by Peter Steele | The Maine Wire
How are these two apparently random, innocent-sounding events connected?
First, The Portland Press Herald ran an op-ed on May 15, titled “Maine Voices: Research and development investment will produce jobs,” which pushes for a $20 million taxpayer-funded bond to subsidize “green technology” companies.
Second, women from Maine joined mothers, cancer survivors, students, health workers and activists from around the country on May 22 in a “stroller brigade” at the U.S. Capitol to support the Safe Chemicals Act, which is under consideration in the U.S. Senate.
The anything-but-innocent connection between “stroller brigades” and “green technology” is Mike Belliveau, executive director of the Environmental Health Strategy Center and vice president of the Sustainable Bioplastics Council of Maine.
Belliveau is the one-man assault team who has assembled genial words like “safe,” “green” and “sustainable” into anti-consumer Trojan horses, wheeling them into the public debate during his crusade to over-regulate business and destroy consumer choice.
The bus trip to the “stroller brigade” was organized by the Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine, a coalition of more than 50 public health, medical, parent, women’s, workers’ and environmental organizations. Belliveau, a co-founder of the Alliance, spearheaded the movement to pass legislation to ban BPA and 1,400 other chemicals from Maine, paving the way for environmental activists to block the sales of common, every-day products to citizens.
Belliveau also co-authored the pro-bond op-ed with Catherine S. Renault of Innovation PolicyWorks in Topsham. They promote publicly funded business-university-nonprofit consortiums as a way to thrust “environmental justice” and “green jobs” onto the state.
For over three decades, Belliveau has decried the influence of big business in the political arena. In 2011, when Governor LePage rolled out a list of environmental regulations he wanted repealed, Belliveau joined Sean Mahoney of the Conservation Law Foundation and Matt Prindiville of the Natural Resources Council of Maine in condemning LePage for proposing reforms that they said came from lobbyists for wealthy, out-of-state companies.
But The Maine Wire has discovered that Belliveau’s anti-consumer efforts in Maine are financed through the country’s most infamous left-wing organization that is well known for hiding its real donors. The Tides Center, an ultra-wealthy California organization, acts as a pass-through for a nationwide network of radical leftist groups to fund local organizations, including Belliveau’s Environmental Health Strategy Center.
Tides funnels money from environmental and progressive groups that are determined to raise prices, ban everyday products, undermine the U.S. economy and punish businesses. By channeling large sums of money from major leftist groups to local organizations such as Belliveau’s, the real donors—and their aggressive anti-business agenda—are shielded from public view.
The Tides Center, which is funded in part by hedge-fund billionaire George Soros, provides money to groups including the embattled Media Matters; the subversive MoveOn.org; the voter-fraud organization ACORN; the American Civil Liberties Union; the socialist-leaning Democracy Now!; the Marxist-founded Free Press; the Marxist-oriented Institute for Policy Studies; and a laundry list of antiwar organizations.
Beneficiaries of Tides funding include many of the most notorious anti-consumer groups in the country: Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Media Services and Environmental Working Group. Another Tides Center project is the Institute for Global Communications, a clearinghouse for progressive propagandists, living-wage advocates, anti-war protesters, slave-reparations proponents and a range of extreme environmentalists.
Still other Tides beneficiaries have worked to promote the mission of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group. Tides also funds such “progressive” programs as The Condom Project in Washington. D.C.; Honor the Earth; and StopGlobalWarming.org.
Contrary to media portrayals of Occupy Wall Street movements as homegrown, grassroots efforts, the genesis of the well-organized Occupy movement actually came from Tides-funded groups. The nationwide initiative was a professionally orchestrated and well-funded enterprise created by Tides-financed groups that got their inspiration from the “Arab Spring” movement. With money from Tides, the Ruckus Society provides direct-action training for Occupy protesters.
Few Americans are aware that a small network of left-leaning “philanthropists” is so integral in their everyday lives, and the Tides Center is the spigot that dispenses their influence. Based in San Francisco, Tides Center is a division of the Tides Foundation, which was founded in 1976 by California anti-war activist Drummond Pike.
