Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
A recent report published by the Center for Media and Democracy has alleged that there is a network of think tanks across this country that has been “quietly pushing the agenda of right-wing groups with funding from Koch brothers-affiliated organizations.” The umbrella organization that these sixty-four think tanks are collaborating with is called the State Policy Network (SPN)—“a nonprofit that nurtures conservative think tanks in all fifty states.”
From SPN’s website:
Founded in 1992 by Tom Roe at the urging of Ronald Reagan, State Policy Network is the only group in the country dedicated solely to improving the practical effectiveness of independent, non-profit, market-oriented, state-focused think tanks. SPN’s programs enable these organizations to better educate local citizens, policy makers and opinion leaders about market-oriented alternatives to state and local policy challenges.
According to the Center for Media and Democracy’s report, SPN and its “member think tanks” promote an “extreme right-wing agenda” that is much the same as that of “David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity, Charles Koch’s Cato Institute, and Koch’s Citizens for a Sound Economy spin-off FreedomWorks–all of which happen to be associate members of ALEC.”
Lisa Graves, the director of the Center for Media and Democracy, claimed that the individual think tanks that are members of the SPN network “present themselves as ‘neutral, non-partisan groups, but are in fact part of a national network to project the voices and interests of some of the most powerful corporations and families in the country.’” During a conference call with reporters, Graves said that “these groups are extraordinarily influential.”
Media Matters reported that SPN is an active member of ALEC—and added that thirty-four of its members “are directly linked back to ALEC.” It was also reported that all of the think tanks in SPN’s network “push parts of ALEC’s agenda in their respective states.” SPN has also been a sponsor of ALEC’s annual meeting for the last three years.
From Media Matters:
According to the Center for Media and Democracy, SPN groups have drafted model legislation attacking worker and environmental protections in several states, including Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Texas, and Washington. The Center notes that the Arizona-based SPN affiliate, The Goldwater Institute, has three model bills on its website attempting to attack the Affordable Care Act at the state level, while another would treat any gun control legislation at the federal level as the “equivalent of a federal crime.” John Loredo, former Minority Leader of the Arizona House of Representatives, described the Goldwater Institute as “corporate mercenaries who push their agenda at every level of government.”
The Guardian recently reported that Gordon Lafer, a professor at the University of Oregon, had done research on SPN and its affiliated groups. He found that they “were actively targeting the rights of often non-unionised employees.” Lafer said that his research “had uncovered attempts to expand the use of child labour, cut the minimum wage, reduce unemployment benefit, make it harder to sue employers for sex or race discrimination, or even to police wage theft where companies refused to pay workers over-time or any wages at all.”
At a gathering of GOP donors in San Francisco just days after President Obama had been re-elected, Grover Norquist told those in attendance that with the help of SPN Republican governors might be able to “turn their states into Texas or Hong Kong.” He added, “It’s a wonderful opportunity.”
In his article for The Nation titled The Right Leans In: Media-savvy conservative think tanks take aim and fire at progressive power bases in the states, Lee Fang wrote the following:.
These media-savvy organizations—which frequently employ former journalists to churn out position papers, news articles, investigations and social media content with a hard-right slant—bolster the pro-corporate lobbying efforts of the American Legislative Exchange Council.
Like ALEC, State Policy Network groups provide an ideological veil for big businesses seeking to advance radical deregulatory policy goals.
Lisa Graves was quoted by Politico as saying, “These aren’t just little think tanks that are doing nonpartisan research based on what’s happening in the state and really reflective of the culture of those states. These are a lot of groups that put together pretty cooked books on the issues they are peddling and have been criticized in state after state for how shoddy their research has been.”
Major Funders of SPN
The SPN network is said to have an annual “war chest” of more than $80 million, which comes from some well-known donors—including the Koch brothers, Philip Morris, Kraft Foods, GlaxoSmithKline, Facebook, Microsoft, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon. Other major donors: Roe Foundation, Bradley Foundation, Castle Rock Foundation, Scaife Foundations, Walton Family Foundation, Art Pope, and Searle Freedom Trust.
The Center for Media and Democracy notes that “the largest known funder behind SPN and its member think tanks are two closely related funds — DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund.” Mother Jones published an article about Donors Trust last February. Andy Kroll, the author of the article, called Donors Trust “the dark-money ATM of the conservative movement.”
