Irish Times Tea Party Article

veritable

Money trail highlights Tea Party's roots

A few US billionaires are using their wealth to fund the movement’s right-wing agenda, writes TONY KINSELLA

SOME OF the lobbyists behind the populist right-wing Tea Party movement in the United States made their way to Europe last week, spreading the gospel at a gathering of the UK Taxpayers’ Alliance.
They would like to be seen as a spontaneous grassroots protest movement. But are they really? The best way to find an answer is to follow the money.
In August 1963, about a quarter of a million people joined the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” to hear Martin Luther King deliver his famous “I have a dream” speech.
At the end of last month, some 100,000 people gathered at the same spot for the “Restoring Honour” rally, led by Fox News pundit Glenn Beck, and featuring special guest Sarah Palin.
The 1963 demonstrators were predominantly young, and about two-thirds of them were African-American. The Tea Party rally, by contrast, was overwhelmingly white and significantly middle-aged.
The two meetings sought to achieve diametrically opposite results. The civil rights demonstrators demanded government action. The 2010 gathering sought a libertarian society, regulating itself through the application of selected religious principles, with minimal government.
Anyone who has ever tried to organise their fellow humans knows just how fraught a process it can be. It takes time, experience, logistics and resources. Organising a national rally in a country as vast as the USA requires massive preparation, effort and resources.
Martin Luther King’s “Jobs and Freedom” march was organised through a number of experienced organisations. These included his own Southern Christian Leadership Conference, other civil rights organisations, trade unions such as the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and student bodies like the Student Nonviolent Co-ordinating Committee.
Officials and activists from these bodies had, over years, learned their organisational skills in America’s prisons, pulpits and picket lines – skills that would help make the 1963 march the epoch-changing success it became.
No similar network of seasoned organisations featured in the organisation of the Tea Party bash. Glenn Beck is a talented, if abrasive, broadcaster and writer. His Glenn Beck programme is syndicated on radio stations across the US while his television show on the Fox News channel draws considerable audiences.
His personal voyage from the Catholic to the Mormon church and his struggle with substance abuse have undoubtedly left him with a wealth of experiences. But mass organisation is not one of them.
Sarah Palin’s organisational experience as mayor of Wasilla and its 10,000 inhabitants, and later as governor of Alaska for a couple of years, is hardly the stuff of national rallies either.
This begs the practical question of just how the “Restoring Honor” rally was organised. Who reached out to those who travelled from all across the US? Who booked the hotels and sound systems? Who printed the badges and organised the security?
Since there was no seasoned organisational structure, that effort had to come from competent professionals. Such a use of professionals leads to the twin questions of who paid and why?
Dig a little and you find resources and ideas flowing from bodies such as the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, Patients United Now, the Institute for Justice, the Institute for Humane Studies, the Bill of Rights Institute, the Independent Women’s Forum, the Mercatus Centre at George Mason University, Virginia, the Heritage Foundation, the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, and many others.
A little further research into these bodies and their funding and certain wealthy American family names start to appear regularly. The Olins, the Mellons, and most generously of all the Koch brothers, Charles (74) and David (72).
The Koch conglomerate is involved in oil, chemicals, wood, paper and a host of other sectors and is, in the words of David Koch, “the largest company that you’ve never heard of”. Their combined fortune of $35 billion (€27.5 billion) puts them in third place in the personal wealth stakes behind Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.
As Jane Mayer explained recently in the New Yorker , the Koch brothers have very quietly spent over $250 million on right-wing political campaigns during the last 10 years. No wonder President Obama’s senior adviser David Axelrod commented acerbically on “a grassroots citizens’ movement brought to you by a bunch of oil billionaires”. Knowing who has paid the piper often helps you understand the tune.

Did anybody else read this article?

I am sick of the garbage printed each day in the Irish media about anything not leftwing in the US.
I read this article over my breakfast yesterday morning and it put me in a mood for the day. (read it online because I refuse to pay money for the Irish Times trash.)
No wonder the Irish have such a miserable view of the right. The right constantly has its position undermined in the Irish media while the left is put on a pedastol.

Denerick

I bought the Times yesterday and skipped this article. The Irish Times is the best Irish paper, but this article just looked annoying.

We don't need the media to tell us that teapartiers are nutjobs, they do a good job about that all by themselves.

veritable

Denerick wrote: »

I bought the Times yesterday and skipped this article. The Irish Times is the best Irish paper, but this article just looked annoying.

