- Fred Koch (1900-1967)
The Koch conglomerate of companies states that the Koch family “owns a diverse group of companies involved in refining and chemicals; process and pollution control equipment and technologies; minerals; fertilizers; polymers and fibers; commodity trading and services; forest and consumer products; and ranching.” (Koch Industries, “Koch Companies in Asia-Pacific” at Koch Industries website: http://www.kochind.com/, accessed April 2011.) This ever-expanding umbrella company was started in 1927 by Fred Koch who had four sons, Frederick R. Koch, b. 1932, Charles G. Koch b. 1935, David H. and William I. Koch twins born in 1940. Fred Koch was no less than a charter member of the John Birch Society (and while some argue that Koch was possibly the actual founder and creator of the John Birch myth, Robert Welch created the society in 1958) and passed his hatred of anything that imitated or suggested any form of “communism” to the current owners: his sons. These children, who are, through their foundations, arguably the leading and most influential funders of anti-regulation and conservative activism in the United States are open enemies of any social action or assistance to anyone who is poor, unemployed, underemployed, or unable to sustain life. Thriving in the World of Oz (the State of Kansas), but without Dorothy or Toto, Fred C. Koch was among those most determined to root out all who disagreed with his interpretation of government and freedom. No individual’s wealth, life, reputation, or family was neither important nor would it be respected if it betrayed Fred C.’s megalomaniac interests.
Because of a narcissist complex where Fred C saw himself as the arbitrator of the world and believed that the world was his to pluck like ripe fruit to devour and satisfy his own peculiarities, Fred Koch was no less than a charter member of the John Birch Society (and argued, wrongly, by some as possibly the actual founder and creator of the John Birch myth) and passed his hatred of anything that imitated or suggested any form of “communism” to the current owners: his sons. These children, who are, through their foundations, arguably the leading and most influential funders of anti-regulation and conservative activism in the United States are open enemies of any social action or assistance to anyone who is poor, unemployed, underemployed, or unable to sustain life.
Koch Industries pollution (in Top Ten in the World)
About 750,000 people a year die prematurely from air pollution related issues worldwide. For water pollution (this includes inadequate water supplies too though), the number is 1.7 million deaths a year. 10% of these 2.5 million deaths can be attributed to the Koch Brothers and the Koch Industries that are not only killing the people of Kansas but people throughout the world; this makes the Koch family mass murderers. Read more: http://greenanswers.com/q/31089/pollution-toxins/how-many-people-die-air-and-water-every-year#ixzz1KM43U8VC. To make such a claim is considered “communist” or “socialist” and is decried by those ignorant of science–including over 50 US Senators who believe that global warming and climate change is a hoax–because they accept bribes in the tens of thousands of dollars from the Koch family, wth many claiming that they are liberating the world from communism and false science in the name of John Morrison Birch.
What would be the priorities of the Koch brothers’ Energy and Commerce Committee? Giving their benefactors anything they desire, of course: “Nine of the 12 new Republicans on the panel signed a pledge distributed by a Koch-founded advocacy group — Americans for Prosperity — to oppose the Obama administration’s proposal to regulate greenhouse gases.”
Six of Koch’s Chosen sit on the panel. Brandishing the lie ”mandate,” they have cobbled together an agenda approved by Koch Industries. From the Los Angeles Times by Alex Constantine (February 15, 2011) “The Best Congressional Energy Committee that Koch Brothers Money Could buy”:
The new committee members include a congressman who has hired a former Koch Industries lawyer as his chief of staff. Another, Rep. Morgan Griffith of Virginia, won a long-shot bid to unseat a 14-term moderate Democrat with help from Americans for Prosperity, which marshaled conservative activists in his district. By some estimates, AFP spent over a quarter-million dollars on negative ads in the campaign. …
Perhaps the Kochs’ most surprising and important ally on the committee is its new chairman, Rep. Fred Upton. The Republican from Michigan, who was once criticized by conservatives for his middle-of-the-road approach to environmental issues, is now leading the effort to rein in the EPA. … Upton received $20,000 in donations from Koch employees in 2010, making them among his top ten donors in that cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Last week the chairman released a draft of a bill that would strip the EPA of its ability to curb carbon emissions. The legislation is in line with the Kochs’ long-advocated stance that the federal government should have a minimal role in regulating business. In addition, the Kochs’ oil refineries and chemical plants stand to pay millions to reduce air pollution under currently proposed EPA regulations.