Kroll:
Founded in 1999, Donors Trust (and an affiliated group, Donors Capital Fund) has raised north of $500 million and doled out $400 million to more than 1,000 conservative and libertarian groups, according to Whitney Ball, the group’s CEO. Donors Trust allows wealthy contributors who want to donate millions to the most important causes on the right to do so anonymously, essentially scrubbing the identity of those underwriting conservative and libertarian organizations. Wisconsin’s 2011 assault on collective bargaining rights? Donors Trust helped fund that. ALEC, the conservative bill mill? Donors Trust supports it. The climate deniers at the Heartland Institute? They get Donors Trust money, too.
Donors Trust is not the source of the money it hands out. Some 200 right-of-center funders who’ve given at least $10,000 fill the group’s coffers. Charities bankrolled by Charles and David Koch, the DeVoses, and the Bradleys, among other conservative benefactors, have given to Donors Trust. And other recipients of Donors Trust money include the Heritage Foundation, Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, the NRA’s Freedom Action Foundation, the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, the Federalist Society, and the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, chaired (PDF) by none other than David Koch.
Media Mouthpiece for the Right-Wing Agenda
In February the Center for Public Integrity published an article by Paul Abowd titled Donors use charity to push free-market policies in states: Nonprofit group lets donors fly ‘totally under the radar’. Abowd reported that, in 2009, “a network of online media outlets began popping up in state capitals across the nation, each covering the news from a clearly conservative point of view. What wasn’t so clear was how they were funded.”
Michael Moroney, a spokesman for the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity—the think tank that created the outlets, said, “The source is 100 percent anonymous.” According to IRS records, 95% of the Franklin Center’s 2011 revenue came from Donors Trust.
In 2011, Sara Jerving (PR Watch) wrote about the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity’s “rushing to fill the gap” in 2009 as newsrooms across the country were cutting staff “due in part to slipping ad revenue and corporate media conglomeration.” At the time her article was published, the aforementioned network had “43 state news websites, with writers in over 40 states.” Jerving said the network’s reporters had “been given state house press credentials” and that its news articles were “starting to appear in mainstream print newspapers in each state.” Jerving added, “The websites all offer their content free to local press — many of the news bureaus send out their articles to state editors every day. The sites also offer free national stories that media can receive daily by subscribing.”
According to Jerving, the screening process for writers of these media outlets is not like that of other “journalistic outlets.” For example, she said the Wisconsin Reporter asked applicants “ideological questions.” She added that the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based school and resource for journalists, had reported that Wisconsin Reporter applicants were asked to answer questions such as the following: “How do free markets help the poor?” and “Do higher taxes lead to balanced budgets?”
Jerving wrote that the journalistic integrity of Franklin Center’s media sites had been called into question by media watchdog groups. She reported that “Laura McGann, assistant editor at the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University, wrote in a 2010 piece in the Washington Monthly, that the Franklin Center sites are engaging in distorted reporting across the country. As often as not, their reporting is thin and missing important context, which occasionally leads to gross distortions.” Jerving said that McGann pointed out several instances where the center’s “Watchdog websites wrote stories that turned out to be misleading or untrue.” McGann also said, “This sort of misleading reporting crops up on Watchdog sites often enough to suggest that, rather than isolated instances of sloppiness, it is part of a broad editorial strategy.”
Despite the kinds of misleading stories published by the Wisconsin Reporter, it has “gained traction in the state.” Jerving said that its stories “have been picked up by a host of local media outlets in the state, such as La Crosse Tribune, Eau Claire’s Leader Telegram, Wausau Daily Herald, Steven’s Point Journal, Chippewa Herald, and Beloit Daily News.”
Excerpt from the Center for Media and Democracy’s report:
SPN works in parallel with the American Legislative Exchange Council, Alec, a forum that brings together largely Republican legislators and corporations to devise model bills that are used to attack workers’ rights in various US states.
