Big money distorts reality by dominating both sides of every debate.(Heartland Inst/Think Progress)

[stockholmer]

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.se/2012/05/warning-corporate-lobbyist-at-work.html

Like a tentacle of a sea monster breaking the surface of the water, a recent news story starring a "libertarian" think-tank's billboard comparing "climate change" proponents to Theodore Kaczynski (also known as the Unabomber) represents but a small part of a much larger beast. Like in any movie script, the billboard put up by the Heartland Institute is designed to play the role of the villain. Heroically riding in to fight this villain is "Think Progress," a so-called "progressive" project maintained by the Center for American Progress. To the average, poorly informed observer, it appears as if an increasingly heated debate over man's impact on the environment is unfolding, framed by a vitriolic "denier" camp reduced to name-calling, with a dignified progressive camp refusing to move from its foundation of "reason" and "science."

In reality we are watching two think-tanks funded, backed, and involved with the very same handful of corporations. Both the Heartland Institute and the Center for American Progress are funded by Wall Street and together they create a false paradigm with which to trap unassuming millions while sidelining real issues, problems, and their solutions.

Think Progress itself exposes the Heartland Institute as funded by major corporations including Amgen, Bayer, Comcast, GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly & Company, Microsoft, PepsiCo, General Motors, Pfizer, and Time Warner Cable. It then berates these corporations for their support for the Heartland Institute in a more recent article of theirs titled, "Heartland Institute Compares Climate Science Believers And Reporters To Mass ‘Murderers And Madmen’." The US Chamber of Commerce is also listed as a contributor to the Heartland Institute in a .pdf provided by Think Progress.

What Think Progress doesn't tell readers is that these very same corporations are recipients of their own John Podesta's lobbying services - because indeed Think Progress and its umbrella organization, the Center for American Progress is chaired by John Podesta, co-founder of the Podesta Group - a notorious corporate lobbying firm involved with some of the most dubious characters and corporations on Earth. Amongst Podesta's clients are the above mentioned Amgen and General Motors, as well as BAE Systems, General Dynamics, General Electric, Raytheon, British Petroleum, Lockheed Martin, and many others.

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Meet the founder of the United Nations Foundation, depopulation and climate change enthusiast Ted Turner previously of Time Warner. Turner peddles Malthusian talking-points on national TV attempting to link overpopulation with global warming. And while Turner is no longer with Time Warner, its subsidiary Time Inc is still a corporate partner of the UN Foundation while Time Warner itself is listed as a supporter of the Heartland Institute - guilty of "climate denial." The Fortune 500 is replete with examples of corporations playing both sides of the climate debate.

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