John Birch (1918-1945)
The John Birch Society began with an apologiathat it was defending the USA and its values—values that belong to Fred C. Koch. In reality, the JBS was and remains anti-American, pro-racist, and preaches the subjugation of women to men as if that was the divine order—an order determined by men—not by women. The JBS quickly became more frightening to those who cherished freedom and liberty as it transmogrified further into the mouthpiece of the corrupt family in the USA: The Koch Family of Wichita, Kansas. JBS advocates the abolition of income tax (wrongly claiming it was a “Democratic Party invention to slow down corporate profits that put Americans to work” while, in fact, it was established by Republican President Abraham Lincoln to pay for the US Civil War), and the repeal of civil rights legislation (to this end his grandsons have been funding movements in such backward states as Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and so forth, where state boards of education are rewriting textbooks that claim that Black people were happier as slaves than as free people), which are seen as being Communist inspired.
Protests against Koch-inspired, JBS backing Blacklisting
It was Fred C. Koch who first hailed one of the greatest liars ever to live in the White House: Richard M. Nixon (R-CA; he was advised by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) and his senior conspirator United States Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI). These two gasconades initiated an attack on basic rights of citizens of the USA in the 1950s during their infamous McCarthy-Nixon hearings on Un-American Activities. The USA was terrorized by the rise of Soviet power, especially in areas of arms and potential space control. Living in a withering fear, they voluntarily gave up basic writes that wrongfully blacklisted (permanently) many Hollywood stars, screen writers, producers (http://moderntimes.com/blacklist/ and see, e.g., Schwartz, Richard A. (1999). “How the Film and Television Blacklists Worked”. Florida International University. http://comptalk.fiu.edu/blacklist.htm. Retrieved 2010-03-03 with the two most corrupt and diabolical voices raised against Hollywood being Ronald Reagan (President of the Screen Actors Guild), and cartoon maker Walt Disney.
A group of studio executives, acting under the aegis (and with Koch funding) of the Motion Picture Association of America, announced the firing of the artists—the so-called Hollywood Ten—in what has become known as the Waldorf Statement that was a two-page press release issued on December 3, 1947, by Eric Johnston, president of the Motion Picture Association of America (http://comptalk.fiu.edu/blacklist.htm).
Red Channels by fascist-controlled Counterattack
On June 22, 1950, a pamphlet called Red Channels appeared being published by a right-wing fascist group known as Counterattack founded by Alfred Kohlberg (1887-1960; see: Herzstein, Robert E. (2006-06-01). “Alfred Kohlberg: Counter-Subversion in the Global Struggle against Communism, 1944-1960”. Globalization, Empire, and Imperialism in Historical Perspective. University of North Carolina. http://www.webcitation.org/5HqTqz3zF). Kohlberg was an importer of Chinese textiles and an ardent member of the Anti-Communist “China Lobby”, funded a for profit-organization staffed by a group of former FBI agents who had little to no regard for the Bill of Rights that they declared to be “communist inspired”. Arguing that Christianity was a Business Process and successful businesses were demonstrating their allegiance to an extra-biblical Jesus who came to the Earth to bring a sword to strike for business and not to bring peace citing Matthew 10:34-36: 34μη νομισητε οτι ηλθον βαλειν ειρηνην επι την γην ουκ ηλθον βαλειν ειρηνην αλλα μαχαιραν 35ηλθον γαρ διχασαι ανθρωπον κατα του πατρος αυτου και θυγατερα κατα της μητρος αυτης και νυμφην κατα της πενθερας αυτης 36και εχθροι του ανθρωπου οι οικιακοι αυτου (taking the election of the saved out of context from 1 Timothy 6:17-19; contemporary apologetics for this are based on random scriptural passages concerning Abraham, Issac, Jacob, King David, Solomon, Boaz, the Apostle Matthew, Zacchaeus, etc, “All were blessed with wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:18 and Ecclesiastics 5:19) but this also is out of context; compare the entries at http://christianblogs.christianet.com/1132141788.htm), they called themselves the American Business Consultants Inc. This group focused on the field of broadcasting and those who were broadcasters. It named 151 entertainment industry professionals in the context of “Red Fascists and their sympathizers”, conveniently distorting the meaning of “fascism” and ignoring the fascism of Fred C. Koch of Kansas.