These one-percenters are using their immense wealth to move the country toward a European-style system of socialism. To illustrate how closely tied these “philanthropists” are to each other, Pike sits on the board of the Democracy Alliance with hedge-fund billionaire S. Donald Sussman, the major funder of liberal Democratic causes in Maine, owner of the Portland Press Herald and husband to sitting U.S. Congresswoman Chellie Pingree.
Considered a brilliant fundraising expert, Pike has directed grants to more tax-exempt organizations than any other person in the world. Pike left Tides in 2010 to join Equilibrium Capital Group, but his legacy remains.
The Tides Center shelters these leftist groups under its tax-exempt status, providing management and payroll services, fundraising assistance and legal counsel—all for an 8% fee—while the groups operate their own projects and programs. None of the 260-plus projects under the Tides umbrella files its own Form 990 with the IRS, which means their finances are essentially kept secret and hidden from public review.
“By taking advantage of collective-funding pioneers like Tides, even the smallest group can now speak with the weight of an entire activist community,” according to activistcash.com, a website created by the Center for Consumer Freedom. “The Tides Foundation exists, in part, to give the Left’s small-fries—and their fringe messages—the collective bullhorn and bankroll necessary to remake society in their image.”
One of those “small fries” is Belliveau’s Environmental Health Strategy Center. Its funding through the Tides Center originates from donors across the nation, including: The Beldon Fund in Michigan; The Betterment Fund in New York City; the John Merck Fund in Boston; the Kendeda Fund in Delaware; the Marisla Foundation in California; and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, which has offices in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The Kendeda Fund’s most scandalous beneficiary was Van Jones, the former Obama Green Jobs Czar, who had to leave office after his ties to 9/11 “truthers” were revealed.
The John Merck Fund also provided financing through Tides to the Natural Resources Council of Maine, of which Belliveau was a member, and the Maine People’s Resource Center.
Belliveau, a self-described “science policy analyst, health advocate and social entrepreneur,” is hailed as one of the original “environmental justice” activists, who merged his concerns over toxic waste and public health with perceptions of racism and unequal exposure to hazardous chemicals.
Mixing green ideology with his “social entrepreneur” political agenda, Belliveau has for 30 years argued in favor of burdensome and expensive regulations to pressure industries to use clean technology. He has fought to reform energy subsidies and to push progressive pollution taxes, such as high gas taxes, to discourage driving and coerce the production of higher-mileage cars.
All the while decrying outside influence by corporations that provide commonly used products to consumers, Belliveau has relied heavily on rich and powerful national foundations to force his zealotry for green ideology on the state. Doesn’t sound so “safe” any more.
Hi!
The names of foundations as above-mentioned are different but most foundations such as the Rockerfeller foundation, Carnegie foundation, and on and on and on were notorious for funding anti-american activities. The Reese committee in the 1950s investigated such activities.
The old adage “nothing is new” fits here.
What the article does is expose the true nature of who is actually funding such anti-american activities and for what overall purpose(s).
The MaineWire is doing an excellent job investigating such activities and letting the general public in on the secret.
Thank you!
It’s all Bush’s fault.
This sickens me, the battle; I might have known..George Soros!
Glen Beck hadd a program where he said that if you lined up every progressive cause George Soros has a finger in, the paper would extend for three blocks, (not quoted verbatim). He taught those who listened to him who all the players are and their Socialist-Communist agenda.
Very interesting! Keep up the good work!!
Hey why try to quote verbatim? This is a smear site after all.
It is so much easier to be against something. It takes no character, you get to protest at the top of your lungs, riot, break windows of business people, turn cars over, light fires, and while you are doing this you don’t have to work. Then you can proudly proclaim that you’ve sacrificed all for THE cause. oops….then along comes a Soros or two who will pay you to break stuff, and slow down or completely stall the productive free enterprise system.
It is the site that give you veiws and news the Sussmans don’t dare to print.
This article is so blatantly misleading, it’s hard to know where to start. For one, the primary objective of Belliveau’s organization is to reform US chemicals policy laws that are the among the weakest in the developed world. Because of this, American consumers are sold products that are illegal to sell in other countries because they contain banned toxic chemicals. Every day, more and more studies link the rise of autism, cancer, alzheimers and other disorders to toxic chemicals in our homes and environment. Reforming our chemical safety laws so that toxic chemicals are replaced with safer ones is not anti-business or anti-consumer; it is pro-health, pro-business and pro-common sense.