Some of SPN members’ destructive agenda items include:
- Education: Defund and privatize public schools through voucher programs, charter school expansion, and giving tax credits to corporations that fund private schools
- Healthcare: Block access to affordable healthcare by working against the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid expansion
- Workers’ Rights: Restrict workers’ collective bargaining rights by pushing anti-worker measures such as so-called “Right to Work” and paycheck deception, and undermine public workers’ negotiated retirement security by switching to risky defined-contribution pension plans
- Energy & the Environment: Oppose renewable, clean energy sources, while promoting fossil fuels and advocating for the repeal of pollution restrictions and environmental protections
- Taxes: Create a tax system that benefits those at the very top and lowers taxes on corporations, while pushing measures such as flat or supposedly “fair” tax programs that cost workers more in marginal dollars, or replacing the income tax with a higher sales tax, all of which disproportionately raise the relative tax rate on middle and working class families
- Government Spending: Cut government spending on essential services and public programs
- Wages & Income Equality: Oppose raising the minimum wage, and in some cases urge the repeal of minimum wage, living wage, and prevailing wage laws
NOTE: Thanks go to Gene Howington for introducing me to the State Policy Network via The Guardian article–and for suggesting that I might be interested in writing a post on the subject.
SOURCES
Meet The Little-Known Network Pushing Ideas For Kochs, ALEC (Huffington Post)
Something Stinks at the State Policy Network (Center for Media and Democracy)
SPN: The $83 Million Right-Wing Empire Helping to Hijack State Politics and Government (Sourcewatch)
State Policy Network (Right Wing Watch)
State Policy Network (SPN) – Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group (Greenpeace)
Corporate Money in Network of Right-Wing State Policy Think Tanks (Nonprofit Quarterly)
Shadowy Right-Wing Group Generates Media Coverage For Conservative Policy From Coast To Coast (Media Matters)
The Right Leans In: Media-savvy conservative think tanks take aim and fire at progressive power bases in the states. (The Nation)
2009 The KOCH Cabal Launched Nationwide non-profit News Bureau: Franklin Center (Daily Kos)
Report: Think tanks tied to Kochs (Politico)
Donors use charity to push free-market policies in states: Nonprofit group lets donors fly ‘totally under the radar’ (Center for Public Integrity)
Franklin Center: Right-Wing Funds State News Source (Truth-Out)
The Koch brothers’ media investment [UPDATED] (Columbia Journalism Review)
TD: “Don’t for a minute think that this expose is a simple creature of the Right Wing, there are equal machines operating on the left (Bloomberg & his buddies anybody?) – and they are just as committed to protecting there money and controlling the people as the Koch brothers are.”
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How about some specificity and cites because I grow weary of the unsubstantiated ‘both sides do it’ false equivalency. Social justice, a strong (organized) and thriving worker class, progressive taxes and well regulated business’ do not benefit the capital class. I do not hear those advocate’s voices let alone hundreds of those voices speaking from the same talking points. I do not see states, even blue states, organizing themselves around a slate of similar liberal principles and goals. I don’t see the equality you mention.
RobinH45,
I was thinking today if my property was free of that parvo (sic) dog deasease crap & if I could start raising dogs again.
Ya know German Shepards are very smart, they deserve a speical owner that knows who they are, but with some people well, maybe Jesus loves them & will bring them a Blue Healer instead!
i’ve been saying this for many years now.. @ rafflaw no alec isnt fighting against obama he is their stooge its who they all hide behind. just as every potus since eisenhower. like everything else they only give the illusion of opposing obama. its how they keep the people divided….
what is left out of this article is any and every think tank out here is under the direction of tavistock. they make no moves with consent and directions from tavistock and the u.n. thats been a well known fact for years also.. or maybe i should say its been a well known fact to those of us called conspiracy theorist. another word made up by tavistock to keep the people from seeing the truth.
there will be no ceo(potus) after obama at least not for long… having a ceo for every country goes against the one world agenda they spent 100s of years implementing.. What we are currently seeing is the last stages of the agenda and that is why they no longer care who knows what… They ( screwillionaires) dont feel they have to hide, lie, or fake terrorist attacks anymore.. There are now only 4 countries in the world that doesnt have a rothchild bank installed. there were 5 #5 being syria but recent actions and attacks against syria has ensured that a rothchilds bank will be installed very soon…
It is now time for them to enforce the 4 countries left. and just as with syria they can do it quietly or thru wars and terror attacks but do it they will. and these think tanks will continue to shape public opinion to fit their agenda
Coke vs Pepsi
While ALEC is an evil entity, Obama is no better. They just represent different sides of Wall Street.
Felix,
I don’t understand why you compare ALEC to Obama? ALEC is all about doing everything it can its power to stop any Obama program or legislation. Are you talking about the Obama Administration controlling their message too?
