[Pops]

http://kochblocked.com/

Sorry, still can't do vids...

[Cid_Yama]

Excellent find. The people are catching on.

[Sixstrings]

I bet Coca-Cola isn't too happy about their logo and feel good jingle associated with the Koch brothers. It's parody so that's fair use but.. sort of unfair to Coke they have nothing to do with the Kochs.

As for the Koch brothers themselves.. I'm a bit suspicious about them being The Big Bad Boogeyman. The Democratic Party itself is rotten to the core with corporatism and Wall Street graft. So now they pick out two guys we can all hate then we're not supposed to question the Dems?

Take a state like West Virginia.. mountaintop-removing and miner abusing Big Coal controls the Dem party in that state. They're just as bad as the Koch brothers, but I guess a scoundrel is ok if he donates to Dems.

[basil_hayden]

I bet Coca-Cola isn't too happy about their logo and feel good jingle associated with the Koch brothers. It's parody so that's fair use but.. sort of unfair to Coke they have nothing to do with the Kochs.

As for the Koch brothers themselves.. I'm a bit suspicious about them being The Big Bad Boogeyman. The Democratic Party itself is rotten to the core with corporatism and Wall Street graft. So now they pick out two guys we can all hate then we're not supposed to question the Dems?

Take a state like West Virginia.. mountaintop-removing and miner abusing Big Coal controls the Dem party in that state. They're just as bad as the Koch brothers, but I guess a scoundrel is ok if he donates to Dems.

Piss off, Big Nose.

[Pops]

As for the Koch brothers themselves.. I'm a bit suspicious about them being The Big Bad Boogeyman.

Take a look at this:
http://www.commoncause.org/site/apps/nl ... ct=9039331

[Sixstrings]

Piss off, Big Nose.

If you're a liberal, don't jump and get all excited every time a dog whistle gets blown and MSNBC tells you who to be mad at. As if the problems of this country all come down to just two brothers. Tell you what.. let's start with the scoundrels on the Dem Party donor list then work our way up to the Koch brothers.

But you don't want to talk about that, so go ahead with the good cop bad cop game the two parties play.

Take a look at this:
http://www.commoncause.org/site/apps/nl ... ct=9039331

I'll have to research the Koch brothers, just to figure out why they've been so singled out. My feeling up to now is that it's a distraction.. "hey, don't look at us, don't talk about the corporatist Wall Street bankster president and Dem Party, let's all get mad at two brothers and blame them."

EDIT: And about that website.. slick production values, somebody has spent a chunk of change on that ad, but nowhere on this anti-Koch website do they even say anything specific. Other than the ad, which says nothing specific about the Kochs at all, here's all the site says:

Tired of the Koch Brothers buying our political system?

Then join our campaign to push Koch money out and bring democracy back in - sign up below to join The Other 98% as we fight Koch money wherever it shows up - and maybe take part in some more awesome creative agitation.

Uhm.. details please? Wiki link, somethin? Sorry, I just don't like the politics of singling out one or two "bad guys" -- it's a distraction, whatever the Kochs are doing is a drop in the bucket compared to the types of characters showing up to Obama's own fundraisers. And who is this "other 98%" group, is it a PAC, who is funding it. Is this another moveon.org thing, just more manipulation and after some Dems are elected then the darn Dems will pick up where the Bad Republicans left off?

Let's not forget here that moveon.org stopped talking about war right after Obama won the election. They have no opinion on Afghanistan now, nor Libya, nor any future wars.

[Cid_Yama]

Take a state like West Virginia.. mountaintop-removing and miner abusing Big Coal controls the Dem party in that state.

Do you just make sh*t up and figure it won't be challenged?

Mr. Blankenship, the chief executive of the state’s largest coal producer, Massey Energy, has promised to spend “whatever it takes” to help win a majority in the State Legislature for the long-beleaguered Republican Party in a state that is a Democratic and labor stronghold.

