The Tea Party: brought to you by billionaires?
by Jean Martin
A feature in this week’s New Yorker magazine caught our eye. The subjects of the piece were a pair of billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch. Koch Industries is a conglomerate, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, whose annual revenues are estimated to be a hundred billion dollars. The Kochs operate oil refineries in Alaska, Texas, and Minnesota, and control some four thousand miles of pipeline. Koch Industries owns Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra, among other products.
Yes, folks, these are the same people who almost brought Gaylord, Michigan to its knees one Monday morning in 2006 when the first shift employees at Georgia-Pacific were told that they and the rest of the 210 employees were out of a job. Starting immediately.
Here is an except from the New Yorker article:
A few weeks after [a Koch supported] Lincoln Center gala, the advocacy wing of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation—an organization that David Koch started, in 2004—held a different kind of gathering.
Over the July 4th weekend, a summit called Texas Defending the American Dream took place in a chilly hotel ballroom in Austin. Though Koch freely promotes his philanthropic ventures, he did not attend the summit, and his name was not in evidence. And on this occasion the audience was roused . . . by a series of speakers denouncing President Barack Obama. Peggy Venable, the organizer of the summit, warned that Administration officials “have a socialist vision for this country.”
Five hundred people attended the summit, which served, in part, as a training session for Tea Party activists in Texas. . . . The White House has expressed frustration that such sponsors have largely eluded public notice.
David Axelrod, Obama’s senior adviser, said, “What they don’t say is that, in part, this is a grassroots citizens’ movement brought to you by a bunch of oil billionaires.”
A Republican campaign consultant who has done research on behalf of Charles and David Koch said of the Tea Party, “The Koch brothers gave the money that founded it. It’s like they put the seeds in the ground. Then the rainstorm comes, and the frogs come out of the mud—and they’re our candidates!”
To read the whole feature go to www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer.