I would like to see an in-depth investigation of "the Heritage Foundation"

[SoCalDem]

They are now fanning out on all the corporate media drumming up reasons to "fight Iran"..

This shit has to stop..

These guys are heartless, gutless warmongers who have the "ear of the government officials".

They sit around dreaming up ways to enrich their military contractor buddies, write up "plans" and then have the government turn them into "policy"..

Why even HAVE a department of Defense or State, if an outside radical right wing fringe group with a lah-dee-dah name is going to direct foreign policy?

these stink-tanks & lobbyist groups are a cancer in our government, and until we out them and get rid of them, we will always be in peril.

Just HOW on earth could it be in our best interest to attack Iran? The latest approach is to frame it as though it would be "protecting" our troops in Iraq? :wtf:.

I thought we had the biggest-baddest-bestest military on the planet, and yet the HF would have us believe that we have a troop of stranded boy scouts who are being harassed by the bullies of Iran..

Of all the countries who have a stake in how the mess we created, turns out, Iran may be at the top of the list.. We PAID Iraq and supplied them with the means & methods to wage a bloody war against Iran, because we were pissed at them, but were too reticent to attack them ourselves..

Maybe Iran sees an opportunity to swoop in and clean up the mess.. well so be it, if that happens.. We created the opening for them to do just that.

Iran seems to be able to do business with almost every other country on the globe..just NOT us.. Maybe WE are the problem..not the solution :grr:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. my fave issue: Medical

under our bleedership, the middle class in Iraq was destroyed. All medical, nursing, hospital, drug, vaccination infrastructure is gone. Water supplies have not been clean in years. no sewage control. we drove that country into the stone age.

and what is Iran doing, delivering a donation of 20 tons of chemicals to clean the water supply that we can't/won't/refuse to do. in fact, we are stopping chlorine shipments at the border.

[RethugAssKicker]

2. The Heritage Foundation is a fucking neo-con Nazi facist

group of racists... Thats all... but yes... they have the ears of
the media and are brought on over and over again to give
their "expert" opinions...

They DO need to be exposed for what they really are.
But it won't happen.. America has SUNK to depths too low.

[bdamomma]

4. just like American Enterprise Institute

I am pretty sure about the AEI, too. another fascist organization.

[RethugAssKicker]

8. You're right.... there a quite a number of these

educated KKK groups.... and all get big play ... especially on CSPAN!!

[bdamomma]

9. and the Federalist Society all fancy titles but they are criminals

they are domestic enemies, isn't there something about defending the country against such people?????

[Greyhound]

3. Founded and funded by Coors, and served as a haven for Nazis and Nazi sympathizers.

What else do you want to know?

All this is well-known and has been for decades.

[LiberalEsto]

5. Don't forget Richard Mellon Scaife

Another wealthy right wing lunatic who helps bankroll these groups.

[Greyhound]

13. He funded the whole media arm of the raygun loot-fest, I was just talking about the HF.

This is something else that pissed me off about the Democrats. Their billionaires pour millions and millions for years into venues with no return to get their message out, ours, when they do anything at all, demand instant results and a big payoff, or they bail.

:kick:

[DrDebug]

15. The Scaife Foundation is one of the major sources of income

In fact his foundations spend most money on the Heritage Foundation thus making it their most important foundation not under the direct control of Richard Mallon Scaife.

(...)

Between 1985 and 2001, the Sarah Mellon Scaife Foundation donated $15,860,000 to the Heritage Foundation; $7,333,000 to the Institute for Policy Analysis; $6,995,500 to the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace; $6,693,000 to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS); $4,411,000 to the American Enterprise Institute; $2,575,000 to the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research; $1,855,000 to the George C. Marshall Institute; $1,808,000 to the Hudson Institute; and $1,697,000 to the Cato Institute.

For the years 1985-2001, the Scaife Family Foundation donated $702,640 to the Heritage Foundation; $590,000 to the American Enterprise Institute; $275,000 to the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University; $200,000 to the CSIS; and $175,000 to the New Citizenship Project, Inc., alone.

(...)

http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Scaife_Foundations

[Greyhound]

18. Thanks for the info, more crap for the pile. Sometimes I wonder why we even bother to track

it anymore.

[cosmicdot]

19. he's a trustee at Heritage

http://www.heritage.org/About/Departments/trustees.cfm

[DrDebug]

6. American front for the international intelligence agency Le Cercle

The other posters are correct, it has nazi links for the start. It was founded by the French nazi collaborators Violet and Pinay who wanted to keep their contacts. On German side it was Wehrmacht General Gehlen and Otto von Habsburg who participated. That clandestine intelligence organization rapidly extended itself and Heritage Foundation (and Committee on the Present Danger during the Reagan era) is their most important front with members like Paul Bremer III, Henry Kissinger and Edwin Meese.

