The Kaiser Empire's Stairway to Heaven

& The Fear that Stalks Tulsa

The Fear that Stalks Tulsa

Tulsa is the home of the Kaiser Empire. The Empire sports a closely intertwined combination of Tulsa’s biggest bank (Bank of Oklahoma), two of America’s larget charities, the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF) and the Tulsa Community Foundation (TCF), along with the Kaiser-Francis Oil Company. The multi-billion dollar Empire is Tulsa’s pinnacle of power.

In May 2020, Tulsa writer Michael Mason published a startling essay about what he called “The Kaiser System.”¹ Mason’s article outlined a host of eyebrow raising Kaiser operations involving the Bank of Oklahoma, the University of Tulsa, the ‘modernization’ of Greenwood, site of Tulsa’s Race Massacre, the manipulation of Oklahoma’s news media, and the control of Tulsa’s culture. Questions of ethics, conflicts of interest, disregard of the democratic process, and an ‘our way or the highway’ attitude were raised along the way.

But the most shocking, even heartbreaking, aspect of Mason’s reporting was his illumination of just how much Tulsans feared the Empire’s reach. Mason seemed gob smacked by the results of his many interviews. He wrote:

"Fear was a consistent expression among the many people I interviewed inside and outside (Kaiser’s) organization. They feared retaliation, persecution, loss of funding, and disappeared opportunity.”

Mason quipped that one local media figure had jokingly asked him, “What the life expectancy was for a journalist” undertaking a critical essay of the Kaiser system.

Mason described the three dozen people he interviewed:

“Many were extremely critical off the record. They believed that they would not only face some sort of retaliation, but their families would, too. People in the media industry told me that they feared the loss of advertising dollars. In hushed tones, leaders of organizations told me they would lose customers, business, or philanthropic support — even if Kaiser’s organization did not directly fund them.

Local critics told me they feared being ostracized from all the opportunities that exist because of Kaiser. Criticizing Kaiser’s work, they argued, could mean that thousands of jobs are unavailable to you, that you won’t be acknowledged for your work, that the public will not support you, or that you will face social rebuke. Why would anyone dare speak up?”

Writer Russell Cobb added a striking comment to Mason’s article:

“George Kaiser the man is not the problem, but rather a system of philanthrocapitalism that has created its own ruling elite. That ruling elite cannot take criticism, and will exact revenge upon those in the media and activist communities who dare question its structure. I’ve felt this first-hand.

The irony is that GKFF wants Tulsa to be a “world-class city,” but every world-class city worth its name possesses a vibrant and adversarial independent press that holds the powerful accountable. GKFF won’t tolerate that.”

One of the Empire’s declared goals is to bring ‘culture’ to Tulsa, as if the town is a culture-less backwater that needs saving. This led it to create the glitzy Tulsa Arts Foundation (TAF). Based on a dozen interviews, Mason reported that artists receiving TAF’s funding felt censored, surveilled, manipulated, coerced and that they were working in an “atmosphere of fear and paranoia.”

It sounds more like the Joseph Stalin Institute of Art.

I bet they teach Photoshop at the TAF

The Empire used a similar playbook in its 2018-19 “smash mouth” seizure of power at the University of Tulsa. The Empire’s bankers and lawyers first maneuvered into control of the giant Chapman Trust supporting the school. Its infiltrated administrators then unilaterally decreed vanquishment of the century-old liberal arts wing of the liberal arts school, replacing it with a mirror gazing vision of a cold, technocratic future. Along the way, the Imperial boot heel was ground into the faces of the mass faculty and student opposition that was repulsed by what was unfolding.

