There are two subtle misconceptions about the rise of the neo fascist right in America.  The first is that it amounts to a new and unholy alliance between big business and the religious right.  The second is that the religious right has largely been responsible for giving that rise its energy.  Both these beliefs have somewhat more then a germ of truth to them.  But there is a power, even behind the religious right, and it isn’t exactly a godly one. The religious right can generate huge quantities of fire and brimstone, smoke and noise.  But the fuel for the fire is money, and the major organizations of the religious right can barely meet their own expenses, much less fund a vast network of think tanks, publications, and grassroots political action committees that cannot support themselves.  Big American corporations routinely give to political parties and bribe politicians and communities in various ways, but it does not itself fund the vast right wing infrastructure that has come to dominate, and profoundly distort, American politics.

The dragging of the American political dialogue into the gutter has been largely done by a small circle of right wing billionaires. Working quietly behind the scenes, their wealth funds an astonishing array of institutions and groups, from the very large to the very small.  Through their foundations, and their occasional direct contributions, they have injected their wealth, and their political viewpoints, into everything from the major right wing propaganda mills masquerading as think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation, to newspapers and magazines, to religious and conservative campus clubs and newspapers, and small ersatz community grassroots organizations, many of which seem to suddenly pop up out of nowhere whenever local governments begin enacting progressive legislation, particularly regarding gay rights.

This small circle of billionaires have utterly poisoned the political dialogue in America.  But their ambitions are not confined to this nation alone.  Their poison now works its way into the veins of many nations abroad as well.  Canada.  South America.  Africa.

And for decades now, subtly and at times in complete secrecy, they have been distorting the dialogue of the mainstream protestant denominations.  Through funding of small and otherwise obscure right wing clerical groups, they actively seek to establish their beliefs regarding faith and religion, as they have sought to establish their political beliefs, through the shear power of their billions.

Much of which, unsurprisingly when you think about it, is inherited wealth. 

In the current issue of the newsletter of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington D.C., Jim Naughton has begun a multi-part series tracking this money, and its influence, in the Anglican church.  I urge everyone to read it, even if you are not an Anglican, because it looks to shine a much needed light on how this group of billionaires not only operates, but who they are, and where they are determined to take this world.  What they are doing to this one denomination, which was known for its religious and political moderation until they started injecting their money into it, they are doing to other churches as well.  And what they are doing to religious life in America, is pretty much what they have done to our political life.

When the General Convention of the Episcopal Church meets next month in Columbus, Ohio, a small network of theologically conservative organizations will be on hand to warn deputies that they must repent of their liberal attitudes on homosexuality or face serious consequences. The groups represent a small minority of church members, but relationships with wealthy American donors and powerful African bishops have made them key players in the fight for the future of the Anglican Communion.

Millions of dollars contributed by a handful of donors have allowed a small network of theologically conservative individuals and organizations to mount a global campaign that has destabilized the Episcopal Church and may break up the Anglican Communion.

The donors include five secular foundations that have contributed heavily to politically conservative advocacy groups, publications and think tanks, and one individual, savings and loan heir Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr., who has given millions of dollars to conservative causes and candidates.

Contributions from Ahmanson and the Bradley, Coors, Olin, Scaife and Smith-Richardson family foundations have frequently accounted for more than half of the operating budgets of the American Anglican Council and the Institute on Religion and Democracy, according to an examination of forms filed with the Internal Revenue Service and an analysis of statements made by both donors and recipients.

(Emphisis mine).  Remember these names if you have not heard of them before.  These same names keep popping up over and over again, whenever anyone tries to track where the money is coming from, that funds various right wing groups.  Scafie.  Olin.  Bradley.  Coors.  Smith-Richardson.

Since the 1970s, charitable foundations established by families with politically conservative views have donated billions of dollars to what the National Committee on Responsive Philanthropy, a watchdog group, has called "an extraordinary effort to reshape politics and public policy priorities at the national, state and local level."

Five foundations are of special note for the magnitude of their donations to political and religious organizations. They are: the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation; the Adolph Coors Foundation; the John M. Olin Foundation, which ceased operations last year; the Smith-Richardson Trust and the Scaife Family Foundations. Much of the foundations’ largesse supports institutions and individuals active in public policy, including think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institute and individuals such as William Bennett, Charles Murray ( The Bell Curve ) and Dinesh D’Souza ( The End of Racism ).

