Charles Koch whines in WSJ op-ed

[ProSense]

Charles Koch Hits Back Against 'Un-American' Attacks

Conservative billionaire Charles Koch hit back against Democrats' attacks calling him "un-American" in the pages of the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, citing his corporate record and denouncing political cronyism.

"The more government tries to control, the greater the disaster, as shown by the current health-care debacle," he wrote in an op-ed. "Collectivists (those who stand for government control of the means of production and how people live their lives) promise heaven but deliver hell."

"Instead of encouraging free and open debate, collectivists strive to discredit and intimidate opponents. They engage in character assassination," he added, saying he was the target of "almost daily" attacks.

Though Koch didn't single out the source of the attacks, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has railed against him and his brother David for pouring money into outside spending groups. Reid's crusade included the "un-American" accusation as well as slamming Republican politicians for being "addicted to Koch."

- more-

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/charles-koch-hits-back-at-unamerican-attacks

Despicable asshole.

The real goal of all those anti-Obamacare ads
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024702414

GOP struggles with Obamacare surge
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024758014

Bernie Sanders' recent statement on the ACA: “This is a big, big deal.”
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024765617

Obama: 'There Are Still No Death Panels. Armageddon Has Not Arrived.' 'Time To Get Over It'
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024765888

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised - The Obamacare Photos the MSM Doesn't Want You to See
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024761330

[Nye Bevan]

1. Why won't the Federal prosecutors listen to DU?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023965660

[eShirl]

2. Sounds like Reid found a nerve.

Keep punching it, Harry.

[spanone]

3. rupert murdoch's wall street urinal....fuck him & it.

[cprise]

20. Use Adblock if you must click on the link. n/t

[HereSince1628]

4. NO ONE is pushing collectivism...that's a boogey man of Charle's youth

ground upon him by a father who made a fortune doing contract oil refinery development for Stalin.

Surely that proximity to megalomania carried lessons to Fred Koch, but it doesn't mean that the Koch's MUST transform the United States into a Neofeudal state with government for, by and of the will of the wealthy

[Larkspur]

11. Not necessarily true. Kock and allies want taxpayers to pay for their business costs

while they reap more profits and stash them off shore so they don't have to pay taxes.

Kock and allies are for the collectivism of the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.

[Major Nikon]

37. Government is inherently collective

Koch is just using his Ayn Rand dog whistle.

[HereSince1628]

39. Koch is a Thatcherite. He doesn't belief the public should own anything in commonwealth

Somethings function better as commonwealth, than as private wealth.

As starters I give you clean air, clean water, education, health care, and democracy.

Defense of the real value of these things from the corrupting effects of various forms of chemical and monetary pollution is as important as the capacity to project military force against foreigners who threaten Charles Koch's capacity to unregulated pilfering.

[The Magistrate]

5. One More For The 'Expressing Disagreement Is Bullying Me With Censorship' Crew, Ma'am

"Kill it with fire."

[sufrommich]

6. The moron overdosed on Ayn Rand and we're

all going to pay for it.
A lunatic with endless amounts of money and power,what could go wrong?

[EC]

38. Not Ayn Rand persay.

He was infected by his father who was infected with the same bug that infected Ayn Rand.

[Enrique]

7. he has been flushed out

every Democratic candidate should run against the Koch Brothers, regardless of who the GOP candidate is. The actual GOP candidate is just a facade anyway.

[CJCRANE]

8. Yes, especially now with the SC decision yesterday.

They couldn't be more transparent.

[HughBeaumont]

9. If someone says "Marxist", "Collectivist" or "statist", I INSTANTLY don't take them seriously.

Two types of people say that:

a) A college student who reads Ayn Rand and doesn't know any better before they turn 21
b) A fiscally comfortable male who stopped mentally developing around example a) above, substituted one religion for another (The Free Market) and regards Atlas Shrugged as a Bible. This is called a "Denial-ican" in some circles.

[ProfessorGAC]

33. Me Too, Hugh

It's such a lazy and convenient use of terms. Void of any substance. I automatically not to just raise filters and let the "blah blah" go unlistened.

[hibbing]

42. I would add socialist

The right calling President Obama a socialist, oh please.

Peace

[HughBeaumont]

45. They call anyone to the left of Joe Lieberturd a "SOSHULIST".

Republicans, like the corporations they worship, love to cut corners, especially when it comes to logic. It's just what they do.

In their worlds, somehow a centrist Chi-Schooler Democrat who appoints Wall Streeters and corporate executives to governmental positions = Vlad Lenin. Or something.

[Brigid]

10. Dear Charlie:

Just shut up, you cockroach. Nobody wants to hear your whining. Just go count your billions somewhere and STFU.

[NightWatcher]

12. Attn Bitchy Billionaires. You won the game, stop crying about it

Of course we hate your cheating guts. Go buy an island where you can be king if you so give a damn. Leave us alone.

[TBF]

13. For someone who hates Gov't control

he sure supports a lot of politicians who want to control the reproductive systems of women's bodies.

Charles Koch can fuck himself AFAIC.

[KittyWampus]

14. Well, the more CORPORATIONS control, the greater the disaster for the majority of mankind,

the environment and the entire planet and all it contains.

[ProSense]

15. These assholes always

"Well, the more CORPORATIONS control, the greater the disaster for the majority of mankind, the environment and the entire planet and all it contains."

...like to talk about the alleged good they're doing, when it amounts to cover for destroying people's lives.

Ken Lay was a fucking philanthropist.

Note: If you're trying to block access to health care, you're killing people.

[tularetom]

16. Ironic, isn't it that this oped appears on the same day he is empowered to buy politicians

He could afford a whole fleet of em.

[ProSense]

17. Charles Koch Explains Why He Is So Crazy

Charles Koch Explains Why He Is So Crazy

By Jonathan Chait

The Wall Street Journal's editorial page owns the deluded self-pitying billionaire screed genre, and today, it brings us Charles Koch. From the outside, Koch would appear to have it pretty good. He owns a vast fortune inherited in substantial part from his father. He commands enormous political influence, with hundreds of politicians and other political elites at his beck and call. But Koch’s view of himself is as a kind of ragtag freedom fighter hunted nearly to extinction.

Here is Koch attempting to explain the major source of his grievance:

Instead of encouraging free and open debate, collectivists strive to discredit and intimidate opponents. They engage in character assassination. (I should know, as the almost daily target of their attacks.) This is the approach that Arthur Schopenhauer described in the 19th century, that Saul Alinky famously advocated in the 20th, and that so many despots have infamously practiced. Such tactics are the antithesis of what is required for a free society—and a telltale sign that the collectivists do not have good answers.

So the trouble is that his critics attempt to “discredit” and “intimidate” him and employ “character assassination.” All these terms appear to be Koch synonyms for “saying things about Charles Koch that Charles Koch does not agree with.” In the kind of “free and open” debate he imagines, Koch would continue to use his fortune to wield massive political influence, and nobody would ever say anything about him that makes him unhappy.

Luckily, Koch restrains himself from overtly comparing the Obama administration to Hitler and Stalin, instead likening it to unnamed 20th-century “despots." No character assassination here!

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/04/charles-koch-explains-why-he-is-so-crazy.html

[WinkyDink]

18. But "collectivists" ISN'T a term intended to "discredit," right? STFU, CK.

[6000eliot]

19. What a loathsome scumbag.

[ProSense]

21. Steve Benen:

<...>

Rather, the underlying issue is one of a failure of self-awareness. The Koch brothers, as has been well documented, aren’t exactly struggling to communicate their ideas with the public. They’ve invested tens of millions of dollars in a massive political operation, including brutal attack ads targeting policymakers who’ve dared to pursue a progressive policy vision.

Indeed, reading Koch’s op-ed and its complaints about “character assassination” immediately made me wonder if the conservative billionaire has actually seen any of the anti-Democratic commercials he’s helped subsidize.

It’s true that the Koch brothers, up until fairly recently, were not commonly recognized as major political players. Their names rarely passed through Democrats’ lips. But as they’ve become more deeply involved in policy and campaign debates, effectively creating a well-financed operation that would rival that of a modestly sized national party, the Koch brothers have been subjected to scrutiny and denunciations.

