Teresa Heinz Kerry and the Tides Foundation

In a previous post, I attempted to address an issue concerning the philanthropy of Teresa Heinz Kerry. Specifically, she was quoted during an interview as stating that she possesses a poignant hatred for socialism and communism, however, I stated that this seems to be contrary to her giving of millions of dollars to socialist and communist front organizations through the Tides Foundation. I asked my readers to decide whether she was telling the truth about her hatred or was she being negligent in watching where her money goes.

Due to the complexities of the world of political writing, it can be expected that mistakes will be made and I made a critical one. I erroneously assumed that it was common knowledge that a majority of all money distributed by the Tides Foundation goes to radical leftist groups and socialist and communist front organizations. Rightfully, an astute reader noticed the error and wrote a rebuttal piece. With a title that purports to defend Teresa Heinz Kerry, the rebuttal piece actually defends the Tides Organization and a group called Adbusters which I had stated described themselves as a communist organization.

In all fairness to me, I think it's important to mention that many others have written extensively about the Tides Foundation's funding of radical leftist and socialist and communist fronts. A simple Internet search finds dozens of pieces in a diverse array of newspapers, magazines, and weblogs which describe the money trail from Tides to individual recipients. I've read a few, but none were involved with the formation of my opinion about Tides. My introduction came about a year ago when I was doing research on an organization called Pastors for Peace. I found that Pastors for Peace were nothing more than a communist front group doing shill services for Fidel Castro in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. When I looked at their funding, the money trail came straight from the Tides Foundation via the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO), International A.N.S.W.E.R., and the International Action Center. By the way, my conclusions were derived from information published by the organizations themselves. And, subsequently, it seemed that any time the Tides Foundation came up in my research, I noticed that it was always tied to radical leftists and groups that advocate socialist and communist principles. It was on this basis that I erroneously assumed that the Tides Foundation's radical political agenda was common knowledge. I apologize for the error and thank the astute reader for making note of it.

Although not common knowledge, the widespread publicity tying Tides to a radical political agenda has been troubling enough that the foundation recently issued a news release to tell its side of the story. The Tides side is basically that all the allegations are without merit, consisting entirely of errors and innuendo. A supporting discussion paints Tides as predominantly an all-American, vanilla-brand accounting and bookkeeping firm that also helps environmental and education projects. Smiley faces would not have been out of place in their write-up.

In a nutshell, I don't buy it. Tides issues a news release stating that all allegations are wrong. That's it. Done deal. There is no attempt to present information to dispute any of the numerous allegations against them. For example, it's been contended that Tides provides funding for International A.N.S.W.E.R., an organization considered by many to be communist. Tides doesn't dispute that contention. Tides just states that everyone is wrong.

The Tides Foundation is not your run-of-the-mill financial services company and it is too easy to see. Tides has a radical leftist political agenda and all it takes is a few Google searches to realize it. The failure to acknowledge the leftist agenda in their news release indicates a certain level of disingenuousness on the part of Tides. Their reluctance to defend themselves against specific charges lends credence to the allegations. Also, without a significant amount of supporting data, I don't buy the contention that individual donations are specifically earmarked for and expended toward individual neighborhood projects. It would require considerable convincing to get me to believe that the money Tides receives is not fungible.

Moving on, in my original post, I made the statement that "Adbusters describes itself as a communist organization" to which my astute reader took exception, stating that they didn't call themselves communist. This is true, however, I didn't say they called themselves communist. I stated that their description of themselves indicated they were a communist organization. The Adbusters description is as follows:

We are a loose global network of artists, writers, environmentalists, ecological economists, media-literacy teachers, reborn Lefties, ecofeminists, downshifters, high school shit-disturbers, campus rabble-rousers, incorrigibles, malcontents and green entrepreneurs. We are idealists, anarchists, guerrilla tacticians, pranksters, neo-Luddites, poets, philosophers and punks. Our aim is to topple existing power structures and forge a major rethinking of the way we will live in the 21st century. We want to change the way information flows, the way institutions wield power, the way the world keeps the peace, the way the food, fashion, automobile, sports, music and culture industries set their agendas. Above all, we want to change the way we interact with the mass media and the way in which meaning is produced in our society.

The last portion I underlined to emphasize what this group wants to accomplish. First, they want to overthrow the government and the free market system and then control every aspect of life. I know of no secular political ideology other than communism that embraces those goals. Until I'm convinced otherwise, I'll stand by my contention that "Adbusters describes itself as a communist organization." And, for the sake of comparison, if a man walks into a bank for a loan and explains that he owns 400 acres of bottom land where he grows soybeans and corn, that he has a chicken house for eggs and a dozen dairy cattle, would it be incorrect to say that he described himself as a farmer? I don't think so. By the way, whether the man was liked by another person or not wouldn't make him more or less a farmer.

In summary, it is my contention that the Tides Foundation funds the radical left and socialist and communist front groups and they receive large donations from Teresa Heinz Kerry who has stated that she hates socialists and communists. The question remains on how to explain the apparent disparity between what she says and what she does.