Civil Discourse

[B402]

Corporations and Billionaires funded Think Tanks

The Friedman Philosophy, profit by any legal means without regard to social responsibility, needed power to continue...Billionaires and corporations set up think tanks and foundations starting in the 70s to wield power, influence politics (not that corporate influence was anything new but this was on a whole new level) profess corporate propaganda, not to mention play puppet master just as in Michigan Protests..

And they have been hugely successful... Creating vast wealth resulting in our economic divide by creating the an era of a corrupted corporate culture needing Corporate propaganda and corporate conformity to mask their lack of social responsibility...

Citizens United, Fox news, Heritage Foundation and on and on...

People can infight all they want to these people's amusement but we are Fighting the wrong fight

Just a taste

https://www.heritage.org/article/the-heritage-foundations-financial-information

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/oct/25/tea-party-koch-brothers#maincontent

AFP is one of several groups established by the Koch brothers. They set up the Cato Institute, the first free-market think tank in the United States. They also founded the Mercatus Centre at George Mason University, which now fills the role once played by the economics department at Chicago University as the originator of extreme neoliberal ideas. Fourteen of the 23 regulations that George W Bush put on his hitlist were, according to the Wall Street Journal, first suggested by academics working at the Mercatus Centre.

The Kochs have lavished money on more than 30 other advocacy groups, including the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the George C Marshall Institute, the Reason Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute. These bodies have been instrumental in turning politicians away from environmental laws, social spending, taxing the rich and distributing wealth. They have shaped the widespread demand for small government. The Kochs ensure that their money works for them. "If we're going to give a lot of money," David Koch explained to a libertarian journalist, "we'll make darn sure they spend it in a way that goes along with our intent. And if they make a wrong turn and start doing things we don't agree with, we withdraw funding."

Most of these bodies call themselves "free-market thinktanks", but their trick – as (Astro)Turf Wars points out – is to conflate crony capitalism with free enterprise, and free enterprise with personal liberty.

These helped create the huge multinationals that eat up smaller socially responsible companies, use the world's cheapest labor, corrupt both sides of the aisle, suppress environmental concerns, changed our media leading us to an affront on democracy with their influence, especially in the republican party and even control the us vs them mentality which distracts everyone from the simple equation of 'Follow the money'