For decades,the Koch brothers, billionaire heirs of one of the largest privately heldcompanies in the United States, have covertly sought to promote theirhard-right ideology through third parties, think tanks, foundations and frontgroups. Their late father, Fred, having earned a fortune assisting the nascentSoviet oil industry, eventually became a right-wing extremist and member of theJohn Birch Society. His sons, especially David Koch, have not only expanded thefamily business, but also infiltrated their father's political views into themainstream.
Happily forthem, the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars on nonprofit and"educational" ventures has served their corporate prioritiesperfectly. While Mayer cites many examples of self-serving Koch philanthropythat matches their more direct program of buying politicians and policies, theenterprise that is currently most pertinent is the tea party movement.
Although theKochs cannot be said to directly control the tea party outfits, they havesucceeded in infusing their priorities, strategies and ideas into the movementthrough an organization called Americans for Prosperity [which has a Wisconsinchapter]. Typically, a Koch Industries spokeswoman sought to deny that DavidKoch, his brother Charles, their company or their foundations have funded thetea partiesand technically that may be true. David Koch says he has neverattended a tea party event and that nobody representing the tea party "hasever even approached me."
TeaParty's Corporate Interests
It certainlyseems unlikely that David Koch has ever encountered any of the folks who turnup at a typical tea party event or that he has ever showed up at a congressionaltown hall meeting to scream about health care reform. He lives on Park Avenuein a 9,000-square-foot duplex apartment and spends his time cultivating elitistManhattan society with donations to New York cultural institutions, notably theballet. He used to divide his time between a yacht in the south of France and apalatial home in the Hamptons, where he hosted "an East Coast version ofHugh Hefner's soirees" in the clothes-optional Playboy mansion.
In short,Mr. Koch is not exactly a pitchfork populist and has no interest in minglingwith such unfashionable types. He also doesn't care much what they think. Aformer Koch adviser told The New Yorkerthat the Kochs back the tea party movement for the most cynical reasons."This right-wing, redneck stuff works for them. They see this as a way toget things done without getting dirty themselves."
The kind ofthings that the Kochs want to "get done"aside from advancing theirsocial profile in places like the Upper East Sidemostly involve reducing taxesand regulations on themselves and their companies.
If they hadtheir way, Social Security and Medicare would disappear tomorrow, and so wouldany other program that benefits families without a billion dollars at theirdisposal. So would the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air Act andevery other obstacle to corporations' massive effusions of deadly filth.Lately, they have been trying to prevent stricter regulation of formaldehyde, aknown carcinogen, because their company produces enormous amounts of the stufffor commercial use.
BruceBartlett, a conservative economist and historian who worked at one of the manyright-wing think tanks funded by Koch money, believes that the Koch brothersare "trying to shape and control and channel the populist uprising intotheir own policies." Perhaps the tea party activists should take a harderlook at those policiesand try to figure out whether the national interesttruly coincides with the avaricious, destructive attitude of these"libertarians."
© 2010 Creators.com
