YouTube- Billionaires Charles & David Koch Give $100 Million to Right-Wing Causes - Democracy NOW!
Covert Operations
The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.
by Jane Mayer
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...0fa_fact_mayer
Is that any different from billionaires waging a war against Bush?
George Soros anyone?
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...-8-ranting.jpg
welcome to politics
I'm not a fan of either party. They're essentially separate wings of the same party. The business party.Quote:
Originally Posted by JerseyMike
What the Koch brothers are attempting to do and doing very well (and even George Soros does this too) is trying to undercut democracy. Now, look, some people don't believe in democracy. If you're running a Fortune 500 company you loathe democracy and want it to fail. For the simple reason: democracy is bad for business.
And businesses are very RATIONAL entities. They're trying to maximize profits. (They're what's called: rational wealth maximizers.) And to maximize shareholder return ya gotta beat down democracy. Democracy is a threat to rational self interest. That's understandable.
Rational self-interest and democracy need not be separate entities. An issues arises when there aren't sufficient safeguards to protect individuals against tyranny of the majority.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben
Agreed. I would only add that issues arise when there aren't sufficient safeguards to protect individuals against the tyranny of the majority, or the tyranny of the rich and powerful, or the tyranny of the supremely self-interested.Quote:
Rational self-interest and democracy need not be separate entities. An issues arises when there aren't sufficient safeguards to protect individuals against tyranny of the majority.
RRRight...The Saudi Billionaires? The American Petroleum Billionaires? Or the KBR/Halliburton BILLIONAIRES?Attachment 339377Quote:
Originally Posted by JerseyMike
I wish all of these corporate people would stay out of politics. Sorros and Koch brothers.
i have always hated democracy, but iam an old fascist
It certainly isn't fair when the few control the many. And likewise it isn't fair when the many control the few. So, what's the solution, the answer???????Quote:
Originally Posted by trish
Milton Friedman on equality -- and liberty...
YouTube- Liberty and Equality?
And on the left Noam Chomsky:
YouTube- Noam Chomsky: Prospects for Democracy Part 3 - Adam Smith, Corporate Personhood (1994)
Published on Wednesday, September 8, 2010 by Creators.com Two Multibillionaire Brothers Are Remaking America for Their Own Benefit
by Jim Hightower
There's a difference between being paranoid and being suspicious. Paranoia is mental disturbance; suspicion is a rational deduction.For example, if you suspect that America's economy, politics, government, media, judiciary and practically every other system has been wired to favor corporate interests over every other interest in our country, you're deducing, not hallucinating. From the infamous Wall Street bailout to the Supreme Court's shameful decree that corporations have more political rights than humans, we see again and again that corporate might overwhelms what's right.
This is not by accident, but by the deliberate, relentless efforts of corporatists to bend our nation's institutions to their will. Take one huge corporation you've probably never heard of, even though your consumer dollars are financing its right-wing agenda.
Do you buy Northern tissue, Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups or Vanity Fair napkins? These well-known brands are owned and produced by Koch Industries (pronounced "coke") in Wichita, Kan. Koch is also a major producer of oil, gas, timber, coal, cattle, refined petroleum, asphalt, polyethylene plastic ... and much, much more.
Charles and David Koch, who control this family-owned empire, have a net worth of $14 billion each, ranking both in a tie for the 19th richest person on the planet. They boast of being "self-made" billionaires, though they had a little help from Daddy. Fred Koch started this namesake business, and his sons got a leg up on their climb to billionairedom by inheriting Fred's company. They also inherited something else: a burning ideological commitment to right-wing politics (Daddy Fred helped found the John Birch Society).
Charles and David have used the wealth they draw from Koch Industries to fuel a network of three Koch Family Foundations, which have set up and financed a secretive army of political operatives dedicated to achieving the brothers' antigovernment, corporate-controlled vision for America.
This force includes national and state-level think tanks, Astroturf front groups, academic shills, university centers, political-training programs, fundraising clearinghouses, publications, lobbyists and various other units useful to their ideological cause. They spend freely on dozens of ideologically grounded right-wing groups to influence schoolteachers and high-school curricula, state and federal judges, lawyers and legal scholars, conservative policy thinkers and media producers, city-council candidates and local party activists.
