Two related, must-read pieces from Mother Jones. Andy Kroll has an excellent, link-heavy post on The Right-Wing Network Behind the War on Unions:
… Behind the onslaught is a well-funded network of conservative think tanks that you’ve probably never heard of. Conceived by the same conservative ideologues who helped found the Heritage Foundation, the State Policy Network (SPN) is a little-known umbrella group with deep ties to the national conservative movement. Its mission is simple: to back a constellation of state-level think tanks loosely modeled after Heritage that promote free-market principles and rail against unions, regulation, and tax increases. By blasting out policy recommendations and shaping lawmakers’ positions through briefings and private meetings, these think tanks cultivate cozy relationships with GOP politicians. And there’s a long tradition of revolving door relationships between SPN staffers and state governments. While they bill themselves as independent think tanks, SPN’s members frequently gather to swap ideas. “We’re all comrades in arms,” the network’s board chairman told the National Review in 2007….
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Founded in 1992 by businessman and Reagan administration insider Thomas Roe—who also served on the Heritage Foundation’s board of trustees for two decades—the group has grown to include 59 “freedom centers,” or affiliated think tanks, in all 50 states. SPN’s board includes officials from Heritage and right-wing charities such as the Adolph Coors and Jacqueline Hume foundations. Likewise, its deep-pocketed donors include all the usual heavy-hitting conservative benefactors: the Ruth and Lovett Peters Foundation, which funds the Cato Institute and Heritage; the Castle Rock Foundation, a charity started with money from the conservative Coors Foundation; and the Bradley Foundation, a $540 million charity devoted to funding conservative causes. SPN uses their contributions to dole out annual grants to member groups, ranging from a few thousand dollars to $260,000, according to 2009 records.
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According to SPN’s website, Roe launched the conservative network “at the urging” of President Reagan himself as a way to shape state-level policy just as Heritage has influenced federal policy. Surveying the political landscape today, Roe’s and Reagan’s idea couldn’t have been more prescient. More than a dozen states are currently considering legislation weakening the clout of organized labor. In many of those states, SPN think tanks have been pushing for similar prescriptions for years via “research” papers, policy recommendations, and talking points that are widely distributed to lawmakers.
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… SPN think tanks do more than merely pepper politicians with briefings and a barrage of policy recommendations; they also serve as a farm team for the GOP. Reps. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) all ran SPN think tanks before entering Congress…
Yeah, that trio may not qualify for Mensa membership (even if they combined scores), but there’s an old proverb about relative political power: We all know their names but they don’t know ours.
And for more detail of the sick, twisted sociopathy behind SPN’s founders, Rick Perlstein goes “Inside the GOP’s Fact-Free Nation” to dissect “how political lying became normal”:”
…Ronald Reagan explicitly built his appeal around the notion that it was time to stop challenging the powerful. A new sort of lie took over: that the villains were not those deceiving the nation, but those exposing the deceit—those, as Reagan put it in his 1980 acceptance speech, who “say that the United States has had its day in the sun, that our nation has passed its zenith.” They were just so, so negative. According to the argument Reagan consistently made, Watergate revealed nothing essential about American politicians and institutions—the conspirators “were not criminals at heart.” In 1975, upon the humiliating fall of Saigon, he paraphrased Pope Pius XII to make the point that Vietnam had in fact been a noble cause: “America has a genius for great and unselfish deeds. Into the hands of America, God has placed the destiny of an afflicted mankind.”
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The Gipper’s inauguration ushered in the “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” era of political lying. But it took a deeper trend to accelerate the cultural shift away from truth-telling-as-patriotism to a full-scale epistemological implosion.
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Reagan rode into office accompanied by a generation of conservative professional janissaries convinced they were defending civilization against the forces of barbarism. And like many revolutionaries, they possessed an instrumental relationship to the truth: Lies could be necessary and proper, so long as they served the right side of history…
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“We ought to see clearly that the end does justify the means,” wrote evangelist C. Peter Wagner in 1981. “If the method I am using accomplishes the goal I am aiming at, it is for that reason a good method.”
Historians will no doubt mention there’s a pivot where all great empires start privileging “civility” over “honesty“… and that’s the chapter future scholars title with some variation on “decline and fall”. Never expected to watch it unravel in real time, via HD broadband, did you?
Villago Delenda Est
George H.W. Bush actually tried to use “Don’t Worry, Be Happy!” as a campaign song.
I am not making this up.
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
We have lived to see interesting times. There’s a reason it’s used as a curse.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
Please don’t misunderstand, I am not for one single, solitary moment suggesting that this all is not a very real, very dangerous problem – but I don’t think it’s new.
I think this is what what we saw with the oil barons, and the era of William Randolph Hearst, and the Phililline-American War, etc and so on, with the difference being that with greater education levels and faster spread of information, we currently have better tools to beat it back.