Le Cercle is nowadays presided over by Norman Lamont, the right hand of Margaret Thatcher. The group consists of 24 countries and is politically extreme right.

[zbdent]

7. Coors, Scaife, Murdoch

the whole sick, inbred bunch ...

[TheUniverse]

10. Doesn't the Heritage Foundation realise that the people of Iran have...

a rich Persian heritage. The people of Persia have many ancient temples and historic artifacts that may not survive a war. Why would the "Heritage" foundation support destroying another culture's heritage?

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[EST]

12. Forgive my lack of understanding, please...

But what does "reticent" mean, as in your above op-" but were too reticent to attack them ourselves.. ?"
I think I agree with you, but am not sure.

[SoCalDem]

16. After Viet Nam, until Iraq, the US favored proxy wars

I guess we thought that Iraq fighting Iran was as good as us whacking them for that "hostage thing".. Our leaders (Reagan/Bush) apparently thought they were too stoooooopid to understand why Iraq was fighting them..and even knowing that, they fought to a draw..

I do not think taking hostages was a good thing, but we DID overthrow their government in the 50's and we DID install a vicious dictator who they did not like much at all, so maybe they had a right to be pissed at us..

[TahitiNut]

14. I'd put the Federalist Society at the head of that list.

... and include the American Enterpirse Institute and AIPAC.

[AuntPatsy]

17. Your last sentence sounds about right

[blondeatlast]

20. Indeed. for proof that the news media is corrupt and lazy, look no further than the fertile

fields of the TAX-EXEMPT think tanks.

[Cerridwen]

21. It's been done - Russ Bellant - 1991

The Coors Connection: How Coors Family Philanthropy Undermines Democratic Pluralism

And 1988 release

Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party

Just some connecting of dots.

I'm sure there must be more out there to bring us up to date with names; but this is the history for those convinced this crap started in 2000.

[SoCalDem]

22. I know it started decades ago. I'm just pissed that they get a "pass"

and are actually considered "experts" and are welcomed on every tv show around..AS experts..

Is it any wonder why we have such a messed up foreign policy?

[Cerridwen]

23. I remember watching the media change how they referred to them.

At first, the were an ultra-right-wing think tank.

Then they were called a conservative think tank.

Then they were called a think tank.

Now they are called a political policy organization with experts in foreign policy.

There may have been some other phrases along the way.

I knew how far the media had morphed into a propaganda machine based on what phrase they were using that month. It was astounding.

But, of course, I'm just an old-timed conspiracy theorist. *sigh*

[Hardrada]

24. Does Heritage have some connection with Tavistock Institute

or foundation? That's some sort of sinister organization too, I think.

[starroute]

25. Heritage's Jack Abramoff connections and more

Heritage's main line of connection to Abramoff goes through Amy Ridenour, the head of CNPPR, who since the 80's has had close ties both with Abramoff and with Heritage and its in-house fascists.

In 2001, Abramoff, Ed Buckham (Tom DeLay's former chief of staff who'd worked with Abramoff in the 90's and then founded his own lobbying group), Amy Ridenour, and the Heritage Foundation were all involved in lobbying on behalf of the somewhat unsavory government of Malaysia. That climaxed in a trip to Malaysia in the late summer of 2001 that included DeLay, Buckham, and three men involved with the Heritage Foundation -- Heritage President Ed Feulner, Ken Sheffer (the head of Heritage's Hong Kong office) and former Senator Malcolm Wallop.

A week after the trip, 9/11 happened, Malaysia instantly got back into the good graces of the US government, and Abramoff, Buckham, and Wallop were all well-compensated for their trouble

That Hong Kong office of Heritage's is a story in itself. It was established in 1996 and run initially by Ken Sheffer and Elaine Chao, who was then a Heritage fellow and soon became the head of its Asian Studies Center. The nominal purpose of the office was to gather research data but its real function was apparently to pave the way for Heritage's corporate donors to make lucrative business deals after Hong Kong was returned to China on July 1, 1997.

That was a no-no of course, because of Heritage's tax-exempt status, which may be why in 1997 Feulner and Sheffer founded Belle Haven Consultants as a kind of for-profit lobbying adjunct to Heritage (with which it shared Hong Kong Office space.) However, Belle Haven didn't actually do any lobbying itself, but subcontracted it out to firms like Ed Buckham's Alexander Strategies Group.

There is a whole lot more that could be said about the Heritage Foundation and its strangely non-think-tank-ish business connections, as well as about Elaine Chao, her own Chinese connections, her tenure as Secretary of Labor (including the question of whether she did any favors for Jack Abramoff, who had a deep and abiding interest in labor regulations), and her husband Mitch McConnell. But I've already said quite enough for one post, so I'll just encourage anyone who might be interested to google on each of the names I've mentioned. You won't be disappointed.