On Donors Trust

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Michael Tobis • 3 Comments

Democracy Now claims “While the secretive Donors Trust has given millions to a variety of right-wing causes, denying climate change appears to be its top priority. An analysis by the environmentalist group Greenpeace reveals Donors Trust has funneled more than one-third of its donations — at least $146 million — to more than 100 climate change denial groups over the past decade. In 2010, 12 of these groups received between 30 to 70 percent of their funding from Donors Trust.”

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3 Responses to On Donors Trust

  1. klem says:
    February 20, 2013 at 6:09 am

    Yea its all very secret, that’s why everybody knows about it.

    I know, its some kind of right wing conspiracy that’s what it is. Just like the faked moon landings and 911. Lol!

    Reply
  2. Susan Anderson says:
    February 21, 2013 at 5:04 pm

    Hey guys, this is important. Please inform yourselves and get all the details down. I know I’m an outsider here (if I understand correctly, that’s part of the point), but we need to stop underestimating the power of the forces arrayed against us in the war against reality.

    By the way, I dug up the original Mayer articles in the New Yorker because as the denial industry gets cleverer, they’ve figured out they can reverse the accusations by claiming conspiracy thinking on the part of those supporting real science. Here are the links, in reverse date order (because the original was a blockbuster), all by Jane Mayer:

    “Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama”
    Jane Mayer 8/30/10
    http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all

    The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation. These views dovetail with the brothers’ corporate interests. In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. … from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups.
    ….
    Cato scholars have been particularly energetic in promoting the Climategate scandal.
    ….
    Charles Lewis, the founder of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan watchdog group, said, “The Kochs are on a whole different level. There’s no one else who has spent this much money. The sheer dimension of it is what sets them apart. They have a pattern of lawbreaking, political manipulation, and obfuscation. I’ve been in Washington since Watergate, and I’ve never seen anything like it. They are the Standard Oil of our times.”
    ….
    waged a crusade against international climate talks. Casting his group as a champion of ordinary workers who would be hurt by environmentalists, Phillips went to Copenhagen last year and staged a protest outside the United Nations conference on climate change, declaring, “We’re a grassroots organization. . . . I think it’s unfortunate when wealthy children of wealthy families . . . want to send unemployment rates in the United States up to twenty per cent.”

    http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/09/david-koch-steps-out-of-the-shadows.html

    shocking practices by his company, Standard Oil … although he is thought to have been making a billion dollars in inflation-adjusted currency every year by then, he also won a surprising amount of good will by personally dipping into his pockets when in public, and offering nickels to children and dimes to adults.

    http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/03/kochs-vs-cato-round-two.html

    Once they got what they wanted, they moved to take over Cato, principle be damned. So don’t be deceived …

    Reply
  3. Another Week of GW News, February 24, 2013 – A Few Things Ill Considered says:
    February 25, 2013 at 5:48 am

    [...] 2013/02/19: P3: On Donors Trust [...]

    Reply
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