However, the foundations’ activities also extend into the nation’s churches-particularly its mainline Protestant churches. The foundations have provided millions of dollars to the IRD 2 which, in a fundraising appeal in 2000, said it sought to "restructure the permanent governing structure" of "theologically flawed" Protestant denominations and to "discredit and diminish the Religious Left’s influence." 

The IRD was established in 1981 by neo-conservative intellectuals hoping to counter the liberal public policy agendas of the National and World Councils of Christian Churches.

How they operate…

In one well-publicized instance in the 1980s, Diane Knippers, then an IRD staff member, and later its president, distributed information critical of the Nicaraguan Council of Protestant Churches (Consejo de Iglesias Pro-Alianza Denominacional, or CEPAD), a disaster relief organization founded after the devastating 1972 earthquake and sponsored by the mainline American Baptist Church.

CEPAD ran a network of medical clinics for the poor, as well as a successful literacy campaign, according to Fred Clark, an editor of Prism , the magazine of Evangelicals for Social Action. "That literacy work had won the admiration and support of Nicaragua ‘s president, Daniel Ortega, and his Sandinista regime. Ortega’s praise of CEPAD gave Knippers what she saw as an opening," Clark wrote in a 2003 account.

Although the evangelical churches did not support the Sandinistas, Clark wrote, "Knippers portrayed CEPAD — and therefore the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society — as ‘guilty’ by association. She wrote of CEPAD as a communist front, part of a supposed Soviet beachhead in Nicaragua . No one in this country paid much attention, but the contras did. CEPAD’s clinics became targets for their paramilitary terrorists."

The ensuing controversy was followed closely by mainstream evangelical publications such as Christianity Today . In the end, Clark writes, "CEPAD was vindicated and IRD suffered a devastating embarrassment. They were, rightly, perceived as an unreliable source of information – closed-minded ideologues who were willing to attack others on the basis of irresponsibly flimsy evidence."

Still, Knippers, who died in 2005, and the institute remained a favorite of conservative foundations. Since 1985, the IRD has received 72 grants worth more than $4,679,000 from the Bradley, Coors, Olin, Scaife and Smith-Richardson family foundations. 

Ahmanson…

Ahmanson also helps sustain organizations in the United Kingdom and elsewhere that support removing the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada from the Anglican Communion unless they change their policies regarding same-sex relationships.

The full extent of his contributions cannot be determined because most are made through his private foundation, Fieldstead and Company, whose records are not open to public scrutiny. And neither the AAC nor the IRD discloses the names of its most significant contributors or the amounts of their donations.

As a result, Anglicans have no full accounting of how much money is being spent, and for what purposes, in the struggle for control of their Communion.

Naughton devotes most of the rest of his first part to Ahmanson.  That’s a good start.  You need to pay particular attention to Ahmanson…

Previously, Ahmanson was a disciple of the Rev. Rousas John Rushdoony, the father of Christian Reconstructionism. Rushdoony died in 2001 with the Ahmansons at his bedside. He advocated basing the American legal system on biblical laws, including stoning adulterers and homosexuals.

Unlike most mainstream protestant churches in America, Christian Reconstuctionists believe that the second coming of Christ won’t happen until After Christ’s kingdom has been established on the earth.  They regard it as their duty to God to establish biblical fundamentalist theocracy around the world, so the second coming can happen.  Think the Taliban, but with America’s military might and nuclear arsenal.  The believe that non-believers can have no civil rights, cannot serve in government or the military, and must be ritually put to death if they violate biblical law…

Ahmanson, who suffers from Tourrette’s syndrome, rarely grants interviews with the media, but he and his wife cooperated with the Register on a five-part profile that appeared in August 2004. "I think what upsets people is that Rushdoony seemed to think–and I’m not sure about this–that a godly society would stone people for the same thing that people in ancient Israel were stoned," Ahmanson was quoted as saying. "I no longer consider that essential."

"It would still be a little hard to say that if one stumbled on a country that was doing that, that it is inherently immoral, to stone people for these things," he added. "But I don’t think it’s at all a necessity."

Perhaps he’d also find it "a little hard to say" if it was inherently immoral to kill people running medical clinics, and teaching the poor to read in South America too.

This is where the money is coming from, to fund the destabilization of the Anglican church.  Be certain that this same money is also actively funding right wing theocrats in every American denomination today.  Never mind the Jerry Falwells and the Pat Robertsons of the pulpits…this is why religious life in America has become smaller, meaner, more venomous then ever.  It is also why America and the American dream of liberty and justice for all is more in danger now, then it has ever been.  The money that destabilizes the Anglican church, is also actively working to destabilize America.

