Original Link: http://cforjustice.org/2011/03/01/the-koch-brothers-america/
By Tim Connor
In the clandestine and money-soaked politics of the billionaire brothers from Kansas, we are either witnessing the demise of our democracy, or the best reason to rise up and reinvent it.
If more Americans have heard of David Koch this week than last week it is because of a prank pulled off by Ian Murphy, a blogger from Buffalo. As the political stand-off between Wisconsin’s new Republican Governor Scott Walker and the state’s Democrats escalated, Murphy put in a call to the Governor pretending to be David Koch. With Murphy’s tape recorder running, Walker took the call and did nothing to resist the faux-Koch’s off-color banter and praise for Walker in what Walker clearly affirmed would be an uncompromising battle to the end to crush Wisconsin Democrats and public employee unions.
Murphy figured, correctly, that Walker would take a call from Koch because Koch Industries’ political action committee (Koch Industries is the Wichita, Kansas-based company David and his brother Charles control) was the second largest contributor to Walker’s 2010 campaign.
The fake phone call may turn out to be a mere footnote in the battle for Wisconsin, but it’s also a reminder of what we already know about the Koch Brothers and how pervasively they are influencing American governance. Empowered by the Supreme Court’s infamous, January 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (in which the court lifted all restrictions on the corporate funding of political speech) the Kochs have already demonstrated just how vulnerable the American political system is to being bought by people and industries who have a vested interest in what government does and doesn’t do. It is a truly stunning phenomenon that already has the markings of a non-violent coup d’état. If that seems like an exaggeration, read on.
Thus far, at least, the signature profile on the Koch Brothers and their ambitions is Jane Mayer’s August 30, 2010 profile for The New Yorker. As Mayer recounts, the Koch brothers are fabulously wealthy oil men whose company also owns Dixie Cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber and controls the manufacture of other consumer products including Lycra. Their combined fortune of $35 billion, she reports, makes them second only to Bill Gates and Warren Buffett among the wealthiest of Americans.
The Koch brothers, and their father Fred Koch, who died in 1967, are fierce ideologues. Fred was an original member of the John Birch Society in 1958 and, today, his sons David and Charles are devoted libertarians. Because Ronald Reagan was not sufficiently right-leaning for the Koch brothers, Charles encouraged David to run as a Vice Presidential nominee on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1980. Then, as Mayer notes, the Libertarian agenda unabashedly called for doing away with social security, minimum wage laws, gun control, personal and corporate income taxes, and abolishing regulatory agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission. In that election, which Reagan of course won, the Libertarian Party candidates received 1% of the vote.
The ominous point of Mayer’s 2010 article, Covert Operations, is just how the Kochs, in the space of thirty years, have gone from being on the margins of American politics to steering the country in their direction. They’ve done this by trying to fly under the radar—systematically pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into conservative think tanks, like the Cato Institute, and directly into political campaigns, including Scott Walker’s.
In her in-depth reporting on the Kochs, Mayer looks at all facets of the Kochs operations, including their corporate citizenship.
The Clinton administration Justice Department brought two lawsuits against Koch Industries, alleging it had released millions of gallons of oil into U.S. lakes and rivers. The company paid a record fine to settle these pollution charges. In 1999, the company was found guilty of negligence and malice in the deaths of two Texas teen-agers who died an a butane pipeline explosion. Also during the Clinton years, the company was charged with discharging tons of the carcinogen benzene from a refinery in Texas. In this case, the Koch petroleum group pled guilty to one criminal count for covering up the environmental violations and paid a $20 million fine.
“The Kochs are on a whole different level,” the founder of the Center for Public Integrity, Charles Lewis, told Mayer. “There’s no one else who has spent this much money. The sheer dimension of it is what sets them apart. They have a pattern of lawbreaking, political manipulation, and obfuscation. I’ve been in Washington since Watergate, and I’ve never seen anything like it. They are the Standard Oil of our times.”
Since Mayer’s article appeared, the Tea Party-infused Republicans have regained control of the House of Representatives. Recently, the Los Angeles Times took a close look at how the Kochs are using their money and their lobbying infrastructure to influence the new Congress.
In a February 6th article entitled Koch Brothers now at Heart of GOP Power, L.A. Times reporters Tom Hamburger, Kathleen Hennessey and Neela Banerjee, take at look at the Koch Brothers brazen efforts to buy the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Not only had the company’s PAC contributed over $300,000 to 27 of the committee’s members, they found, but the Koch-founded advocacy group Americans for Prosperity had already persuaded nine of the 12 new Republicans on the committee to sign a pledge opposing the regulation of greenhouse gases by the government.
Of course, when there’s this kind of money involved—to pay off “resident scholars,” consultants and spin-meisters—birds of a feather flock together. One of the Koch’s pet causes (they’re oil men, after all) has been to try to debunk the science on global climate change, and thereby head off regulation and a shift in energy policy that might diminish the value of their businesses. The Cato Institute, which the brothers founded and have sunk millions of dollars into, has been especially aggressive in trying to discredit efforts to combat global warming.
“Even though the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently issued a report concluding that the evidence for global warming is unequivocal,” Mayer writes, “more Americans are convinced than at any time since 1997 that scientists have exaggerated the seriousness of global warming. The Kochs promote this statistic on their company’s Web site but do not mention the role their funding has played in fostering such doubt.”
Not to minimize the brothers’ role in thwarting policies that have planet-wide ramifications, but their most cunning and successful strategy has been in nurturing and co-opting the Tea Party movement that energized the Republican base in 2010. Much of Mayer’s article is devoted to how the Kochs have used Americans for Prosperity to fund and manipulate the Tea Party movement.
When Mayer was interviewed by National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air” host Terri Gross last August, Gross asked her to talk about a July 4th Tea Party summit in Austin, Texas, that was funded through the Koch’s Americans for Prosperity Foundation. The event was advertised to Tea Party activists, Mayer reported, “as a populist uprising against vested corporate power” with one ad literally stating: “Today, the voices of average Americans are being drowned out by lobbyists and special interests.”
At the time, Mayer seemed to be the only journalist in America much interested in pointing out how the angry Tea Party activists were being cleverly steered toward supporting the Kochs’ libertarian aims.