And I’m not even saying that we can know for certain that we will successfully beat it back, or anything like that, just that this reality comes around a lot in these parts, and our weapons are (at least) a bit better this time.
kdaug
There’s a difference between the lies that are told, and the people who believe them.
rea
While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening
to empire
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the
mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots
to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence;
and home to the mother.
You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly
long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains:
shine, perishing republic.
But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening
center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster’s feet there
are left the mountains.
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant,
insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught – they say –
God, when he walked on earth–Robinson Jeffers
Chris
Yep. Republican ideology of the last thirty years in a nutshell. Don’t show us the Vietnam War on television, that’s just so negative. Don’t tell us about the poor people starving. Don’t tell us about the racial problems in society, it hurts our feelings when we’re told that we’re not doing enough, and just for that reason we’re not going to do enough. Don’t tell us that we’re not being greeted as liberators. Etc, etc, etc…
Linda Featheringill
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
And what are our weapons?
We can defend the truth at every opportunity but that is basically a one-on-one activity. We are armed with single-shot rifles, perhaps quite accurate. They are armed with Gatling guns. Accuracy is not needed.
merrinc
@rea:
Robinson Jeffers is one of my favorite poets but difficult to read because his words are a stab to the heart. As many times as I’ve read it, I can’t get through Hurt Hawks without tears.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Linda Featheringill:
Not even gatlings. It’s more like clusterbombs. They explode, spread, and even when they miss, it destroys and warps the playing field.
Villago Delenda Est
A study after WWII showed that infantrymen closer to a crew served weapon (a machine gun, for you non-military types) were more likely to have actually fired their bolt-action rifles than those farther away.
The noise is comforting. Also, there’s all that lead being poured downrange from the machine gun. A hail of bullets do not need to have any accuracy to score hits.
Linda Featheringill
@merrinc:
Hurt Hawks:
Oh, my. So many layers. So many connections.
piratedan
kinda sorta OT – KO is bringing back Countdown on Current TV as of June 20th. One more voice raised against the machine, so to speak.
current.com/countdown/
yes… he’s a blowhard, yes… he’s hyperbolic, but when he’s wrong he apologizes and corrects himself and he’s not afraid to call out the nutjobs and whackos as needed. In short, he tends to have what the other side lacks, integrity.
Brachiator
And water is wet and the sky is blue.
It is interesting, though, that Saint Ronnie apparently urged Thomas Roe to start his organization.
Alex Gurney Halleck-S.
It might be true. Nixon was not the catastrophe. The catastrophe was Reagan acting as if Nixon was right.
Joey Maloney
@Linda Featheringill: And what are our weapons?
Fear. Fear and surprise…
dollared
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: I’m afraid it will take more than Facebook. We need millions and millions of dollars, and literally millions of proactive citizens organized in productive, organized groups, such as think tanks, advocacy groups, protest groups, professional groups like the conservative Federalist Society, etc.
I see a lot of activity and lousy results. Wisconsin gives me some hope, but I am watching closely and success is very much in doubt. The right wing has more money and more organization, even in Wisconsin.
piratedan
@Joey Maloney: and a fanatical devotion to Rachael Maddow?
Elizabelle
Did BJ ever decide on a next book for the book chat?
dollared
@piratedan: Why on Earth qualify your support for him? He’s a blowhard because we all should be as pissed as he is, and he can vent.
Ash Can
I’m all for writers, pundits, anyone at all in the public eye to keep hammering home the point about how much damage Ronald Reagan and his poisonous legacy did to this nation. I don’t think I’ll live long enough myself to see him portrayed in history and popular culture the way he should be. I just hope future generations will.
Elizabelle
Hmmm, all these lies and thugishness and failed ideology to boot ….
and the GOP is having trouble attracting quality presidential candidates this cycle.
Coincidence?
Why Republicans May Be Skipping 2012 Presidential Run
thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/26/why-republicans-may-skip-2012-presidential-run/
piratedan
@dollared: my apologies… my preference is the measured approach of Rachael Maddow, simply because I think she does a better job of driving home the reasoned and fact based arguments of what I believe in (for the most part). That’s not to say that Olbermann doesn’t have his place, he does, without him, we don’t really see MSNBC go left at night and as such, those that followed in the trail that he blazed. I like KO, I just like Rachael more.
tkogrumpy
@Ash Can: Amen.
Brachiator
@Elizabelle:
Must be a slow news day. It’s not like the Republicans are going to say, “Hey, Obama, don’t bother running. We’ll just re-elect you by acclimation.”
The Times blog piece talks about Haley Barbour claiming he doesn’t have that “fire in the belly,” but omits how he recently had to backtrack on his revisionism of Mississippi’s opposition to Civil Rights and his ongoing association with unsavory “citizen’s groups.”
The turmoil around the Tea Party isn’t much different from the GOP’s past accommodation of fundamentalists. Part of the GOP’s self-styled charm is their open tent policy for bigotry.
