Oct 7, 2018
The information that I am going to post will be based on the 2016 book by Jane Mayer titled Dark Money. I will try to do my best to state the history as presented in the book as well as inject my own unbiased opinion. Okay, my opinion is not exactly unbiased but I will try to keep to a historical account. In 2018 we find that America is living in a age of profound economic inequality. The rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Agencies that were established to help address the needs of the people have been under attack and the question arises why. The uprising against big government has been lead by a broad based conservative movement. A network of extremely wealthy people with extreme libertarian ideas have bankrolled a systematic plan to alter the American system. The network was made up of some of the riches people on the planet. Their core belief that taxes are a form of tyranny. That government oversight of business is an assault on freedom and they need to oppose that anyway possible. The chief figures in the network are Charles and David Koch. What started out as the John Birch Society ended up with an alliance (ownership) of the Republican Party. The control they now have include on a federal level: The House, Senate, and White House and are pushing for the Supreme Court. The idea that the rich need to pay their fair share of taxes is completely denied. They want the government to support them and the best way to do so is remove all government oversight. This means a removal of the Environmental Protection Agency, Consumer Protection Agency, public schools, any request for equal or fair wages, federal protection of Unions, and on and on. Big money has funded a network of Charitable Organizations with such innocent names as American for Prosperity, or the Tea Party, and numerous think tanks. These are the people who are behind the new American oligarchy. We are no longer a nation that is by and for the individual but have become a country that is run by and for the corporate state.
How did they do it? Back in the 30's, Daddy Koch made his first big money helping the Soviets find oil and they showed them how to refine what they had. After hitting 4 wells, he moved on to Germany just after Adolph had been named Chancellor. Daddy Koch (Fred Chase Koch) requested a meeting with Hitler where he convinced him to convert an existing oil storage facility in Hamburg into a oil refinery. It was here that Hitler made everything from the poison that killed millions of Jews to jet fuel. Because he became illegal for American to do business with Nazi Germany, he returned home to Oklahoma. War was coming to America and his fear was that he would have to pay taxes on the money he made from Stalin and Hitler. When war did break out, it was said that he tried to enlist but instead the government directed him to use his chemical engineering to help refine high-octane fuel for American warplanes. Meanwhile, the Hamburg refinery that Winkler-Koch built became an important target for American bombing raids. It was not destroyed until June 18, 1944. In 1958 Daddy Koch become one of eleven original members of the John Birch Society. This was an arch conservative group best known for spreading conspiracy theories about secret Communist plots. The head of that group was the candy manufacturer Robert Welch in Indianapolis. It drew like minded businessmen from across America. Their views support segregation and agitated to impeach Chief Justice Earl Warren after the Supreme Court voted to desegregate public schools. "The colored man looms large in the Communist plan to take over America" was a common call for the JBS. Koch subsidized the distribution of 2.5 million copies their books and speaking tours across America. These guys were not the KKK but were not far from it either.
Another fringe group called the Freedom School that was run by Robert LeFevre offered a two week immersion course in the philosophy of freedom and free enterprise. John Welch and Fred C Koch both attended. LeFevre liked to say that "government is a disease masquerading as it own cure". This group believed that the New Deal was a horrible mistake. He would lead rallies and worked audiences into frenzies chanted in response to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt's names, "Annihilate them!" Daddy Koch became a trustee on the Board and funded the school. The school taught a revisionist version of American history in which the robber barons were heroes, not villains and the Guilded Age was the country's greatest golden age. Taxes were seen as theft and programs such as the New Deal or Johnson's War on Poverty were seen as ruinous turns toward socialism. The weak and the poor, the school taught should be cared for by private charity not government. The school had a revisionist position on the civil war. It shouldn't have been fought. Instead the South should have allowed to succeed. Slavery was an lesser evil than military conscription. Daddy Koch grew old and of the 4 boys, Charles took the company's helm, acquired the majority share in the Koch refinery. The Pine Bend refinery was buying cheap "garbage" crude oil from Canada. The profit margins on these tar sands was significant. The profit margin was superior to that of most other refineries. Everything was fine until the EPA came along during the Nixon years.
To be continued. But please feel free to state your opinion.
