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As several articles describing an ongoing investigation have recently revealed, Charles and David Koch are the living embodiment of Simpson's character C. Montgomery Burns...with perhaps a little less kindness. Evil incarnate comes close.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/08/23/david-charles-koch/

thinkprogress.org revealed in a series of over six articles how the Koch's are the major source of funding and direction for "the new right" in America today, both the how and the why, in a stunning and timely expose of the "corporatocracy" or "plutonomy" at work in America.

Why do some laws get passed and others pulled down? You'll see the Koch's, who own many, many familiar brand names and collectively are one of the world's major polluters (and consumers of dirty Canadian heavy crude) fighting to remove California's new clean air laws, helping to fund the Tea Party, and over 30 years of front groups, guerrilla tactics under the nose of the American public with every dirty trick in the book while offering the public face of being good corporate citizens.

All the while they were the direction and source of capital for the global warming deniers, the Tea Party movement, and the attacks on health care reform.

You can almost smell the evil...

Their father started the John Birch Society and helped slander Kennedy. They led the attacks on both Clinton's and helped fund the attacks on Obama. If it's progressive in America they will be agin' it.

Knowing what we know about the connection to the Koch Bros. then, how seriously can the anti-AGW crowd be taken (or take themselves now that the proverbial Koch are out of the bag)?

And similarly, what of our fake-triots from the Tea-bagger club? It would seem that combined with this and knowing that one of their main source of funding also funds the new Islamic Cultural center they and Faux are trying to connect to radical extremists, again the cat's out of the bag...

Of course, so caught, they will say "but look where the article came from" knowing full well it's a "poisoning the well" fallacy, and attempt to deflect.

But feel free to hold feet to fire here...I think it will be a hot time in the old town tonight. These are some sick f@wks

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Oh dear, i nearly jumped in feet first. Thank goodness i clicked on the links.

The articles referenced and the links within the links keep referring to these men as libertarian.

It seems this is another example of "being separated by a common language". (i now wonder if the Breitbart thread means something different to my original understanding when he says the media has a liberal bias.)

More reading required, belinda.

Is that pronounced "C0ck"...?

because they sound like a couple of c0cks to me...

"re-Vulcanize my tires Smithers" (Note American Spelling )

belinda wrote:It seems this is another example of "being separated by a common language".

Most definitely, ...words like "liberal", "conservative" and "moderate" take on a whole new meaning too.

Many of these words stopped meaning anything in regards to US politics.

Thank goodness i clicked on the links.

It's always best before falling for the buzzword trap, ...to check the substance hiding behind the style, "libertarian" has a different nuance than "Libertarian", ...the upper case "L" means that there is a bottom line; liberty ...via wealth, freedom, ...to exploit.

So, ...it's not about civil liberties, ...it's about taking liberties.

See: "Corporatism"

He has given twenty million to the American Museum of Natural History, whose dinosaur wing is named for him.

If it wasn’t so disgusting, that would be funny.

Two Brits and two Canadians discussing American politics…

i’m not sure I really understand America like i thought i once did. My reading today from the links took me to Saul Alinsky and to an Amazon review thread of one of Alinsky’s books (over 18 pages) and now i am very bemused:

“Big government is wrong – it’s heading down the slippery path to communism”. But big corporatism and (unelected) involvement in government isn’t wrong, it is praiseworthy even. This is apparently because the American Dream seems to be that the top bosses got there through hard work and everyone in the USA has the chance to get to the top through hard work, just like them.

It’s a country that is “proud to be American” – but insists on the individual’s right to act against the common good if they choose to do so, because they are out for their chance to get rich.

It has a high proportion of people who call themselves religious and has a high regular Church attendance yet opposes – or at a minimum resents – any welfare.

It is a country with people who oppose compulsory health insurance and a regulated insurance industry because that stops a corporation making money how it wants without government interference yet the status quo was to have citizens without medical cover at all.

It is a country where Obama’s early political work was as a “community organizer” ( a role that i don't think would exist here in the UK) because the local elected councils didn’t care about the living conditions of all its citizens - and one can only presume this was because of that individualism, the belief that everyone has the choice and the chance to “make good” and the people in the Projects obviously were not taking that chance on their own.

It’s a country that has mass taking-of-citizenship ceremonies – yet to my outsider’s eyes it seems that citizenship – being part of a body of people with common aims and concerns and needs - takes second place to being an individual without interference from officialdom even when it is trying to improve the lot of all the citizens.

i cannot work out if it’s the desire to be individual and alone and free from government, or the fear of “socialism” that is driving current politics in the USA.

As I said – i am bemused. And this piece on the Koch Foundations and their “charitable” giving just stresses to me the idea that perhaps the Americans might be bemused too, suddenly with their place as a nation as “the world's top dog” under threat. And what is the reaction of the Tea Partiers? Do they care where the money comes from? Do they admire the Kochs - despite David Koch's story of his wealth coming from inheritance and not his own work?

i can’t find the beautiful dissection of the Tea Party politics that someone (Moonbat? Humph?) posted on an earlier thread. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

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I LOVE Monty Burns! All hard and scrooge like on the outside and soft and lonely on the inside!
"Release the hounds"! Luv you Monty!

Abhor the real thing in real life doing REAL damage.

Humphrey Osmond wrote:http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer?printable=true

I first want to provide the bias that I could possibly hold, due to:

- I am a US citizen.
- I am a libertarian apologist with regards to the original philosophy, which coincides with my ideologies surrounding anarchy.
- I am against corporatism since it runs the possibility of promoting the unequal distribution of wealth and seems more of the norm than not.