We don't need the media to tell us that teapartiers are nutjobs, they do a good job about that all by themselves.

Why are they nutjobs?

Denerick

veritable wrote: »

Why are they nutjobs?

Because a gigantic mass of middle class privilege are protesting furiously, immune to reasonable discussion, lap up everything a few radio and TV demagogues throw at them, admire the imbecile Glenn Beck, think Obama is a secret Muslim, think Obama is a Marxist Leninist, etc. etc.

They are quite similar to the nativists and know nothings of the 19th century. Already they are viewed as retards and imbeciles, historians will have a great time writing about them in 50 years time.

reprazant

Denerick wrote: »

think Obama is a Marxist Leninist, etc. etc.

Just like Hitler was as well seemingly..

veritable

Denerick wrote: »

Because a gigantic mass of middle class privilege are protesting furiously, immune to reasonable discussion, lap up everything a few radio and TV demagogues throw at them, admire the imbecile Glenn Beck, think Obama is a secret Muslim, think Obama is a Marxist Leninist, etc. etc.

They are quite similar to the nativists and know nothings of the 19th century. Already they are viewed as retards and imbeciles, historians will have a great time writing about them in 50 years time.

You are completely wrong. You may be trying to describe some of the fringe members but you shouldn't pretend that they are all like that.

Denerick

veritable wrote: »

You are completely wrong. You may be trying to describe some of the fringe members but you shouldn't pretend that they are all like that.

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

Gijoe

veritable wrote: »

you shouldn't pretend that they are all like that.

They are ALL like that. Neo-Right wing, Foxnews watching, no-nothing about the world outside my own town, nutjobs

veritable

Gijoe wrote: »

They are ALL like that. Neo-Right wing, Foxnews watching, no-nothing about the world outside my own town, nutjobs

Have you ever talked to one or met one?

Gijoe

I hope I never meet anyone who would voluntarily go and see Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin speaking

veritable

Gijoe wrote: »

I hope I never meet anyone who would voluntarily go and see Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin speaking

That comes across as being a bit prejudicial. Beck or Palin may be dramatic but you still haven't provided evidence of their supposed evil?

20Cent

veritable wrote: »

Did anybody else read this article?

I am sick of the garbage printed each day in the Irish media about anything not leftwing in the US.
I read this article over my breakfast yesterday morning and it put me in a mood for the day. (read it online because I refuse to pay money for the Irish Times trash.)
No wonder the Irish have such a miserable view of the right. The right constantly has its position undermined in the Irish media while the left is put on a pedastol.

What is incorrect about it?

Red Hand

Where's the native born Randian hiding?:D

veritable

20Cent wrote: »

What is incorrect about it?

I don't claim that anything is incorrect about it. My point is that it is a clear attack on the movement without engaging with the actual aims of the movement - an ad hominem at the Tea party. I resent the image the author is trying to create of the tea party. I resent the way the movement is denigrated in the media.

I also was pointing to the fact that you never read about the money behind left wing groups even though they are funded in the same manner as the tea party movement.

The author talks about how there are fewer blacks in the tea party than in the civil rights marches in the 1960s. What has race got to do with it? Why is race always brought in by the left?

Mjollnir

veritable wrote: »

I don't claim that anything is incorrect about it. My point is that it is a clear attack on the movement without engaging with the actual aims of the movement - an ad hominem at the Tea party. I resent the image the author is trying to create of the tea party. I resent the way the movement is denigrated in the media.

Please. Describing members, funding sources, etc... of an organization w/out mentioning the goals does not magically equate to an ad-hominem.

I also was pointing to the fact that you never read about the money behind left wing groups even though they are funded in the same manner as the tea party movement.

Perhaps you've never read about it, but that doesn't mean such material isn't out there.

The author talks about how there are fewer blacks in the tea party than in the civil rights marches in the 1960s. What has race got to do with it? Why is race always brought in by the left?

Try reading the article, near the top, and get back to us.

Denerick

You keep on going on about how the 'media' is denigrating the political right wing in America. The fact is that the political right wing denigrates itself by taking pride in ignorance and stupidity, by being hysterically fervent and exaggerating every iniative of central government.