“It’s interesting,” she told Gross, “they (the Kochs) were involved almost from the very start of the Tea Party Movement. They put up websites that helped organize rallies, they paid for buses that took people to the rallies, they provided various kinds of political infrastructure that has made the movement possible, and fanned the insurrection in various ways. But the other thing that is very interesting to me is that they’ve tried to channel the very legitimate and genuine anger that’s out there in the country about economic problems and push it toward their own agenda.”
To which she added: “They’d rather hide behind groups that do their work for them. I have a quote [in the article] from someone who says they use rednecks to do their dirty work for them, and that was someone who worked for them.”
When Mayer talked to the Tea Party activists at the Austin event, she said she found lots of talk about conspiracy theories, but all the focus was on the left. No one was talking about the Koch brothers’ role in funding their movement.
The triumph of this manipulation is much more obvious today than it was last summer, when Mayer wrote her New Yorker story. The Tea Party movement not only succeeded in helping the Republicans regain control of the House of Representatives, but it is clearly the dominating force in setting the legislative agenda.
In a Washington Post column last week, E.J. Dionne, Jr., bluntly announced that “the Tea Party is winning” even though its prescriptions for America seem bizarrely removed from the problems that the country actually faces.
Wrote Dionne: “Thanks to the Tea Party, we are now told that all our problems will be solved by cutting government programs. Thus the House Republicans’ budget bill passed Saturday. They foresee nirvana if we simply reduce our spending on Head Start, Pell grants for college access, teen pregnancy prevention, clean-water programs, K-12 education and a host of other areas.
“Does anyone really think that cutting such programs will create jobs or help Americans get ahead? But give the Tea Party guys credit: They have seized the political and media agenda and made budget cutting as fashionable as Justin Bieber was five minutes ago.
“More striking is the Tea Party’s influence on Washington’s political elite, which looks down at the more extreme men and women of the right when they appear on Fox News but ends up carrying their water.”
The cuts to “clean-water programs” that Dionne cites goes to the proposed gutting of the Environmental Protection Agency, the bane of the Kochs’ polluting industries. But what’s even more striking are the cuts for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other entities that are supposed to regulate Wall Street. You know, Wall Street, as in the completely unhinged casino that nearly demolished the world’s economy in 2008, and sent the U.S. economy into a severe recession that cost millions of Americans their jobs.
The Republican/Tea Party solution to this problem is less regulation–as if over-regulation was the cause for this economy-draining debacle. It’s utterly crazy, though completely in-sync with the Koch Brothers vision of the role of government.
The Republican budget and the agenda behind it is, for all intents and purposes, an echo of David Koch’s failed Libertarian campaign of thirty years ago, when he and his running mate got a mere 1% of the vote. That’s how dramatically things have changed. As E.J. Dionne points out, there’s a powerful and nutty disconnect between the problems we face and the answers the right-wing noise machine have presented to us as solutions.
It’s tempting to say that the Obama Administration’s fecklessness and dismal lack of leadership is primarily responsible for this sad state of American politics. It’s tempting because there’s a lot of truth to it.
But the insurrection fueled by the Koch Brothers’ money—and a Supreme Court that blithely considers money a form of speech—is a much more sinister force. Left unchecked, it will result in a nation that is meaner, greedier, and more shamelessly exploitative of people and the environment than we ever thought possible.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
The Koch’s Plot To Destroy Social Security
Original Link: http://silverbuzzcafe.com/?p=17074
The Koch brothers came into the limelight when it became clear that they had been stoking the growth of the Tea Party in order to pursue their extreme right wing agenda. It’s now evident that they have mounted a concerted effort to destroy Social Security, one of the most successful government programs ever. A very revealing video from Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films, “The Koch Echo Chamber,” featuring Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, explains the full extent of their plot.
You will probably have heard every lie put forward by the Koch brothers to help kill off Social Security. They were hatched by experts working at the four think tanks that the Koch brothers fund to produce arguments to support their goals. Pundits from the think tanks appear frequently on television, usually without any mention of their right wing bias. Their punchlines are repeated ad infinitum by the right wing media, particularly Fox News. Right wing bloggers turn them into factual looking articles and “calls to arms” emails. The Koch Bothers also make contributions to politicians and hold indoctrination sessions to help them press the points home.
The think tanks
The Koch brothers fund a whole slew of think tanks to build arguments that appear to be based on facts. Some of them are, thought the facts have been carefully selected to support the arguments. That’s not science, it’s pure politics. The think tanks shouldn’t be regarded as academic institutions, but marketing arms of large corporations and the very rich. Here are the ones involved in the Koch brothers’ bid to kill Social Security, the amounts that they are known to have received so far and their latest “research” on the subject of Social Security:
Cato Institute: $13.6 million – “Personal Accounts for Social Security an Election Killer — Not Quite”
Heritage Foundation: $3.6 million – “Time To Raise Social Security’s Retirement Age.”
Mercatus Center: $9 million – “Social Security in Cash Flow Deficit.”
Reason Foundation: $2.4 million – “The Facts About Social Security.”
The think tanks have pumped out over 300 articles on Social Security in the past few years. The arguments made in these policy papers, because that’s what they really are, crop up over and over again when their pundits appear on television and are quoted in the press.
Lie #1 – We need to raise the retirement age
You’ll probably have heard this first from Veronique De Rugy and David Johns from the Heritage Foundation, backed up by Andrew Biggs and José Piñera of the Cato Institute. They are presented as experts, but all they’re doing is promoting the Koch brothers’ agenda. The Fox News Zombies repeat the message incessantly. Then you’ll hear Republican politicians, particularly the Koch-backed Tea Party types, re-iterating the line. What’s wrong with this picture?…
Paul Ryan: $63,000 received from the Koch campaign – “[All we need is] very modest increases in the retirement age.”
John Boehner: $30,000 received from the Koch campaign – “…and eventually getting the retirement age up to 70 is a step that needs to be made.”
Rand Paul: $17,000 received from the Koch campaign- “…the age on Social Security will have to go up.”