Their aim is to shove the country's national debate to the hard right, discombobulate the public's progressive wishes, and alter government policies to advance corporate interests generally and the Kochs' own interests specifically.
Americans for Prosperity, the third-largest recipient of Koch foundation largesse, is the brothers' overtly political unit. Essentially, it is a front group for mass-producing front groups. Much like McDonald's churns out Big Mac franchises, AFP can pop out a grass-rootsy-looking, cookie-cutter political operation on demand. Its menu includes such garnishes as hoked-up studies, alarmist talking points, deceptive attack ads, divisive hate messages, celebrity and religious endorsers, and a menagerie of media stunts.
Consider the "tea bag" rebellion. No one professes more hatred for the two-party, business-as-usual political system in Washington than those angry Americans who're caught up in the tea-bag rallies. Yet unbeknownst to most of the mad-as-hellers who have showed up, it was AFP's Republican-tied lobbyists and political functionaries who cynically financed, organized and orchestrated the very first tea-bag protest. AFP has steadily co-opted the tea-bag faction to make it a front for the corporate agenda, and many of the tea-bag groups have devolved into subsidiaries of the Republican Party.
Indeed, AFP has become the Astroturf-to-Go Store, fabricating and spreading fake grass-roots organizations all across the country, including Patients United Now (anti-health care reform), Hot Air Tour (anti-global warming), Free Our Energy (pro-offshore drilling), No Stimulus (tried to kill Obama's economic recovery plan) and Save My Ballot Tour (tries to keep workers from joining unions).
It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you - and they are! While such corporate elites as the Kochs are a tiny minority of Americans, they are able to hide their own selfish agenda behind front groups, surreptitiously skewing our public debate, agenda and policies to serve themselves. Ultimately, what they are out to get is nothing less than America's essential uniting ethic of the common good, replacing our democracy with their corporate kleptocracy.
© 2010 Creators.com
National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the book, Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow, Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Silcc69
I wish the politicians would stay out of business, namely taxing and regulating it to death. That might save a few jobs.
Exactly. Let's have a fully free market. No taxes. No state intervention. None.Quote:
Originally Posted by PomonaCA
A free market means: no state intervention. No public roads. All roads should be private. A private police force. Let's not hold back. Let's not be hypocrites.
We have to fully engage ourselves in the free market. No public firefighters. This, too, needs to be private. The markets will only -- and should -- serve the people with market power. Market power is crucial. If ya don't have inordinate market power, well, tough. A private unregulated mass market will serve the interests of people....
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben
Now you're exaggerating. That means that your ideas, absent exaggerated emotion, are empty. You can't compete on ideas so instead you compete on emotions.
Yes.... I'm completely exaggerating.... Because I'm exasperated by some of these free marketeers.Quote:
Originally Posted by PomonaCA
I mean, some so-called free marketeers support a private police force. I think that's insane.
I think, too, firefighters NEED to be public. Police, too. Again, there are some who say we should privatize everything. I mean, well, if you support that I guess there isn't anything I can say/write to deter you from that thinking. (They say that the level of care would go up. Because of private ownership. Ya know, if you own a car, well, ya care about that car. Same with a house. That then is an argument for slavery. If you own someone you are going to care about them. So let's bring back slavery.
It means private ownership over a person brings up the level of concern about that "property" ownership. Therefore you'll care about them.)
"Completely exaggerating" is another play on emotions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben
See, you can't make a point without misrepresenting the other guys point. That's why you exaggerate.
Isn't this also an exaggerated and extreme way of characterizing U.S. tax policy and U.S. regulatory policy?Quote:
I wish the politicians would stay out of business, namely taxing and regulating it to death. That might save a few jobs.
