I write almost exclusively on climate-related issues, either the only issue that will matter in a hundred years (The Economist) or just another pet issue (Markos) depending on one's point of view. The climate folk have been alarmed by documents allegedly obtained from a conservative think tank, the Heartland Institute, allegedly showing its budgetary priorities. (I use the word "allegedly" throughout this piece because the Heartland Institute has threatened bloggers and journalists with legal action for using documents that may or may not have been altered, and may or may not have been stolen from Heartland - its legalese is poorly drafted.) However, the same documents allegedly show that the Heartland Institute plans the same tactics against Your Pet Issue too.
Health care.
Wisconsin unions.
Public debt.
Education.
The Heartland Institute allegedly plans to fund attacks against all.
It's time for progressive solidarity.
From a document allegedly entitled Heartland Institute: 2012 Fundraising Plan (PDF, and all references are to page numbers within the document):
A. Free To Choose Medicine Project
Free To Choose Medicine (FTCM) is a new project of The Heartland Institute. During 2011, Heartland’s president Joseph Bast wrote an 80-page proposal for the effort, and donor Bart Madden agreed to contribute half of the project’s $1 million/year budget. In January, a director for the project, Vince Galbriati, was hired. We expect the FTCM to bring in at least $1 million in gifts from all donors, including Bart Madden. Approximately $500,000 in gifts will be from first-time donors. There are scores of businesses and trade associations with a keen interest in our effort, and many wealthy individuals have strong personal motivation to see faster access to potentially life-saving new drugs become a reality. Vince Galbriati is eager to “pitch” the proposal to investors in drug companies.
2012 Fundraising Plan, p. 13.
Free to Choose Medicine argues against the Food & Drug Administration's regulatory processes for new drugs to reach the market, and for the right of patients to choose experimental treatments.
C. Operation Angry Badger
Wisconsin was the focus of national attention due to recall campaigns waged in 2011, and campaigns are taking place in 2012 against Gov. Scott Walker, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and three Republican senators who voted for Act 10, the landmark collective bargaining reform legislation adopted in 2011. We have been following the Wisconsin debate closely, reporting on it in Budget & Tax News, commenting in op-eds and LTEs and on blogs, doing television and radio interviews, and sending research and commentary to elected officials in Wisconsin and nationally.
The recall elections of 2012 amount to a referenda on collective bargaining reform at the state level, making them of national interest. Successful recalls would be a major setback to the national effort to rein in public sector compensation and union power. Heartland is the largest and most influential national free-market think tank in the Midwest, so we are in the right place and with the right resources to help defend and secure Wisconsin’s recent gains.
We are contemplating five projects:
1. Recruit and promote superintendents who support Act 10
2. Explain the benefits of Act 10
3. Document the shortcomings of public schools in Wisconsin
4. Expose teacher pay in key districts
5. Create blogs that shadow small town newspaper coverage of the controversy
We anticipate that this project will cost about $612,000. Maureen Martin, Heartland’s legal counsel, with be the chief researcher and writer for this project. The anonymous donor has pledged $100,000 toward this project. We are circulating a proposal to other potential funders.
2012 Fundraising Plan, pp. 13-14.
From the blog
Cognidissidence, which also deserves this awesome photo credit: "We know that this group is without scruples and will do everything and anything they can to prevent the people from reclaiming Wisconsin from the very same corporate interests that fund this shadow group. I say let's show them what angry badgers are all about!"
D. Center for Transforming Education
The Center for Transforming Education at The Heartland Institute produces School Reform News, leads the national effort to implement “Parent Triggers” at the state level outside California, played a major role in a Texas effort in 2012 that narrowly lost, and conducts a fullscale PR and GR campaign for “transformational” school reform....
We plan to aggressively pursue donors to charter schools. Lists of such donors often are publicly available, printed in the newsletters of the schools. Charters are the “safe” kind of school choice, and supporters often contribute large amounts toward capital campaigns and scholarships. These individuals are ideal candidates to contribute to a think tank that promises to remove barriers to starting new charter schools and extending choice to other private schools.
2012 Fundraising Plan, p. 14. In California, the "parent trigger" law is a landmark state law giving parents power to transform low-performing schools into nonunion charter schools, and it's
dividing parents when used. A quick perusal of the Heartland Institute's
Education News page reveals headlines such as "In Finland, students win when teachers compete" and "Charter school rankings seen improving state laws."
G. Cook County Public Debt Project
Maria Pappas, Cook County (IL) Treasurer, has discovered that municipalities and other taxing districts in Cook County are much deeper in debt than is widely understood, or even understood by elected officials in Cook County. She has documented a looming financial crisis, driven largely by employee pension and health care promises, that could have catastrophic results for residents and businesses in the county. She warns that other counties in the U.S. are probably facing similar disasters. She’s eager to speak out on the issue not only in Illinois, but nationwide. Heartland has agreed to work with Treasurer Pappas’s staff and other allies on three things:
(a) a research and publishing effort that results in one or more Heartland Policy Studies that factcheck, report, and interpret the Treasurers’ findings,
(b) a national communications campaign consisting of distribution of the studies, news releases,
op-eds, and other promotional activities, and
(c) a national speaking tour featuring Treasurer Pappas, perhaps with events in state capitals held in conjunction with our allies in a dozen or half-dozen states.
2012 Fundraising Plan, p. 17. Pappas is, apparently, a
deficit hawk warning of unfunded government debt (and who, incidentally, lost a 2004 Senate primary to a man named Barack Obama). Of course, the solutions to this financial crisis - if it exists - are (a) drastic cuts to the bone of local government budgets; (b) drastic cuts to public employee pensions; and (c) drastic cuts to healthcare.
If the Heartland Institute is exposed only among the climate silo, the progressive community loses. An injury to one is an injury to all. As a climate activist, I support the power of the Wisconsin angry badgers' solidarity; I know that corporate pinkwashing is just as insidious as corporate greenwashing,; I speak out for the need for immigration reform and marriage equality; and I appreciate the way Occupy Wall Street has shifted the national dialogue away from public debt. I hope that activists on other Pet Issues will do the same for My Pet Issue. The progressive community, as a whole, needs to stand together against the institutions that would subvert democratic values.