Crossposted at MichiganLiberal.
For those following Michigan's gubernatorial race, Jennifer Granholm (D-Incumbent) vs. Dick DeVos (R-Amway) there is a new MUST READ article by Curt Guyette entitled "
You don't know Dick: The hard-right face candidate DeVos isn't showing voters" in this week's Metro Times. Guyettee tracks down Russ Bellant complier of the comprehensive book "The Religious Right in Michigan Politics" by American for Religious Liberty published in 1996.
Both Guyette and Bellant know this territory well, and in this discussion they outline elements of the real, hidden agenda behind Dick & Betsy DeVos' bid for governor.
Highly recommend the original article in the Metro Times to anyone following the movement of the religious right in America regardless of whether the reader lives in the current battleground, Michigan, or not.
More details & some clips from Guyette's piece and interview of Bellant below the fold...
Although the piece does not have any links [we will try to add some over time, for links see our similar earlier piece "
The Doctrine of Dick DeVos] it clearly states that the DeVos Campaign in Michigan is a national threat to American politics.
They describe many of the connections to national organizations and power brokers that are supported, often created by The DeVos Family and their associates.
Guyette starts out describing his meeting meeting up with Russ Bellent and his take on the DeVos threat:
"On the morning we met at a Royal Oak restaurant over a breakfast of Western omelets, Bellant was putting the finishing touches on an article delving into donations made by the Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation, a multimillion-dollar philanthropy controlled by the Republican candidate for governor and his politically active wife.
Although he's written for this paper in the past, Bellant's piece this time out was for another publication. I, too, was looking at spending by DeVos' foundation, and wanted to tap into Bellant's expertise. Hooking up with me as a deadline loomed didn't provide him any personal benefit, in fact it was a real hassle, but he freely offered to help.
"This is too important," he explains. "People need to know what Dick DeVos is really about."
Bellant has been watching the gubernatorial race unfold with growing dismay. The GOP candidate has kept his campaign relentlessly focused on Michigan's sorry economic plight and incumbent Gov. Jennifer Granholm's inability to stop our slide to the fiscal bottom. The state's airwaves for months have been blanketed with DeVos commercials that talk about only one thing: the potential of DeVos the savvy businessman to bring those skills to government and revive the state's flagging economy."
[emphasis added]
Concerning the role of Dick & Betsy DeVos and the...
"...quiet efforts undertaken by the DeVoses and other extremely wealthy right-wingers for more than three decades. Using donations from private foundations they control, as well as personal contributions and money kicked in from their companies, these people have been funding conservative think tanks, activist groups and fundamentalist Christian organizations in an attempt to direct America's political mainstream further and further to the right."
[emphasis added]
They outline their own elements of the DeVos Doctrine:
"The agenda has been clear-cut: tax cuts that primarily benefit corporations and the wealthy, industry deregulation, school privatization, militarism, the promotion of so-called "traditional values" that cover everything from undermining the rights of gays to re-criminalizing abortion to breaking down the wall separating church from state, opposition to the environmental movement and organized labor and affirmative action, and cuts in funding to social services.
The DeVos family has been at the epicenter of this movement. It started with Richard DeVos Sr., the candidate's father and co-founder of Amway (now renamed Alticor), a direct-marketing company decried by its many critics as a scheme that enriches those at the top while providing little to the legions of independent contractors who peddle soap and such, but more importantly, sell the supposed virtues of the company itself as they attempt to recruit even more people into the fold."
[emphasis added]
Following the money of Dick & Betsy DeVo$ to national level movements and organizations:
"Going through the foundation financial reports -- known as 990 forms -- Bellant points out the groups those on the left consider part of the hard right. Nationally there's the Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society, American Enterprise Institute and the Council for National Policy among others. Closer to home, there's the Michigan-grown Acton Institute, Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Traditional Values Coalition."
[emphasis added]
On the DeVos opposition to the separation of church and state, and their Christian dominionist notions (See also our posting "DeVos Doctrine: Mission ala D. James Kennedy"):
"If a candidate has a history of personal beliefs, and he's not going to act on those beliefs, then what will he act on?" asks an incredulous Bellant.