In a state where candidates who win typically spend less than $20,000, Mr. Blankenship has poured more than $6 million into political initiatives and local races over the past three years. Mr. Blankenship has spent at least $700,000 in his current effort to oust Democrats, and the state is awash with lawn signs, highway billboards, radio advertisements and field organizers paid for by him.

“Don Blankenship would actually be less powerful if he were in elected office,” said United States Representative Nick J. Rahall II, a Democrat whose district includes a majority of Massey’s coal mines. “He would be twice as accountable and half as feared.”

Rather than bankroll his own political ambitions, as have businessmen like Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, Mr. Blankenship has exerted his financial clout in the mold of Warren Buffett and George Soros, choosing issues and candidates in line with his partisan philosophy.

Union leaders say Mr. Blankenship, 56, is the main reason that less than a quarter of the state’s coal miners are now organized, down from about 95 percent just three decades ago. And environmentalists describe him as the biggest force behind a highly destructive form of mining called mountaintop removal that involves using explosives to blow off the tops of mountains to reach coal seams.

Local Republicans admiringly say that Mr. Blankenship combines the strategic savvy of Karl Rove, the White House adviser, and the fund-raising skill of Richard Mellon Scaife, the conservative financier. Mr. Blankenship personally oversees his media campaigns; he writes advertisements and designs polls, and speaks on talk radio more than the chairman of the state Republican Party.

link

The only reason West Virginia is Democratic is because Labor Unions are still strong there. Strong enough to fight against the largest coal producers best efforts to take over the state for the Republicans.

We know who the Koch Brothers are and that they are bankrolling the entire Republican Party, and the Tea Party, and as seen by the fake Koch brother call to Wisconsin's governor, they grovel at their beck and call.

Something evil and sick about anyone that defends them.

So much for your attempts to convince people you are a Democrat, eh?

[Sixstrings]

Do you just make sh*t up and figure it won't be challenged?

Cid.. Big Coal owns that state.

Big Coal - the politically powerful lobbying and funding by the US coal industry - has a great deal of influence in West Virginia, as well as the other Rust Belt states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois. Governors and political parties know that funding from Big Coal may make or break a campaign, and they need to win votes from an electorate who are employed in, or dependent on, the coal industry.
http://www.earthtimes.org/politics/big-coal-plays-politics-us/7/

Big Coal endorses Manchin

CHARLESTON, W.Va.--The West Virginia Coal Association has endorsed Gov. Joe Manchin, giving the Democrat another major interest group backing his U.S. Senate bid.

(snip)

"We've witnessed this governor put his finger in the chest of EPA officials," said Coal Association President Bill Raney.
http://www.dailymail.com/News/election11/201009301156

When I say they "own" that state, I mean literally.. even the judges:

In the coalfields, we also know of the oppressive, corrupt, and ruthless practices of coal companies that destroy mountains, communities, and lives to get the coal out.

The most blatant example of these practices in the U.S. is Don Blankenship in his reign of terror as CEO of Massey Coal. From buying a West Virginia Supreme Court Judge to the human toll at the Upper Big Branch mine disaster, Blankenship's footprint could never be measured solely in tons of carbon extracted from the earth.
http://sierraclub.typepad.com/compass/2011/03/india-carbon-oppression-corruption-footprint.html

And Big Coal certainly owns Democratic pols in the state.. including both Democratic senators, Manchin and Rockefeller:

Coal Tattoo, a blog of the Charleston Gazette, reports here that “EPA officials this morning were alerting West Virginia’s congressional delegation to their action, and undoubtedly preparing for a huge backlash from the mining industry and its friends among coalfield political leaders.”

Joe Manchin, the former Governor, a fervent supporter of mountaintop removal, and the new Senator from West Virginia is going to go postal, if his ad opposing cap and trade from last Fall is any indication. The other Senator, Jay Rockefeller, supports cutting off EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases.
http://climatechange.foreignpolicyblogs.com/tag/joe-manchin/

Okay so right there you have two Democratic Party US senators that are a "fervent supporter of mountaintop removal," anti-EPA, and against greenhouse gas regulation. And yet all your anger is on the Koch brothers.. who don't even hold any office.