Jacob Howland, who held a McFarlin Professorship, described the capture and sack of the school as “highly authoritarian,” “bullying,” “brutal,” “venomous,” and retaliatory. Bob Dylan once wrote, “Money doesn’t talk, it swears.” At UT, one of the Empire’s men swore that the takeover’s opponents could “go fuck themselves.”²

The Empire’s control extends to the Tulsa news media. I saw the phenomena myself when I wrote about the gross hypocrisies of ex-Mayor G. T. Bynum and the City government’s Mass Graves Investigation, the search for buried victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

Outlets that might have been expected to rally to the side of the betrayed Greenwood community stayed as silent as the tombs being searched. At least one was accepting Kaiser money. Maybe others were as well. Only the Oklahoma Eagle stood up to be counted. That was one of many, many reasons why the Goodwin family has every right to be proud of their 103 year-old-paper, as does Gary Lee, the editor.

According to Mason, Bynum was a former lobbyist for the GKFF, his wife was an employed at the law firm handling nearly all the vast Kaiser legal work (Frederic Dorwart, Lawyers, PLLC), and he repeatedly consulted with George Kaiser and Kenneth Levit, executive director of the GKFF and former special counsel to the Director of the CIA, during his term of office.³

George Kaiser, left, Kenneth Levit, right

Phil Lakin, CEO of the TCF, director of the GKFF, and Tulsa City Councilor, was a close Bynum ally.⁴

Phil Lakin, courtesy of the Tulsa World

From the top down, the Empire had no problem with the sad unfolding of the Graves project, suggesting it stage managed the whole thing from the get-go. After all, the ‘Investigation’ accomplished the paramount task of polishing the town’s image during the heady days of the Race Massacre Centennial, when the world’s attention was focused on Tulsa. When that was achieved, it was ‘Mission Accomplished!’

Anyone who thinks the Empire won’t turn on the interests of large blocks of people of color if it so desires need only consider the disrespectful treatment of the Investigation’s Public Oversight Committee by the Kaiser dominated government. The Committee consisted of Massacre descendants and other influential members of Tulsa’s African-American community. After the Centennial was over, the Committee was first sent to the back of the bus and then thrown out the rear door. City officials seemed to have delighted in the throwing.

The shameful affair recalls Frank Zappa’s famous quote:

“At the point when the illusion (of freedom) becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”

Superglue Holds the (Tulsa News Media) Family Together

In December 2024, the Empire led a coalition called the Tulsa Local News Initiative (TLNI), which extended its arms around more of the Tulsa news media not already in its grip. Already cozy media outlets such as the Tulsa World, KOTV, TulsaPeople magazine, the University of Tulsa, and the Tulsa Press Club agreed to serve as ‘collaborators.’ Henceforth, the Tulsa mass media will be just one big, happy family.⁵

Ex-Mayor and TLNI board member Rodger Randle gave the game away when he stated that “responsible journalists” provide “credible news” that “becomes a glue that makes society come together and function together in a way that benefits us all…” That is not reporting the ‘news,’ i.e., what happened today, much less responsible journalism. It is reporting according to an agenda designed to herd society together and point it in the direction desired by the people running the show. Gluing the media together is the essential step in gluing the citizenry.

It is journalism as agenda-vision.

Strictly for everyone’s benefit, of course, as Randle assures everyone.

Courtesy of the Oklahoma Senate and Wikipedia

This gluing business brings to mind the old Marvel Comics villain Paste-Pot Pete, who captured his opponents by squirting them with white, gooey paste shot from his pistol. As soon as it hardened, which was pronto, the target was immobilized.

It is true that the initial agenda of the TLNI is to promote “positively spirited news,” but tip-toe through the tulips reporting can turn on a dime. If the overlords desire it, a superglued media can readily push war or other catastrophes, as they did in the aftermath of 9-11.

Tulsa World, 9-22-2001, page 11 & DO NOT SLEEP ON FOOTNOTE #3

The Oklahoma Eagle has now been absorbed into this ‘media borg.’ The century year-old Black-owned newspaper is being transitioned into a non-profit, with the Goodwin family holding only a minority of the new board.

The News Initiative takeover has already claimed its first victim — John Neal. Beginning in 2022, Neal wrote over 80 articles for the Eagle, all heavily researched and written in a calm, professional style. He was nominated by the Eagle for the Oklahoma Press Association’s ‘Journalist of the Year’ in 2023. The nomination referred to his “diversity of storytelling” covering a dazzling array of subjects.

The nomination noted that “he has been our most prolific journalist filing about a dozen Open Records Requests… seeking to hold public agency accountable and transparent… forcing the agencies to release information they initially attempted to refuse…”

Neal won first place for column writing in the 2023 Oklahoma Press Awards, with the judge’s commenting upon his “powerful reporting and writing about an ongoing community and social failure that has roots in the past but continues to sprout in new directions in the present.”

His “incredibly well written” article on “Public funding, Private school,” won a second place award for Educational Stories, following a first in the same category in 2022. The 2023 Great Plains Journalism Awards named him a finalist and commented on his “beautiful way of putting book reviews together.”

courtesy of the Oklahoma Eagle

Neal is white, but never led with his ego or preened about as a ‘white hero.’ He just did his job and did it extremely well. Several of his articles were well out in front of issues now in today’s headlines.⁶ He neither requested nor received compensation for his efforts, during which he loyally supported the Eagle’s editor.

The culmination of Neal’s articles was a trilogy on the Kirkpatrick Heights - Greenwood Master Plan, an elaborate pubic-private effort to remake the North Tulsa. The articles revealed a discomforting gap between the Plan’s promises and the looming gentrified and posh direction in which North Tulsa and the Master Plan are headed. One can see how such disclosures might be inconvenient, given the echoes of Tate Brady’s old Northside Improvement Association now gathering over the place.⁷

Neal’s quill and ink pot are now gone from the Eagle. He was pointedly not invited to take a position with the new TLNI Eagle. While he was finally and vaguely offered compensation on a per article basis, he declined. It was not because of any aversions to the Kaisers, about whom he has no strong feelings. Rather, it was his belief that “a subsidized press is a controlled press” and an unwillingness to engage in ‘smiley face’ journalism.⁸ In other words, he’s a man of principle and his removal is Tulsa’s loss.

The News Initiative is more than just Kaiser, other non-profits, a smattering of ex-Mayors, and local collaborationists. Behind the TLNI is the American Journalism Project and behind that is an incredible phalanx of cooperating and vastly wealthy non-profits, many deriving directly or ultimately from industrial, banking, and other private fortunes. The names of a few historical robber barons appear on the roster, their cold, dead hands still guiding the nation. In some cases, there may be no original family members left, only well-heeled executives managing the left over loot.⁹

The American Journalism Project and the TLNI are not modern forms of alms-giving to the less fortunate. They are ‘control foundations,’ seeking population management by mass propaganda, with journalists serving as transcriptionists selling the ‘accepted stories of the moment.’ Those who go along are well compensated and promoted. Those who don’t never even make it through the servants’ entrance.

These groups are united by common lingo and buzzwords, like transparency, democracy, and culture. When they instead deliver opaqueness, undemocracy and a ‘god-awful ugly monument to the rich’ kind of culture, they devalue the very meaning of the high-sounding words. We are left with the hollow assurances Lucy makes before she pulls the football away from the Charlie Brown.

The term non-profit also means non-taxed. If the control foundations that seek to manipulate people were taxed down to the rafters and studs, the governments would have money to fund some of the needs now being privatized and placed beyond public control. Taxes might even be cut for the citizens who are having to subsidize their own propagandizing and repression. How did you, my reader, enjoy the recent tax season?

As dicey as politicians and government leaders are, at least they have to stand in front of the curtains, not behind them wizard-like, holding strings and making the decisions as to how people should live and society should be conducted. Control by an increasingly stuck up and haughty elite, facilitated by a servile news media.

We interrupt this program for a public service announcement

Before anybody gets wound up — yes, it is true that the Kaiser family is Jewish.¹⁰ But, as with the national control foundations, the people playing materially important roles in the Kaiser apparat come from a range of ‘categories’ — gentiles and jews, men and women, democrats and republicans, colors not in actual rainbows, e.g., white, black and brown, and on and on. That’s why I refer to it as the Kaiser Empire, not just the family that owns most of the stock certificates.

I don’t read or sell this as some big Jewish conspiracy. There are many cooks in the kitchen and their aprons sport different labels.

