Most of the attention on this cultural 'war of the worlds' has been understandably focused on the Bush Administration as the primary assailant of the integrity and sanctity of Social Security -- arguably the most successful social program in the history of the United States of America. What often goes overlooked are the power players that thrive at the beast's underbelly. These are the movers that shape public opinion and work as an integral component of the GOP’s framing machine.

Ancient philosopher, Sun Tzu, taught that a primary principle in the ‘Art of War’ is to know your enemy. To limit our perceived opposition in the battle for Social Security preservation to the Administration and its Fox-related minions would be to severely underestimate our opponents -- a potentially fatal mistake.

Thus, we introduce you to a broader scope of the opposition:

1) Cato Institute

Founded: in 1977; headquartered in Washington, D.C.

Chairman: William Niskanen

President: Edward Crane

* The Cato Institute has a staff of 40-plus, and over 75 adjunct Cato scholars and fellows.

* Rupert Murdoch previously served on the board of directors.

* The institute is a self-proclaimed ‘Libertarian’ think tank despite the fact that it supported the obviously non-libertarian Bush Administration moves to restrict civil liberties as part of the war on terror. In 2002, a Cato news release endorsed new Justice Department guidelines giving greater latitude to FBI agents to monitor Internet sites, libraries and religious institutions.

* Cato championed the deregulation of the airline and rail industries and promoted the legalization of various drugs.

Primary Effort in the Assault on Social Security: In 1995, the Cato Institute established the Project on Social Security Choice, which functions as the national coordinating center for Social Security privatization.

Funding : Cato currently has an annual income of $17,000,000. Between 1985 and 2001, the Institute received $15,633,540 in 108 separate grants from only nine different foundations:
* Castle Rock Foundation
* Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation
* Earhart Foundation
* JM Foundation
* John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.
* Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation
* Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
* Scaife Foundations (Sarah Mellon Scaife, Carthage)

2) Club for Growth

Founded: in 1999; based in Washington, D.C.

President and Founder: Stephen Moore (Has recently stepped down from this position). For years, Moore held the top post of Director of Fiscal Policy at the Cato Institute, where he was a leader for privatization.

* The Club for Growth is a spin-off of the Cato Institute

* Stephen Moore, former head of the Club for Growth, started off the new year by telling the Washington Post that a major campaign is being mounted to destroy Social Security, "It could easily be a $50 million to $100 million cost to convince people this is legislation that needs to be enacted. It's going to be expensive, because it's the most significant public policy fight in 25 years."

* The incestuous web of CFG members includes Founder Larry Kudlow (co-host of the CNBC show Kudlow and Cramer and economics editor for National Review Online), Art Laffer -- former assistant to George Shultz in the Nixon and Ford Administrations, and Brent Bozell -- a William F. Buckley in-law and the head of the right-wing Media Research Center -- a watchdog organization dedicated to 'exposing liberal bias' in the media and closely tied to the ultraconservative Parents Television Council.

Funding: It receives contributions from thousands of wealthy individuals, and funnels them to hand-picked neo-conservatives candidates for Congress

Primary Effort in the Assault on Social Security: The Club for Growth's Peter J. Ferrara heads its Social Security Project, which supports the Bush administration's effort to privatize Social Security. Ferrara's claim to fame is the "Ferrara Social Security Plan" to destroy Social Security which prides itself on shifting, "much larger amounts from Social Security to private accounts than most previous partial privatization plans would do."

It has announced that it will spend $15 million on behalf of a campaign for Social Security privatization, although the figure could go much higher.

3) Citizens for a Sound Economy

* In July 2004, CSE announced it was merging with Empower America to create FreedomWorks.

Founded: The Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE) was founded in 1984; Empower America (EA) in 1993; both headquartered in Washington, D.C.. On July 22, 2004, CSE and EA merged, forming FreedomWorks, headquartered in Washington, D.C.

Co-Chairmen:

Dick Armey -- Between 1995 and his retirement in 2002, the Texas Republican Congressman was the iron-fisted House Majority Leader, who helped draft the Conservative Revolution's 1994 Contract with America, and saw to it that much of it was rammed through. He also led the move to impeach President William Clinton.

C. Boyden Gray -- An heir to the R.J. Reynolds tobacco fortune, Gray is the patrician son of Gordon Gray, National Security Adviser to President Dwight Eisenhower. C. Boyden Gray was White House Counsel for President George H.W. Bush, and became co-chairman of Citizens for a Sound Economy in 1993.

Jack Kemp -- When Kemp, a nine-term Republican Congressman from New York State, introduced and passed the infamous Kemp-Roth Act in 1981, as part of supply-side economic ‘revolution’, it proceeded to produce record federal budget deficits and stifle the economy. Kemp founded Empower America.

* CSE was founded in 1984 by the same Koch family that created the Cato Institute

* According to internal documents leaked to the Washington Post, 85 percent of CSE’s 1998 revenues of CSE's $16.2 million came not from its 250,000 members, but from contributions of $250,000 and up from large corporations

* CSE’s representatives have appeared on hundreds of radio and television shows and published hundreds op-ed articles arguing that "environmental conservation requires a commonsense approach that limits the scope of government," acid rain is a "so-called threat [that] is largely nonexistent," and global warming is "a verdict in search of evidence."