[Cid_Yama]

If big Coal 'owned' the state, they wouldn't be doing "whatever it takes" to replace the Democrats with Republicans.

The Koch brothers, whose wealth, when combined, is the fourth highest in the nation, run one of the largest private companies in the country. Koch Industries is involved in industries ranging from oil and gas, refining and chemicals, minerals, fertilizers, forestry, consumer products, polymers and fibers, and ranching. They have operations in 45 states.

The Koch brothers use their considerable wealth to bankroll the right wing, including the Tea Party. This serves the purpose of furthering not only their right-wing ideology but also their bottom line. Koch Industries has a lot to gain from gutting government oversight and electing candidates who oppose government regulation, especially in the oil-and-gas industry.

• Chances are the Koch brothers are part of any recent right-wing attack as of late as they have fought health reform, Wall Street reform, collective bargaining rights, and efforts to curb climate change, to name just a few.

• We have identified at least $85 million the Koch brothers have given to at least 85 right-wing think tanks and advocacy groups over the past decade and a half.

• Their main advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity, has chapters in 32 states and spent $45 million in the last election, predominantly to help elect Republicans.

• The Kochs donated directly to 62 of the 87 members of the House GOP freshman class.

• The Koch brothers are active at the state level, spending $5.2 million on candidates and ballot measures in 34 states since 2003. They donated directly to 13 governors that won election last year.

• The Kochs are not going away. In fact, they have already pledged to raise $88 million for the 2012 election and have started scheduling events for potential Republican presidential candidates.

As this report will demonstrate, the Koch brothers’ network works hard to advance a right-wing ideological agenda that helps their businesses reap more profits at the expense of our environment, our economy, and the American middle class.

Understanding how they operate is the first step in countering their efforts to
reshape our nation’s laws to benefit the wealthy even more than they do today.

link

[rockdoc123]

I know little of American politics but it strikes me the Koch's are being demonized beyond what is reasonable.

http://www.kansascity.com/2011/04/02/2771395/smearing-the-kochs-how-the-game.html

My guess is that through their various companies they have done more for the US economy than the current administration.

[Cid_Yama]

You can't demonize demons. They are the most powerful force of evil in the world today.

Koch Industries multibillionaire Koch brothers bankroll attacks on climate change science and policy

In order to block proactive government policymaking and keep corporate interests unregulated, libertarian groups have focused a significant part of their efforts on climate change on distorting the science to confuse public opinion, denying the seriousness of the problem, and, most recently, impugning the integrity of the climate science community. The Koch brothers have stepped forward with deep pockets to bankroll such efforts.

Charles and David Koch (pronounced "coke") own Koch Industries, which according to Forbes, is the second largest private company in the United States with estimated 2008 revenues of $100 billion and with 80,000 employees. Its CEO is Charles G. Koch (age 74, residence Wichita, Kansas) (see company biography). David Koch (age 70, residence New York City) is the executive vice-president and a board member (see company biography). According to Forbes (The 400 Richest Americans 2009), the brothers are tied as the 9th richest Americans, with a net worth of $16 billion each.

link

[Pretorian]

So whats you saying Cid, Dems aren't owned by Wall Street and corporations, or something like that? Am I getting it right? Or they are owned in less evil way?

[Sixstrings]

I know little of American politics but it strikes me the Koch's are being demonized beyond what is reasonable.

You're exactly right. From your article:

What’s interesting is that many of the anti-Koch groups are working the other side of the same street: they, too, are getting behind-the-scenes money from a billionaire, except that of course their rich dude is a good guy, a man of the left: George Soros.

Politico reports that several such organizations, including Common Cause, the Ruckus Society and the Center for American Progress, have received more than $7 million from foundations linked to Soros. And those foundations have given another pile of money to other Koch-bashers such as the Alliance for Justice and People for the American Way.

