In Steve’s post yesterday on American horror author Stephen King’s article in the Daily Beast on the resistance of the super-rich to higher taxes, the Koch Brothers get a special shout-out. “Right-wing creepazoids” is the term King uses to describe them. They’re oil and gas billionaires from Texas, who largely inherited their wealth from their father, and are huge backers of the Tea Party in the United States.
Turns out that’s not the extent of their philanthropy. In a recent Vancouver Observer article it was reported that over the last four years they’ve poured $500,000 into the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute.
The institute bills itself as a “non-partisan and non-political” think-tank, which, of course, it totally, completely, absolutely is. That’s why the Harper Conservatives are cool with the funding arrangement. The possibility that “radical” environmental groups might receive some funding from outside the country, and engage in advocacy and other activities that are clearly (and heinously) political, however, drives them bonkers.
For more on the Koch Brothers, here’s the trailer of a new documentary by Robert Greenwald and Brave New Foundation (Wal-Mart, Iraq For Sale and Re-Think Afghanistan) called Koch Brothers Exposed.