Why should we be asking taxpayers to stay at work 12.5% or more longer when all we need to do is return tax levels for the rich to the levels they were at back in the 1960′s?
Lie #2 – Social Security is going bankrupt
It isn’t. It’s self-funding and the most recent reports show that it has a $2.6 Trillion surplus and can cope without any change for many years, though it would be prudent to make changes to Disability Insurance arrangements to avoid long term problems. Rand Paul and Michelle Bachmann are the latest to regurgitate the “Social Security is going bankrupt” line. He received $63,000 and she received $20,000 from the Koch brothers during their recent campaigns.
Lie #3 – We need to privatize Social Security
We don’t. If it’s handed over to Wall Street speculators the costs will skyrocket and benefits will be slashed. It would probably be bankrupted very quickly, squandering the money paid into the fund and leaving seniors without a lifeline. Rand Paul (whom the Koch brothers bought for $63,000) is the latest to spew out the “personal retirement account” line.
Why are they doing this?
Before watching the short video below, it’s worth reflecting on why the Koch brothers are doing this. It’s partly right wing dogma, but what will the Koch brothers gain personally by squeezing more years out of their workforce and reducing government expenditures on Social Security? Perhaps the graph below [Source:Mother Jones] will provide a clue.
A Comparison Of The Income Of America’s Wealthiest, The Nation’s Productivity And Average Overall Wages
Note how productivity has risen dramatically, but wages have stayed flat. Meanwhile, the wealth of the nation’s richest people has increased dramatically. It’s worth noting that the top 400 wealthiest people in the United States have a combined wealth that equals that of the 150 million people (50% of the population) in the lower ranks. So, why does the GOP want to make them rich at everyone else’s expense?
The Koch brothers came into the limelight when it became clear that they had been stoking the growth of the Tea Party in order to pursue their extreme right wing agenda. It’s now evident that they have mounted a concerted effort to destroy Social Security, one of the most successful government programs ever. A very revealing video from Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films, “The Koch Echo Chamber,” featuring Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, explains the full extent of their plot.
You will probably have heard every lie put forward by the Koch brothers to help kill off Social Security. They were hatched by experts working at the four think tanks that the Koch brothers fund to produce arguments to support their goals. Pundits from the think tanks appear frequently on television, usually without any mention of their right wing bias. Their punchlines are repeated ad infinitum by the right wing media, particularly Fox News. Right wing bloggers turn them into factual looking articles and “calls to arms” emails. The Koch Bothers also make contributions to politicians and hold indoctrination sessions to help them press the points home.
The think tanks
The Koch brothers fund a whole slew of think tanks to build arguments that appear to be based on facts. Some of them are, thought the facts have been carefully selected to support the arguments. That’s not science, it’s pure politics. The think tanks shouldn’t be regarded as academic institutions, but marketing arms of large corporations and the very rich. Here are the ones involved in the Koch brothers’ bid to kill Social Security, the amounts that they are known to have received so far and their latest “research” on the subject of Social Security:
Cato Institute: $13.6 million – “Personal Accounts for Social Security an Election Killer — Not Quite”
Heritage Foundation: $3.6 million – “Time To Raise Social Security’s Retirement Age.”
Mercatus Center: $9 million – “Social Security in Cash Flow Deficit.”
Reason Foundation: $2.4 million – “The Facts About Social Security.”
The think tanks have pumped out over 300 articles on Social Security in the past few years. The arguments made in these policy papers, because that’s what they really are, crop up over and over again when their pundits appear on television and are quoted in the press.
Lie #1 – We need to raise the retirement age
You’ll probably have heard this first from Veronique De Rugy and David Johns from the Heritage Foundation, backed up by Andrew Biggs and José Piñera of the Cato Institute. They are presented as experts, but all they’re doing is promoting the Koch brothers’ agenda. The Fox News Zombies repeat the message incessantly. Then you’ll hear Republican politicians, particularly the Koch-backed Tea Party types, re-iterating the line. What’s wrong with this picture?…
Paul Ryan: $63,000 received from the Koch campaign – “[All we need is] very modest increases in the retirement age.”
John Boehner: $30,000 received from the Koch campaign – “…and eventually getting the retirement age up to 70 is a step that needs to be made.”
Rand Paul: $17,000 received from the Koch campaign- “…the age on Social Security will have to go up.”
Why should we be asking taxpayers to stay at work 12.5% or more longer when all we need to do is return tax levels for the rich to the levels they were at back in the 1960′s?
Lie #2 – Social Security is going bankrupt
It isn’t. It’s self-funding and the most recent reports show that it has a $2.6 Trillion surplus and can cope without any change for many years, though it would be prudent to make changes to Disability Insurance arrangements to avoid long term problems. Rand Paul and Michelle Bachmann are the latest to regurgitate the “Social Security is going bankrupt” line. He received $63,000 and she received $20,000 from the Koch brothers during their recent campaigns.
Lie #3 – We need to privatize Social Security
We don’t. If it’s handed over to Wall Street speculators the costs will skyrocket and benefits will be slashed. It would probably be bankrupted very quickly, squandering the money paid into the fund and leaving seniors without a lifeline. Rand Paul (whom the Koch brothers bought for $63,000) is the latest to spew out the “personal retirement account” line.
Why are they doing this?
Before watching the short video below, it’s worth reflecting on why the Koch brothers are doing this. It’s partly right wing dogma, but what will the Koch brothers gain personally by squeezing more years out of their workforce and reducing government expenditures on Social Security? Perhaps the graph below [Source:Mother Jones] will provide a clue.
A Comparison Of The Income Of America’s Wealthiest, The Nation’s Productivity And Average Overall Wages
Note how productivity has risen dramatically, but wages have stayed flat. Meanwhile, the wealth of the nation’s richest people has increased dramatically. It’s worth noting that the top 400 wealthiest people in the United States have a combined wealth that equals that of the 150 million people (50% of the population) in the lower ranks. So, why does the GOP want to make them rich at everyone else’s expense?
See Charles Koch Flip Flop on Social Security
Original Link: http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/see-charles-koch-flip-flop-on-social-security-video
By Robert Greenwald
Charles and David Koch built an distortion machine to do their dirty work for them. Through think tanks, academic research, political donations and conservative media, the Koch brothers have steamrolled Americans into believing things that are false and into supporting policies that benefit the Koch brothers' profits.