Some of these groups, Politico notes, “are beneficiaries of a liberal donor network that meets in secret twice a year — very much like the Koch donor network.…”

My big thing is that I don't like B.S., I don't like hypocrisy, and I don't like propaganda. I'm really reminded of the moveon.org BS. The whole thing was a sham, all about getting votes they never really believed in being anti-war. I have a strong feeling Dems are beating up Republicans on this anti-union stuff, but when the dust settles it will be Democrats who deliver the coup de grace to unions.

This Koch brothers witch hunt is childish and it's a distraction from the scoundrels WITHIN the Democratic Party. And I don't like the politics of making a boogeyman of two particular guys out of a nation of 308 odd million -- two individuals who don't even hold office.

Meanwhile quite a few Democratic Party senators, House reps, and even our Dem President can't be counted on to uphold traditionally liberal values. While Obama triangulates, sells the working and middle class out to Wall Street and offshoring corporations, Cid wants me be mad at the Koch brothers.. as if everything would be peaches and gravy if only these two guys were shut up.

I just don't get it.. ok the Kochs are pouring some money into the political process, well hello who do you think Obama is meeting at all these fundraisers? Rich folks. Wall Street hedge fund types. And Facebook supports Obama.. how is Zuckerberg exerting influence okay but the Kochs shouldn't be allowed to?

By the way I don't support the Koch brothers agenda, but that hardly makes the corporatist Democrats better in comparison. Ok so Dems want to keep government employee unions alive, that's what all this is about. Problem with that is that the Dems support low taxes on the rich, and they support offshoring which has decimated the middle class. That leaves no tax base available to pay government workers high salaries and good bennies.

I'm all for unions, but Dems can't be for offshoring, global corporations, Wall Street hedge fund banksters AND unions too -- they MUST CHOOSE a side. That's why I say in the end it will be Democrats who do in the unions for good, just as it was Nixon who went to China and just as it was the Democrat Bill Clinton who signed NAFTA. This Koch crap is just to get some votes.. sorry I won't play that game.

[Cid_Yama]

In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a “kingpin of climate science denial.” The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies—from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program—that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus.

Charles Lewis, the founder of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan watchdog group, said, “The Kochs are on a whole different level. There’s no one else who has spent this much money. The sheer dimension of it is what sets them apart. They have a pattern of lawbreaking, political manipulation, and obfuscation. I’ve been in Washington since Watergate, and I’ve never seen anything like it. They are the Standard Oil of our times.”

Charles and David became devotees of a radical thinker, Robert LeFevre, who favored the abolition of the state but didn’t like the label “anarchist”; he called himself an “autarchist.” LeFevre liked to say that “government is a disease masquerading as its own cure.” In 1956, he opened an institution called the Freedom School, in Colorado Springs. Brian Doherty, of Reason, told me that “LeFevre was an anarchist figure who won Charles’s heart,” and that the school was “a tiny world of people who thought the New Deal was a horrible mistake.” According to diZerega, Charles supported the school financially, and even gave him money to take classes there.

The Kochs’ subsidization of a pro-corporate movement fulfills, in many ways, the vision laid out in a secret 1971 memo that Lewis Powell, then a Virginia attorney, wrote two months before he was nominated to the Supreme Court. The antiwar movement had turned its anger on defense contractors, such as Dow Chemical, and Ralph Nader was leading a public-interest crusade against corporations. Powell, writing a report for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, urged American companies to fight back. The greatest threat to free enterprise, he warned, was not Communism or the New Left but, rather, “respectable elements of society”—intellectuals, journalists, and scientists. To defeat them, he wrote, business leaders needed to wage a long-term, unified campaign to change public opinion.

Charles Koch seems to have approached both business and politics with the deliberation of an engineer. “To bring about social change,” he told Doherty, requires “a strategy” that is “vertically and horizontally integrated,” spanning “from idea creation to policy development to education to grassroots organizations to lobbying to litigation to political action.” The project, he admitted, was extremely ambitious. “We have a radical philosophy,” he said.

link

They are waging a war against the "respectable elements of society". They are right-wing social engineering in the manner of George Orwell's 1984. It is a war against America from within. It is a war against the American people.

