BS: Koch Empire

Subject: BS: Koch Empire and the Tea Party movement
From: GUEST,toadfrog
Date: 28 Aug 10 - 01:55 PM

I would like to call attention to "Covert Operations," Jane Mayer's August 30, 2010 New Yorker article on the people who are funding the Tea Party movement.

Charles and David Koch own Koch Industries, a "minor" oil company. Together, they have a net worth of $35 billion, second only to Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Their father was a founder of the John Birch Society. They funded the Cato Institute, Americans for Prosperity, and the Tea Party movement. The Cato Institute (which I had always considered a relatively reasonable conservative group) is a leader in attacking the global warning theory. Their older organization, Citizens for a Sound Environment, worked hard to get Ralph Nader on the ballot in 2004. They founded the Mercatus Center , a hard-nosed right wing think tank, at George Mason University near Washington. Organizations funded by the Kochs can expect to be micro-managed.

Unlike other rich people who attempt to influence politics [such as George Soros] the Kochs are surreptitious, and their influence has been virtually invisible. I see they are mentioned by political junkies in the Forum, but I personally had never heard of them before. They appear to be extremely powerful.

The Koch brothers are big charitable contributors. Bush appointed David Koch to the National Cancer Advisory Board. The Board opposes designation of formaldehyde as a carcinogen. Koch Industries is a major manufacturer of formaldehyde. The David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins, and the Smithsonian, suggests that global warning is not a real problem--humanity can evolve. They can develop "short, compact bodies" and learn to live underground. The Museum's director sees nothing wrong with this.

Some of you already knew about the Kochs, but this was new to me and I am passing it on. The New Yorker reporting is traditionally the gold standard of journalism in the United States. All facts are checked and re-checked. The news today is that Charles Koch has attacked the suggestion that he promotes his own interests by his various contributions as "slander."

Subject: RE: BS: Koch Empire
From: toadfrog
Date: 28 Aug 10 - 01:58 PM

The above message is by me. I forgot to reset my cookie.

Subject: RE: BS: Koch Empire
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 28 Aug 10 - 02:00 PM

whoooooo...spooky.

Subject: RE: BS: Koch Empire
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 28 Aug 10 - 02:28 PM

So the Smithsonian Museums support the suggestion that global warming can be countered by human evolution? Oh, my!

The Koch Industries and the Koch brothers are well-publicized in Forbes, WSJ and other business publications; they made Forbes List of richest Americans as 9 and 10.
.
Their father perfected the means of converting heavy oil into gasoline. From that beginning, two of the sons, Charles and David, built the largest private owned company in the U. S.
The company employs some 80,000 workers in many countries. Oil, fertilizer, chemicals, forest and consumer products, polymers and plastics inc. Lycra, etc.
Both Charles and David have M.S. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

They do support the conservative Cato think tank. Major charities are cancer research and the Lincoln Center.
Personal fortunes $19 billion each.

Their oil interests may be small in comparison with Shell or Exxon Mobil, but they are involved in deep drilling in the Gulf.

Subject: RE: BS: Koch Empire
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Aug 10 - 08:30 PM

I mentioned them on another thread as being behind the funding of the millions, perhaps billions, of dollars that have gone into "community organizing" of the Tea Party...

The other biggie is Dick Armey's Freedom Works which is funed thru Armey's lobby firm that gets most of it's money from the health insurance industry...

Between the two of these limitless sources of un-reported money the Tea Party has been orgainzed by literally thousands of paid community organizers who go door to door looking to sign up pissed of white people...

Thanks for the more indepth info on the Kocks, toadfrog and...

...so much for the idea that the Tea Party is some grasroots organization...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Koch Empire
From: Stringsinger
Date: 29 Aug 10 - 03:22 PM

Americans better wake up if they don't want to be "koched" around.

Subject: RE: BS: Koch Empire
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Aug 10 - 03:47 PM

FWIW, it is pronounced "Coke."

I read the NYer article after getting an email alert. Thanks, toadfrog, for starting a thread about them. The things they have done to inveigle themselves with what I consider to be the more altruistic side of America, while quietly furthering their own, widespread, far *wrong* agenda is chilling to say the least. It is said they are the "Standard Oil" of our times.

Before anyone chides us for being conspiracy theorists, please read the article in full and do further research of your own. I do not think it was a "scheduling conflict" which kept Michelle Obama from standing on the same stage as one of them. If they were waging war against my husband, no matter appearances, I would not have been there, either.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Koch Empire
From: Amos
Date: 29 Aug 10 - 04:05 PM

There are two follow up swipes at the Kochs in today's New York Times, drawing on the New Yorker piece.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Koch Empire
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 29 Aug 10 - 04:48 PM

Ooo, missed that there was a dedicated thread...

On the Islamic cultural center thread I posted these links:

The scary thing about it all is the powers behind mass movements like the Tea Party, as you say. The public opinion is manufactured, in many ways. Existing discontent is channeled by those whose agenda may be more self-serving.

