here's jane mayer's brilliant new yorker expose of the billionaire koch brothers' ever-expanding, increasingly-influential "kochtopus" that has been bank-rolling an anti-democratic agenda (including the current tea party movement) for the last 30 years in our country.
this piece is important to read because these guys prefer to stay anonymous, while very visible "actors" (tv talking heads, politicians, and their supporters) play out the scripts that their think tanks write to forward their pro-business agenda...
it's all very disheartening for someone like myself who believes that the people, not the powerful, should control the destiny of this country.
5 comments:
I can't wait for the follow up piece on George Soros.
actually, they did one in 1995. here you go:
(subscription required)
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1995/01/23/1995_01_23_054_TNY_CARDS_000368926
btw, in case you haven't heard, soros has decided to sit this mid-term election out. (http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=38711&wf=rsscol)
he also says the only reason he got involved in the'04, '06, and '08 elections is because he'd "been forced into that situation by what [he] considered the excesses of the bush administration."
hardly sounds like the died-in-the-wool ideologue hannity makes him out to be...
either way, i'll call your george soros, and raise you a richard mellon scaife, a rev. sun myung moon, and a rupert murdoch, just for starters...
duty now, spud!
Soros sits out this election indeed, only to shore up for 2012. The 2010 election is done, he can't throw enough money into it at this point to do anything about it. However, he has continued his typical approach to influence media. Ahem...NPR. Meanwhile he keeps the money flowing to MediaMatters.
I'm sorry but come on man, you've got to be kidding me when you imply he is not an ideologue. I mean, he embodies the word.
In return, I give you Stephen Rockefeller (or the entire Rockefeller family), Ted Turner, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Jesse Jackson, Jeremiah Wright and Maurice Strong to name a few.
So yeah, we could name names but that gets old. There is too much money on both sides, influencing the masses.
Oh and by the way, a 1995 article? Then it is time for an updated article but we will never see it because the media doesn't report on the left like it does on the right.
sorry for the delayed response, dman.
i haven't read about soros' 2012 intentions, but we can both agree that he's conceded this election to the republicans. we can both argue how this is or isn't ideological, but semantics gets old too.
besides soros', how much oil company money goes to npr?
what my post was trying to highlight (however unartfully), was the issue of anonymity. (an issue exacerbated by the recent citizens united supreme court decision.) i was trying to emphasize the distinction between the high profile "actors" (glen beck, jerimiah wright, jesse jackson, to use some of your examples) and the less conspicuous "producers" who bankroll these people behind the scenes(koch brothers, bradley brothers, scaife).
the people that aren't household names.
once again, i guess we could argue which sides' names are more recognizable to the american public, but soros' name and connection to media matters is publicly known and widely reported, repeated to millions of fox news viewers and conservative radio listeners every day, AND reported in the mainstream press.
i wonder how many times the koch brothers names and connections get mentioned in comparison.
i wonder how many times their names would get mentioned if they'd been connected to left-wing causes for the last 30 years.
has this one new yorker article made charles and david koch household names?
indeed, i'd have to agree with you: the media doesn't report on the left like it does on the right.
actually, i'd go a step further and say that the right's media infrastructure and messaging has routinely kicked progressive interests' butt for the last 30 years.
duty now!
p.s. did i just hear you make an implicit argument for publicly-funded elections?? AMEN TO THAT!!
p.s.s. what did you think of the article in the new yorker anyway?
p.p.p.s. what do you think about prop.19??
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