You should be asking why the American right wing is constantly looking for excuses and bogeymen figures in the media and public life, and why they don't engage in introspection, or ever appear to be afflicted by self doubt. The tea partiers are essentially a religious cult.

veritable

Denerick wrote: »

You keep on going on about how the 'media' is denigrating the political right wing in America. The fact is that the political right wing denigrates itself by taking pride in ignorance and stupidity, by being hysterically fervent and exaggerating every iniative of central government.

You should be asking why the American right wing is constantly looking for excuses and bogeymen figures in the media and public life, and why they don't engage in introspection, or ever appear to be afflicted by self doubt. The tea partiers are essentially a religious cult.

I spent some months in the States recently and I have first hand experience of the tea party. the image that is created of them in the media here is not an accurate reflection. obviously nothing i say here is going to change your preformed opinion.

Denerick

veritable wrote: »

I spent some months in the States recently and I have first hand experience of the tea party. the image that is created of them in the media here is not an accurate reflection. obviously nothing i say here is going to change your preformed opinion.

The image of what? Hundreds of thousands of incoherent rabble going on about 'socialist nazi Obama' trying to introduce a communist system?

They denigrate themselves, they don't need the help of the media.

veritable

Denerick wrote: »

The image of what? Hundreds of thousands of incoherent rabble going on about 'socialist nazi Obama' trying to introduce a communist system?

They denigrate themselves, they don't need the help of the media.

You have no idea. That is not what the tea party is about - certain fringe members yes but these are not representative. Your ignorance is too obvious for me to continue this. I don't mean this as a slight against you but rather a reflection of your above posts.:)

Denerick

veritable wrote: »

You have no idea. That is not what the tea party is about - certain fringe members yes but these are not representative. Your ignorance is too obvious for me to continue this. I don't mean this as a slight against you but rather a reflection of your above posts.:)

As I said, whatever helps you sleep at night. Denying reality doesn't make it go away.

veritable

Denerick wrote: »

As I said, whatever helps you sleep at night. Denying reality doesn't make it go away.

You mean your reality. Because if you knew what you were talking about you wouldnt be talking about these people like you have.:o

Denerick

veritable wrote: »

You mean your reality. Because if you knew what you were talking about you wouldnt be talking about these people like you have.:o

Are people like me the new tea partier bogeymen?

I suppose if it wasn't for nasty people on the internet the world would see these people the way they are - reasonable, peaceful, intelligent and compassionate tea loving Americans?

Permabear

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wes

donegalfella wrote: »

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Its seems to me that in some ways, the more moderate (for lack of a better term) right have abdicated there position to the extremes, who now for better or worse represent the right.

Denerick

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I regret using the 'political right' as shorthand for the tea party circus, as you call them. I'm aware of the many figures of the moderate and Libertarian right who are thoughtful and intelligent. The late William Buckley being one example.

g5fd6ow0hseima

veritable wrote: »

You have no idea. That is not what the tea party is about - certain fringe members yes but these are not representative. Your ignorance is too obvious for me to continue this.

What is it about?

veritable

it's about small govt, personal and fiscal responsibility and civil liberty.

veritable

Malani Mammoth Professor wrote: »

What is it about?

for an unbiased first hand on the tea party watch this video of a recent rally. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u47WQwRUXHQ&feature=sub

I think it will provide a clearer insight than my words.

Eliot Rosewater

veritable wrote: »

it's about small govt, personal and fiscal responsibility and civil liberty.

But it's not really, is it? Many of the members of the Tea Party seem to be American conservatives who, despite shouting all day about the government taking over their lives, see no problem is using the government to outlaw gay marriage or enforce subjective morality. There is an inherent hypocrisy in the American conservative mindset, from what I can see.

veritable

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

But it's not really, is it? Many of the members of the Tea Party seem to be American conservatives who, despite shouting all day about the government taking over their lives, see no problem is using the government to outlaw gay marriage or enforce subjective morality. There is an inherent hypocrisy in the American conservative mindset, from what I can see.

That is undoubtedly true for some in the tea party. In my experience, the majority are not like this. They are small govt libertarians, like myself, who believe that people should be free to what they want, when they want, as long as they don't interfere with others. So whether you're for gay marriage or whatever, it's nobody's biz to tell you that you can't do that.

As i pointed out earlier, the impression people have in Ireland of the tea party is like the one described by you and the others above. It's not an accurate impression. The media is distorting the image and i think it's grossly unfair. If we in Ireland followed the tea party's small govt free market libertarian way of thinking, maybe all our lives would be freer and less restricted.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.