Frank Rich:The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party

[Me.]

“ANOTHER weekend, another grass-roots demonstration starring Real Americans who are mad as hell and want to take back their country from you-know-who. Last Sunday the site was Lower Manhattan, where they jeered the “ground zero mosque.” This weekend, the scene shifted to Washington, where the avatars of oppressed white Tea Party America, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, were slated to “reclaim the civil rights movement” (Beck’s words) on the same spot where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had his dream exactly 47 years earlier.

There’s just one element missing from these snapshots of America’s ostensibly spontaneous and leaderless populist uprising: the sugar daddies who are bankrolling it, and have been doing so since well before the “death panel” warm-up acts of last summer. Three heavy hitters rule. You’ve heard of one of them, Rupert Murdoch. The other two, the brothers David and Charles Koch, are even richer, with a combined wealth exceeded only by that of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett among Americans. But even those carrying the Kochs’ banner may not know who these brothers are.

Their self-interested and at times radical agendas, like Murdoch’s, go well beyond, and sometimes counter to, the interests of those who serve as spear carriers in the political pageants hawked on Fox News. The country will be in for quite a ride should these potentates gain power, and given the recession-battered electorate’s unchecked anger and the Obama White House’s unfocused political strategy, they might.

All three tycoons are the latest incarnation of what the historian Kim Phillips-Fein labeled “Invisible Hands” in her prescient 2009 book of that title: those corporate players who have financed the far right ever since the du Pont brothers spawned the American Liberty League in 1934 to bring down F.D.R. You can draw a straight line from the Liberty League’s crusade against the New Deal “socialism” of Social Security, the Securities and Exchange Commission and child labor laws to the John Birch Society-Barry Goldwater assault on J.F.K. and Medicare to the Koch-Murdoch-backed juggernaut against our “socialist” president.”…cont…

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html?_r=1&ref=frankrich

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[onethatcares]

2. I stumbled upon an old movie called "Keeper of the Flame"

the other night.

Check it out when you get the chance. It's black and white and the acting is superb for the time.

The powers that be have always been around the Divided States of America.

[Me.]

3. Scary How Relevant It Is

Brief Synopsis
“Journalist Steve O'Malley is writing a biography of a national hero who died when his car ran off a bridge. The man's widow Christine cooperates, and Steve learns that she could have warned him of the bridge but chose not to...”…cont…

“Despondent, Christine recounts that the masses' worship of her husband transformed him into an arrogant, power hungry monster intent on smashing democracy. Unlocking the filing cabinet, Christine displays papers documenting Forrest's diabolical scheme to turn Americans against one another, thus weakening the country and enabling the institution of a fascistic form of government. Aware that Forrest was on his way to meet his fellow saboteurs, Christine decided not to warn him that the bridge was out, thus insuring his death.zz”…cont…

http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title.jsp?stid=249

[Me.]

4. K

[SpiralHawk]

5. TeaBagliCon SuckerPuppets manipulated by the Plutocracy (R)

...to advocate against their own interests.

[Me.]

6. Apt As Pictured

[SpiralHawk]

7. Alas, 'tis

Alas for America. But TeaBagliCons shall pass, too.

[underpants]

8. Great as usual - I the link to the Mayer article saved

I love sunday morning with a good Frank Rich article.

[RainDog]

9. plot to overthrow fdr

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=628728631767818729#

[Me.]

11. That's Quite A Link You Posted There

Amazing, the amount of footage available

[PufPuf23]

13. Thank you. Many great old video clips. nt.

[pipoman]

10. The problem is systemic in our political system

in fact in our own party. There are billionaires bankrolling our party's support of trade agreements, gun control, and several other issues which the rank and file party members oppose, sometimes even vehemently oppose by an overwhelming (:cough:NAFTA:cough:cough:GATT:cough) majority.

[mrdmk]

12. Like I said before about the Koch Brothers when the New Yorker article was posted

Every-time you see a PBS program funded by the Koch Foundation, what input did the foundation have on the topic of that show. To take a step further, does the Koch Foundation have a say what is aired on PBS?

The following link is to the New Yorker article...
link: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

[Faygo Kid]

14. The most important column of the year; every DUer needs to read this

Period. Exclamation point.

[Waiting For Everyman]

15. K too late to R

:kick: