Who Funds the Radical Left In America?

Steve Baldwin, Exclusive to Western Center for Journalism

Very few Americans realize there exists a large network of far left philanthropists and foundations in America dedicated to destroying the American way of life, our Christian-based culture and our free enterprise system. They seek to remove America from its constitutional foundations and move it toward a European-style socialism. Much of this effort is coordinated by a little known group called the Tides Foundation and its related group, the Tides Center. Over the course of its 33 year history, the Tides network has given hundreds of millions of dollars to anti-free enterprise groups, gun control groups, anti-private property groups, abortion rights groups, homosexual groups, groups engaged in voter fraud, anti-military groups, and organizations that seek to destroy America’s constitutional basis. All told, over 100 leftist organizations have received funding from one of the two Tides groups.

Not surprisingly, this network of anti-American groups played a key role in electing Barack Obama by using classic propaganda techniques in making false allegations about Bush (he lied regarding WMDs, he stole the election in Florida, he knew in advance about 9/11, etc, etc.) and created the impression that Bush and by extension, the GOP, was corrupt. Obama, of course, was portrayed as the reformer who would save America from this corruption.

Millions of Americans fell for this mythology and so without being openly partisan, this vast network of far left groups, along with its media allies, was able to manipulate American public opinion during the last election cycle. Meanwhile, anyone who tried to reveal Obama’s real agenda, his role in the corrupt Chicago political machine, his socialist political associations, or his soft spot for Middle Eastern terrorists was labeled a kook by this same network.

The amount of funding the Tides Foundation and Tides Center provides the hard left is unprecedented. Indeed, its financial disclosures show that the Tides Center has raised between $48 and $71 million each year since 1998 and the bulk of this revenue is contributed back to far left groups. The closely-aligned Tides Foundation has reported revenues of between $59 and $77 million every year since 2002. The two tax exempt groups are supposed to be non-partisan, but they are certainly extremely political and they push the envelope regarding what non-profit groups are allowed to do politically. All together, both Tides groups have contributed over $500 million to the organized left.

The list of hard-left causes is long and there is not enough space to review them all. But here’s a brief review of a few of them:

Environmental Extremist groups

Members of the Ruckus Society

The Ruckus Society is a group of environmental anarchists dedicated to the violent overthrow of America. One of its projects is to train people to disrupt events such as political party conventions using street blockades and other violent techniques. Its director has publicly stated that, “you can use vandalism strategically.” They received $200,000 from the Tides Foundation.

The California Wildlands Project received Tides funding and it is dedicated to placing millions of acres of land off limits to humans. The Natural Resources Defense Council received support from Tides and is notorious for defending the rights of animals and plants over the rights of humans. If they had their way, civilization would be returned to a primitive state. The NRDC ran ads attacking President Bush during his last presidential campaign. Another Tides recipient is Greenpeace which, despite its friendly-sounding name, is best known for its illegal actions at sea that often endanger humans. Greenpeace received $250,000 from Tides.

Anti-Anti-Terrorist groups

The Tides entities fund the Iraq Peace Fund and the Peace Strategies Fund, which in turn have funded much of the anti-war movement and led to the creation of the hysterical anti-war group MoveOn.org and the radical website Indymedia. The later group has coordinated radical activists worldwide to fight American foreign policy interests.

The Tides Foundation also funded the anti-war group United for Peace and Justice, headed by longtime Communist Party member and pro-Castro apologist Leslie Cagan. Indeed, when UFPJ co-founder Medea Benjamin visited Cuba, she stated that the contrast between Cuba and America “made it seem like I died and went to heaven.” Tides has announced that it supports “nonviolent responses to terrorism,” as if that will have any effect whatsoever on the agenda of the terrorists. This attitude is dangerously naïve.

Islamic groups

Apparently, the Tides Foundation does not consider any Islamic group to be a threat, even if they have been implicated in terrorist activities by the government. It has funded the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR), probably the leading front group for Islamic radicals in America. Indeed, three of CAIR’s leaders have been arrested for pro-jihadist activities and CAIR spends much of its time attacking American efforts to track, monitor, and arrest domestic terrorists. They have opposed, for example, virtually every effort by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI to monitor Islamic radicals known to be engaged in pro-jihadist activity.

But rather then be concerned with Islamic terrorism after 9/11, the Tides Foundation poured half of a million dollars into an effort to protect the rights of homosexual Arabs. Another Tides recipient, the Democratic Justice Fund, works to east restrictions on Muslim immigration to the United States from countries designated as “terrorist nations.”

The Tides groups also funds other groups who work against the creation of internal security measures such as the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee.

Radical Legal groups

William Kuntsler

The National Lawyers Guild receives support from the Tides foundation. The NLG began as the legal arm of the U.S. Communist Party and still functions today as a legal support arm for terrorists, spies, and other anti-American scum. Conventions of the NLG sound ridiculously like a politburo meeting or a cheering section for worldwide jihad with speakers praising terrorists worldwide. Also receiving Tides funding via the Peace Strategies Fund is the Center for Constitutional Rights, headed by long-time Marxist psychopath William Kunstler. CCR opposed every effort by the Bush Administration to make it difficult for terrorists to operate in America. One Tides press statement announced that CCR was educating people “about the dangers posed by government anti-terrorism activities.” In other words, the U.S. government is the threat, not Islamic jihadists. Finally, the Tides also funds the ACLU which spends much of its time fighting for the “rights” of non-citizen terrorists.

Voter Fraud groups

When the story broke last year about how ACORN founder Wade Rathke was caught embezzling a million dollars from ACORN, it was Tides founder Drummond Pike who reimbursed ACORN for the missing money. Pike did not want an investigation of ACORN that would force it to open its books. With ongoing investigations in at least a dozen states involving ACORN and voter fraud, you can understand Pike’s concern. Not only that, but Rathke sits on the board of both the Tides Center and Tides Foundation.

With the Tides Foundation and Tides Center now the largest funder of the left in America today, Drummond Pike may be one of the most powerful men in America. This scruffy, California-based, anti-war activist, founded the Tides Foundation in 1976 and has managed to raise millions of dollars from America’s leading foundations. What he promises them is anonymity since they are able to claim they are simply contributing to a foundation self described as being “committed to a society based on fairness, equal justice and equally shared economic opportunities…” That sounds fairly innocuous. The contributors therefore have some “deniability” about how their money is used but Pike then directs this money to a massive network of hard-left groups. Indeed, Pike even states, “Anonymity is very important to most of the people we work with.”

But that scam needs to come to an end and these donors need to be held accountable for their actions. It is extremely hypocritical for individuals and foundations whose wealth is due to America’s free enterprise system to support causes that seek to destroy our way of life.

If you’ve ever heard the clique “Limousine Liberal,” this is a perfect description for these people.

Four of its largest supporters are as follows:

The Heinz Endowment.

Led by John Kerry’s wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, this group has contributed at least $8.1 million to the Tides entities since 1994. This is the endowment created by the Heinz food empire which Teresa Heinz still has ownership interest in.

George Soros.

Soros is an eccentric billionaire who has been funding anti-American groups and causes for a decade. He was convicted of insider trading in France in 2005 and is the leading force behind the effort to legalize all drugs. While he is the founder of the Open Society organization, he hides a great deal of his wealth in offshore banks considered havens for money laundering. He has given more than $7 million to the Tides Foundation. Tides founder Drummond Pike serves as the treasurer for Soros’s Democracy Alliance, a major funder of ACORN.

Ford Foundation. This foundation consistently supports causes Henry Ford would never have supported and has become one of the largest donors to Tides, giving them millions of dollars since 1997. Not only that, but the Ford Motor company itself also gives to Tides.

Rockefeller Foundation: They have been funding the left in America for 40 years, so this is no surprise.

Other large Tides donors include: the Pew Charitable Trust, the James Irvine Foundation, Citigroup Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, Hearst Foundation, Fannie Mae Foundation, JP Morgan Foundation, Bank America Foundation, Chase Manhattan Foundation, Verizon Foundation, David & Lucile Packard Foundation, AT & T Foundation, Bell Atlantic Foundation, Citicorp Foundation, ARCO Foundation, US West Foundation, John D. MacArthur Foundation, ALCOA Foundation, Richard King Mellon Foundation, and the Carnegie Foundation.

What’s sad is that many of these foundations were originally endowed by America’s first generation of great capitalists but have decided to spit on the legacy created by these captains of industry. It is very doubtful William Randolph Hearst, J.P. Morgan, John D. MacArthur, Andrew Carnegie, Richard Mellon, Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, or W. K. Kellogg, would support efforts to move America toward socialism or assist terrorists who desire to destroy America. These foundations have been captured by the left and now use the money created by free enterprise to attack the very system which created such wealth.

But the Tides organizations have also successfully raised millions from fairly new foundations as well, such as foundations created by: Hewlett Packard, Verizon, ARCO, Citigroup, and AT& T. This potent combination of old and new wealth is posed to radically change America due not only to how Tides Center and Foundation has combined this wealth to create and fund the hard-left infrastructure in America, but also due to how the Media has unabashedly bought into all the themes perpetrated by this network of groups.

But Americans need to realize that this is how the hard left in America is now funded. Indeed, this is the same network used by the Obama campaign machine to manipulate public opinion. This coalition of left wing groups and hijacked foundations will destroy America unless Americans wake up and quit funding the corporations linked to these foundations.

The impact this group is having was evident just recently in the debate on the Stimulus legislation and the Cap and Trade initiative. A project of the Tides Center is the Apollo Alliance, a group “designed to bring together the elements of organized labor with the community organizers with the green groups, the environmental groups, and to access all of the big foundation money that’s been supportive of those causes in the past,” according to Phil Kerpen, director of policy for Americans for Prosperity.

A former board member of the Apollo Alliance is Van Jones, a self described communist now serving as President Obama’s new “green jobs” czar. Apollo Alliance leaders claim to have written both the stimulus bill and the Cap and Trade bill. It is shocking to realize that unelected radicals now appear to have more power than our elected members of Congress.


One way to reduce the power of this alliance would be to boycott the products and services these organizations are involved with such as Ford automobiles, Heinz food products, Bank of America, Kellogg cereals, HP computers, etc. While these foundations usually no longer have any financial association with the corporations that originally endowed them, you can be sure the people from both entities still travel in the same circles. If thousands of Americans, for example, told Ford dealers they will no longer buy Ford cars as long as the Ford Foundation funds anti-American causes, the Foundation will quickly get the message. If thousands of Americans wrote the Hewlett Packard Company and informed them they will cease to purchase HP computer products as long as its foundation funds the left, you can be sure HP will pressure its foundation to back off its agenda.

Annie Hamilton
www.StandupAmericaUs.com
www.SoldiersMemorialfund.org
www.SaveOurDemocracy.org
Thankks General Vallely