Social Security has long been among the brothers' favorite punching bags, but new reporting by the Nation shows Charles Koch praising, advocating--practically begging an ultra-free market economist and mentor to participate and enjoy Social Security benefits.
That Charles Koch would promote and grow Social Security is at odds with his efforts and donations to politicians and think tanks to destroy Social Security, as our Koch Brothers Exposed campaign has proven.
Among the Koch 'experts' featured in the video is Jose Pinera. Many experts exposed by our film were working to dismantle Social Security from inside the Bush administration before being Koch-funded, but Pinera was working under the Kochs for many years. The Nation reports Pinera was a key player in the Koch-funded plan to dismantle Social Security and adds that Pinera's knowledge about public health systems stemmed from his time implementing Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's privatization plans, which had the effect of robbing poor and middle class families.
In one letter cited by the Nation, Charles Koch's colleagues at another think tank, the Institute for Humane Studies, detail a loophole whereby the Austrian-born and ultra-laissez faire economist Friedrich Hayek could opt into Social Security. Soon after that letter was shipped off, Koch wrote a personal appeal extolling the benefits of Social Security to Hayek. He brought up Medicare too. Koch said the program would cover Hayek's medical needs even further.
He sends Hayek a Social Security brochure along with the note: "You may be interested in the information that we uncovered on the insurance and other benefits that would be available to you in this country... you are entitled to Social Security payments while living anywhere in the Free World."
The Koch brothers have donated $28.4 million to think thanks that aim to destroy a social safety net for middle class Americans, and Hayek pioneered that ideology in many ways. Through the Tea Party and Americans for Prosperity, the Koch brothers have found a new audience for Hayek's philosophy. Not only could an Austrian-born crusader against social safety nets draw entitlements from American taxpayers, but according to Koch, Hayek could do so while residing (and paying taxes) in the U.S. or any nation on Earth. This is a dramatic leap of faith from Koch orthodoxy, where government and public service are problems that hamper the Koch brothers' $100 billion business.
As the Nation rightfully points out, when Texas Governor Rick Perry says Social Security is a "Ponzi scheme," that sentiment stems directly from the Kochs, who through their wealth have given Hayek a resurgence of popularity through the brothers' echo chamber and billion dollar distortion machine. The Nation wonders why Charles Koch didn't offer some of his own money to treat Hayek's health issues.
The reason is because the Koch brothers are selfish. Indeed the Koch brothers, and how they spend their wealth, is transforming selfishness into an American virtue.
By Robert Greenwald
Charles and David Koch built an distortion machine to do their dirty work for them. Through think tanks, academic research, political donations and conservative media, the Koch brothers have steamrolled Americans into believing things that are false and into supporting policies that benefit the Koch brothers' profits.
Social Security has long been among the brothers' favorite punching bags, but new reporting by the Nation shows Charles Koch praising, advocating--practically begging an ultra-free market economist and mentor to participate and enjoy Social Security benefits.
That Charles Koch would promote and grow Social Security is at odds with his efforts and donations to politicians and think tanks to destroy Social Security, as our Koch Brothers Exposed campaign has proven.
Among the Koch 'experts' featured in the video is Jose Pinera. Many experts exposed by our film were working to dismantle Social Security from inside the Bush administration before being Koch-funded, but Pinera was working under the Kochs for many years. The Nation reports Pinera was a key player in the Koch-funded plan to dismantle Social Security and adds that Pinera's knowledge about public health systems stemmed from his time implementing Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's privatization plans, which had the effect of robbing poor and middle class families.
In one letter cited by the Nation, Charles Koch's colleagues at another think tank, the Institute for Humane Studies, detail a loophole whereby the Austrian-born and ultra-laissez faire economist Friedrich Hayek could opt into Social Security. Soon after that letter was shipped off, Koch wrote a personal appeal extolling the benefits of Social Security to Hayek. He brought up Medicare too. Koch said the program would cover Hayek's medical needs even further.
He sends Hayek a Social Security brochure along with the note: "You may be interested in the information that we uncovered on the insurance and other benefits that would be available to you in this country... you are entitled to Social Security payments while living anywhere in the Free World."
The Koch brothers have donated $28.4 million to think thanks that aim to destroy a social safety net for middle class Americans, and Hayek pioneered that ideology in many ways. Through the Tea Party and Americans for Prosperity, the Koch brothers have found a new audience for Hayek's philosophy. Not only could an Austrian-born crusader against social safety nets draw entitlements from American taxpayers, but according to Koch, Hayek could do so while residing (and paying taxes) in the U.S. or any nation on Earth. This is a dramatic leap of faith from Koch orthodoxy, where government and public service are problems that hamper the Koch brothers' $100 billion business.
As the Nation rightfully points out, when Texas Governor Rick Perry says Social Security is a "Ponzi scheme," that sentiment stems directly from the Kochs, who through their wealth have given Hayek a resurgence of popularity through the brothers' echo chamber and billion dollar distortion machine. The Nation wonders why Charles Koch didn't offer some of his own money to treat Hayek's health issues.
The reason is because the Koch brothers are selfish. Indeed the Koch brothers, and how they spend their wealth, is transforming selfishness into an American virtue.
Koch $$ Funds Chorus of Lies on Social Security
Original Link: http://blog.aflcio.org/2011/06/23/koch-fund-chorus-of-lies-on-social-security/
By Mike Hall
There’s a cacophony of misinformation from Fox News, right-wing think tanks and extreme conservative politicians about Social Security. “Privatize it,” they yell. “It’s going broke,” they scream. “Raise the retirement age,” they bellow.
But who is conducting this dissonant symphony? The latest installment of Koch Brothers Exposed from the Brave New Foundation says the baton is being wielded by the David and Charles Koch, the right-wing extremist billionaire brothers who are out to dismantle Social Security, overturn financial regulations, corporate rules, environmental standards, workers’ rights and just about any “evil on the radical right agenda.
