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ProfessionalLeftist

(4,982 posts)
Tue Feb 19, 2013, 02:52 PM Feb 2013

Big Tobacco, Koch Brothers Planned Tea Parties a Decade Before They Hit American Politics

Far from a genuine grassroots uprising, this astroturf effort was curated by wealthy industrialists years in advance.

A new academic study confirms that front groups with longstanding ties to the tobacco industry and the billionaire Koch brothers planned the formation of the Tea Party movement more than a decade before it exploded onto the U.S. political scene.

Far from a genuine grassroots uprising, this astroturf effort was curated by wealthy industrialists years in advance. Many of the anti-science operatives who defended cigarettes are currently deploying their tobacco-inspired playbook internationally to evade accountability for the fossil fuel industry's role in driving climate disruption.

The study, funded by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institute of Health, traces the roots of the Tea Party's anti-tax movement back to the early 1980s when tobacco companies began to invest in third party groups to fight excise taxes on cigarettes, as well as health studies finding a link between cancer and secondhand cigarette smoke.


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http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/big-tobacco-koch-brothers-planned-tea-parties-decade-they-hit-american-politics
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Big Tobacco, Koch Brothers Planned Tea Parties a Decade Before They Hit American Politics (Original Post) ProfessionalLeftist Feb 2013 OP
The study was funded by two anti-smoking groups. I'll take virgogal Feb 2013 #1
You need to read 'Deadly Spin' to learn why this is significant ProfessionalLeftist Feb 2013 #2
Thanks for the book reference. virgogal Feb 2013 #4
Since when are health advocacy associations automatically suspect? nt onehandle Feb 2013 #3
For me,it's studies in general. I'm elderly and I cannot even begin to virgogal Feb 2013 #6
This message was self-deleted by its author devilgrrl Feb 2013 #5

ProfessionalLeftist

(4,982 posts)
2. You need to read 'Deadly Spin' to learn why this is significant
Tue Feb 19, 2013, 03:06 PM
Feb 2013

it doesn't have only to do with anti-smoking factions. It does have to do with a propaganda machinery borne by big tobacco when it was learned what a dangerous substance it was - to keep it on the market - and those same propaganda techniques have been finely developed to such a degree that Josef Goebbels would be astonished - and used against the public by Kochs et al about every issue: climate change, health care, social security, taxes, etc.

It's a much bigger issue than that.

 

virgogal

(10,178 posts)
6. For me,it's studies in general. I'm elderly and I cannot even begin to
Tue Feb 19, 2013, 04:32 PM
Feb 2013

count all the studies that have been disproved in my lifetime.

Cynical,I suppose,but it's the way I feel.

I ignore all studies.

Response to virgogal (Reply #1)

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