Our taxes are so low (compared to the rest of the western democracies) we don't have enough revenue to maintain our infrastructure. Our regulatory system (policy and enforcement) are so poor we can barely stabilize our economy or keep our food disease free. Meanwhile Tea-Partiers hold sign's that say, "GET YOUR GOVERNMENT HANDS OFF MY MEDICARE." Ben's example of slavery is an excellent demonstration that the people (as a government) have an interest and a moral obligation to regulate commerce.
wow, making it up as we go along there Trish?Quote:
Originally Posted by trish
Actually, the average and top corporate combined tax rates for corporations in the US are higher than those for ANY nation in the entire friggin world except Japan, and their TOP rate is 40% and in the US it is combined 51%. And no i'm not gonna cite it for you, Google national corporate tax rates.
As for the concerns about food-borne illness, most of it is due to poor preparation. Perhaps we need to pay someone from the FDA to work each fast food slop shop at about $100,000 a pop to reduce this incidence of people having to hustle to the can. Of course, that would up the cost of those 79 cent burritos you and yer pals like to scarf down at Taco Hell.
And as for the poor underfunded regulatory agencies, maybe they would get more work done if they weren't spending most of their time surfing porn sites. By the way Trish, you dun work at the SEC do ya? Just sayin
SEC Porn Problem: Officials Surfing Sites During Financial Crisis, Report Finds
SEC Employees Exposed Downloading, Uploading Pornography at Work
The Securities and Exchange Commission is the sheriff of the financial industry, looking for crimes such as Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme, but a new government report obtained by ABC News has concluded that some senior employees spent hours on the agency's computers looking at sites such as naughty.com, skankwire and youporn as the financial crisis was unfolding.
Report exposes financial regulators surfing for porn on government time.
"These guys in the middle of a financial crisis are spending their time looking at prurient material on the Internet," said Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland and former director of the Office of Economics at the U.S. International Trade Commission.
"It's reckless, and indicates a contempt for the taxpayer and the taxpayer's interest in monitoring financial markets," Morici said.
The investigation, which was conducted by the SEC's internal watchdog at the request of Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, found 31 serious offenders during the past two and a half years. That's less than 1 percent of the agency's 3,500 employees but 17 of the alleged offenders were senior SEC officers whose salaries ranged from $100,000 to $222,000 per year.
Related
The SEC would not comment on any specific cases, but said it takes inappropriate use of government resources seriously and deals with abuses on a case-by-case basis.
Some of the big offenders are still on the job, according to sources.
Eight Hours a Day Spent on Porn Sites
One senior attorney at SEC headquarters in Washington spent up to eight hours a day accessing Internet porn, according to the report, which has yet to be released. When he filled all the space on his government computer with pornographic images, he downloaded more to CDs and DVDs that accumulated in boxes in his offices.
An SEC accountant attempted to access porn websites 1,800 times in a two-week period and had 600 pornographic images on her computer hard drive.
Another SEC accountant used his SEC-issued computer to upload his own sexually explicit videos onto porn websites he joined.
And another SEC accountant attempted to access porn sites 16,000 times in a single month.
In one case, the report noted, an employee tried hundreds of times to access pornographic sites and was denied access. When he used a flash drive, he successfully bypassed the filter to visit a "significant number" of porn sites.
The employee also said he deliberately disabled a filter in Google to access inappropriate sites. After management informed him that he would lose his job, the employee resigned.
so...we're actually expected to believe that highly paid employees of a top security agency, like SEC is, are so stupid that they think they can access porn sites thru their work computer without being monitored?
please, i'm insulted by whoever came up with this bogus report
well gee, if you can actually read it's right there in the report, as reported by among others National Public Radio, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, ABC News and others.
and judging by yer pic i seriously doubt this is the first time you've been insulted
I think the problem with such stories, is that a few bad people does not mean everyone, or even a large number of other people were doing it. People get fired from jobs everyday, in every industry. Some police take bribes, some teachers have sex with their students. But the overall functioning of police and education, has little to do with these incidents.Quote:
Originally Posted by Amsterdamage
However, I admit that the 16,000 times in one month, looks a little suspicious. That would be like 800 times a day at 5 days, times 4 weeks.
Who's Defending The Billionaire Brothers Buying Our Democracy?