The information that I am going to post will be based on the 2016 book by Jane Mayer titled Dark Money. I will try to do my best to state the history as presented in the book as well as inject my own unbiased opinion. Okay, my opinion is not exactly unbiased but I will try to keep to a historical account. In 2018 we find that America is living in a age of profound economic inequality. The rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Agencies that were established to help address the needs of the people have been under attack and the question arises why. The uprising against big government has been lead by a broad based conservative movement. A network of extremely wealthy people with extreme libertarian ideas have bankrolled a systematic plan to alter the American system. The network was made up of some of the riches people on the planet. Their core belief that taxes are a form of tyranny. That government oversight of business is an assault on freedom and they need to oppose that anyway possible. The chief figures in the network are Charles and David Koch. What started out as the John Birch Society ended up with an alliance (ownership) of the Republican Party. The control they now have include on a federal level: The House, Senate, and White House and are pushing for the Supreme Court. The idea that the rich need to pay their fair share of taxes is completely denied. They want the government to support them and the best way to do so is remove all government oversight. This means a removal of the Environmental Protection Agency, Consumer Protection Agency, public schools, any request for equal or fair wages, federal protection of Unions, and on and on. Big money has funded a network of Charitable Organizations with such innocent names as American for Prosperity, or the Tea Party, and numerous think tanks. These are the people who are behind the new American oligarchy. We are no longer a nation that is by and for the individual but have become a country that is run by and for the corporate state.
How did they do it? Back in the 30's, Daddy Koch made his first big money helping the Soviets find oil and they showed them how to refine what they had. After hitting 4 wells, he moved on to Germany just after Adolph had been named Chancellor. Daddy Koch (Fred Chase Koch) requested a meeting with Hitler where he convinced him to convert an existing oil storage facility in Hamburg into a oil refinery. It was here that Hitler made everything from the poison that killed millions of Jews to jet fuel. Because he became illegal for American to do business with Nazi Germany, he returned home to Oklahoma. War was coming to America and his fear was that he would have to pay taxes on the money he made from Stalin and Hitler. When war did break out, it was said that he tried to enlist but instead the government directed him to use his chemical engineering to help refine high-octane fuel for American warplanes. Meanwhile, the Hamburg refinery that Winkler-Koch built became an important target for American bombing raids. It was not destroyed until June 18, 1944. In 1958 Daddy Koch become one of eleven original members of the John Birch Society. This was an arch conservative group best known for spreading conspiracy theories about secret Communist plots. The head of that group was the candy manufacturer Robert Welch in Indianapolis. It drew like minded businessmen from across America. Their views support segregation and agitated to impeach Chief Justice Earl Warren after the Supreme Court voted to desegregate public schools. "The colored man looms large in the Communist plan to take over America" was a common call for the JBS. Koch subsidized the distribution of 2.5 million copies their books and speaking tours across America. These guys were not the KKK but were not far from it either.
Another fringe group called the Freedom School that was run by Robert LeFevre offered a two week immersion course in the philosophy of freedom and free enterprise. John Welch and Fred C Koch both attended. LeFevre liked to say that "government is a disease masquerading as it own cure". This group believed that the New Deal was a horrible mistake. He would lead rallies and worked audiences into frenzies chanted in response to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt's names, "Annihilate them!" Daddy Koch became a trustee on the Board and funded the school. The school taught a revisionist version of American history in which the robber barons were heroes, not villains and the Guilded Age was the country's greatest golden age. Taxes were seen as theft and programs such as the New Deal or Johnson's War on Poverty were seen as ruinous turns toward socialism. The weak and the poor, the school taught should be cared for by private charity not government. The school had a revisionist position on the civil war. It shouldn't have been fought. Instead the South should have allowed to succeed. Slavery was an lesser evil than military conscription. Daddy Koch grew old and of the 4 boys, Charles took the company's helm, acquired the majority share in the Koch refinery. The Pine Bend refinery was buying cheap "garbage" crude oil from Canada. The profit margins on these tar sands was significant. The profit margin was superior to that of most other refineries. Everything was fine until the EPA came along during the Nixon years.
To be continued. But please feel free to state your opinion.
