Read More about the
Powell Memo

Powell's call for strategic corporate funding gave him a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court and helped lead to the Citizens United ruling on Corporate Personhood.

Read this overview: Politics In America, by Joanne Ricca, of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, who with a handful of other labor and progressive journalists began tracking the Organized Wealth juggernaut 30 years ago.

$1 Billion for Ideas: Conservative Think Tanks in the 1990s by National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy

The attack on working people in Wisconsin - a factcheck.

American Legislative Exhange Council

• From ALEC Exposed
  Center for Media & Democracy - Sourcewatch

• From Media Matters
  ALEC Funders

• From ALEC Watch
  Attacks on Defenders of Wildlife and the Natural Resources Defense Council

• From People for the American Way
  A Short Overview

• The Koch brothers
  (From Media Matters)

From Political Research Associates

Attacks on Organized Labor & Working People

Free Market Mythology (Collectivism Phobia)

Ground Rules & Tips for Challenging the Right

More links on the way.

The Campaign to Screw Us Over

Public attention on right-wing funding in political campaigns has been galvanized by the attack on working people in Wisconsin by an ultraconservative governor. Funders such as the Koch Brothers and right-wing institutions such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), have been explored by numerous progressive groups including those listed in the right panel.

Now these same reactionary forces have targeted labor unions. So for the next few weeks I will be building out a new section:

"Right to Work" Means "Union Busting"
A History of so-called "Right to Work" Laws as Really Being Right-Wing Projects on Behalf of Organized Wealth

Joanne Ricca, of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, is the author of "Politics In America: the American Right." She explains the core right-wing ideology of organized wealth	Survival of the Fittest Capital Should Be Served by Government Property Rights Supercede Human Rights Decisions Should Be Made By The Elite
Browse a chart showing the right-wing moneybags that fund a national network of anti-union think tanks and policy groups.
Browse a timeline of right-wing organizing on behalf of Organized Wealth. This explains how the strategic ultra-conservatives have pulled the Republican Party to the Right while the Democratic Party hacks keep moving to the "center;" thus moving the country to the Political Right.	1968: National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation 1969: National Taxpayers Union 1969: Accuracy in Media 1970: Religious Roundtable by Ed McAteer 1972: Eagle Forum by Phyllis Schlafly 1972: Coalition for a Democratic Majority 1973: Heritage Foundation - Weyrich and others 1973: Conservative Political Action Conferences started 1973: American Legislative Exchange Council - Weyrich and others
See the spiderweb chart of right-wing funders and anti-union think tanks.it illustrates the efffective dense network of groups built by organized wealth.
This chart illustrates that three times since the early 1960s a strategic ultra-conservative coalition has mobilized to move the Republican Party to the Right.
The Political Right in the United States is divided into several sectors and subsectors that exist in a variety of loose coalitions. The "tactical" coalitions form and reform to build temporary projects. This chart explains their main ideas.

What's Going On?

There is an elaborate strategic process at work here. It started with the Powell Memo in 1971 urging corporations and wealthy elites to defend the "Free Market" against "Tax & Spend" liberals, "Big Government" progressives, and "Thugish" union leaders. These slogans are part of a carefully-crafted propaganda campaign by organized wealth.

And this is just part of the more than $1 Billion spent by elitist funders since 1971 to shift wealth upwards, pick our pockets, and stomp on the basic human rights of most of us.

Their strategy is simple, and they openly brag about it:

• Cut taxes, especially for the wealthy, to "starve" federal, state, and local governments until their ability to serve our needs is wrecked.
• Attack labor unions and minimum wage laws to lower labor costs.
• Push deregulation to remove laws that protect the environment and public safety.
• Privatize, privatize, privatize.
• When society starts to fall apart, blame liberals, immigrants, Muslims, women, gay people, progressive organizers, and other handy scapegoats villified on Fox News and other right-wing media.
  

Let's use labor unions as an example.

Over the past 30 years, corporate conservatives and economic libertarians have spent more than $170 million just trying to convince us that labor unions are bad for America, and that government laws and regulations should not protect a worker's right to organize a union without harassment or termination.

The coalition of foundations that fund conservative and right-wing think tanks and other institutions that attack organized labor give money to an array of allied and interconnected think tanks that numerous reports and issue an endless stream of press releases.

This creates the impression that there is a groundswell of support for reigning in labor unions and government "interference" in corporate affairs.

These foundations often give long-term grants that provide stability and ensure the survival of conservative and right-wing think tanks. They support both a Social Movement Infrastructure and a Political Movement Infrastructure.

Until a similar progressive social movement infrastructure is created and sustained, the Democratic Party will continue to move to the right; and the right-wing attacks on working people, a living wage, and handy scapegoats will increase.

Robust social movements pull political parties towards them -- It's not the other way around and never has been.

Fight Back!
Tools for Resistance are here

Learn how organized wealth screwed us, and then educate your friends, co-workers, and family.

Major Interest Sections
Being Built:

• How the Right Took Power
• Union Busting
• Building the New Right
• White America Rules
• Pushing Women back into the Kitchen & Alleys
• Pushing Gay People Back Into the Closet
• Pushing Immigrants Out
• Slashing Roosevelt's Social Saftey Net
• Framing Obama & Roosevelt as Hitler & Stalin
• Phases of the Right-Wing Backlash
• Ultraconservatism
• The Tools of Fear
• Progressive Visions

Right-Wing Networks

• Overview
• The Christian Right
• The Neoconservatives