Posted on 04/01/2004 10:10:24 AM PST by Bob J
Last Friday, Rush Limbaugh played clips of two “grieving 9/11 widows” who objected to President Bush’s use of 9/11 imagery in his first campaign ads. Strangely, the women used almost the same exact phrases in describing their anger at Bush, and they repeated the phrases verbatim on four different networks. They simultaneously accused Bush of “stonewalling” the 9/11 commission. They opined that the ads should show President Bush in “a classroom, reading to schoolchildren because that was what he was really doing.” And, they commented that the “murders of 3,000 people happened on his watch.” Interestingly enough, the “3,000 people murdered” was also uttered by Katie Couric on the Today Show.
Surely, there hasn’t been such a glaring example of media repetitiveness since the “George Bush lacks gravitas” days. The DNC fax machine has been busy indeed.
There is more to the grieving widows than the media has let on. Most of the people quoted on television and in print are executive members of “Peaceful Tomorrows” a 9/11 support group which preaches tolerance and which is on the record as opposing the War on Terrorism. “Peaceful Tomorrows” is itself a project of the “Tides Center of Pennsylvania”, in turn a project of the “Tides Foundation“, based in San Francisco.
The Tides Foundation, set up in 1976 by student anti-war activist Drummond Pike, is set up to launder donations made by anonymous donors to radical left wing groups the donor may not care to be associated with. Through Tides “donor-advised fund”, the donor makes the donation to Tides, and Tides then funnels it off to the desired group. Since its founding, the Tides Foundation has made over $300 million in grants. Most Tides recipients fit into a narrow band of the usual radical causes promoting “environmental extremism; exclusion of humans from public and private wildlands; anti-war protests; opposition to free trade; banning firearms ownership; abolition of the death penalty; unlimited abortion rights and gay, lesbians, bi-sexual and transgender issues.”(1)
Since 1993 at least 91 Foundations have given grants to Tides that total over $200 million. Donors include such familiar names as the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Pew Charitable Trusts. Other known donors include Foundations such as Rockefeller, John Merck, Daimler/Chrysler, Lucent, Bank of America, Bill and Melinda Gates and Fannie Mae.
Mr. Pike, who fancies himself an uber anti-capitalist, nonetheless is spectacularly successful in running his Foundations. Pike’s personal income from his positions as President of the Tides Center and President and Director of the Tides Foundation amount to over $103,000 in salary and $22,126 in benefits annually. Pike has also profited from establishing for-profit companies which donate a portion of their income to Tides. Pike’s “Working Assets” company sells credit cards, long distance phone service and mutual funds. In 1995, Working Assets gave away “Stop Newt” phone cards containing 10 minutes of phone time so that the recipient could phone Congress to protest the Republican plans for welfare reform.
Pike also founded “Highwater, Inc.” a for-profit subsidiary which manages real estate leasing at a San Francisco office complex called the “Thoreau Center for Sustainability” in the Presidio. Tenets include both the Tides Foundation and the Tides Center as well as the Wilderness Society and Environmental Media Services.
The Tides occupy the building rent free until 2007, and Highwater collects the rents from the other tenets. Tides also earns money for operating three journalism “projects” for the Pew Charitable Trusts - the Pew Center for Excellence in Journalism, the Pew Center for Civic Journalism and the Pew Center for the People and the Press. Tides earns an eight percent management fee. Since 1990, Pew has given over 114 million to Tides.
Tides’ “Projects Program”, founded in 1976, provides another income stream. Tides earns an eight percent of gross income fee for providing financial and management advice to activist groups. People for the American Way started in 1980 as a Tides Foundation Project. The Tides Foundation has funded such groups as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the Environmental Working Group (an anti-modern farming bunch), the Natural Resources Defense Council (best known for the 1989 Alar scare) and the Ruckus Society, which trains anti-capitalists to smash the local Starbucks.
In 2002, the Tides Foundation and Center began to fund anti-Iraqi war groups. The Iraqi Peace Fund has awarded $489,000 to 27 groups including the National Council of Churches, Taxpayers for Common Sense, Physicians for Social Responsibility and our old friend Move On.org. United for Peace and Win Without War are two other groups being coordinated under the auspices of Tides.
In 2001, the Tides Foundation and the Heinz Endowments opened the Tides Center for Western Pennsylvania. The Howard Heinz and Vira Heinz Endowments donated 1,050,000 to this Tides Center, which is the organization behind Peaceful Tomorrows. Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife to the Democratic Presidential Candidate, chairs at least of these endowments.
Several members of Peaceful Tomorrows were quoted at length in the media. It is helpful to note that Colleen Kelly spoke at an anti-war rally with Susan Sarandon, Rita Lazar - whose brother Abe Zelmanowitz heroically perished when he refused to abandon his quadriplegic friend in the North Tower - is quoted on the website “RNC Not Welcome In NYC”.
This site, which plans to disrupt the Republican Convention in New York, quotes Lazar as warning the Republicans to “Keep your hands off of Ground Zero.”
Kristen Breitweiser is a member of a group called “Four Eleven Moms Battle Bush”. And IAFF’s General President Harold Schaitberger has not only endorsed John Kerry, he spent time in New Hampshire actively working on his campaign.
Obviously, someone on the Democrat Dirty Tricks Squad located these Bush hating family members months before, and dutifully presented them with handy anti-Bush and anti-Republican talking points. When the time was right, the trap was sprung. Unfortunately for them, their ruse was exposed.
Not enough - needs continual exposure.
Really, now?
You crass person! 'Using' the 9-11 incident for YOUR political agendas, althewhile castigating and telling others what they can and cannot do!
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