As far as the candidate's belief in separation between church and state, Bellant asks why is it he supports an organization like Michigan's Foundation for Traditional Values. That group, according to its mission statement seeks to return America to "Judeo-Christian principles" embraced by our Founding Fathers. The group received more than $136,000 from the Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation between 1996 and 2004.
"It sounds to me," says Bellant, "like he's not being honest."
[emphasis added]
Guyette's thesis that the real DeVos agenda is "secret":
"Only once in the campaign so far has DeVos let his guard down to provide a glimpse of an agenda that has otherwise been kept securely under wraps. That brief insight came a few weeks ago when DeVos, in an interview with the Associated Press, revealed that he supported the teaching of intelligent design in high school science classes. A revised version of creationism, intelligent design advocates claim that evolution is nothing but a theory, and that the development of new species is just too complicated to be explained by anything other than the work of a higher power. In other words, they imply, the hand of God."
Just one example of several examples Guyette and Bellant point out, the Acton Institute, which relveals how DeVos organizations lever their "donations" to promote their true philosophy, which is all about profit, not any prophet:
One of the more interesting of the groups supported by DeVos is the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids. According to the group Media Transparency, a nonprofit based in Wisconsin, the Acton Institute's central mission is to counter what the Institute calls "the clergy's disturbing bias against the business community and free enterprise," principally by convening three-day conferences for seminarians and divinity students in order to "introduce them to the moral and ethical basis of free market economies." The group Center for Media and Democracy describes it as a "libertarian think tank ... that promotes laissez-faire economics and public policy within a Christian framework."
[emphasis added]
Note: The Acton Institute is a big promoter of "more open" relationships with China too, BTW.
Getting to the CORE of who is behind all this, Dick's dear old dad Rich DeVos and his religious whacko buddies' umbrella organization, the Council for National Policy (CNP):
Among the first groups to attract Bellant's attention all those years ago was the Council for National Policy, headquartered in Fairfax, Va.
He wrote about the secretive council in his book The Religious Right In Michigan, published by the group Americans for Religious Liberty. He describes it this way:
"The Council for National Policy (CNP) is not an organization many have heard of. Unlike many self-promoting groups in the religious right, the council wants to keep it that way. Although the fact of its existence is acknowledged, everything else is held secret: its meetings, political activities, and membership. Its membership comprises the elite of the radical right. Many CNP members would prefer that their participation not be known.
"The Council's creation was inspired by business and political leaders of the John Birch Society."
And that's the way it works -- investigation of one group leads to another, and the threads are pieced together until the web takes shape.
Richard DeVos Sr. has been "a member of the CNP almost since its founding," Bellant wrote. He twice served as its president, and was "one of the earliest backers of behind-the-scenes efforts in the mid-'70s to stimulate the religious right and make the U.S. a 'Christian Republic.'"
[emphasis added]
On the story of the Michigan's own version of the national Heritage Foundation, here in Michigan, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy:
The Prince and Devos foundations supplied funding for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which provides an academic grounding to arguments calling for privatization; at the same time, the foundations funded religious groups like the Michigan Family Forum, which drummed up support for the measure among Christians.
Groups like the Mackinac Center -- similar state-focused think tanks are part of a loosely affiliated network throughout the country -- promote a free-market ideology by advocating measures like right-to-work laws.
[emphasis added]
On the use by the DeVosses of church-pew campaigning (their real weapon in their bid for a hostile take-over of Michigan this November):
"Christian activist groups like Michigan Family Forum supported by the DeVoses and others put out "nonpartisan" voter guides that, although not advocating one candidate over another, make it clear which is the "Christian" candidate by saying which one is "pro-choice" or favors vouchers or abstinence-only sex education policies. As a a result, they're prompted to vote for those politicians, who also receive campaign funds from the same wealthy individuals."
[emphasis added]
And at the end, the ZINGER, Dick DeVos's national aspirations:
Given the level of power he already enjoys, why is Dick DeVos even in this race? The noncynical answer is that DeVos is a good citizen, and believes that he has the skills needed to revive the economy of his native state.
But Bellant has been following this crowd for far too long to accept an answer like that.
"The governor of Michigan, it's not that great a job," says Bellant. "My guess is he wants to be president."
[emphasis added]