When it comes to the attacks on Social Security, “The Koch Brothers Echo Chamber” video shows how $28.4 million of Koch money to think tanks like the Cato Institute ($13.6 million), the Heritage Foundation ($3.4 million) and a host of others has helped produce more than 300 “scholarly” position papers on dismantling Social Security and a choir of economists and political scientists all singing from the same hymnal.
Then campaign contributions to politicians like Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.)—$63,000—architect of the Republican budget, House Speaker John “Raise the Retirement Age to 70” Boehner (R-Ohio)—$30,000—and others helps add their voices to off key chorus.
Finally in venues like Fox News, mainstream media and talk radio, they belt out verse after verse of lies about Social Security. Says Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the video:
They’re very effective in getting their positions out into the media, getting on television and people don’t know they represent at an organization heavily funded by [the Kochs]…so you have an echo chamber which starts repeating a lot of misinformation.
You can help change the tune by sharing the “Koch Brothers Echo Chamber” video through Facebook, Twitter and e-mail messages to your friends and colleagues.
For more information, check out the Strengthen Social Security Campaign.
For a humorous look at the Koch brothers, click here to take a look at a video set to the tune—but with far different lyrics—of the classic Coca-Cola commercial, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing.” Here’s a sample:
I’d like to buy the Kochs a world,
So, they’d leave ours alone.
Then go back to Park Avenue
And crawl beneath their stone.
By Mike Hall
There’s a cacophony of misinformation from Fox News, right-wing think tanks and extreme conservative politicians about Social Security. “Privatize it,” they yell. “It’s going broke,” they scream. “Raise the retirement age,” they bellow.
But who is conducting this dissonant symphony? The latest installment of Koch Brothers Exposed from the Brave New Foundation says the baton is being wielded by the David and Charles Koch, the right-wing extremist billionaire brothers who are out to dismantle Social Security, overturn financial regulations, corporate rules, environmental standards, workers’ rights and just about any “evil on the radical right agenda.
When it comes to the attacks on Social Security, “The Koch Brothers Echo Chamber” video shows how $28.4 million of Koch money to think tanks like the Cato Institute ($13.6 million), the Heritage Foundation ($3.4 million) and a host of others has helped produce more than 300 “scholarly” position papers on dismantling Social Security and a choir of economists and political scientists all singing from the same hymnal.
Then campaign contributions to politicians like Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.)—$63,000—architect of the Republican budget, House Speaker John “Raise the Retirement Age to 70” Boehner (R-Ohio)—$30,000—and others helps add their voices to off key chorus.
Finally in venues like Fox News, mainstream media and talk radio, they belt out verse after verse of lies about Social Security. Says Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the video:
They’re very effective in getting their positions out into the media, getting on television and people don’t know they represent at an organization heavily funded by [the Kochs]…so you have an echo chamber which starts repeating a lot of misinformation.
You can help change the tune by sharing the “Koch Brothers Echo Chamber” video through Facebook, Twitter and e-mail messages to your friends and colleagues.
For more information, check out the Strengthen Social Security Campaign.
For a humorous look at the Koch brothers, click here to take a look at a video set to the tune—but with far different lyrics—of the classic Coca-Cola commercial, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing.” Here’s a sample:
I’d like to buy the Kochs a world,
So, they’d leave ours alone.
Then go back to Park Avenue
And crawl beneath their stone.
Social Security and The Koch Lies
Original Link: http://www.ukprogressive.co.uk/social-security-and-the-koch-lies/article12750.html
By Sharon Kyle
The first time I heard this gentleman interviewed, I was in my car listening to KPCC. His message was so compelling that I pulled over so I could jot down his name. Eric Kingson, who is a professor of social work at Syracuse University’s School of Social Work, has a resume a mile long, but he was being interviewed because he is also the co-director of the Strengthen Social Security Campaign and his message about Social Security is one that every middle class person should hear.
I got a message from Eric this week announcing an event. Here’s what he had to say:
Guess who’s leading the drive to raise the retirement age and privatize Social Security? Billionaire oil company executives David and Charles Koch, who have played a leading role in gutting environmental regulations and defeating pro-consumer candidates for office.
Learn how they’re out to destroy Social Security as we know it. Attend a national town hall video premiere, hosted by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Social Security’s champion in the US Senate. The town hall will take place on Wednesday, June 22, at 8:30pm EDT.
The Koch brothers have poured millions of dollars into conservative think tanks that crank out studies claiming Social Security is going broke. Their solutions – raise the retirement age and turn your contributions over to the casino of Wall Street.
The short and gripping video from Brave New Films, Social Security Echo Chamber, traces the origins of these Koch-funded lies about Social Security and how Fox News serves as a mouthpiece for those out to hoodwink the public and dismantle the program.
To ensure you can participate, please register here in advance. Once registered, you will receive a reminder about the event and instructions for submitting a question.
Renowned film maker Robert Greenwald and Strengthen Social Security Campaign co-chair, Eric Kingson, will join Sen. Sanders in an online web chat during the town hall.
Don’t let the Koch brothers destroy Social Security. Learn how at the premiere of Social Security Echo Chamber on Wednesday, June 22 at 8:30 pm EDT.
Thanks for all you do.
Strengthen Social Security Campaign Team
Let’s join this online web chat and learn what we can do to protect Social Security.
By Sharon Kyle
The first time I heard this gentleman interviewed, I was in my car listening to KPCC. His message was so compelling that I pulled over so I could jot down his name. Eric Kingson, who is a professor of social work at Syracuse University’s School of Social Work, has a resume a mile long, but he was being interviewed because he is also the co-director of the Strengthen Social Security Campaign and his message about Social Security is one that every middle class person should hear.
I got a message from Eric this week announcing an event. Here’s what he had to say:
Guess who’s leading the drive to raise the retirement age and privatize Social Security? Billionaire oil company executives David and Charles Koch, who have played a leading role in gutting environmental regulations and defeating pro-consumer candidates for office.
Learn how they’re out to destroy Social Security as we know it. Attend a national town hall video premiere, hosted by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Social Security’s champion in the US Senate. The town hall will take place on Wednesday, June 22, at 8:30pm EDT.
