups". Yes, you can – if you can invest hundreds of hours and don't care to know until a year after the election.
So does this make Dick Armey their "community organizer"?
swedesboromike: from the last blog – no, you didn't get me fired up. But as usual, I went to the source material. Yes, the IAC had some (valid) criticisms. And yes, they made some recomendations. And yes, they said that the key recommendations in the IPCC climate report "are well supported by the scientific evidence." Oops. Sorry.
Pedro say, Chilli today, Hot Tamale.
btw, was I supposed to make inane comments about global warming during this, our hottest summer ever recorded, like you did last winter every time it got cold for two consecutive days?
If I remember correctly, Soros also was actively involved in supporting the Kerry candidacy. I commend Polman for pointing out that both conservatives and progressives have big money supporters, but I do feel, as other posts have noted, that the fact that Soros is fairly up front about his activities is an important distinction.
Puhleeeeeeeeeeeze! Whether or not he or they are up front about it is PERFECTLY irrelevant.
If total disclosure were important, then you should be grateful to the Koch's simply for allowing an alternative voice to be heard.
I mean, let's face it, the IQ-deprived, blinkered left OWNS academia, the dinosaur media, most of the print media, much of the bureaucracy…not to mention both houses of Congress and the White House. (Oh. Oooopsss…I forgot: making the same criticism about Obama that the nitwit lefties made about Bush for EIGHT YEARS … is racism.)
I love the nitwit lefty reasoning: the nitwit (Soros) who openly and honestly supports an ideology responsible for more than 120 million violent or excruciating deaths in the 20th century is your hero.
Then, of course, the guy who stealthily and quietly supports your right to be the idiot you are, is the one you revile.
I guess your OTHER great heroes are sweeties like Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden — you know, the OTHER guys who were/are perfectly open and honest about their psychotic ideas to take over the world and murder everyone who disagrees with them.
You lefties are pathetic.
Oh the manipulation of the masses by the moneyed elite…is there anything more American than that?
*Correction: monied
I read Polman's opening sentence about "shadowy oligarchs pulling the strings behind the scenes" and thought I'd be reading about George Soros and the way he has insinuated himself into the democratic party. OK… actually, I thought no such thing for Polam is utterly predictable in whom he targets.
And perhaps I was a bit unfair, since Polman does identify Soros. But why is the "puppeteer" epithet reserved for conservatives?
A puppeteer controls the puppet, usually sight unseen, or at the least- not meant to appear to be controlling the puppet.
And that is why the Koch's are puppeteers- they do not show themselves, nor want any direct association publicly with their "presentations".
Soros, on the other hand, is out front, not controlling behind the scene. By the way, Soros is a freedom fighter, he fought and contributed millions of dollars to bring down communism in his native country of Hungry and funding and promoting democracy in Poland,Czechoslovakia, Soviet Union.
Polman writes " The more the tea-partiers fulminate about "socialism," the better the Koch brothers' prospects of safeguarding their economic interests from federal oversight."…………… huh? dixie cups, lumber, oil….. Maybe they want to support candidates who will allow people to keep their wages so they can afford their products. But aren't there countless agencies that already regulate the industries the Koch's are involved with? Moreover, at least the Koch's actually mfg something unlike Soros' manipulation of currency. Just a thought
In a free society, it's impossible to prevent money from promoting ideas. However, I do think that Mayer's point about transparency is a serious one. The Koch brothers go to great lengths to hide their contributions, while Soros publicly states his. If you have something to hide, then you're probably doing something dishonest. It doesn't help that the ideas the Kochs are promoting are the product of the silly, simple-minded version of libertarianism associated with Ayn Rand.