The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party (if you haven't read this, it is a MUST READ) redux

[DainBramaged]

ANOTHER weekend, another grass-roots demonstration starring Real Americans who are mad as hell and want to take back their country from you-know-who. Last Sunday the site was Lower Manhattan, where they jeered the “ground zero mosque.” This weekend, the scene shifted to Washington, where the avatars of oppressed white Tea Party America, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, were slated to “reclaim the civil rights movement” (Beck’s words) on the same spot where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had his dream exactly 47 years earlier.

Vive la révolution!

There’s just one element missing from these snapshots of America’s ostensibly spontaneous and leaderless populist uprising: the sugar daddies who are bankrolling it, and have been doing so since well before the “death panel” warm-up acts of last summer. Three heavy hitters rule. You’ve heard of one of them, Rupert Murdoch. The other two, the brothers David and Charles Koch, are even richer, with a combined wealth exceeded only by that of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett among Americans. But even those carrying the Kochs’ banner may not know who these brothers are.

Their self-interested and at times radical agendas, like Murdoch’s, go well beyond, and sometimes counter to, the interests of those who serve as spear carriers in the political pageants hawked on Fox News. The country will be in for quite a ride should these potentates gain power, and given the recession-battered electorate’s unchecked anger and the Obama White House’s unfocused political strategy, they might.

All three tycoons are the latest incarnation of what the historian Kim Phillips-Fein labeled “Invisible Hands” in her prescient 2009 book of that title: those corporate players who have financed the far right ever since the du Pont brothers spawned the American Liberty League in 1934 to bring down F.D.R. You can draw a straight line from the Liberty League’s crusade against the New Deal “socialism” of Social Security, the Securities and Exchange Commission and child labor laws to the John Birch Society-Barry Goldwater assault on J.F.K. and Medicare to the Koch-Murdoch-backed juggernaut against our “socialist” president.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Thanks for this post..

[DainBramaged]

3. It's amazing how quickly news that is important is forgotten

and this is exposure these two asshats don't want out there. It's OK for them to manipulate our country to their favor, but at 70 years of age, do they think they will live forever? Plus, they haven't made this Country into what they envisioned anyway (yet). And charity isn't a word they are familiar with.


http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Koch_Industries


Koch (pronounced "coke") Industries is the real thing, one of the largest (if not the largest) private companies in the US. Koch's operations are diverse, including refining and chemicals, process and pollution control equipment, and technologies; fibers and polymers; commodity and financial trading; and forest and consumer products (led by Georgia-Pacific LLC). Its Flint Hills Resources subsidiary owns three refineries that process more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil daily. Koch operates crude gathering systems and pipelines across North America as well as cattle ranches with a total of 15,000 head of cattle in Kansas, Montana, and Texas. Brothers Charles and David Koch control the company.

http://www.hoovers.com/company/Koch_Industries_Inc/cftjki-1.html

Meet the Toxic 100 Corporate Air Polluters
http://www.truth-out.org/meet-toxic-100-corporate-air-polluters58223

http://www.peri.umass.edu/toxic_index/


http://data.rtknet.org/tox100/2010/index.php?search=yes&database=t1&detail=1&datype=T&reptype=a&company1=&company2=13671&chemfac=fac&advbasic=bas


And if you really want to help, boycott these consumer brands

Quilted Northern®, Angel Soft®, Brawny®, Sparkle® , Soft 'n Gentle®, Mardi Gras®, Vanity Fair®, and the Dixie®

[BrklynLiberal]

8. I have written down those names and will not buy them...

[DainBramaged]

9. They are a centipede, too many claws, but every little bit helps

:hug:

[axollot]

27. These are union made products. My husband works for them and if he lost that job we lose our home.

Please remember the regular guys. Koch bought the paper company only a couple of years ago - and has left it mostly in tact but they just need a reason to be assholes and an entire community would crumble - myself, my hubby, my 17 and 7 yr old would be homeless. There is nothing else here.

THEY PAY FAIR LIVING WAGE AT THAT COMPANY AND IT'S UNION!!

Support *US* - find another way to get at KOCH for being the freaks they are but don't hurt the working guy!

Cheers
Sandy

[lonestarnot]

14. I hate Brawny paper towels. One has to rip the whole damn roll from the last towel due to bad

perforation. I wish Costco would quit selling them.

[emilyg]

21. The model who appears

for Brawny also beat the hell out of his girlfriend. Another reason not to buy.

[axollot]

26. HEY!! Regular Americans work those jobs!! Right now we do not need

to lose more jobs =( We are the 1st to tell anyone how much Koch industries sucks - but they purchased the paper company only recently!! It's the ONLY UNION FAIR WAGE JOB AROUND HERE!!

Please consider the PEOPLE and FAMILIES these assholes support. Mine is one of them.

We arent about hurting communities - there has to be a better way.

Cheers
Sandy

[billlll]

2. 1776 to 1934 who were the controllers?

Curious history buff

[DainBramaged]

4. You don't know? As a history buff?

Does the term robber baron mean anything?

[DainBramaged]

15. And you could of answered instead of sending ominous pm's

I guess we know what you are now.

[drm604]

5. Finally the mainstream is reporting on what a lot of us have known for years.

Very interesting article. It points out that the so-called "Manhattan liberal elite" have for years celebrated David Koch for his cultural philanthropy while being clueless about some of his other activities, and that the recent revelations have created quite a stir amongst them.

They say that sunlight can sometimes be the best disinfectant. Let's hope that that is the case here.

[DainBramaged]

7. These people may be rich, but they are out to reshape OUR world

and we are simply the means to their end.

[bulloney]

16. People like the Kochs say they're libertarian, which is a front for what they really want: Feudalism

Libertarian sounds more noble.

If the Kochs were really libertarian, they wouldn't spend so much money influencing policies that affect the market. They would just let the invisible hand of the free market work. Instead, they buy off politicians and policy-makers to stack the deck in their favor.

Libertarians are just a bunch of embarrassed Republicans. Do you notice that fewer people call themselves Republican? They say they're libertarian, or tea partiers, or something else because right now, Republican is associated with the clusterfuck of a mess Bush & Cheney left this country.

[DainBramaged]

17. Very good points. But you forgot one important feature of Republicans

they lack the embarrassment gene.

[axollot]

28. I know the KOCH Brothers suck. But I do know that the paper company -

they recently scooped up is UNION MADE - FAIR WAGE products. My husband works for them. This hurts us to boycott the paper company (which is one of thousands of company's they have) as it's the only job around Central Florida that pays a decent fair wage. I hate Koch but support Union made AMERICAN MADE products. We stand by that when it comes to buying other products too. Our Ford was made in MI the parts from all over but fully assembled in MI and transported by train.

Think before one reacts! I supported the people who owned the little BP station - I just didnt buy their GAS - but bought milk, bread etc. They purchase those items locally and spend that money locally.

There has to be a better way - they could close our little factory where hubby works and still be the insane billionaires that they are without blinking an eye.

Cheers
Sandy
in tears of the thought of hubby losing job. I'm disabled and we are only 1 pay check from the street.

[SalviaBlue]

6. K and R

[ClarkJonathanKent]

10. Thanks for posting

Much appreciated

[HCE SuiGeneris]

11. K & R

[opihimoimoi]

12. KnR :o)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8qLp2r7lkk&feature=more_related

Happy music for Happy people...we could be laughing too

[lonestarnot]

13. We knew that though.

:hi:

[whoneedstickets]

18. The Estate Tax motivation...

The desire of the Koch patriarchs to keep their company private runs headlong into the estate tax. Only if they abolish or diminish this tax will they have any hope of passing along this company without having to issue public shares.

Congress routinely bows over backward to protect Corporate goals (think Disney, Mickey and the copyright laws). We'll see what they do here.

[zeemike]

19. That's history not tought in schools.

And so we fail to learn from it.

[Octafish]

23. And news missing from Corporate McPravda.

And so we fail to act on it.

[nashville_brook]

20. kickety. recety.

[AnnieBW]

22. What's their beef with Soros?

The wingers are fond of saying that George Soros is behind all of the liberal groups like MoveOn. So, I'm wondering if the Brothers Koch have some kind of beef with Soros? Other than the obvious political one, that is. Did Soros out-bid them on something? Get a piece of art that David wanted? What gives?

[axollot]

29. Ya I never got that either?! Koch brothers are crazy - I'm just upset -

over people planning on hurting the little guy that work for them (paper company 1 of thousands of companies under the Koch name). Boycott their products, they shut down the plant where my hubby works - lay off an entire community of people and those assholes will walk with a HUGE TAX RIGHT OFF!

We need to think of a better way to change how these assholes infiltrate our government without hurting the people they currently employ. It's not like jobs are plentiful and we could just go somewhere else!

Cheers
Sandy

/rant off :cry:

[chervilant]

24. hmm...

I've been a closet economic anthropologist since my days at University. I assert that we humans are our own worst enemy, because we blithely and greedily engage in economic behaviors without examining the import or the impact of such behaviors. Our economic behaviors have become more important and more influential than ALL of our other behaviors, comprising the framework within which we do all things political or spiritual. Please note that I mean WE as in our entire species.

Humans are now a systems-stressing economic resource, yet we seem incapable of seeing the forest for the trees. All other economic resources are being taxed beyond the system's capacity, yet we sustain a rhetoric that smacks of the blame and shame game--warring with one another, blaming others without examining our own roles--when we should be seeking ways to fix the problem.

A great philosopher once predicted that capitalism would eventually collapse, and that economic behavior would evolve into a more egalitarian, cooperative means of production. Capitalists, politicians, and others with a vested interest in maintaining an oppressive status quo promoted a pejorative meme that taints this great man's scholarship to this very day. We should take note of the enormous energy expended to denigrate this man's collected works.

We too can attack Karl Marx on the strength of his detractors' red herring meme, or we can emulate his courageous endeavor to examine human economic behavior as it exists today and envision the changes that MUST occur if we are to progress as a species. Do we have to throw out the baby (capitalism) with the bath water (Corporate Megalomaniacs)? Is communism the inevitable alternative to capitalism, and would that really be a bad thing? Can we continue to subsume our spiritual selves in servitude to the almighty dollar?

Change is often a big scary barrier to personal growth, isn't it?

Still, as another great philosopher said, "We MUST be the change we wish to see in the world."

So, this starts with me. My awareness of the core issues described herein above shapes and informs my activism every day. I refuse to buy into the divisiveness that the Corporate Megalomaniacs promote to keep us from examining these real issues, and that includes divisiveness predicated by education, status, or any other hierarchical measure. We The People are on the verge of a major change--perhaps cataclysmic--and we have the intellectual capacity and the spiritual framework within which to propel ourselves into an amazing future.

And, to those who vilify, parody, ridicule, or otherwise denigrate those among us who are factually challenged, please bear in mind that at least 40% of our adult population is functionally illiterate. Of those who can 'read,' another 60% cannot comprehend what they've read, nor can they give a defensible synopsis of the material they've read. Many of these unfortunates cling tenaciously to their world views, because fear--and the other visceral emotions that drive them--is a great motivator. Furthermore, any measurable self esteem in these pitiful individuals is often a thin veneer over a seething cauldron of insecurity and doubt.

The Corporate Megalomaniacs know this and use it well, both through their propaganda tools (the MSM, lobbyists, and paid political hacks) and through their skilled sustenance of the 'wealth carrot meme.' Moreover, the Corporatists continue to divide and conquer, regularly promulgating their partisan red herrings (which quite a number of us snarf regularly--regardless of party affiliation).

That old chestnut, "Ignorance is Bliss" carries new meaning for me. Perhaps, "controlled ignorance is bliss" might be a better way to look at it. I beg the non-ignorant among us to focus your energy and your analytical skills on ways we can help the unfortunates among us (variously labeled Teh Stoopid, teabaggers, right-wingers, DINOs and blue-dogs) to understand who is the real threat to their financial and social well-being.

Oh, and--at the risk of getting more backlash from some for whom this post resonates--our networking efforts need to intensify. Our efforts to work together to effect change MUST focus on stopping the exponential success of the Corporate Megalomaniacs, or we'll find ourselves hiding behind closed doors, avoiding any mention of a world view that challenges the controlling uber wealthy elite. Actually, how many of us are already there?

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead

[defendandprotect]

25. K&R and back tomorrow to actually read this -- !!

[Dappleganger]

30. Kicked.

[axollot]

31. Koch brothers are crazy - but please think...

before planning on hurting the little guys that work for them (paper company 1 of thousands of companies under the Koch name). Boycott their paper products, they shut down the plant where my hubby works - *lay off an entire community of people* and those assholes will walk with a HUGE TAX RIGHT OFF!

We need to think of a better way to change how these assholes infiltrate our government without hurting the people they currently employ. It's not like jobs are plentiful and we could just go somewhere else!

Cheers
Sandy

/rant off :cry:

[mrarundale]

32. Does anyone actually even KNOW of anyone who is in the "Tea Party"?

The Tea Party comes across as some kind of media hoax like the "terror mosque" to create media "shock n awe", divide and conquer and all that...It's too easy a target to be real, but then so were Ronald Raygun and George W Bush....argh

[Ignis]

33. A kick for visibility.

Thanks for reposting this.