The Koch brothers have poured millions of dollars into conservative think tanks that crank out studies claiming Social Security is going broke. Their solutions – raise the retirement age and turn your contributions over to the casino of Wall Street.
The short and gripping video from Brave New Films, Social Security Echo Chamber, traces the origins of these Koch-funded lies about Social Security and how Fox News serves as a mouthpiece for those out to hoodwink the public and dismantle the program.
To ensure you can participate, please register here in advance. Once registered, you will receive a reminder about the event and instructions for submitting a question.
Renowned film maker Robert Greenwald and Strengthen Social Security Campaign co-chair, Eric Kingson, will join Sen. Sanders in an online web chat during the town hall.
Don’t let the Koch brothers destroy Social Security. Learn how at the premiere of Social Security Echo Chamber on Wednesday, June 22 at 8:30 pm EDT.
Thanks for all you do.
Strengthen Social Security Campaign Team
Let’s join this online web chat and learn what we can do to protect Social Security.
The Koch brothers' campaign to kill social security
Original Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/22/koch-brothers-social-security
By Robert Greenwald
The rightwing industrialists have spent millions funding opinion-forming propaganda to undermine a vital public service.
Documents and interviews unearthed in recent months by Brave New Foundation researchers illustrate a $28.4m Koch business that has manufactured 297 commentaries, 200 reports, 56 studies and six books distorting social security's effectiveness and purpose. Together, the publications reveal a vast cottage industry comprised of Koch brothers' spokespeople, front groups, thinktanks, academics and elected officials, which has built a self-sustaining echo chamber to transform fringe ideas into popular mainstream public policy arguments.
"The Koch brothers job is to do everything they can to dismember government in general," Senator Bernie Sanders says in this video. "If you can destroy social security, you will have gone a long way forward in that effort."
Koch Industries spent $857,000 on lobbyists in 2004, one year before George W Bush tried and failed to privatise social security. They also donated $104,660 to his campaign. The attacks on social security needed more time to stew in the echo chamber before they could be mainstream, and given the increase in lobbyists, they have risen dramatically. In the first two years of the Obama administration, the brothers spent $20m on lobbying, according to the Centre for Public Integrity. And they've diversified their donations to a slew of Republican opinion leaders – and strategic Democrats who oppose revenue increases like Senator Ben Nelson and Governor Andrew Cuomo. But traditional lobbying has now given way to the larger, more insidious propaganda campaign aimed at changing the terms of debate on social security.
The Koch brothers' echo chamber has successfully written the messaging for the AARP, a traditional defender of social security for all generations, which recently opened the door to cutting benefits. The Koch echo chamber begins with think tanks like the Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation and Mercatus Centre at George Mason University and the Reason Foundation, which owe their founding and achievements to Koch backing. These thinktanks take their $28.4m in Koch funding and produce hundreds of position papers distorting the long-term health of social security.
"The Koch brothers fund organisations, and you have economists and political scientists working there, and they are very, very good at getting on television," says Sanders. "They are very effective in getting their positions out into the media."
The authors of these hundreds of self-described policy studies, newsletters, commentaries and books are then paraded through television, print and online news media. Their distorted message is amplified through shows like Hannity, on Fox News, with its 3.3 million viewers per episode, or CNBC's Kudlow Report and its roughly 300,000 viewers per episode, night after night after night. Gradually, influential opinion-formers in venerable news outlets will also react and have already begun to referee disputes on new "middle ground" that has, over time and through the actions of AARP and the Koch echo chamber, grown tolerant of the Koch brothers' talking points. Eventually, elected officials react to the Koch echo chamber and typically shift their position for reelection or the next campaign.
Influential opinion-formers in venerable news outlets will react and have already begun to referee disputes on new "middle ground" that has, over time and through the actions of AARP and the Koch echo chamber, grown tolerant of the Koch brothers' talking points.
The investigation revealed Koch-supported policy fixes, and specific language repeated across each document, such as raising the retirement age or eliminating cost of living adjustments for social security dependents and beneficiaries. These Koch ideas percolate through the echo chamber and into the mainstream. The frequency and repetition of the arguments supplant more popular policy recommendations like scrapping the social security tax cap, which would free individuals earning more than $106,800 annually to pay taxes on all of their wages, like everyone else.
Almost overnight, it seems, a historic and popular public service like social security faces extinction. But it's no mystery how this has happened: behind that outcome, the Koch echo chamber has been churning for years.
By Robert Greenwald
The rightwing industrialists have spent millions funding opinion-forming propaganda to undermine a vital public service.
Documents and interviews unearthed in recent months by Brave New Foundation researchers illustrate a $28.4m Koch business that has manufactured 297 commentaries, 200 reports, 56 studies and six books distorting social security's effectiveness and purpose. Together, the publications reveal a vast cottage industry comprised of Koch brothers' spokespeople, front groups, thinktanks, academics and elected officials, which has built a self-sustaining echo chamber to transform fringe ideas into popular mainstream public policy arguments.
"The Koch brothers job is to do everything they can to dismember government in general," Senator Bernie Sanders says in this video. "If you can destroy social security, you will have gone a long way forward in that effort."
Koch Industries spent $857,000 on lobbyists in 2004, one year before George W Bush tried and failed to privatise social security. They also donated $104,660 to his campaign. The attacks on social security needed more time to stew in the echo chamber before they could be mainstream, and given the increase in lobbyists, they have risen dramatically. In the first two years of the Obama administration, the brothers spent $20m on lobbying, according to the Centre for Public Integrity. And they've diversified their donations to a slew of Republican opinion leaders – and strategic Democrats who oppose revenue increases like Senator Ben Nelson and Governor Andrew Cuomo. But traditional lobbying has now given way to the larger, more insidious propaganda campaign aimed at changing the terms of debate on social security.
The Koch brothers' echo chamber has successfully written the messaging for the AARP, a traditional defender of social security for all generations, which recently opened the door to cutting benefits. The Koch echo chamber begins with think tanks like the Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation and Mercatus Centre at George Mason University and the Reason Foundation, which owe their founding and achievements to Koch backing. These thinktanks take their $28.4m in Koch funding and produce hundreds of position papers distorting the long-term health of social security.