As Stan Lee wrote of the Amazing Spiderman, “with great power comes great responsibility.” That worthy philosophy means that the powerful, regardless of their category, have a special obligation to toe the line and not use their power and wealth to control, manipulate, subjugate, or even do worse to their fellow humans. The greater the power, the greater the duty to toe.

Which further means that being in category ‘X’ (fill in the blank however you please) grants the top dogs no special privilege to cross the lines. It’s what they do or don’t do in this life that counts, not their pedigree.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

A Warning from Paste-Pot Pete

Almost simultaneously with the public debut of the TLNI, came the announcement that Tulsa is getting a new immigrant. He is Gene Bulmash, husband of Emily Kaiser, herself a News Initiative Board and Steering Committee member.

Mr. Bulmash is bringing his expertise in “inclusionary zoning management,” whatever that means, and affordable housing in Washington, D. C., to Tulsa. He is going to be a senior advisor to the new Mayor.¹¹

This creates a large conflict of interest in a city all but completely denuded of independent media.

What happens if, as, and when, a Bulmash project starts having ‘issues?’ Will the glued together Tulsa media cover it with Neal-like tenacity? Will they develop journalistic laryngitis… again? Or, will they glue one of these on the curtain?

Time will tell the tale, assuming it gets reported.

I commiserate with the Goodwins and Gary Lee of the old Eagle. I do not mean to snark or scold them. They published some of my scribblings when I went up against the City, while collaborators like the Tulsa World simply regurgitated the official press releases, as usual. I’ll always appreciate what the Eagle did. I have several issues of the Eagle with my byline of which I am quite proud. Thank you.

These are tough times for media people with integrity and proud journalistic backgrounds, especially when the advantage-taking sharks begin to circle.

But, a subsidized press is still a controlled press. If the TLNI press is not owned outright, it is still leashed and the paymasters will ultimately demand their dues.

For those tempted to take Kaiser, TLNI or national control foundation largess, there is also this warning from Paste-Pot Pete himself to ponder.

Unless it’s the money required to buy the paste

And now…

The Kaiser Empire’s Stairway to Heaven (a Sermonette)

Dear Empire,

Michael Mason’s 2020 essay must have reverberated throughout the Imperial headquarters.

Did you react by sending Tulsans a sincere and thorough assurance that they had nothing to fear from you? That you had their backs and would do nothing to punish anyone who spoke their minds about you or anything having to do with you, even if it stepped on the Imperial Toes? That there would be no firings, disgracings, shunnings, ostracisms, or retributions in any way, shape or form? That they should go ahead and speak right up, that you would never, ever even think of doing any such things, and that they should put fear right out of their minds?

Or, did you sit back and luxuriate in your clout? After all, Mr. Mason’s disclosures served as a ‘force multiplier’ for your benefit. Every Tulsan who feared speaking up learned that all their contemporaries felt the exact same way. They now knew that everyone was scared of the Kaiser Empire; that you are The Fear That Stalks Tulsa. Did that put a skip in your step?

If you didn’t give an all-clear then, I strongly recommend that you do so now. As Robert Plant wrote in Stairway to Heaven:

Yes, there are two paths you can go by

But in the long run

There’s still time to change the road you’re on

Even if you issued some kind of an earlier disclaimer, you should do it again. Call it a booster shot, so that people won’t suspect that ‘things have changed,’ to borrow the title of Bob Dylan’s last great song. I know how very much you’re into Dylan.¹²

And no loopholes! You know how lawyers and public relations agents are — gotta watch ‘em like a hawk.

Since you have so much influence with the Tulsa’s news media, I suggest you order ask them to publish your non-aggression pact on their front pages, surrounded by a big, black border, so no one will miss it. Broadcast it on your the tv stations too. Make a big deal of it.

For once, swallow your pride. If you can’t, it will swallow you. Each new bulldozed victory will just make it worse. There will be a payday someday, as R. G. Lee preached.