Who's Defending The Billionaire Brothers Buying Our Democracy? - YouTube
Giving to the arts, is good. Undermining democracy is not. The real job for the government is to benefit the most people, and to promote the common good. When you have people with an too much influence, subverts the process.
The post-modern deconstruction of the First Amendment is well underway. Money is speech. (Voting is not, since it's perfectly fine to suppress the vote).
http://nyti.ms/1pQzTFN
http://nyti.ms/1fwnYLU
http://nyti.ms/1fwqnGu
Those Damn Coke Bros got a ton of my cash,........
I'm selling my vote on eBay. Is that legal? (call me, Koch bros)
Obama is sometimes mistaken for the BOSS of the country, he is actually a civil servant, and is constrained by his job description.
When it comes to two people haggling over the price of a brand new Chevy, Obama can't take sides.
Obama can ask Americans to be good citizens, but the Koch brothers can make people do absolutely anything for money.
It's kind of good "The Brothaz" spend their dirty money here. They could take their 100 million to Haiti and practically own the whole government.
Some of our Wall Street Tycoons make Putin look like Pollyanna. That's got to make you Proud to be an American. Admit it.
Haiti is still recovering from the 2010 earthquake. They could use one tenth of a Koch billion.
For the Koch brothers -- who've a combined net worth of roughly 80 billion bucks -- to pursue their self interest harms our democracy. If we even have one. Plutocracy, now, is the more apt word.Quote:
Originally Posted by NYBURBS
But when you concentrate wealth, you concentrate power. So, them pursuing their own interests -- and thus controlling our government, our politicians -- renders democracy a farce.
And: the few controlling the many is wrong... and the many controlling the few is wrong. So, what's the solution???
www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6H2IwFj5aY
The Kochs would be frightened of the new finance minister of Greece...
"We are going to destroy the Greek oligarchy system"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJP1Ysx47fo
Umm, at this point I'm not sure anything scares the Kochs. They've worked within the current system to affect laws and Supreme Court judgements to the point where they can amass almost a billion dollars to affect the next race for President. Throughout this effort they haven't been touched. Not by the state. Not by the political opposition. Not by a spurned candidate or group on there own side. Not by rabble with pitchforks, torches and shotguns who hate what they're doing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben
They're doing their thing within a nation of sheep and no one seems capable of standing up to them, much less stopping them.
The only one I see who might have the will to face the Kochs, though not the capability, is Bernie Sanders. But alas, not only does he look like Yitzhak Rabin, he would probably share the same fate if he got anywhere close to gaining that capability.
Baaaa... baaaa...Quote:
Originally Posted by Odelay
Thanks to Citizens United (what a lovely name)
it's comes down to "My Baaaaazilionaire bigger than your baaaaazillionaire."
Democratic Donor Tom Steyer was the largest individual donor in 2014
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/0...or-103617.html
Steyer poured over $74 million into the 2014 midterm elections
http://www.forbes.com/sites/katiasav...-the-election/
The headline is a bit of a misnomer. It should read Tom Steyer Was The Largest Donor of Disclosed Political Contributions in 2014.
So you have no issue with Steyer giving $74 million, but when the Kochs do it, they're buying elections?Quote:
Originally Posted by trish
Our country is going to shitter because people are too stuck in their own parties, without realizing the "two" main parties are really the one and same.
We don't know who was the largest individual donor in 1914, only the individual donor who disclosed the largest sum (this was my only point in post#39_a simple fact for which you downthumbed me). Neither the Kochs nor Steyer, as far as we know, are breaking the law. I do have an issue with the Supreme Court decision on Citizen's United (which I think my post #35 made clear enough) and with Congress's foot dragging on campaign finance reform. I don't believe the law should allow individuals to contribute those sums of money to political campaigns. Do I have an issue with anyone being allowed to spend that much money on a political campaign? Yes. But it's neither an issue I have with the Koch brothers nor Mr. Steyer. It's an issue I have with the Supreme Court and the Congress. Do I have an issue with the Kochs? Yes, a number of issues; but they are all political. I can hardly fault them for taking advantage of their wealth and a lax set of laws that do indeed advantage the wealthy.