Soon most of those named, along with a host of other artists, were barred from employment in much of the entertainment field), as well as teachers at all levels of academe creating a suffocating anti-intellectual mood and open hostility to science and literature (seeing in most world literature communism the degradation of authority and the elevation of singular authorities (dictatorial states such as in Germany, Italy, Japan, and so forth) or an appeal to authority that was written (the Bible, Koran, and so forth) or an appeal to ridicule that attempt to discredit an opponent rather than specifically addressing his or her argument; these steps have once more appeared with the dumbing down of education and the rise of a thought police, which today in the English-speaking world, especially in the USA, critics like
David Horowitz by Gage Skidmore
David Horowitz (who created the David Horowitz Freedom [sic] Center) is a rightwing ideologue who has been married four times, has founded some of the most virulent anti-human rights groups with special attacks on Blacks and Muslims, and has been labeled by the Southern Poverty Law Center as one of 17 “right-wing foundations and think tanks support[ing] efforts to make bigoted and discredited ideas respectable.”(Berlet, Chip (2003). “Into the Mainstream”. Intelligence Report. Southern Poverty Law Center. http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=105.) Berlet accused Horowitz of blaming slavery on “black Africans … abetted by dark-skinned Arabs” and of “attack[ing] minority ‘demands for special treatment’ as ‘only necessary because some blacks can’t seem to locate the ladder of opportunity within reach of others,’ rejecting the idea that they could be the victims of lingering racism.”, William Bennett, a former US Secretary of Education, and paleoconservative activist Patrick Buchanan, criticize schools and universities as ‘intellectualist’ based on three sets of criteria: political bias (e.g. liberal or secular), deficient curricula (e.g. the humanities that emphasize the superiority of western civilization), and impracticability (e.g. it has to make money which shows one’s value) the intellectual ideal of knowledge for its own sake is rejected; cf. Searle, John R. (1971). The Campus Wars, Chapter 2: The Students; cf. http://www.ditext.com/searle/campus/2.html), and labor organizers and unions, forcing thousands to commit suicide and without full justification executing the Rosenbergs in California on the grounds that they were traitors. For this reason, its opponents characterize it as a white citizens’ society dedicated to preventing minorities from gaining political power. Some of the 151 were already being denied employment because of their political beliefs, history, or mere association with suspected “subversives” while others were scathingly denounced by Koch for not recognizing his rise to power and questioning his fascist tactics—the State of Kansas became known among freedom loving intellectuals as the hell-hole of the nation, having shown its own growing Khristian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan that is increasingly associating itself and urging its members to join Koch family’s John Birch Society. Equal to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party, and identical with and to the KKK, the John Birch Society claimed it was purifying Christianity and ridding it of dissent. Birchers shared a common ideology and some overlapping membership with Doctor Frederick Charles Schwarz (an Australian physician who was active in USA politics while claiming that his home in Sidney was his legal address) and his California-based Christian Anti-communism Crusade (which is still active and now out-rivals the Nazis of 1944: http://schwarzreport.org/)—although the early Christians were communists in the pure definition of that word. Like all evangelical extremists and theological thugs, Schwarz (like Richard Nixon and Robert F. Kennedy, followed by Reagan and George W. Bush) has no concept of what the Bible said nor what how it was interpreted. Like the Koch family, they fantasize and create their own interpretation og (or more commonly ignore) Acts 2:42-44: 42ησαν δε προσκαρτερουντες τη διδαχη των αποστολων και τη κοινωνια και τη κλασει του αρτου και ταις προσευχαις 43εγενετο δε παση ψυχη φοβος πολλα τε τερατα και σημεια δια των αποστολων εγινετο 44παντες δε οι πιστευοντες ησαν επι το αυτο και ειχον απαντα κοινα. Of course, following the hollow holiness of other biblical illiterates like Pat Robertson (a self-style evangelist), James Robinson, Schwarz and the Kochs ignominiously ignore Acts 4:32-35: 32του δε πληθους των πιστευσαντων ην η καρδια και η ψυχη μια και ουδε εις τι των υπαρχοντων αυτω ελεγεν ιδιον ειναι αλλ ην αυτοις απαντα κοινα 33και μεγαλη δυναμει απεδιδουν το μαρτυριον οι αποστολοι της αναστασεως του κυριου ιησου χαρις τε μεγαλη ην επι παντας αυτους 34 ουδε γαρ ενδεης τις υπηρχεν εν αυτοις οσοι γαρ κτητορες χωριων η οικιων υπηρχον πωλουντες εφερον τας τιμας των πιπρασκομενων 35 και ετιθουν παρα τους ποδας των αποστολων διεδιδοτο δε εκαστω καθοτι αν τις χρειαν ειχεν. Schwarz past belies his own hatred and fears.
Schwarz’ father was a Viennese Jew who converted to Christianity and redefined that religion outside of any knowledgeable or current convention of interpretation and were more in keeping with the message of hate that runs rampant through the writings of one-time Augustinian monk Martin Luther, the spiritual father of Adolf Hitler. This was much in the same way as Iowa Nazi Family Leader Bob Vander Plaats has set up his own religion that he claims is true Christianity, with “women subordinating themselves to their husbands” and students finding “true knowledge” in the Bible where every word was authored by God.
Schwarz fit comfortably into the dark shroud of the JBS, and dedicated his life to fighting phantasms of covert communism. No subterfuge, no crime against humanity or basic civil rights was too extreme if it would root out communism and stifle dissent. Schwarz would have been far more comfortable in Nazi Germany than he was ever comfortable in preaching to citizens of the USA from his Australian house (cp. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,938304-1,00.html).
JBS’s objective was to fight communism using what were considered to be the techniques of communism: organizing front groups (pretending to be members of one group while spying on it, as is still the case with the nefarious Family of C Street in Washington, DC, where adulterers like US Senators John Ensign (R-NV) and John Vitter (R-LA) condone their unorthodox lifestyle claiming that their Jesus has no objections as long as the martial arm of Jesus is used to root out all other faiths and dissentions from what the Family has predetermined to be the militancy of the biblical Jesus (Sharlet, Jeff. The Family: the secret fundamentalism at the heart of American power [1st Harper Perennial Edition] New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2009; first issued in 2008); on using marginalized groups to attack members of their own groups in much the same was as the Brown Shirts did in the 1930s, see: http://www.newshounds.us/2011/02/04/brian_kilmeade_enlists_log_cabin_republican_r_clarke_cooper_to_defend_jesus_chicken_.php; cp. http://www.theocentric.com/personal/reading/the_jesus_machine.html. It also included infiltrating other groups and letter-writing campaigns especially to local and state papers, and other publishers (cp. http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/03/religious-rights-crusade-against-unions). The society was named in honor of John Morrison Birch (1918-1945), a Fundamentalist Baptist self-promoted and self-ordained missionary from Georgia, who served with minor distinction as an intelligence officer in China during World War II, and he would brazenly hold Sunday church services for Chinese Christians even though the action offended non-Communist Christians who were fight against communism—their lack of faith, Birch argued, showed that they were in truth in league with the devil and not fight the wars of Jesus. In his diary, Maj. Gustav Krause, commanding officer of the base, noted: “Birch is a good officer, but I’m afraid is too brash and may run into trouble.” Urged to take a leave of absence, he refused, telling Chennault he would not quit China “until the last Jap” did. Birch always spoke pejoratively about those he opposed or felt opposed him. Birch lacked all knowledge of Matthew 7:1 and Acts 10:24. When, on August 25, as Birch was leading a party of Americans, Chinese Nationalists, and Koreans on a mission to reach Allied personnel in a Japanese prison camp, they were stopped by Chinese Communists near Xi’an. When asked to surrender his revolver; Birch refused and with characteristic un-Christian “harsh words” (that are not found anywhere in the sayings of Jesus) insulted the Chinese and called upon them to repent to a god no one understood, knew, or cared about. Shots were exchanged, Birch was killed and a Nationalist Chinese colleague was shot and wounded. For that reason Welch was “christened” “the first American victim of the Cold War” by the Society that was later named for him, but by no one else. For pure propaganda, see: [Hefley, James & Marti]. The secret file on John Birch. Revised and updated; Hannibal, MO: Hannibal Books, c1995; originally published: Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, c1980.
The John Birch Society has a checkered past at best, but more realistic, it has a history of hate that is unthinking, unfeeling, and directly opposed to a sense of compassion. It has consistently opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, claiming that “colored people” have no constitutional rights as the Constitution was written for White People (which it was until it was amended by the 14th Amendment (It was not until 1971 that the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause was first applied to sex discrimination, but then not until 1996 were women allowed to enter military schools), and one of the primary reasons the Tea Party devotees demand that Obama be removed from office, claiming that he was born in Kenya [he was born in Hawaii] and that he is black [obvious even to the casual observer]) and for people of property (which it was until reinterpreted, giving Wisconsin’s Nazi Governor Scott Walker the raison d’être for dissolving unions that argue for a more just society of equals, which to the Birchers is wrong). Robert Welch was the first Bircher to accuse President Eisenhower of being a treasonous Communist, proclaiming “[Dwight Eisenhower was a] dedicated agent of the Communist conspiracy.” Today the most vocal spokesman for the Birch Society is Glenn Beck who is hailed as a hero among the radical right group (http://mediamatters.org/research/201006240076 and http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/18/101018fa_fact_wilentz?currentPage=all).
Like John Birch, the Koch family, especially the grandsons, defy ever convention of civility and democracy. They have used their multibillion dollar wealth to create far-right “think tanks” such as the Cato Institute, and the Tea Party Movement. They give lavishly to US Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas—both who openly attend Koch and other ultra-conservative functions and have no concept of objectivity of the law. Scalia preaches “originalism” and openly rejects that the US Constitution is not a “living document” that adapts to the current needs, but that it must be interpreted literally as it was understood when it was written in 1776, regardless of the changes society and the nation has gone through (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/24/60minutes/main4040290.shtml). On January 24, 2011, Scalia attended a House of Representatives Tea Party gathering (http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/24/nation/la-na-scalia-tea-party-20110125) which even conservative Texas lawyers and judges’ claim shows that the US Supreme Court has become partisan.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence and newest wife Virginia Thomas
Thomas is the least intellectual jurist ever to sit on the US Supreme Court. Justice Thomas’ false statementsregarding his wife’s income certainly constitute a misdemeanor, and quite probably a felony, under federal law. (They would be felonies if he were prosecuted under 18. U.S.C. 1001, which criminalizes knowingly making false statements of material fact to a federal agency. This is the law Martha Stewart was convicted of breaking by lying to investigators.)
Thomas’ defense is that he didn’t knowingly violate the law, because he “misunderstood” the filing requirements. This is preposterous on its face. Bill Clinton was impeached—and subsequently disbarred—for defending his false statements about his affair with Monica Lewinsky with an excuse that wasn’t as incredible as the one Thomas is now employing. Justice Thomas’ false statements regarding his wife’s income certainly constitute a misdemeanor, and quite probably a felony, under federal law. (They would be felonies if he were prosecuted under 18. U.S.C. 1001, which criminalizes knowingly making false statements of material fact to a federal agency. This is the law Martha Stewart was convicted of breaking by lying to investigators.)
Thomas’ defense is that he didn’t knowingly violate the law, because he “misunderstood” the filing requirements. This is preposterous on its face. Bill Clinton was impeached—and subsequently disbarred—for defending his false statements about his affair with Monica Lewinsky with an excuse that wasn’t as incredible as the one Thomas is now employing.
Today Clarence Thomas’ wife, Virginia, has a job in conservative journalism, is funded by the Koch Brothers to breathe more life into their Tea Party movement, and shown open disdain for individual rights as seen especially in her telephone call to Anita Hill who leveled charges, which the justice now acknowledges, of sexual misconduct by Clarence Thomas (Chrisman, Robert, and Robert L. Allen, editors. Court of Appeal: The Black Community Speaks Out on the Racial and Sexual Politics of Clarence Thomas vs. Anita Hill. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992; http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/H/htmlH/hill-thomash/hill-thomas.htm). They have repeatedly been befriended and protected by the Koch Brothers who need another “conservative” judge on the US Supreme Court bench, especially with their oil drilling under scrutiny in Alaska, and refineries reaching from Minnesota to Texas. These Koch oil refineries in Alaska, Texas, and Minnesota, and give the Koch Brothers control some four thousand miles of pipeline. Koch Industries (with revenues of more than $100 billion a year; http://solveclimatenews.com/news/20110210/koch-brothers-positioned-be-big-winners-if-keystone-xl-pipeline-approved) owns Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra, among other products. They argue for drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy (including the ending of all Medicare and Food Stamps for the poor and elderly and those who are unemployed—so that the poor will accept lower wages (they openly want minimum wage to be repealed), and less government oversight of industry especially in the area of environmental regulations. Their goal is to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) so that they can continue polluting the air, water, and destroying land by strip mining and removing all natural resources.
The Koch Brothers are listed among the top ten polluters on this planet and want schools to teach that global warming is a hoax (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/09/koch-brothers-global-warming-prop-23-climate-change.html and http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2010/03/18/koch-industries-multibillionaire-koch-brothers-bankroll-attacks-on-climate-change-science-and-policy/) hiring professor
Richard Muller,
Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project Chief Physicist Richard Muller
a longtime critic of government-led climate studies, and head of Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project. When the Koch Brothers thought they had sufficient “evidence” to stifle academic attacks on its polluting industries, they were surprised when Muller told Congress in the last week of March 2011, that those who claimed that climate warming was destroying the planet, were correct. Muller had previously noted that temperature data, gathered from from tens of thousands of weather stations across the globe, had “incomplete records,” which led to his initial skepticism.
The Koch Brothers bankroll the Tea Party movement (whose purpose is to disorganize and end labor unions at all levels), sustain climate change skepticism and fund right-wing “think tanks” (i.e. propaganda organs that are far from the truth in a manner identical to Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda or Propagandaministerium [The Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda] headed by Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels [Göbbels] who was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism. Goebbels believed books to be dangerous and was not fond of reading books other than those approved by The Family Leader (a title adopted by Iowa Nazi evangelist Bob Vander Plaats); hours after Hitler commited suicide, Goebbels and his wife, Magda Quandt their six young children and then committed suicide. Goebbels had numerous mistresses before his marriage to the Protestant pastor, Magda Quandt, in 1931. Although he was raised a Roman Catholic he easily adapted to his wife’s theological allegiance to Martin Luther who regularly attacked the Jews in sermons and pamphlets while encourage large estates and landlords and emerging entrepreneurs to do all in their power to stop peasants from organizing or leaving his church or bringing about unions from forming or growing (Wider die räuberischen und mörderischen Rotten der Bauern), including ordering civil leaders to illegal tradesmen from forming collectives).