<...>

It’s what makes Charles Koch’s complaints unpersuasive. It would appear from his op-ed that he’s comfortable financing attack ads targeting Democrats, but he’s outraged by Democrats who respond in kind with attack ads of their own. When he makes the case for a regressive vision, Koch seems himself as merely celebrating the restoration of a free society, but when his foes make the case for a progressive vision, they’re radicals trying to stifle debate.

- more -

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/charles-koch-presents-his-defense-against

[sheshe2]

22. Whine all you want, Charlie. The shoe fits...

The political activities of the Koch brothers include the financial and political influence of Charles G. and David H. Koch on United States (US) politics. This influence is seen both directly and indirectly via various advocacy and lobbying organizations in which they have an interest.

The Koch brothers are the sons of Fred C. Koch, who founded Koch Industries, the second-largest privately held company in the US, of which they own 84%.Having bought out two other brothers' interests, they remain in control of the family business, the fortune which they inherited from their father, and the Koch Family Foundations.

The brothers have mainly contributed to libertarian and conservative thinktanks and campaigns. They actively fund and support organizations that contribute significantly to Republican candidates, and that lobby against universal health care and climate change legislation.They have donated more than $196 million to dozens of free-market and advocacy organizations. In 2008, the three main Koch family foundations contributed to 34 political and policy organizations, three of which they founded, and several of which they direct. Some of political activities of the Koch brothers have brought controversy from organizations such as Greenpeace.

snip

Impact

One 1997 study by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy identified twelve American foundations which have had a key influence on US public policy since the 1960s via their support for the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute. Three of these are Koch Family Foundations (the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, and the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation). Others are the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, John M. Olin Foundation, Carthage Foundation (controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife), Earhart Foundation, Philip M. McKenna Foundation, JM Foundation, Henry Salvatori Foundation, Sarah Scaife Foundation, and Smith Richardson Foundation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_activities_of_the_Koch_brothers

[msanthrope]

30. Indeed...so when Glenn Greenwald appears at a donor benefits dinner for CATO,

goes on tour for Koch, and writes whitepaper for them, I tend to distrust him.

Note...Greenwald didn't appear at one of the symposiums or lectures, like many pundits do.....he toured for them, and took their money, and was a donor premium.

[Botany]

23. What a bunch of shit

We got the 2008 Crash because of lack of governmental controls (Glass Steagel repeal)
and the Gulf of Mexico / BP oil spill (Dick Cheney's energy task force)

[Ed Suspicious]

24. Haha! Koch and his commie talk. Touching.

[Ikonoklast]

25. Large Corporations are Collectivist organizations engaged in collectivist activity.

I would like to see the Kochs run everything by themselves, with no employees working together as one, with the same common goal in mind.

[JohnnyRingo]

26. That 2nd paragraph about govt control...

...is exactly how my conservative friends talk. I hear it often enough I have a pat answer: "the government does more for me than to me". I then list the programs that help my kids and grandkids, and how I get half my pension from the govt.

I have a name for people who toil all day at menial jobs and live paycheck to paycheck, then get off work and start channelling David Koch. I call them "barstool republicans", people who live like democrats and talk like republicans.

Sometime one talks about how they need guns in case they have to stop the government through violence, like buying a Taurus 9mm suddenly turns them into Seal Team Six. I usually look at them after the tirade and deadpan: "who's asking you to do that?". I then like to point out that they won't just be fighting govt agents, but most of the citizens who don't want a Tea Party rule as well. For some reason, they think their cause is noble and universal.

They watch too much Fox and too many movies. Add an equal amount of alcohol, and you get a barstool republican.

[kimbutgar]

28. Brainwashed fools who can't think beyond their fox talking points

[Populist_Prole]

44. 'Barstool Republicans' Excellent term!

I know many people like this, and unfortunately. I couldn't agree more with every observation in your post because my observations mirror yours exactly. Tom Clancy reading, action movie watching paranoid gun nuts; mix in alcohol, and any nuance ( what little they possessed to begin with ) is replaced by an indignation fueled black/white right/wrong view. The alcohol makes them argue louder and angrier.