Felix,
We will know more once he leaves office and we learn who he decides to go to work for. Hopefully, he will sit at home to write books and play a little golf. However, my concern is his interests will take a different turn.
If you didnt look at the names and parties you would think Obama was part of ALEC
IS IKEA THE NEW MODEL FOR THE CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT?
POSTED BY JANE MAYER
11/15/13
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/11/is-ikea-the-new-model-for-the-conservative-movement.html
Excerpt:
In every state in the country, there is at least one ostensibly independent “free-market” think tank that is part of something called the State Policy Network— there are sixty-four in all, ranging from the Pelican Institute, in Louisiana, to the Freedom Foundation, in Washington State. According to a new investigative report by the Center for Media and Democracy, a liberal watchdog group, however, the think tanks are less free actors than a coördinated collection of corporate front groups—branch stores, so to speak—funded and steered by cash from undisclosed conservative and corporate players. Although the think tanks have largely operated under the radar, the cumulative enterprise is impressively large, according to the report. In 2011, the network funnelled seventy-nine million dollars into promoting conservative policies at the state level.
Tracie Sharp, the president of the S.P.N., promptly dismissed the report as “baseless allegations.” She told Politico, “There is no governing organization dictating what free market think tanks research or how they educate the public about good public policy.”
But notes provided to The New Yorker on what was said during the S.P.N.’s recent twenty-first-annual meeting raise doubts about Sharp’s insistence that each of the think tanks is, as she told me, “fiercely independent.” The notes show that, behind closed doors, meeting with some eight hundred people from the affiliated state think tanks, Sharp compared the organization’s model to that of the giant global chain IKEA.
At the annual meeting, which took place in Oklahoma City this past September 24th through 27th, Sharp explained what she called The IKEA Model. She said that it starts with what she described as a “catalogue” showing “what success would look like.” Instead of pictures of furniture arranged in rooms, she said, S.P.N.’s catalogue displays visions of state policy projects that align with the group’s agenda. That agenda includes opposing President Obama’s health-care program and climate-change regulations, reducing union protections and minimum wages, cutting taxes and business regulations, tightening voting restrictions, and privatizing education. “The success we show is you guys,” she told the assembled state members. “Here’s how we win in your state.”
Sharp went on to say that, like IKEA, the central organization would provide “the raw materials,” along with the “services” needed to assemble the products. Rather than acting like passive customers who buy finished products, she wanted each state group to show the enterprise and creativity needed to assemble the parts in their home states. “Pick what you need,” she said, “and customize it for what works best for you.”
During the meeting, Sharp also acknowledged privately to the members that the organization’s often anonymous donors frequently shape the agenda. “The grants are driven by donor intent,” she told the gathered think-tank heads. She added that, often, “the donors have a very specific idea of what they want to happen.” She said that the donors also sometimes determined in which states their money would be spent.
Lee Fang exposes the State Policy Network & corporate domination of public policy
4/9/13
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/09/1200332/-Lee-Fang-exposes-the-State-Policy-Network-corporate-domination-of-public-policy
Excerpt:
The decline of media outlets doing serious journalism has created a supreme opportunity for this coalition of groups. Into the void created by the demise of major newspapers and the investigative reporting they do, SPN-affiliated think tanks have rushed to own that space. The result is that we can no longer trust much of what we read in the media:
As Joe Strupp of Media Matters has reported, the Franklin Center’s stated mission is to take advantage of cutbacks at local papers: “Cash-strapped and under-staffed, local and regional newspapers often can’t provide the real information that voters need to make good decisions.” Strupp, who interviewed several local editors who reluctantly run the center’s syndicated content, noted that some stories covered by the group—including one claiming that a union traded free barbecue for votes in Wisconsin—turned out to be false…
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Their domination of the mediasphere includes the creation of media wire services to disseminate their propaganda. It’s revolutionary and unmatched by anything being done by the left:
MediaTrackers.org sites and news outlets mirroring Wisconsin Reporter now exist in states across the country, augmenting the advocacy of the expanded Americans for Prosperity and SPN chapters. “There’s no counterweight,” says Lisa Graves, head of the Center for Media and Democracy, a watchdog group in Madison. Graves notes that Wisconsin Reporter, among the other Franklin Center news sites set up in more than two dozen states, has acted as a syndication service, providing right-leaning news coverage to local media. “There’s no progressive wire service,” she adds.