[Sixstrings]

They are right-wing social engineering in the manner of George Orwell's 1984. It is a war against America from within. It is a war against the American people.

And the corporatist Democratic Party is complicit.

Cid, rather than talking about the Koch brothers can we talk about the real issue for a second. Would you agree that the following two sets of things cannot co-exist:

Government employee unions with high wages and good benefits

PLUS

* Low taxes on the rich
* Offshoring private sector middle and working class jobs overseas
* Out of control immigration

Can you just agree with me on that? Can you agree with me that Bill Clinton did a lot more damage with NAFTA than the Koch brothers could ever do?

[Pops]

What’s interesting is that many of the anti-Koch groups are working the other side of the same street: they, too, are getting behind-the-scenes money from a billionaire, except that of course their rich dude is a good guy, a man of the left: George Soros.

[/quote]
So you either think the Citizens United case and unlimited money is good for politics in the US or that the Kochs had no part in pushing it forward, correct? That's what this is about.

Personally I don't think it was a good thing and in fact 80% (?) of the country doesn't either.

I mean I'd be happy to hear some rebutting of the second link I posted instead of the usual cop out of "they are all the same" blah blah blah

[Cid_Yama]

The last person who attempted to integrate his society both "vertically and horizontally" “from idea creation to policy development to education to grassroots organizations to lobbying to litigation to political action” also started out by attacking the intellectuals, journalists and scientists.

During his time, he was the most powerful force of evil in the world.

We saw where that took us.

[careinke]

From the article posted by Rocdoc.

In some respects, the Kochs make unlikely media villains. From what I read, they blame the Republicans as much as the Democrats for our bloated government. They favor gay marriage, drug legalization, a smaller defense budget and fewer U.S. foreign adventures.

And they seem to be good employers, judging by a piece last week by United Steelworkers Vice President Jon Geenen, who opposed plans for a boycott of Koch products.

The Kochs own Georgia Pacific, and according to Geenen its plants use advanced manufacturing technology, its workers are well-paid and the Kochs have “positive and productive collective bargaining relationships with its unions.”

What you see in the campaign against the Kochs is the left, once again acting out its conceit that its positions automatically define morality. Our billionaire money is good, yours is tainted. On Election Day next year, we’ll get a clue as to whether all this behind-the-scenes skirmishing made much difference in the outcome either way.

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/04/02/27 ... z1N6FvtL2C

They don't sound like such bad guys, now Soros on the other hand.....

[Pops]

You guys are funny, you talk about how bad money is in politics then defend the very guys who backed personhood for corporations and unlimited corporate champaign expenditures without disclosure ...

Koch has long sought to expand his influence and the influence of other right-wing plutocrats by funding groups that have chipped away at campaign finance laws and disclosure laws for decades. When the Supreme Court took up the Citizens United case, Koch-funded front groups filed a series of amicus briefs arguing that unlimited corporate money in politics is protected by the First Amendment. For example, the Cato Institute, founded and financed by the Koch brothers, submitted a brief that called for “unfettered” corporate “speech” and the Institute for Justice, founded and financed by David’s brother Charles, submitted a brief claiming that campaign finance laws prohibiting unlimited corporate money “trump the First Amendment.” Koch-funded groups later lobbied aggressively to oppose efforts to provide transparency for the new tidal wave of corporate spending.

What am I missing?

[Cid_Yama]

Imagine Adolph Hitler just starting out, but with the wealth of the Koch Brothers.

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Historians always remark, if only we had acted sooner.

The Ministry of Propaganda is already up and running under the new Gobbels, Roger Ayles.

The "think tanks" are already attacking the intellectuals, journalists, and scientists.

The brown shirts are now internet trolls shouting down the critics, disrupting discussion, suppressing dissent, and spreading disinformation.

The time to act is now, not when the jackboot is firmly crushing your windpipe.

If you allow them the time to consolidate their power, it will be too late.