The stranglehold on America by two EVIL BROTHERS.

[Lobo27]

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

1. Meanwhile, the Kochs have started a massive ad campaign to improve the image

of their family-owned, privately held company before the American public. I'm watching this very commercial right now on CNN. They don't tell you that in 2000 they were facing $350 million in fines and a potential 35 years in prison for their executives before the Clinton Administration for knowingly and intentionally dumping a hundred tons of carcinogens into the environment and for covering it up and falsifying documents. When Chimp Bush came into office the case was still before the federal government and Bush reduced the fines to a mere $20 million and no criminal charges. There is no filth vile enough to adequately compare these people to.

Their criminal violations are part of a long list of environmental violations, some of which have resulted in known deaths. These fuckers should be behind bars.

http://www.oilwatchdog.org/meet-koch-industries/

[RufusTFirefly]

2. It's a mistake to focus too much animus on the Kochs.

They're the ruthless beneficiaries of a broken system.

Stopping the Kochs won't fix the system any more than electing an African American President will end racism. Do both produce tangible results and have symbolic value? You bet. But these changes have a tendency to encourage complacency and enable us to ignore the root causes.

We do so at our peril.

[They_Live]

3. That's right. They exploit the system to the max.

THE SYSTEM needs to be fixed. Monied influence in American Politics needs to be minimized.

[AAO]

14. Is it the system, or the people in the system?

For all we know, Koch money may have been the deciding factor in Citizens United. How do we fix the system with all 3 branches of government corrupted?

[Moostache]

20. I have a partial list of ways to fix the system...

1) Federally funded AND enforced elections - anyone attempting to use their "speech" to influence the monetary limits on an election would be subject to lengthy imprisonment and very large fines. All indirect money spent of ads would be capped at no more than 1/12th of the median annual income of the entire United States population (as ascertained by the IRS from tax records) and violations of the election laws would result in revocation of the individual or group's ability to provide funding for 12 years.

2) Terms limits for ALL government officials - President would get bumped to 3 terms (12 years), Senators would get 2 terms (12 years), and Representatives would get 6 terms (12 years). A person could hold all 3 offices in their lifetime, but a maximum of 36 years in public office would be enforced across all branches (legislative, executive and judicial; see #5 below).

3) No former legislator would be eligible to be a paid lobbyist for a minimum of 12 years following their last official date as an elected official, and they would be allowed to serve only one Presidential term in Washington. Additionally, anyone seeking to be a lobbyist would have a reduced eligibility for any service at the state and local levels as well, meaning that no one would be allowed to use the influence of their former political ties as a second, more lucrative career.

4) Corporations wishing to be recognized as "persons" must sign a declaration of responsibility for every member of its governing structure to be fully liable as persons for all fines, levies and punishments as due by law that the corporation or any of its acting subsidiaries may accrue during the life of the "person". This liability would apply to ALL crimes committed by the corporation and would require mandatory sentencing that would be based on the mandatory sentences of that really swell war on drugs.

5) The Supreme Court would no longer be a lifetime appointment - while the justices would not stand for public election, they would be limited to no more than 12 years on the bench before they would face a mandatory Congressional review and re-authorization for a second 12 year term. After 24 years, no justice would be eligible to return to the bench for a minimum of 12 years, after which, if approved by the Congress, they would be eligible for a final 12 year term before being completely ineligible.

6) Codify the Estate Tax to include a sliding scale that would exempt only the first $10 million of an estate and gradually rise for each $1 million after that, culminating in 90% taxation for all amounts over $100M.

Now, I hold no illusions of this drastic change actually happening before the government fails and the country is thrown into a full blown rebellion and restructuring; but, if enough people started to support it, you can bet your ass it would draw a lot of nervousness from the establishment and their lapdogs - maybe even enough to slow the impending doom being approached now.

The only way this country gets "fixed" is when the people take it back from the corporations and the monied elites (especially those whose source of wealth was inheritance).

[Uncle Joe]

8. I disagree, the animus must be voiced, the Koch's aren't just "beneficiaries,"

if that's all they were, there wouldn't be any animus.

The Koch's are much more than that, they're active builders and sustainers of the corrupt system, they would foster its' continuance into perpetuity if they could.

They buy and promote politicians to corrupt the system.

They don't believe in the value and merit of honest debate or one person/one vote.

The Kochs are intricately tied to the dysfunctional, root cause; that being "money is speech" and "corporations are people."

Their wealth and power combined with their disdain for true democracy make them a primary danger to reforming our democratic republic to a healthy and just functioning state.

If you ignore or underestimate the Kochs impact, you might as well ignore the "root cause" because nothing will change.

[RufusTFirefly]

9. Excellent points.

It's true that their influence is further damaging an already crippled system.
But they remain a symptom of that crippled system, more so than its cause.

Consider, for example, the huge military industrial complex, Big Pharma, the Walton family (not the one with John Boy), Wall Street, Sheldon Adelson, the Big Banks, and what Harvey Wasserman calls "King CONG" (coal, oil, nukes, and gas). Even if the Kochs disappeared today, these guys would all still be running the show tomorrow.

[Uncle Joe]

10. I agree in part Rufus, the Kochs aren't the sole cause, the others you listed come in to play as

well, and our nation's dysfunctional and corrupt government didn't come into being in a vacuum or overnight.

There has always been the wealthy players doing their best to bribe or blackmail politicians so they would alter the law to suit said oligarch/mega corporations' narrow ends, or using their tactic of buying up the information outlets and "think tanks" for propaganda purposes in hopes of brainwashing the people.