Some of the groups working together in this network will be familiar, of course: ALEC, Americans for Prosperity, and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Others like the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the Free State Foundation, MediaTrackers.org, and the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity are probably not so familiar. These groups often do the dirty work for their corporate sponsors, spending their contributions on “issue” campaigns that, at the end of the day, fatten their bottom lines.
Another good job Elaine. Follow the money and you will find a lot of creepy crawling creatures involved in stealing from the poor and giving it to the rich.
great post, Elaine
i’m going to read up a bit more on this. although the part “Founded in 1992 by Tom Roe at the urging of Ronald Reagan” sounds like they’re trying to tie it to the corpse of saint ronnie.
Yes, I do understand that libertarians come in different flavors. Some bemoan government control of anything – including corporations.
Others (I would like to think the enlightened) see corporations as artificial constructions on par with government and just as big (or bigger) threat to fundamental liberty, and thus needing the same sorts of checks and balances (I.E. Regulations) established as we would have for government to prevent Corporations from abusing their power and thus the people.
Methinks it is the corrupting influences of such as the Koch Bros. et al who are responsible for the numbers of misinformed libertarians in the first category.
Of course – that’s just my opinion, I do understand that there are many who would argue with me. Those are the people I would call “wrong” lmao…
As far as religion and power goes – these people use religion the same way that people in power have always used religion, as a means to their ends. If the polls showed that a majority of American worshipped the Flying Spaghetti Monster – you would have to stand away from the doors lest you be trampled by the rush of politicians looking to demonstrably convert.
You can tell by their actions exactly how pious & religious most of these politicians are (NOT!) but religion has always been an easy way to curry favor with a large segment of people, to exploit the us vs them mentality that politicians and the power hungry LOVE. So religion, whatever the dominant form is in most of the country, will always be a tool of the savvy politico regardless of their personal belief systems (which seem to be dominated by power and greed if history and experience is much of a teacher)
“Libertarians are no more for corporate control in government or anything else than they are for government control of their lives.”
You should tell that to the fairly regular cadre of self identifying libertarians parading through here who bemoan every attempt to regulate corporations, TD.
Excellent column, Elaine. Truly one of your top shelf entries.
Ah yes, those evil libertarians up to their mischief again… We can not have that.
The simple truth is that these corporate funded monsterous creations are usurping the political process from BOTH sides of the aisle (& often with little core difference between the outcomes to the Everyman). As long as we continue to treat corporations as natural “People” and accord them the same constitutional protections – this is the result – from both sides, from all sides. You make the individual constituent, even in the collective, virtually irrellivant because he (they) can never compete with the funding that the corporate donor can generate, and this the power that corporate donor can wield.
It is an exceedingly Simple and yet incontrovertible economic fact.
Once we allowed and accepted this corporate corruption of our political process we assured an infective process that would be virtually incurable through the normal political processes that it has corrupted. And even now, we can see the machine taking all the steps that are necessary to protect itself from the final recourses that the founding fathers left open to the people should the oppression of government become intolerable. The rise of the warrior cop culture, the militarization of all federal, state and local agencies with even a modicum of police power, the pervasive surveillance state, the preparations to shut down the Internet and other forms of communication to stop dissent or insurrection, the loss of liberties, the preparations by the government to deal with a rise in domestic terrorism that is an emergency of their own creation. Domestic Drones… Do I even need to go on?
The corporate funded and driven perversion of our government is gearing up to protect itself from the same “people” it is supposed to be “by, for, and of”…
Don’t for a minute think that this expose is a simple creature of the Right Wing, there are equal machines operating on the left (Bloomberg & his buddies anybody?) – and they are just as committed to protecting there money and controlling the people as the Koch brothers are.
And don’t for a minute think that because they use a “Libertarian” label that they are libertarian in their agenda. Libertarians are no more for corporate control in government or anything else than they are for government control of their lives.
julieanneda,
I just found this:
The educational charities that do PR for the rightwing ultra-rich
Billionaires control the political conversation by staying hidden and paying others to promote their brutal agendas
By George Monbiot
The Guardian, Monday 18 February 2013
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/18/charities-pr-rightwing-ultra-rich
Excerpt:
Conspiracies against the public don’t get much uglier than this. As the Guardian revealed last week, two secretive organisations working for US billionaires have spent $118m to ensure that no action is taken to prevent manmade climate change. While inflicting untold suffering on the world’s people, their funders have used these opaque structures to ensure that their identities are never exposed.