Info here: Covert Operations; The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama (New Yorker magazine)

A good interview with Jane Meyer, the author of that article, on Fresh Air with Terri Gross

She has also written critically about George Soros, a big funder from the other side of the spectrum. She said that the big difference was that Soros spoke with her and is very transparent about his political funding efforts. The Koch brothers, as a former employee apparently said, "are not only under the radar, they are underground", truly operating covertly.

Terri Gross links the Koch's response.

Amos, I found this one in the NY Times, what's the other one?

OpEd by Frank Rich

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: BS: Koch Empire
From: Stringsinger
Date: 29 Aug 10 - 05:58 PM

One of the salient points is that the Kochs represent a direct line to the John Birch Society
and the earlier corporate groups that tried to undermine the Franklyn Roosevelt Administration. FDR did not roll over and let this happen. This is why he was elected
many times.

Obama would do well to speak out against the corruption of Wall Street and name the Kochs.
He should also speak out against the Tea Party and Dick Armey. If he doesn't take a stand against them, he will have undermined his chances for re-election.

Even Teddy Roosevelt's "trust busting" is in order, here.

Subject: RE: BS: Koch Empire
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 29 Aug 10 - 08:35 PM

"tried to undermine the Franklyn Roosevelt Administration. FDR did not roll over and let this happen. This is why he was elected
many times."

So the rules were changed so that this could not happen again... :-)

And now there is an 'underground' move to remove compulsory voting in Australia and go to the 'enlightened' method of 'only vote if you are not lazy' ....

"If he doesn't take a stand against them, he will have undermined his chances for re-election."

And if he does, the conspiracy theorists will go into overdrive - they have already convinced about 25% of 'stupid Yanks' that he is a practicing Muslim ...


"The public opinion is manufactured, in many ways. Existing discontent is channeled by those whose agenda may be more self-serving."

Can you say "Goebbels"... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Koch Empire
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Aug 10 - 09:16 PM

I agree, Strings... Obma needs to, at the very least, expose the folks who are spending the big bucks to undermine his administartion... I doubt that 1 Tea Party member in 10 has ever heard of Koch and probably no more than 3 in 10 of Dick Armey...

This is what infuriates me about Obama... He's trying too hard to change the tone in Washington and meanwhile the other side is drastically changing the tone for the worse... He needs to push back and let the truth fly...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Koch Empire
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Aug 10 - 09:28 PM

Koch is/was headquartered in my old hometown of Wichita, Kansas, where also at one time 3 of the 10 members of the Board of Directors of the John Birch Society lived. You can barely conceive of what living in that city was like 40 years ago. Even *I* didn't get the full impact while I was attending the 'fairly' liberal Wichita State University...but once graduated and off campus...wow.

Subject: RE: BS: Koch Empire
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Aug 10 - 09:33 PM

Yo, Bill... Do you know where the Kochs are from originally... I mean, they didn't happen to come over to the US after WW II, did they by chance???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Koch Empire
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Aug 10 - 10:19 PM

I don't know about that. In Wichita at the time, the elder Koch was known mainly for building a huge house.

Subject: RE: BS: Koch Empire
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Aug 10 - 10:24 PM

Well, yeah...

I'd still like to know where these people came from... I'm kinda suspecting from the name that it's Germany??? I donno??? I do know that alot of former Nazi sympathizers set up shop within the Republican party afetr WW II and alot of them were very, very right wing... Thus the John Birch activity...

Jus' askin'...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Koch Empire
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 31 Aug 10 - 05:33 PM

Fred C. Koch was the son of a Dutch immigrant, who founded newspapers in north Texas; he was born in Quanah, TX, in 1900.

Subject: RE: BS: Koch Empire
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 31 Aug 10 - 05:59 PM

Make him show his birth certificate. How irrelevant can people get?

Subject: RE: BS: Koch Empire
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 05:07 PM

FWIW, it is pronounced "Coke."

The family associated with oil and other chemicals does, apparently, prefer the "Coke" pronunciation, or at least that's the pronunciation used by the news media in the vicinity of the Koch Industries headquarters. Some others believed to be related, a little north west of Wichita, sometimes use the "Cook" (Köch?) pronunciation. One, at Haven KS, is a Hereford breeder of some note; but I haven't seen him or any of his immediate family since the late 40s to know which pronunciation they currently favor.

The family as a whole is sufficiently secretive that relationships, beyond the prinicpals of the company, are mostly unknown, and some who may be related appear to be averse to admitting "who's family" ... (not entirely due to the corporate Koch's reputations, since it works both ways(?).)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Koch Empire
From: pdq
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 05:32 PM

The word koch, of course, means "cook" in Germanic languages.

I have known people who pronoced thei name "coke", "cock", and even "coach", but the mayor of New York is the only one I have heard prononce his name "cah-ch".

Subject: RE: BS: Koch Empire
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Sep 10 - 05:52 PM

Any close relatives (doubtful if known to Fred Koch's children) would be in the Netherlands or thereabouts since that is where Fred Koch's father came from in c. 1900.

A common name.