"The Koch brothers fund organisations, and you have economists and political scientists working there, and they are very, very good at getting on television," says Sanders. "They are very effective in getting their positions out into the media."
The authors of these hundreds of self-described policy studies, newsletters, commentaries and books are then paraded through television, print and online news media. Their distorted message is amplified through shows like Hannity, on Fox News, with its 3.3 million viewers per episode, or CNBC's Kudlow Report and its roughly 300,000 viewers per episode, night after night after night. Gradually, influential opinion-formers in venerable news outlets will also react and have already begun to referee disputes on new "middle ground" that has, over time and through the actions of AARP and the Koch echo chamber, grown tolerant of the Koch brothers' talking points. Eventually, elected officials react to the Koch echo chamber and typically shift their position for reelection or the next campaign.
Influential opinion-formers in venerable news outlets will react and have already begun to referee disputes on new "middle ground" that has, over time and through the actions of AARP and the Koch echo chamber, grown tolerant of the Koch brothers' talking points.
The investigation revealed Koch-supported policy fixes, and specific language repeated across each document, such as raising the retirement age or eliminating cost of living adjustments for social security dependents and beneficiaries. These Koch ideas percolate through the echo chamber and into the mainstream. The frequency and repetition of the arguments supplant more popular policy recommendations like scrapping the social security tax cap, which would free individuals earning more than $106,800 annually to pay taxes on all of their wages, like everyone else.
Almost overnight, it seems, a historic and popular public service like social security faces extinction. But it's no mystery how this has happened: behind that outcome, the Koch echo chamber has been churning for years.
Billionaire Koch Brothers Aim to Change the Media
Original Link: http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/billionaire-koch-brothers-aim-to-change/
By John Lake
There has been discussion at Blogcritics regarding corporations with venues and agenda, and with the financial strength to assure the support of various politicians; those politicians who generally feel no guilt in shaping their legislation to conform to the will of corporate America. We have mentioned the Heritage Corporation, the National Rifle Association; we have mentioned Rush Limbaugh, widely known for his ultra-conservative rants. Glenn Beck and many at Fox News have received attention. Now we have an opportunity to look into the clandestine meeting of a seminar, held at a Vail Colorado resort last June, attended by about 300 wealthy guests, hosted by the billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch. (Photo of C. Koch)
The Koch brothers own the chemical and energy conglomerate Koch Industries in Wichita, and about twice a year they have covert seminars primarily to raise money, and to disseminate strategy. The Koch conglomerate is of increasing and ponderous influence on American politics, spending millions on the Tea Party, and various right-wing groups. The Koch brothers use their wealth and money from donations to influence elections, and to sway public opinion on a wide variety of issues such as labor policy, health care, government spending, oil drilling and exploration, systems for extruding natural gas (sometimes using environmentally unfriendly processes) and other endeavors.
Thanks to tape recordings made at the time, despite efforts at the seminar to prevent such taping, we can now learn something about the clandestine Koch seminar of last June. The meeting opened and closed with petitions for donations. At the onset, the names of about three dozen donors of one million dollars or more each were read. The speaker mistakenly turned the phrase, "more than one billion..." then caught his mistake, got quite a good laugh, corrected, "Well, I was thinking of Obama and his billion-dollar campaign," and the speaking continued. Donors have nothing to fear, the Koch brothers promise to protect anonymity. Because of loopholes in federal campaign laws, these donations do not exist in the public record.
According to sources, recent attendees at Koch seminars include Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) ("Tea Party Kingmaker"), Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), and Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. The same sources name state governors in attendance at the Vail seminar: Florida's Rick Scott, Virginia's Robert McDonnell, and White House hopeful Rick Perry of Texas. Perry’s attendance was not acknowledged until the tail number of his plane was tracked by The Austin American-Statesman; then the attendance was listed as "a meeting with a private gathering of business leaders."
One of two foremost issues at the Vail summit was the need to win the White House in the coming election. Charles Koch said, “We've had a lot of tough battles. We've lost a lot over the years and we've won some recently. Set the stage for, as I've said, the ‘mother of all battles’ coming up a year from November, and I've pledged to all of you who've stepped forward and are partnering with us that we are absolutely going to do our utmost to invest this money wisely and get the best possible payoff for you in the future of our country.” The other issue was the matter of the media. Charles Koch, in introducing guest speaker former New Jersey Superior Court judge and libertarian Fox News host Andrew P. Napolitano, began, "We've talked about our competitive disadvantage, how we're overwhelmed in a number of areas," Koch said. "One of those areas, of course, is the media, and we're overwhelmed. The media is 90-plus percent against us. But we have a few bright stars, and Judge [Napolitano] here is one of them.” Following the controversial and outspoken Judge Napolitano’s speech, Charles Koch re-mounted the stage and began to wind up the affair, again petitioning for donations. “Because it isn't just your money we need. We need your energy. We have to multiply ourselves. Just as to change the media we just can't have the judge. We need to clone him thousands and thousands-fold. And so…God bless you and God bless America!”
The Koch brothers have every right to speak. They are generous philanthropists who donate millions to charity, and make the charitable donations a private and personal matter. Their political views are extreme but not impossibly so. The concern is with the new thrust on changing the media.
We have witnessed profound changes to our congress, and therefore to our nation, in recent times. Many new era politicians seem to favor corporate power at the expense of individuals. With the allowance of the Supreme Court to unlimited influence on legislators and judges, America now seems in danger of being dominated not by and for the people, but by corporate hierarchy. This is a troubling trend, but if the corporate influence were to extend to and pervade the popular news media, it could be catastrophic. We are fortunate now to have a dedicated and wise media (the possible exception being radio sites) which for the most part report in an unbiased and objective manner. We can allow ourselves to form opinions based on their reporting. We feel we have an accurate interpretation of events, foreign and domestic. If the media says the students in Egypt are seeking freedom and democracy, we allow ourselves to believe that is true. If the media tells us this or that about a political candidate we are fortunate that we can accept their word as truth.
