When billionaire brothers David Koch and Charles Koch, owners of Koch Industries funded the Tea Party Movement few questioned why they did it. The Koch's are trying to shape, control and channel the populist uprising into their own policies. But, what are these policies?

The best way to define the policies would be to check its website. Right away the site defines what the Koch Industries mission is: "Koch Industries, Inc. is a company bounded only by our capabilities, not by specific industries or product lines. Koch companies constantly seek to grow our existing businesses, and build or acquire assets or businesses throughout the world that will allow us to create the greatest value."

There is obviously nothing wrong with this statement since the primary objective to any business is to make the most money possible. Now, let's compare Koch Industries mission to what the Tea Party activists hope to achieve.

The Tea Party's goal from inception has been to replace big-spending politicians from both political parties with common-sense, fiscally responsible leaders. The goals of this grass-roots movement sound good until you investigate what they are trying to cut and what they are leaving alone.

The Tea Party and other political conservatives want to cut entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, legislate less spending on everything else from education to defense, or some combination of the above. In all of my study of the Tea Party movement and their backers I've not heard mention of retrieving moneys lost by the bank scandals, taxing oil companies who are now making record profits, or looking at the possibility of reducing the amount of tax credits afforded to the rich. For after all the Koch brothers are billionaires and any effort to reduce their fortunes would be to say the least; odd.

This is what confuses me most about the Tea Party movement. It is said to be filled with every-day people who are not considered rich and who work in order to have their families survive in our complicated world. Then why do these people insist on destroying what little they have in order to make the rich richer?

For example the elected Tea Party candidates want to weaken if not destroy the union movement in our nation. In a discussion with a tea party supporter I was once told that anyone in a union was technically a Communist. Visions of the McCarthy hearings of the 1950's danced before my eyes. It if weren't for unions, concepts like minimum wage, child labor laws, workplace health and safety laws, unemployment and workers compensation insurance, paid sick days, vacations, holidays, and health insurance would never have happened. Of course this would have increased the profits of industry and eliminated the concept of a middle class. Is this the reason the Tea Party Movement exists?

Education seems to be another front the Tea Party wants to dismember. First and utmost the movement wants to eliminate the Department of Education. President Reagan promised to de-fund the department, formerly part of the Health, Education and Welfare Department, in his 1982 State of the Union address, and the GOP platform in 1996 backed elimination. This failed but is now being revisited.

With the elimination of the Department of Education many successful programs for our children will also be eliminated. For example the eradication of 200,000 children from an early childhood education program like Head Start. They also want to cut financial aid for 8 million college students. Some states like New Hampshire are talking about eliminating Kindergarten programs that have proved its value the instant it was mandated.

It is common knowledge the more ignorant a society the easier it is to control. George Orwell's novel, '1984' demonstrated this in fiction but do the powers behind the Tea Party movement also have the same plan. A sexist statement of the past comes to mind. When explaining how to control a woman some people used to state, "Keep them barefoot and pregnant." Could it be the financial backers of the Tea Party movement have evolved this statement to mean, "Keep them poor and stupid?"

There is little doubt we are in the midst of class warfare. The rich want to become richer by making the middle class poorer. The gap between the rich and the poor has never been greater. The question I have is why are we trying to defeat ourselves?

Jim Fabiano is a teacher and writer living in York, Maine
You can reach Jim at: james.fabiano60@gmail.com