Ahmanson emerged as a political force in his home state of California in the early 1990s. Research conducted for The Los Angeles Times found that he and his wife had contributed $3.9 million to Republican candidates in state and local races and $82,750 in federal races between 1991 and 1995. They also contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to ballot initiatives that banned gay marriage and affirmative action. Campaign finance records indicate that the couple continues to contribute heavily to Republican candidates nationwide.

Ahmanson is a member of the secretive Council for National Policy, an elite group of politically conservative national leaders who meet several times a year to coordinate their efforts on a common agenda. According to a New York Times report, the dates and locations of the group’s meetings are kept secret, as is its membership. Participants in the group’s discussions promise not to reveal their content.  Members in recent years have included Gary Bauer, Tom DeLay, James Dobson, Bob Jones, III, of Bob Jones University, Tim LaHaye, author of the Left Behind series, Grover Norquist, Oliver North, Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson and Phyllis Schlafly.

Ahmanson also supports several think tanks. He was a major benefactor and former board member of Rushdoony’s Chalcedon Foundation. He also contributes heavily to the Discovery Institute, the intellectual flagship of the Intelligent Design movement, and the George C. Marshall Institute, which disputes research indicating that human activity contributes to global warming. 

One more thing about Ahmanson you need to know…

Increasingly, investigative writers seeking an explanation have looked to Diebold’s history for clues. The electronic voting industry is dominated by only a few corporations – Diebold, Election Systems & Software (ES&S) and Sequoia. Diebold and ES&S combined count an estimated 80% of U.S. black box electronic votes.

In the early 1980s, brothers Bob and Todd Urosevich founded ES&S’s originator, Data Mark. The brothers Urosevich obtained financing from the far-Right Ahmanson family in 1984, which purchased a 68% ownership stake, according to the Omaha World Herald. After brothers William and Robert Ahmanson infused Data Mark with new capital, the name was changed to American Information Systems (AIS)…

… 

The Ahmanson family sold their shares in American Information Systems to the McCarthy Group and the World Herald Company, Inc. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel disclosed in public documents that he was the Chairman of American Information Systems and claimed between a $1 to 5 million investment in the McCarthy Group. In 1997, American Information Systems purchased Business Records Corp. (BRC), formerly Texas-based election company Cronus Industries, to become ES&S. One of the BRC owners was Carolyn Hunt of the right-wing Hunt oil family, which supplied much of the original money for the Council on National Policy.

In 1996, Hagel became the first elected Republican Nebraska senator in 24 years when he did surprisingly well in an election where the votes were verified by the company he served as chairman and maintained a financial investment. In both the 1996 and 2002 elections, Hagel’s ES&S counted an estimated 80% of his winning votes. Due to the contracting out of services, confidentiality agreements between the State of Nebraska and the company kept this matter out of the public eye. Hagel’s first election victory was described as a “stunning upset” by one Nebraska newspaper.

–Bob Fitrakis, "Diebold, Electronic Voting and the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy"

But probably not so stunning to everyone.

Once again…You Must Read Jim Naughton’s article.  Go.  As he posts the rest of his series I will link to it.  It is not only his church, but this nation, that desperately needs this kind of reporting about the activities of these billionaires, and how many sock puppets they own, because those sock puppets are everywhere.

Over the past three decades, conservatives have painstakingly cultivated the public persona of an aggrieved outsider class, bereft of the money and media influence they claim liberals enjoy. Their well-rehearsed routine consists of the repetition of a series of catchphrases designed to snare votes by using wedge social issues to create class divisions, while their own campaigns are funded by a class of wealthy, corporate donors who keep their think tanks flush with lucre. But this bait and switch is hardly a secret, and the donor class continues to throw hundreds of millions of dollars at conservative think tanks in order to shore up the right wing’s advantage in both organization and message discipline. Since the early 1970s, countless conservative foundations have sprung up to quietly influence American public policy by identifying, training, and churning out conservative journalists, thinkers, and  pundits – many of whom now hold positions of power in the media.

–Eric Alterman and Paul McLeary, "Ideas Have Consequences: So Does Money"

Remember these names: Scafie.  Olin.  Bradley.  Coors.  Smith-Richardson.  Carthage.  Koch.  Lambe.  Earhart.  DeVos.  Ahmanson.  By way of a huge array of foundations and front organizations, it is their money that has turned America from a land of freedom and promise, into the land of George Bush republicans and religious right hate mongers.  That money is also working very diligently, to turn the Christ who said "Love thy neighbor" into one who says "Kill the stranger, because might makes right."