I also realize that other villains are out there as well, and yes this won't end even if we were able to rid the Kochs of their influence overnight, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't portray them for what they are, the same holds true for the rest of those organizations you listed.

One thing that really bothers me about the Kochs is their willingness to risk society itself by spending tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars to promote global warming climate change denial, despite the overwhelming evidence by 97+% of the world's scientists that this is a real and growing danger.

As in Cenk's video, the Kochs even admit they're not experts on climate science, which means that nothing but greed could be their motivation and that's especially sad for a family with a combined net worth of at least 80 billion dollars.

[RufusTFirefly]

11. Right again. But with reservations.

My principal concern is that excessive emphasis on the Kochs diverts needed attention away from everyone else. It's a bit like focusing all the media blame on Fox, a phenomenon that leads many to mistakenly believe that they can escape TV propaganda just by tuning out and/or reining in Fox News. (Some even naively believe that there is such a thing as a "liberal" corporate network.) The flip side of demonizing the Kochs is resting all one's hope on a particular pundit, politician, or leader, an approach that history has shown us again and again is almost guaranteed to lead to disillusionment.

As you might have guessed, I don't subscribe to the "great man" approach to history. Our history revolves around systems and movements more than heroes and villains.

As for disseminating climate change disinformation, it's interesting to note that a Mother Jones follow-the-money analysis from 9 years ago placed primary blame on Exxon, perhaps underscoring the abilities of our "owners" (as George Carlin famously called them) to deftly adapt to changing circumstances while still maintaining focus on their greedy goals.

Mother Jones: Put a Tiger in Your Think Tank

[Uncle Joe]

13. Except we don't focus all our energies on the Kochs, there have been and will continue to be

many threads here criticizing Exxon, the Banksters, the coal mining industry, the Waltons (not the family of T.V. fame, although there's probably one or two floating around here criticizing them as well) BP, innumerable politicians of both parties state and federal, the Supreme Court, the Presidency, utility companies, etc. etc. etc.

As for the Fox analogy and liberal media myth, I can't count how many times I and many others here have criticized media conglomeration, its' associated propaganda and the power of brainwashing the people. Whether I'm speaking of ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, FOX, or major talk radio networks, I've only referred to them as the corporate media promoting mega-corporate/oligarch propaganda first, last and in the middle.

Even NPR gets criticism here.

My focus on criticizing the Kochs for what they are does nothing to take my attention away from the rest.

[Enthusiast]

18. +1 again.

I am with you on every word.

We have not been focused on criticizing the Kochs to the exclusion of all the other villainous players.

It's a big pile of filth out there and we are well aware of its stench.

[Enthusiast]

17. +1 again.

[Enthusiast]

16. Excellent response, Uncle Joe!

Way to go!

[supercats]

4. Great Piece!

These two evil doers need to be stopped, jailed and water boarded repeatedly.

[ErikJ]

5. Thomas Jefferson 1816- The end of democracy........

[drynberg]

12. GEE, I DON'T REMEMBER THAT JEFFERSON QUOTE FROM HIGH SCHOOL, NOR COLLEGE

Thanks for the post, Tom knew almost 200 years ago where we are vulnerable as a democracy...and oh yes, we do need to finger those gold spooned duo as well as the system that allows them to buy our democracy...ACT now.

[Enthusiast]

19. Incredible!

[Dustlawyer]

6. K&R!!! This legal bribery is the ROOT CAUSE of most of our other problems and the primary

reason why the politicians will not do things like background checks for assault weapons even though 90% of Americans want them.
These rich fuckers have had a plan in place for 35 years where with the help of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce they have put massive money in state and local elections and judicial elections. The Democrats were asleep at the wheel there. They have demonized unions and trial lawyers, traditional sources of money for a Democrats and fierce foes of big dirty companies like Koch, BP...
I don't expect people to cry a river over the plight of trial lawyers, but I have watched the RW destroy our ability to go after these companies for all of the evil they do. For example, we were able to kick the crap out of BP for the 2005 Texas City, Texas explosion at their plant where 15 were killed and 6,000 injured. We uncovered where they had submitted a fraudulent permit to the TCEQ where they tried to say they had installed a flair in the unit that blew. If they had the explosion would not have happened. What did they do? They had the Texas Supreme Court extend the Worker's Compensation coverage of the Contractors to cover the premises owner so that if the plant blew up today no one could sue them, only file Workman's compensation. They plead most of their fines way, way down.
We have to push for Publicly Funded Elections and Complete Campaign Finance Reform. There needs to be a sense of urgency because we need to dramatically address climate change, education, and infrastructure now! We have been fighting the symptoms of the corruption/bribery, all of the things our politicians have been doing for the wealthy and corporations at the expense of the rest of us (Wall Street cheating and bankrupting us, voting rights, LGBTV rights, equal pay...). Nothing will really change unless we focus and achieve these desperately necessary election reforms!

[Uncle Joe]

7. I love that line by Cenk "Are they not merciful?"

Thanks for the thread, Lobo.

[blkmusclmachine]

15. Koch products in your grocery stores (labeled as GeorgiaPacific):

Angel Soft toilet tissue
Quilted Northern toilet tissue
Dixie paper cups
Mardi Gras paper napkins
Brawny paper towels
Vanity fair paper napkins
Sparkle paper towels
Zee paper napkins
American Greetings birthday/holiday cards
Soft 'n Gentle product