Three glaring inconsistencies...

So I am going to attempt to debate from both sides.

Knowing what we know about the connection to the Koch Bros. then, how seriously can the anti-AGW crowd be taken (or take themselves now that the proverbial Koch are out of the bag)?

And similarly, what of our fake-triots from the Tea-bagger club? It would seem that combined with this and knowing that one of their main source of funding also funds the new Islamic Cultural center they and Faux are trying to connect to radical extremists, again the cat's out of the bag...

The Koch empire, (let's just call it what it is) is pretty vast...and philanthropist philosophies have a history of being somewhat renegade and a self-serving legacy. (Just another angle.)

I think that the AGW crowd still needs to be taken seriously if the attack is within this scope, since the money behind the GW contingent seems to run an equal amount of money-invested-in-the-corporation. I feel dirty just pointing this out.

Speaking of angles...I would like to address this I find it interesting:

Koch’s corporate and political roles, however, may pose conflicts of interest. For example, at the same time that David Koch has been casting himself as a champion in the fight against cancer, Koch Industries has been lobbying to prevent the E.P.A. from classifying formaldehyde, which the company produces in great quantities, as a “known carcinogen” in humans.

Koch industries was lobbying to prevent E.P.A. from classifying formaldehyde as carcinogen before he was diagnosed with prostrate cancer. Yes, a conflict of interest due to life circumstances.

How would one unbind a corporate/familial binding that is involved with such a heavy hitting political impact?

ambien girl wrote:
I first want to provide the bias that I could possibly hold, due to:

- I am a US citizen.
- I am a libertarian apologist with regards to the original philosophy, which coincides with my ideologies surrounding anarchy.
- I am against corporatism since it runs the possibility of promoting the unequal distribution of wealth and seems more of the norm than not.

Three glaring inconsistencies...

Not really:

- Multi national corporate entities owe allegiance to no nation-state.
- The concept of libertarianism isn't consistent with the current "brand" Libertarian.
- The Kochs go beyond corporatism into plutocratic oligarchy, hiding behind a veil of civil liberty

Sooooo...

What bias?

ambien girl wrote:So I am going to attempt to debate from both sides.

How are you even remotely arguing, their side?

You merely pointed out that it's all just a scam, no?

Again, ...how is that "arguing their side"?

ambien girl wrote:How would one unbind a corporate/familial binding that is involved with such a heavy hitting political impact?

How is their philanthropy not a blatant hypocrisy?

How to undo the civil rights movement a piece at a time.
The day after MLK's birthday, ...this seems a good a time as any.

Philanthropy?

~ Lee Fang/AlterNet wrote:Billionaire Koch Brothers Fulfill Father's Campaign
to Segregate Public Schools, End Successful Integration Program in NC



Today in the Washington Post, reporter Stephanie McCrummen detailed how a right-wing campaign in the Wake County area of North Carolina has taken over the school board with a pledge to end a very successful socio-economic integration plan. The integration plan, which created thriving schools in poor African-American parts of the school district along with achieving diversity in schools located in wealthy white enclaves, was a model for the nation. However, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the Tea Party group founded and funded by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, worked with local right-wing financier (and AFP board member) Art Pope to fundamentally change Wake County’s school board:

“I don’t want us to go back to racially isolated schools,” said Shila Nordone, who is biracial and has two children in county schools. “But right now, it’s as if the best we can do is dilute these kids out so they don’t cause problems. It sickens me.”

In their quest to end the diversity policy, the frustrated parents have found some influential partners, among them retail magnate and Republican operative Art Pope. Following his guidance, the GOP fielded the victorious bloc of school board candidates who railed against “forced busing.” The nation’s largest tea party organizers, Americans for Prosperity – on whose national board Pope sits – cast the old school board members as arrogant “leftists.” Two libertarian think tanks, which Pope funds almost exclusively, have deployed experts on TV and radio.

In a way, the Koch brothers are simply fulfilling their father’s legacy. In 1958, Fred Koch — the founder of Koch Industries — joined a group of manufacturing executives and Robert Welch to found the John Birch Society, a virulent far-right group that dominated the civil rights debate. The John Birch Society organized an impeachment campaign against then-Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren for the Brown v. Board decision outlawing racial segregation, and mobilized its supporters to oppose integration of schools on the grounds that mixing black and white would lead to the “mongrelization” of the races. Fred supported the John Birch Society’s anti-civil rights campaign, and wrote a screed denouncing the civil rights movement as communist-inspired.

Charles and David did not only inherit an oil company, they inherited a political philosophy. The Tea Party movement, orchestrated by AFP and other Koch fronts, reflects the paranoid style of the movement started by their father, Fred. As Thom Hartmann has explained, corporate interests have long funded far-right, paranoid movements to continually shift the balance of politics in America. The radical right creates political space for corporate candidates like Richard Nixon or Mitt Romney to appear “moderate” in contrast. David Koch, it should be noted, actually supports Romney for president in 2012 even though David’s fronts have spent the last two years boosting reactionaries like Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC).

Sue Sturgis of Facing South has reported that the AFP campaign in Wake County was also aided by the private school industry, including a company called the Thales Academy. AFP has called for more charter and private schools, and now with its slate of Tea Party candidates controlling the system, they will have the power to continue their racially-segregated privatization scheme.