The two organisations – the Donors’ Trust and the Donors’ Capital Fund – were set up as political funding channels for people handing over $1m or more. They have financed 102 organisations which either dismiss climate science or downplay the need to take action. The large number of recipients creates the impression of many independent voices challenging climate science. These groups, working through the media, mobilising gullible voters and lobbying politicians, helped to derail Obama’s cap and trade bill and the climate talks at Copenhagen. Now they’re seeking to prevent the US president from trying again.
This covers only part of the funding. In total, between 2002 and 2010 the two identity-laundering groups paid $311m to 480 organisations, most of which take positions of interest to the ultra-rich and the corporations they run: less tax, less regulation, a smaller public sector. Around a quarter of the money received by the rightwing opinion swarm comes from the two foundations. If this funding were not effective, it wouldn’t exist: the ultra-rich didn’t get that way by throwing their money around randomly. The organisations they support are those that advance their interests.
A small number of the funders have been exposed by researchers trawling through tax records. They include the billionaire Koch brothers (paying into the two groups through their Knowledge and Progress Fund) and the DeVos family (the billionaire owners of Amway). More significantly, we now know a little more about the recipients. Many describe themselves as free-market or conservative thinktanks.
Among them are the American Enterprise Institute, American Legislative Exchange Council, Hudson Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Reason Foundation, Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity, Mont Pelerin Society and Discovery Institute. All pose as learned societies, earnestly trying to determine the best interests of the public. The exposure of this funding reinforces the claim by David Frum, formerly a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, that such groups “increasingly function as public relations agencies”.
One name in particular jumped out at me: American Friends of the IEA. The Institute of Economic Affairs is a British group that, like all the others, calls itself a free-market thinktank. Scarcely a day goes by when its staff aren’t interviewed in the broadcast media, promoting the dreary old billionaires’ agenda: less tax for the rich, less help for the poor, less spending by the state, less regulation for business. In the first 13 days of February, its people were on the BBC 10 times.
Private government = monarchy.
Conservative = traditionalist, i.e., disenfranchise blacks, women, renters, wage labor, the poor to maintain social stability for an aristocracy. That’s the conservative policy direction in the US. In the absence of hereditary orders, we here have advocacy for an aristocracy of wealth.
This was by design. None of the founders wanted democracy — except Jefferson who wasn’t even in the country when the Constitution was drafted and ratified.
It makes no difference that the rhetoric of entrepreneurialism relates to an era that went extinct in the 19th Century, before organized industry (and hence the need for labor representation, since the interests of labor were left out of the Constitution by the “representatives” in Philadelphia, who by and large profited from capital exclusively, insofar as they owned labor, collected rent, or financed deals, or traded goods made by others).
Hamilton’s argument against a Bill of Rights is telling:
“It has been several times truly remarked that bills of rights
are, in their origin, stipulations between kings and their subjects,
abridgements of prerogative in favor of privilege, reservations of
rights not surrendered to the prince. Such was MAGNA CHARTA,
obtained by the barons, sword in hand, from King John…..”
“I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and
to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only
unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be
dangerous. ”
— Federalist 84
julieanneda,
The answer to your question is “yes,” There is credible support for common funding. Many of the super rich are more like multinational cartels than individual citizens of any given country. They don’t get screened by TSA, and in fact, get little hassle–if any–by customs. Their interests are not the same as ordinary citizens, and in fact, not necessarily the same as their governments. Governments are a means to an end. Mike Spindell has written about sociopaths and psychopaths, and his points are well taken. One of these days, I will try to summarize what is known about criminal personalities. Unfortunately, much of it sounds like the average CEO job description.
I would try to find some sources, but my brain hung out a ‘closed’ sign an hour ago.
So, we have unelected people writing laws and elected people acting as their toadies. For what price? What is a corporatocracy and a theocracy combined called? I ask because I don’t know which one, the Religious Right or Big Money Corporations are more desperate to turn our Representative Democracy into something else entirely. I find it amazing that the two seem to be working hand in hand. Ayn Rand the athiest influencing good Christian businessmen, how does this happen? How do they reconcile the two philosophies?
The same is happening in the UK are any ties discernible between the funders?