Luther would later celebrate his book and champion the cruelty it contains by writing that he had to defend the ‘harshness’ that he used stating that “a revel is not worth rational arguments, for he does not accept them. You have to answer people like that with a fist, until the sweat drips off their noses” (Tappert, Theodore G. ed. (1967) Selected Writings of Martin Luther: 1523-1526. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, p. 361). In many ways Goebbels has been outmatched for lies by Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck (“commentators” strong and well-financed by the Koch Brothers whose father, like George H.W. Bush’s father and George W. Bush’s grandfather US Senator Preston Bush (R-CT) supported Hitler and sent funds to the Third Reich). In many ways the Ministry of Propaganda in Nazi Germany was equal to the Soviet Pravda [Truth]. What is little known is that the founding Koch industrialist got his start by helping Josef Stalin and his purge of dissidents: Fred Koch was the son of a Dutch printer who settled in Texas and ran a weekly newspaper. Later, Fred attended M.I.T., where he earned a degree in chemical engineering. (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer#ixzz1KHs9Qol3). Unable to succeed in the USA, Fred Koch turned to Soviet Russia, and found work in the Soviet Union, setting up his own company (Rock Island Oil & Refining).
Josef Stalin Communist boss of Fred Koch
Fully aware that Stalin was a communist, Fred Koch trained Bolshevik engineers and openly helped Stalin’s regime set up fifteen modern oil refineries. When Stalin brutally purged several of Koch’s Soviet colleagues, Koch return to the USA and began his own business. Fred Koch clearly remembered that the owner in the Soviet system had the right to get rid of those who served him if the owner was crossed or offended, while in the USA, because of a strong labor union consortium in Wisconsin, American workers could not be as easily discharged—this bothered the senior Koch who found a growing dislike for Wisconsin, a disdain that doubled rapidly when he learned that there were no less than five cities in Wisconsin with the same name: Union.
As the Soviets grew in power, Fred Koch switched allegiances and became an outspoken enemy of Soviet socialism (communism) and began to attack even the White House for being sympathetic to communism, his paranoia knowing no boundary. Ultimately, Fred Koch came out against the American civil-rights movement, and disparagingly wrote, “The colored man looms large in the Communist plan to take over America. Welfare, established by the nation, was “a vicious race war” and he predicted that Communists “would infiltrate the highest offices of government in the U.S. until the President is a Communist, unknown to the rest of us,” but hinted broadly that the Communist president would be a black man.
Seeping his stagnant sewage through the stagnant lives of Charles and David Koch, the Koch Brothers attacks continue to be focused on Blacks (in general), Black liberals (more specifically), and Black Democrats (attacked with a vengeance). To counter this threat of a Black Communist President of the USA, Fred Koch and his children would turn to the tactics successfully employed by Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini: they would establish propaganda podiums, propaganda mills, rewrite history and science textbooks and reissue all books that disagreed with them. Fred Koch delighted in Goebbels’ burning of books and sought that in the USA, arguing that it would take a state like Kansas to begin the book burning, but lamenting that such a democratic action would be more likely to happen in a backwater state such as Texas (http://videosift.com/video/Religious-Nuts-in-Texas-Seek-to-Ban-Book-Bbout-Book-Banning?loadcomm=1) or Iowa (self-styled pastors, such as Douglas Taylor of the Jesus Party in Lewiston, slashed “offending books” [Harry Potter] when Cedar Rapids would not give him a permit to burn it: http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/book-burnings-potter-tech-media_cz_ds_books06_1201burn.html; cp. http://childrensbooks.about.com/b/2004/07/16/iowa-book-burning-thwarted.htm). It happened in Kansas: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2010/0910/Florida-church-may-not-burn-Qurans-but-Kansas-church-says-it-will with copycat burnings in Wyoming and Tennessee (http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-09-10/news/27075015_1_korans-florida-religious-leader-mosque). The propaganda machinery established by the Koch Brothers includes such fascist organizations as the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the National Center for Policy Analysis. Since 2008 these pseudo-intellectual “think tanks” with predetermined agendas formatted by the Koch Brothers have waged war against Obama and what they perceive to be his socialist agenda, ignoring the true meaning (and rightful interpretation) of the word “fascism”. Fascism is a word that many no longer use, but as Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (1883-1945, Italian dictator) noted, “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” The government that the Koch Brothers and their Tea Party adherents want in the USA is a fascist government, where ignorance is bliss and few have any concept of their own history (for example, the original Tea Party, led by Samuel Adams and John Hancock with eighty other men, was to destroy the tea of the East India Tea Company that the Crown of England gave a corporate tax break and a monopoly to enrich itself off of the American colonies. Today’s USA Tea Party is the exact reverse of what John Adams and his “conspirators” were fighting against—for the Tea Party today wants increasing tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy. Cf. http://www.boston-tea-party.org/adams-orchestrated.html) Today the Koch Brothers own the governorships of Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, New Jersey, Florida (see: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/us/22koch.html?