It is also interesting (and a hopeful sign) that Sarah Palin wasn’t mentioned at all.
djork
I often find myself at state agency board meetings for work related reasons. One day, I noticed a really, really young guy bearing the job title “Legislative Director” for one of the departments. I thought that sounded like a cool job, just sit around and track legislation. (Heck, I do that as a hobby!!) So, I got to googling the guy, wondering how someone who is as young as he is (mid-late 20’s) got such a job. Sure enough, before working for state government, he was an intern at the local version of the Heritage Foundation. That pretty much made me realize I had no chance of ever having a job like that if I continue to live in the South.
After that, I googled some of the other really young people I encountered who seemed to be “over their heads” in terms their age relative to their job positions. Every single one came from the same think tank.
tkogrumpy
I don’t get the “thug” here. Organizing efforts to influence public policy is what you do in a representative government.
taylormattd
Wow, it’s almost like Hillary was correct when she spoke about a vast, right-wing conspiracy.
Citizen_X
Following that thought–and the Jeffers poem–one might contemplate the Course of Empire paintings, by Thomas Cole (!).
Southern Beale
Also, too:
HyperIon
Are there enough wingnuts in the USA to populate all these new wacko “think” tanks?
Culture of Truth
Roe v. Wage
.
Alison
@piratedan: Agreed – I have issues with KO (he’s not easy for a feminist to love sometimes) but I am happy to see him coming back to TV. BUT – I am also more of a Maddow fan, more and more every single day because she is fucking awesome sauce.
(Also, I know this is picky, but if you say you’re a fan of hers, please spell her name right – it’s Rachel, no extra ‘a’. As someone with a name that has about 18 spellings – and no one ever asks how I spell it and they always guess wrong – I get easily irked by name misspellings.)
Hedges Ahead
Sure enough, perusing the ‘Directory’ link at the State Policy Network returns my two favorite sources of hacky, crap-reasoned math-illiterate op-ed letters to the state paper here in NC, the News & Observer. They’re doing this in plain daylight, same as any of us could, so what say lets all write in too.
Of course the advantage these orgs have is they just need to state how their writers are employed by the Civitas Institute, or the John Locke Foundation. None of the higher network connections are ever hinted at in the byline when it’s one of these non-profit think tanks advocating against actual people’s interests. It just gets my gall when a website and donor backing is enough to convince an editorial board that what you say should get as many op-ed inches as (ostensibly) accountable syndicated columnists.
David Brooks (not that one)
@Alison: My daughter has common misspellings for all of her three names (I can reveal her maiden name, and it often shows up with an “e”, especially in England). Sorry, Ali.
Sorry, is this OT? I just like confessing stuff.
Sorry.
Zifnab
It’s like reading about cancer metastasizing. :-p
Front groups, front groups everywhere.
Paul in KY
@Ash Can: As bad as he was, I think GWB was much worse. Came in with some ideologues that make Reagan’s minions seem like pinwheel sellers who follow the Dead.
Ash Can
@Paul in KY: Oh, to be sure. But that’s all part of the same awful legacy — Reagan paved the way for a GWB abomination to come along. And it’s only gotten worse since then.
I don’t see the GOP continuing on its path of nihilism and destruction forever without imploding in some way. And I can easily envision the Democrats collecting so many people running away from the GOP that it eventually comes apart at its liberal-conservative seams. Then we’d go back to having Democrats, Republicans, and a lunatic fringe. But Ronald Reagan definitely set this sorry denouement in action himself. I firmly believe that if we hadn’t had a Ronald Reagan, we wouldn’t have had a GWB.
Chris
@Paul in KY:
A bunch of those minions, see Cheney and Rumsfeld, were already minions in the Reagan/Bush era, though slightly less irrational back then. Something happened in the eight-year exile from the White House that made them come back even more fanatical than they already were.
Which makes me shudder at the thought of how batshit insane the next Republican administration will look, whenever it comes.
Alison
@David Brooks (not that one): LOL, well – another annoyance is getting called by nicknames one doesn’t use. ;)
It is OT. But oh well. I’m nonconformist like that.
Paul in KY
@Ash Can: I see your point. Agree that with no Reagan, there’d be no GWB (also because daddy wouldn’t have been elected either if he hadn’t been Reagan’s veep).
Paul in KY
@Chris: Agree that if they keep on doubling down on the crazy, the Trump/Taitz administration will have Alan Keyes as Sec of State, Sarah! Palin as Sec Defense, Joe the Plumber as Treasury Sec, etc. etc.
Nethead Jay
@Zifnab: A very apt analogy, horrible though it is.
Anne Laurie
@tkogrumpy:
An American thug is someone who takes money to punish and/or intimidate others as part of a mob. From the Hindi word thuggee, “a cult of people engaged in the multiple murder and robbery of travelers…these sophisticated operations lay somewhere between organized crime and paramilitary activity and were far removed from the ordinary criminal in the magnitude and ruthlessness of the enterprise.” Either definition works in this context.