Koch $$ Funds Chorus of Lies on Social Security
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There’s a cacophony of misinformation from Fox News, right-wing think tanks and extreme conservative politicians about Social Security. “Privatize it,” they yell. “It’s going broke,” they scream. “Raise the retirement age,” they bellow.
But who is conducting this dissonant symphony? The latest installment of Koch Brothers Exposed from the Brave New Foundation says the baton is being wielded by the David and Charles Koch, the right-wing extremist billionaire brothers who are out to dismantle Social Security, overturn financial regulations, corporate rules, environmental standards, workers’ rights and just about any “evil on the radical right agenda.
When it comes to the attacks on Social Security, “The Koch Brothers Echo Chamber” video shows how $28.4 million of Koch money to think tanks like the Cato Institute ($13.6 million), the Heritage Foundation ($3.4 million) and a host of others has helped produce more than 300 “scholarly” position papers on dismantling Social Security and a choir of economists and political scientists all singing from the same hymnal.
Corporate Front Group Accuses N.Y./N.J. Firefighters of ‘Mediocrity’
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Recent well-publicized efforts to smear public employees haven’t just come out of nowhere. They’re part of a well-orchestrated campaign brewed up by the reactionary likes of the Heritage Foundation in advance of this year’s midterm election. Marching in lockstep, anti-worker groups like the hypocritically named National Right to Work Committee have pushed hard to spread this party line.
But you’d think that if an organization planned to malign a group of public employees, the last ones they would pick on would be firefighters. Especially firefighters in New York and New Jersey who risked and, in some cases, lost their lives saving victims of the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11.
Not so.
A recent post at a website run by front man Richard Berman attacks New York and New Jersey firefighters, accusing them of “mediocrity.” (Corporations hide behind Berman, paying him millions of dollars to do their dirty work, from attacking workers to urging pregnant women to eat mercury-laden fish.)
Let’s see any one of those cowards risk their lives to rush into a burning building.
Guess What, Heritage: Strong Economies Have Strong Unions
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This week, the hard-right Heritage Foundation—a major funding source for corporate-friendly and anti-union research and spin—released its Index of Economic Freedom, an annual ranking of the economic climate of the world’s nations. Using Heritage’s numbers, it seems the organization should take a second look at its anti-union spin: The figures show that many of these countries have, by comparison to the United States, very high rates of union membership.
Matthew Yglesias, a fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, compares the union density of the top 10 economically strong countries on the Heritage list:
- Hong Kong—22.1 percent
- Singapore—18.5 percent
- Australia—20.0 percent
- Ireland—35.0 percent
- New Zealand—21.1 percent
- United States—12.0 percent
- Canada—29.7 percent
- Denmark—80.0 percent
- Switzerland—25.0 percent
- United Kingdom—28.4 percent