Funding: According to Media Transparency, between 1985 and 2002, CSEF received $16,928,712 in 108 separate grants from only twelve foundations:

* Castle Rock Foundation
* Earhart Foundation
* JM Foundation
* Koch Family Foundations (David H. Koch Foundation, Charles G. Koch Foundation, Claude R. Lambe Foundation)
* John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.
* Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
* Philip M. McKenna Foundation, Inc.
* Scaife Foundations (Scaife Family, Sarah Mellon Scaife, Carthage)

In 2002, CSEF gained $920,000 in grants from three of these foundations, accounting for a little under one-quarter of the organization’s revenue. The Claude R. Lambe Foundation was the most generous contributing $700,000 for general operating costs while the Scaife Foundation donated $175,000 and the John M. Olin Foundation $45,000.

Other CSE funders (not included in above funding total) have included:

* Archer Daniels Midland
* Daimler Chrysler ($25,000)
* Enron
* General Electric
* Koch Industries
* F.M. Kirby Foundation
* Philip Morris (>$1 million)
* U.S. West ($1 million)
* ExxonMobil ($75,000)
* Exxon ($175,000)
* Hertz ($25,000)
* Microsoft ($380,000) – in 1999
* U.S. Sugar Corp. ($280,000)

(source: The Washington Post, 1/29/00)

Primary Effort in the Assault on Social Security: FreedomWorks' project to destroy Social Security through 'Privatization' can be viewed on a their webpage entitled, "The President and FreedomWorks Lead on Reform".

4) The Institute for Policy Innovation

Founded: in 1987; headquartered in Lewisville, Texas.

President: Tom Giovanetti

* The IPI was founded and is controlled by Dick Armey, also the co-chairman of FreedomWorks (see above).

* The chief writer on Social Security privatization for IPI is Peter Ferrara, who used to work for the Cato Institute.

* The IPI drafted the radical Ryan-Sununu bill to privatize Social Security.

Funding: (The Usual Suspects)

Although IPI's president Tom Giovanetti wrote "IPI has an absolute policy of protecting our donors' privacy", some information is available from 990 forms of several donors. According to Media Transparency, they received over the period 1990 to 2002:

* Earhart Foundation -- $15,000
* JM Foundation -- $15,000
* Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation -- $35,000
* Sarah Scaife Foundation -- $225,000
* Carthage Foundation -- $245,000
* John M. Olin Foundation -- $305,000
* Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation -- $470,575
* Total -- $1,310,575

Primary Effort in the Assault on Social Security: The IPI Project for Social security Reform can be found here: "Destroying Social Security"

5) The Hoover Institute

Founded: in 1919; headquartered in Palo Alto, California

* The Hoover Institution has over 250 employees.

* George Shultz has been involved in pushing Social Security privatization since 1973 and is the dominant force at Hoover. Others include: Art Laffer (see Club for Growth); Michael Boskin; John Cogan (a member of Bush's official 2001 Commission on Social Security); and Annelise Anderson.

Funding: (Again, let the Xerox roll) Between 1985 and 2001, the Institution received $15,431,103 in 136 separate grants from only nine foundations:

* Castle Rock Foundation
* Earhart Foundation
* JM Foundation
* Koch Family Foundations (Charles G. Koch Foundation)
* John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.
* Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
* Scaife Foundations (Sarah Mellon Scaife, Carthage)
* Smith Richardson Foundation

Primary Effort in the Assault on Social Security: Hoover’s efforts to dismantle Social Security can be found here: "Destroy Social Security".

6) Americans for Tax Reform

Founded: in mid-1980s; headquartered in Washington, D.C.

The chief here is Grover Norquist, who meets regularly with Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff, Lewis Libby. Norquist helped the Heritage Foundation write the Republican's 1994 Contract With America. And, shortly thereafter, he led a right wing charge to "de-fund" the left, declaring that "We will hunt [these liberal groups] down one by one and extinguish their funding sources."
ATR is ostensibly a group that pushes for lower taxes. It has close ties to the Republican Party and has frequently allied itself with the tobacco industry.

Funding: (Guess Who)

* Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
* Carthage Foundation; see Scaife Foundations
* JM Foundation
* John M. Olin Foundation
* Sarah Scaife Foundation; see Scaife Foundations
* R.J. Reynolds
* Philip Morris
* Tobacco Institute

Primary Effort in the Assault on Social Security: Here, you can find the primary efforts of 'Americans for Tax Reform' to destroy Social Security.

You might have noticed that a few names appear time and again as advocates of Social Security 'Reform'. They hope, and succeed, in giving the impression that there is a large following for their line of thinking. The fact is that the group of advocates is actually a relatively microscopic group of very well funded and focused individuals disguised by the names of a dozen or so organizations.

Note that every foundation refers to the work of Peter Ferrara and each even presents his writings as though they are original to their organization. The signs of propaganda are apparent, but this is the way the Republican Party must work if they are to 'persuade' the electorate that these policies are in their best interest.

This makes it clear that the entire right-wing conglomeration of think-tanks is actually a single integrated network -- a coordinated apparatus to run the media barrage, and to direct the organization of congressional policy actions.

And it doesn’t stop here. Recall the young mother, Sandy Jacques, who spoke on national television at the Bush "Economic Summit" last December.. She was presented as an example of 'real people' who desired the administration-pushed privatization of Social Security -- she said she wanted privatization for her child. Won't somebody please think of the children!

It turns out, however, that she was actually the executive director of George Bush's official 2001 Commission to Strengthen Social Security, and who now serve as the Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, with emphasis on Social Security.

There is no depth to which the right will not sink in order to fulfill their agenda.

This is what we are up against and we should not hesitate to fight fire with fire.

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