You can’t buy or bully your way into Heaven, Empire, no matter how much power you have now or how brazenly you wield it. On Judgment Day, they’ll take the wind right out of your sails, when they tell you, “Your money’s no good here.” You’ll be just like everybody else, all your lordly powers washed away, taking your arrogance with it. Imagine that for a moment. How does it feel? Did Bob prophesy your fate?

You’re invisible now

You got no secrets to conceal

How does it feel

How does it feel

To be on your own

With no direction home

Like a complete unknown

Like a rolling stone?

Imagine as well the assembled multitudes falling deathly silent in anticipation, as the people you intimidated, pushed around, took revenge upon, or put your cigar out in the face of race to testify as karmic witnesses, as a Perry Mason-like Special Prosecutor rolls up his sleeves,¹³ and as the Last Jury and the Final Judge lean in to listen very, very closely to what you have to say.

Bob’s got another song for you — “I’d Hate to be You on that Dreadful Day.”¹⁴

But, if you do it my way now, you’ll have cards of virtue still to play.

You’ll be thanking me then.

Sincerely,

Randy Hopkins

I have nothing against the French. I myself am descended from Huguenots.

Credits

Puppet graphic courtesy of the Tulsa Daily World

Joe Stalin photo courtesy of the Stalin Institute of Art, Moscow branch

Kaiser/Levit photo courtesy of Bridgespan.org

Paste-Pot Pete courtesy of Jack Kirby and Marvel Comics

Peanuts cartoon courtesy of Charles Schulz and Peanuts Worldwide LLC

1. Mason’s essay is online at https://medium.com/@michaelpaulmason/the-kaiser-system-e8c14bca395. It is paywalled.

2. Jacob Howland, “Corporate Wolves in Academic Sheepskins, or, a Billionaire’s Raid on the University of Tulsa,” The Nation, June 18, 2019.

Also, Jacob Howland, “Administrative Hardball at the University of Tulsa,” May 8, 2019 ( the administration responded to mass opposition with “an iron fist, now no longer concealed by a velvet glove”); “The Imitation Game: Bullying and Retaliation at the University of Tulsa,” Oct. 23, 2019; “How Tulsa University Was Turned into Toxic University,” May 25, 2020, all available at https://jamesgmartin.center/author/jhowland/

Howland’s academic specialties include in the study of ideological tyranny, Soviet totalitarianism, and The Holocaust. He was also a winner of the University of Tulsa’s Outstanding Teacher Award.

For Dylan’s eerily prescient lyrics, see “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) (“While money doesn’t talk, it swears, Obscenity, who really cares, Propaganda, all is phony”). (I took the part out about the perfect image of a priest and the Empire. That was way too much. Nobody’s perfect and I admit misfiring. Also, it ends better with the open-ended ‘phony.” Sometimes, you just can’t improve on Bob’s lyrics.

3. For Levit as special counsel to CIA Director George Tenet, “Former CIA Advisor Urges ‘War Footing’,” Tulsa World, September 22, 2001, 11. Tenet and Levit’s close professional relationship began while working under Sen. David Boren (D-OK). Levit was Boren’s press secretary.

A “scathing” 2005 report from the CIA’s Insprector General accused Tenet and his aides of failing to prepare for al-Queda threats before 9-11. The BBC quoted the former head of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit as saying that the agency’s rank-and-file under Tenet were ‘lions led by asses” and that Tenet was aware of intelligence deficiencies as early as 1996 and “he never did anything about them.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6957839.stm (accessed April 12, 2025).

Levit was Tenet’s special counsel from early 1998 through 2000, according to his bio on the GKFF’s website.