It isn’t hard to imagine a world, an America, wherein the wealthy corporate leaders are able to buy the outlets and broadcasters that we rely on day to day. in such an imagined scenaro, If the media were critical of the president, we would see it that way. If they together agreed that money going to disaster response were money wasted, we would agree. If our newscasters should uniformly state that Social Security is outdated and needed to be eliminated, in a short time the public would fall into compliance. It is a frightening picture. If the situation changes there will be no warning, and possibly no turning back.
Long overdue and becoming more urgent daily is legislation to eliminate the threat of a biased, subjective, and subjugated media. If it were illegal, or disallowed by regulation for any news, or news and opinion outlet, particularly those representing themselves as being impartial; radio, television, newspaper, or magazine, to be owned by or to accept financial support from special interest groups, including political groups, the threat to society would be eliminated. Alternatively, such support or ownership might be made enforcedly transparent and open to public scrutiny. This need for candor seems obvious and necessary. At the least, outlets promoting groups for recompense should be required to reveal that participation.
By John Lake
There has been discussion at Blogcritics regarding corporations with venues and agenda, and with the financial strength to assure the support of various politicians; those politicians who generally feel no guilt in shaping their legislation to conform to the will of corporate America. We have mentioned the Heritage Corporation, the National Rifle Association; we have mentioned Rush Limbaugh, widely known for his ultra-conservative rants. Glenn Beck and many at Fox News have received attention. Now we have an opportunity to look into the clandestine meeting of a seminar, held at a Vail Colorado resort last June, attended by about 300 wealthy guests, hosted by the billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch. (Photo of C. Koch)
The Koch brothers own the chemical and energy conglomerate Koch Industries in Wichita, and about twice a year they have covert seminars primarily to raise money, and to disseminate strategy. The Koch conglomerate is of increasing and ponderous influence on American politics, spending millions on the Tea Party, and various right-wing groups. The Koch brothers use their wealth and money from donations to influence elections, and to sway public opinion on a wide variety of issues such as labor policy, health care, government spending, oil drilling and exploration, systems for extruding natural gas (sometimes using environmentally unfriendly processes) and other endeavors.
Thanks to tape recordings made at the time, despite efforts at the seminar to prevent such taping, we can now learn something about the clandestine Koch seminar of last June. The meeting opened and closed with petitions for donations. At the onset, the names of about three dozen donors of one million dollars or more each were read. The speaker mistakenly turned the phrase, "more than one billion..." then caught his mistake, got quite a good laugh, corrected, "Well, I was thinking of Obama and his billion-dollar campaign," and the speaking continued. Donors have nothing to fear, the Koch brothers promise to protect anonymity. Because of loopholes in federal campaign laws, these donations do not exist in the public record.
According to sources, recent attendees at Koch seminars include Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) ("Tea Party Kingmaker"), Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), and Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. The same sources name state governors in attendance at the Vail seminar: Florida's Rick Scott, Virginia's Robert McDonnell, and White House hopeful Rick Perry of Texas. Perry’s attendance was not acknowledged until the tail number of his plane was tracked by The Austin American-Statesman; then the attendance was listed as "a meeting with a private gathering of business leaders."
One of two foremost issues at the Vail summit was the need to win the White House in the coming election. Charles Koch said, “We've had a lot of tough battles. We've lost a lot over the years and we've won some recently. Set the stage for, as I've said, the ‘mother of all battles’ coming up a year from November, and I've pledged to all of you who've stepped forward and are partnering with us that we are absolutely going to do our utmost to invest this money wisely and get the best possible payoff for you in the future of our country.” The other issue was the matter of the media. Charles Koch, in introducing guest speaker former New Jersey Superior Court judge and libertarian Fox News host Andrew P. Napolitano, began, "We've talked about our competitive disadvantage, how we're overwhelmed in a number of areas," Koch said. "One of those areas, of course, is the media, and we're overwhelmed. The media is 90-plus percent against us. But we have a few bright stars, and Judge [Napolitano] here is one of them.” Following the controversial and outspoken Judge Napolitano’s speech, Charles Koch re-mounted the stage and began to wind up the affair, again petitioning for donations. “Because it isn't just your money we need. We need your energy. We have to multiply ourselves. Just as to change the media we just can't have the judge. We need to clone him thousands and thousands-fold. And so…God bless you and God bless America!”
The Koch brothers have every right to speak. They are generous philanthropists who donate millions to charity, and make the charitable donations a private and personal matter. Their political views are extreme but not impossibly so. The concern is with the new thrust on changing the media.
We have witnessed profound changes to our congress, and therefore to our nation, in recent times. Many new era politicians seem to favor corporate power at the expense of individuals. With the allowance of the Supreme Court to unlimited influence on legislators and judges, America now seems in danger of being dominated not by and for the people, but by corporate hierarchy. This is a troubling trend, but if the corporate influence were to extend to and pervade the popular news media, it could be catastrophic. We are fortunate now to have a dedicated and wise media (the possible exception being radio sites) which for the most part report in an unbiased and objective manner. We can allow ourselves to form opinions based on their reporting. We feel we have an accurate interpretation of events, foreign and domestic. If the media says the students in Egypt are seeking freedom and democracy, we allow ourselves to believe that is true. If the media tells us this or that about a political candidate we are fortunate that we can accept their word as truth.
It isn’t hard to imagine a world, an America, wherein the wealthy corporate leaders are able to buy the outlets and broadcasters that we rely on day to day. in such an imagined scenaro, If the media were critical of the president, we would see it that way. If they together agreed that money going to disaster response were money wasted, we would agree. If our newscasters should uniformly state that Social Security is outdated and needed to be eliminated, in a short time the public would fall into compliance. It is a frightening picture. If the situation changes there will be no warning, and possibly no turning back.
Long overdue and becoming more urgent daily is legislation to eliminate the threat of a biased, subjective, and subjugated media. If it were illegal, or disallowed by regulation for any news, or news and opinion outlet, particularly those representing themselves as being impartial; radio, television, newspaper, or magazine, to be owned by or to accept financial support from special interest groups, including political groups, the threat to society would be eliminated. Alternatively, such support or ownership might be made enforcedly transparent and open to public scrutiny. This need for candor seems obvious and necessary. At the least, outlets promoting groups for recompense should be required to reveal that participation.
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