Secondly, providing bond money to help start-ups develop bioplastics from Maine potatoes is a winning idea, which has attracted the attention of major ag-chemical businesses like Cargill that already have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to develop bioplastics from corn. We don’t have oil in Maine, but we do have lots of waste potatoes – more than 10% of our annual crop is unfit for sale, and could go to creating significant amounts of jobs in Northern Maine in a high tech industry.
This is not some radical left-wing, anti-consumer, anti-business conspiracy. If anything, it is exactly the opposite, Belliveau’s organization and his work are making consumer products safe for the American people and our kids. His work may also lead to a major corporation building a manufacturing facility in Northern Maine. I can’t imagine anything more pro-consumer, pro-business or pro-Maine jobs than that.
I agree,Sandra! Glenn used his blackboard to show the connections between foundations and groups and who sat on boards,etc. They were all the same people! “I’ll scratch your back,you scratch mine.” Frightening.
I agree,Sandra! Glenn used his blackboard to show the connections between foundations and groups and who sat on boards,etc. They were all the same people! “I’ll scratch your back,you scratch mine.” Frightening.
I’d love to know who these “stroller brigade” people are . Most of the “consumers” trotted out at these things are not really “consumers.” They are professional advocates. The nonprofits have lists of volunteers and use the same people over and over as “consumers” on boards etc. I wonder how many businesspeople and Republicans–especially from rural Maine–are on nonprofit and foundation boards in Augusta? Probably very few–they don’t have the time.
The divide in America is not between political parties and their ideologies, between religious beliefs, between rich and poor, or between value systems; it is between the corporate state and the citizen.
Paul LePage knows what he wants; a corporate state. Paul LePage, his staff, and his supporters clearly march to the following orders; establish optimal conditions for private firms to enter Maine so that they may profit without interference.
The marching orders follow a simple set of principles.
• Eliminate outside influence on compensation and benefits. • Consolidate control of operating expenses. • Remove controls (regulations) impacting freedom of action. • Establish barriers that prevent challenges to the corporate state’s control.
The marching orders are clear, concise; the guidelines are flexible, yet focused. Easily understood and executed in our world of sound bites and generalities; critical thinking is not required.
Removal of collective bargaining rights for Child Care Providers was a symbolic message to corporate entities “Maine is Open for Business, no wage or benefit concerns here” and to the citizens of Maine “your rights to fair compensation and benefits are controlled by the corporate state”.
The attempt to repeal the Maine ban of BPA, the harmful chemical found in plastic bottles, was another symbolic message to corporate entities “Maine is open for business, put what you want into your products” and to the citizens of Maine “don’t waste your time challenging the corporate state about health concerns because Paul LePage and his administration doesn’t care about your health”.
Educational Commissioner Steve Bowen’s dismissal of a citizen’s group shortly after Paul LePage’s comment that “all middle-management are corrupt”, was a message to corporate entities “Maine is open for business; if someone gets in your way, they’re gone”. Steve Bowen indicating he would develop the educational plan internally by the end of the year said to Maine citizens “you will not have input into your child’s education except through support of for-profit charter or religious schools”.
None of this is difficult to accomplish if you have the legislative votes and pre-written legislation (ALEC); critical thinking is not required.
Can it be more insidious? State revenue from within the state comes from state income, sales, and real estate taxes. Reducing the state income tax more than likely places additional burden on sales and real estate taxes; and that is Paul LePage’s intent. Those who can least afford real estate tax increases are the middle-class and working-class. Mainers will have to work harder and longer, for wages and benefits more highly controlled by corporate entities.
The message to corporate entities is “Maine is open for business, pay the citizens what you want, no one will get in your way because they won’t have the time or money to object” and to the citizens of Maine “go to Wal-Mart, treat yourself to a six-pack of PBR, sit on the porch and count your blessings”.
Elimination of the middle-class and working-class, is it social Darwinism or social genocide? Paul LePage doesn’t care what you call his actions, all he cares about is being CEO of a corporate state, and he is well on his way. Unless…(Thoughts?)
Yeah, sure, just like the last leftist idea to save Maine, the sugarbeet. How did that work? Just another pre-programmed leftist robot regurgitating, nothing to see here, just a useful idiot.