Right-Wing Message For Sale
Whenever the conservative right attacks programs that help working people like Truddy Lowe, listen for the sound of a cash register.
According to a recent report from People for the American Way called "Buying A Movement: Right-Wing Foundations and American Politics," there's a well-organized conservative money machine financing far-right ideas that hurt working families in general and public employees in particular.
The money comes from five big foundations:
The Bradley Foundation, with assets exceeding $420 million from the sale of the Bradley family electronics company, was created by a former member of the John Birch Society, a kind of precursor to today's militia movement. In the 1960s, it charged that Pres. John F. Kennedy was a Soviet spy.
The Coors Foundation also financed the John Birch Society, and in 1973 created the Heritage Foundation. In 1978, the Coors Brewery broke its local of the Brewery, Bottling, Can and Allied Industrial Union, and in 1983, William Coors told a largely African American audience that "one of the best things they [slave traders] ever did for you is to drag your ancestors over here in chains."
The Koch Family Foundation was created by David and Charles Koch, whose oil and gas holdings comprise the second-largest private company in America, and uses its money exclusively to promote a free-market philosophy "to minimize the role of government and to maximize the role of the private economy."
The Olin Foundation grew out of a family manufacturing business and in 1988 alone gave over $55 million to promote supply-side economic and social policies. It supports right-wing writers and personalities such as Dinesh D'Souza.
The Scaife Family Foundations have given over $200 million in recent years to right-wing causes. The foundations were created by Richard Mellon Scaife, a member of the Mellon banking and oil family. University of Massachusetts professor Thomas Ferguson credits Scaife as having "as much to do with the Gingrich revolution as Gingrich himself."
A number of high-sounding "institutes" and think tanks routinely quoted on television, in newspapers, by elected officials and other public figures were funded or created by these foundations, including:
The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) supports arch-conservative "scholars" such as Charles Murray--who co-wrote the much- discredited "The Bell Curve," which claims to demonstrate the intellectual inferiority of African Americans.
The Heritage Foundation, considered the leading union-bashing conservative think tank in America, contributed substantially to Gingrich's "Contract With America."
The Cato Institute, closely allied with Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, is the leading libertarian think tank. It espouses supply-side economic policies and opposes activist government.
The Free Congress Research and Education Foundation, home of conservative operative Paul Weyrich, promotes term limits and other ways to weaken the people's right to representative government.
For the full report, contact People for the American Way, the 300,000-member progressive lobby opposed to policies of the extreme right, at (202) 467-4997, by mail at 2000 M St NW, Washington DC 20036, or via e-mail at pfaw@pfaw.org.