_r=2), and other states and cities by buying the elections. The Koch brothers have channeled money into state house and senate races to the least competent, most corrupt, and most eager to ensure that people do not report corporate abuses, as can be seen especially in Iowa and Wisconsin. To thank the Koch Brothers, Scott Walker of Florida had himself empowered to “…privatize any or all of these facilities at a whim…without taking bids, to anyone he chooses. And …any such sale would…be ‘considered to be in the public interest’,” which would only benefit the Koch Brothers (although they publicly denied that they were interested in the plants “since they were old and fully depreciated”; see: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/02/10080/koch-denies-interest-no-bid-deals-opens-new-lobby-shop). Interestingly, the legal rules for selling the public’s assets that this provision would effectively nullify appear to include those that: 1. require public bids; 2. reserve the right of the government to reject bids; 3. require that any property sold be subject to property taxes; 4. require that the fair market value of the property to be sold be publicly disclosed; 5. require at least 14 days for a public commission to review any proposed sale; and 6. require notification to the legislature in writing of the proposed sale. (Section 13.48(14).)
Far more devastating to the ecological equilibrium and economic well-being of Wisconsin is the reality that the Koch brothers’ financial interests that includes Koch Pipeline Company, which operates a pipeline system that crosses Wisconsin, part of the nearly 4,000 miles of pipelines owned or operated by the company would not be subject to the Governor’s whim who could award it to the Koch family. Furthermore, the Koch family owns Flint Hill Resources, which distributes refined fuel through pipelines and terminals in Junction City, Waupun, Madison and Milwaukee.
Wisconsin is not the only state slated for Koch slaughter. Arkansas is already feeling the bitterness of pollution that Koch Industries: its paper mill is violating the Clean Water Act by pumping out massive amounts of pollution into an Arkansas waterway, according to an EPA enforcement complaint filed by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Ouachita Riverkeeper.
The complaint alleges that a Georgia-Pacific paper mill on the Coffee Creek in Arkansas – owned by the billionaire Koch Brothers -emits 45 million gallons of paper mill waste including hazardous materials like ammonia, chloride, and mercury each day. Coffee Creek then flows into Louisiana’s Ouachita River where the pollutants have left the formerly pristine water speckled with odorous foam, slime and black pockets of water, said Jerry Johnson, who has been visiting the Ouachita River for 35 years.
Georgia-Pacific paper mill on Coffee Creek AR pollution exposed
(See: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20043531-10391695.html?asid=fb6f82d5)
Koch Industries (owned by the Koch family) owns the “C. Reiss Coal Company,” a power plant supply company located in Green Bay, Manitowoc, Ashland and Sheboygan (the company supplies coal to power plants) and all of this could pass from public hands to the Koch Empire that would outsource hundreds of long-stand jobs and thus put Wisconsin workers on soup-lines when jobs disappear and Koch profits escalate. Additional crimes against humanity include attacks upon the environment, pollution, lying, distortion of records, and bribery of government officials. The Koch Brother shrug off all references to their being in the top ten worst polluters in the world (http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/01/koch-polluter-bailout/ Bayer Group is the worse; see http://www.peri.umass.edu/toxic_index/). Koch imports oil from the Middle East, refines high-carbon Canadian crude, maintains coal-burning plants, owns one of the largest oil pipeline networks in America, runs environmentally hazardous lumber mills, produces toxic chemicals, and manufacturers fertilizer. Koch Industries has a fleet of lawyers to protect them from injured employees, and created a political machine geared towards ensuring that Koch Industries never has to compensate the people and ecosystems damaged by Koch Industries pollution. Koch front groups — from Tea Party groups, led by former GOP House Leader Dick Armey (whose own uncle wrote a book exposing the duplicity and corruption of his nephew) to think tanks — have diligently promoted in the identical manner as Goebbels’s Ministry of Propaganda. US Senator Bob Dole (R-KS), a personal friend of the Koch brothers and top recipient of Koch money, sponsored legislation to suppress an investigation into the oil thefts that were too numerous to count and all conducted by Koch operatives (http://www.businessweek.com/archives/1996/b3469090.arc.htm, David Koch was Dole’s 1996 campaign vice-chairman and contributed $245,000). During the 1990s, Koch Industries’ faulty pipelines were responsible for more than 300 oil spills in five states. This prompted a landmark penalty of $35 million from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which led to the first assaults on the EPA by the Koch