A couple of my close friends ( and ex-coworkers ) were always like this, but they still voted democratic because they were pro-union and anti-corporate. Now that they're retired they don't give a shit about any of that anymore, even though they're barely getting by. They've found a new tree to bark up as to blaming for whatever current woes afflict them. The president.

[lunatica]

27. I liked him a lot better

when I didn't know he even existed.

[JohnnyRingo]

35. I first heard of them in the '80s

I was following Americas Cup yacht racing back then, and the Kochs were just overgrown adolescents living the dream on daddy's money in their late 20s or so.

The brothers wanted to win the cup back from the Kiwis and had daddy Fred fund building an entry that would eventually be named America Cubed (they used the math symbol 3). I believe the project cost $10 or $15 mil back when a million dollars was a lot of money.

The amusing part came when one of the brothers demand he captain the team. With no real international yacht racing experience, it sent terror through the project managers who worked so hard for years to see a return of the iconic trophy. As I recall, they gave Koch a fancy hat, a made up title, and put his spoiled ass in the boat with an imaginary command. Maybe they installed a fake wheel for him to steer, like in Kiddie Land at the amusement park.

[ProSense]

47. It could be my imagination, but

I could swear I detect some displeasure from a handful for calling out the Kochs.

[lunatica]

49. There's something to be said about ignorance

and bliss. Sigh...

[Rex]

29. "...as shown by the current health-care debacle..."

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKKKK YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUU Kockroach!

[saidsimplesimon]

31. ProSense, got it "This is a big, big deal."

David and Charles are suffering from Libertarian Cult Syndrome.

They can see the money flowing from the US and Canada into their investments in dirty oil and gas. Who can stop them from realizing those dreams? (snark, "who you gonna call...&quot

[JohnnyRingo]

32. Justin Beiber has the same complaints about too much attention...

...but both he and David Koch put themselves in the public eye and do controversial deeds.

If either Beiber or Koch don't want undue attention, they could both live a low profile. I'm sure there are dozens of people with more money than David Koch who's names we don't even know. I don't even know for sure what his own brother looks like.

We bash WalMart all the time, but we have little idea what the Waltons do. They apparently don't get publicly involved in politics (or pop music) and live their wealthy lives in quiet peace.

[The_Commonist]

34. I am about as "collectivist" as they come.

I have lived in not one, but two well-known (in certain circles) hippie communes where we shared all income and expenses. I agreed to a "voluntary personal wealth limit" as part of that. I have been a member of co-ops, and when I have worked in the capitalist world, I was always one of those people who freely shared my knowledge, rather than closely guarding it in order to "best" my coworkers. Et cetera.

And yet, I have never once in all my life "stood for government control of the means of production and how people live their lives." Never ever, not once ever.

This guy has no idea what he's talking about, and something needs to be done about these delusional billionaires, who do in fact, "control of the means of production" and have too much power over "how people live their lives."

[Initech]

36. Cue the sad Hulk music:

Fuck you Charles Koch.

[Trust Buster]

40. Then why do the Koch's choose the "dark money" route ?

They secretly fund PACS that run millions of dollars worth of anti-ACA ads around the country using paid actors and phony facts. And these PACS are tax exempt meaning we have to subsidize this garbage.

[TNNurse]

41. Perhaps

If he quit trying to buy members of Congress, Presidents and other candidates, we might think he was a real American...... but not until he remembers that we are all equal as citizens.

[UtahLib]

43. Poor little Charlie Kochroach.

Hope he doesn't stroke out while pounding his gold plated desk.

[GETPLANING]

46. Wow, Charles, project much?

[ProSense]

48. Kochs go to bat for hedge fund speculators with yet another bogus ad

Kochs go to bat for hedge fund speculators with yet another bogus ad
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024775520

[ProSense]

50. More signs of Koch desperation

via Krugman: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024777640

[VanillaRhapsody]

51. Harry Reid smacked him back with his veiled "collectivism"...

[freshwest]

52. Hey, Charles, have some limburger cheese with your whine, you sick, greedy stinkbug. n/t

[grahamhgreen]

53. Good. Let's make this debate real public.

[tanyev]

54. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others, amiright Charlie?