On the other hand, Levit hardly seemed passive or inattentive in his minutely parsed treatise titled “The CIA and the Torture Controversy: Interrogation Authorities and Practices in the War on Terror,” Journal of National Security and Policy, 2005, Vol. 1, 341-356. https://jnslp.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/05_Levit_Master_c.pdf

4. https://tulsacf.org/about-tcf/staff-profiles/. As Mayor, Bynum was on the Board of Trustees for the TCF. https://tulsacf.org/about-tcf/board-of-trustees/

5. “The Eagle is Spreading Its Wings,” Oklahoma Eagle, December 11, 2024 ("The initiative will also invest in more journalism capacity for three local newsrooms, including The Frontier, an investigative newsroom in Tulsa; KOSU, a public radio station operated by Oklahoma State University; La Semana, a Tulsa-based bilingual Spanish-English newspaper serving Latino communities in the state; and Focus: Black Oklahoma, a radio program on issues relevant to BIPOC, rural, and marginalized communities statewide.

To heighten the visibility of several news outlets to a wider audience, The Tulsa World, Griffin Media’s KOTV Tulsa, Langdon Publishing’s TulsaPeople Magazine, The University of Tulsa and Tulsa Press Club have agreed to collaborate to make the most of journalism resources in the city and beyond.").

6. For example, https://theokeagle.com/2024/02/17/minority-opportunity-program-facing-elimination/

7. John Neal’s Master Plan trilogy is at https://theokeagle.com/2024/09/05/north-tulsa-neighborhood-revitalization-plan-is-underway/; https://theokeagle.com/2024/10/03/north-tulsa-neighborhood-revitalization-plan-faces-challenges/; https://theokeagle.com/2024/10/22/senior-official-cites-progress-on-master-plan-implementation/

8. Neal quotes a June 1948 article from Harper’s Magazine titled Democracy Dying in Darkness: “A subsidized press is a controlled press; whether it is controlled by holy angels or fiends in human form, it remains a controlled press.”

9. https://www.theajp.org/about/our-support/

10. The issue was in the news in 2019, when a Wordpress outlet called the NewTulsaStar published an article titled “George Kaiser’s Social Impact Philanthropy: How a Billionaire Transformed North Tulsa’s Misery into a Cash Cow.” The article was originally accompanied by a cartoon showing George Kaiser in a questionable position with a Black child. It drew a torrent of controversy and accusations of anti-semitism. The author later wrote that the cartoon was a satire based on an actual photograph. It is obvious how the cartoon could rub people the wrong way and the underlying photograph was innocent, even charming. The controversy overshadowed the author’s arguments. http://www.heartsoverhexagons.com/blog/george-kaisers-social-impact-philanthropy-how-a-billionaire-transformed-north-tulsas-misery-into-a-cash-cow-part-1/ (accessed April 10, 2025)

11. https://www.cityoftulsa.org/press-room/mayor-nichols-takes-office-introduces-mayoral-appointments-focusing-on-key-initiatives/. (dated Dec. 2, 2024).

12. For those who don’t know, the Empire bought the Bob Dylan archives and now lodge them at its Bob Dylan Center, next to its Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa. They bought Woody’s archives too. Don’t be caught without a ticket.

13. No Hamilton Berger for you, Empire. I’ll wager you draw the ace of the staff.

I’d Hate To Be You On That Dreadful Day

14. WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN

Well, your clock is gonna stop
At Saint Peter’s gate
Ya gonna ask him what time it is
He’s gonna say, “It’s too late”
Hey, hey!
I’d sure hate to be you
On that dreadful day

You’re gonna start to sweat
And you ain’t gonna stop
You’re gonna have a nightmare
And never wake up
Hey, hey, hey!
I’d sure hate to be you
On that dreadful day

You’re gonna cry for pills
And your head’s gonna be in a knot
But the pills are gonna cost more
Than what you’ve got
Hey, hey!
I’d sure hate to be you
On that dreadful day

You’re gonna have to walk naked
Can’t ride in no car
You’re gonna let ev’rybody see
Just what you are
Hey, hey!
I’d sure hate to be you
On that dreadful day

Well, the good wine’s a-flowin’
For five cents a quart
You’re gonna look in your moneybags
And find you’re one cent short
Hey, hey, hey!
I’d sure hate to be you
On that dreadful day

You’re gonna yell and scream
“Don’t anybody care?”
You’re gonna hear out a voice say
“Shoulda listened when you heard the word down there”
Hey, hey!
I’d sure hate to be you
On that dreadful day