Brothers and their allies. In Minnesota, Koch Industries were fined an additional $8 million for discharging oil into streams. During the months leading up to the 2000 presidential elections, the company faced even more liability, in the form of a 97-count federal indictment charging it with concealing illegal releases of 91 metric tons of benzene, a known carcinogen, from its refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas. If convicted, the company faced fines of up to $352 million, plus possible jail time for company executives including Charles and David Koch who openly attacked the EPA rulings and did nothing to hide their duplicity, lack of veracity or enhance their credibility, but relied on homespun Kansas arguments of the right to pursue personal happiness. To ensure that they had “their man” in the White House, the Koch family poured more than $800,000 into the election campaign chest of George W. Bush—a man who has at best a marginal education, addresses the titans of industry and mining as “my friends” and worked hard to lessen tax burdens on these friends, then bought votes in Florida, which the US Supreme Court upheld as lawful. After George W. Bush became president, the U.S. Justice Department dropped 88 of the 97 charges against Koch. Two days before the trial began on the remaining nine charges, John Ashcroft deep in debt to the Koch Brothers settled for a plea bargain. The bargain Ashcroft agreed to after “consulting” with GW Bush was written by Koch lawyers, and in the contrived bargain Koch Industries pled guilty to falsifying documents. All major charges were dropped, and Koch and Ashcroft settled the lawsuit for a fraction of that amount—which was paid without hesitation while “redundant” (or surplus) employees were discharged. To sweeten this deal Alex Beehler, who served as Bush’s director of environmental and regulatory affairs for the US Government and concurrently served at the Charles G. Koch Foundation as vice president for environmental projects, received his “just reward”. Beehler was later nominated and re-nominated by the Bush White House, to become the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Inspector General so that laws protecting the environment would be ignored and polluters let off with warnings or small fines. Those who benefited the most from Beehler’s appointment to the EPA post by George W. Bush were the Koch Brothers who found new ways to lay off workers, to ignore climate warming and environmental hazards, and to enrich their family beyond even that which was obscene for income by a single family: all at the expense of the Middle Class family and taxpayers who made less than $200,000 a year.
The Koch Brothers operate the largest outsourcing firms in the world (http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/25/opinion/la-oe-rutten-fiorina-koch-20100925). The Koch Brothers cut jobs in Wisconsin to get Scott Walker elected governor (http://wonkette.com/443635/koch-industries-forcing-employees-to-vote-for-teabaggers). They openly tell their employees for whom to vote (Tea Baggers; see: http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20110420/cm_thenation/160062 and http://www.thenation.com/article/160064/koch-industries-2010-election-packet), deny freedom of association (http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2011/04/koch-industries-says-that-koch-political-activities-are-motivated-by-considerations-of-corporate-profit/) or free speech (http://www.freespeech.org/category/tags/koch-brothers and http://www.freespeech.org/video/grittv-ed-pilkington-uncloaking-koch-brothers, cp. http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/01/liberal-activists-target-tea-party-koch-brothers/21291/), and counter every freedom written into the Constitution by having Scalia and Thomas declare that the Constitution must be interpreted using the same reasoning as when it was written over two hundred years ago. They have become like their father—and anarchist who sees no good in government and a dictator who would stifle all dissent. According to the US Supreme Court, in Cramer v. United States, treason is defined as “perversion by established authority to repress peaceful political opposition” (325 U. S. 1, 27 (1945) cf. http://www.constitution.org/cmt/jwh/jwh_treason_5.htm). ThinkProgress notes:
“In May, 2010, the National Academies of Science reported to Congress that “the U.S. should act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change” because global warming is “caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for — and in many cases is already affecting — a broad range of human and natural systems.”
“Many of the Senate candidates are signatories of the Koch Industries’ Americans For Prosperity No Climate Tax pledge and the FreedomWorks Contract From America. The second plank of the Contract From America is to “Reject Cap & Trade: Stop costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the nation’s global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures.”
Charles (left) and David (right) Koch
The treason of the Koch family is easily proven. It culminates with the Koch Brothers interference in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, and other states now controlled by the Tea Party, and with their controlling and bankrolling the Tea Party and similar groups the list of their crimes against humanity grows. The Koch Brothers should be tried for treason, and when found guilty Charles and David Koch should be executed (cp. http://whitehouser.com/politics/the-penalty-for-treason-is-death/).
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