Social David Koch passes

[SBJJ]

The Alt-Right will be quietly celebrating, they hate the Koch brothers.

I probably disagree with the Koch bros on a few big issues more than anyone. But I do not hate them

 

[Islam Imamate]

79 is a ripe old age, not a bad run. I wonder how Charles is feeling. I have heard those two had a serious falling out with the other two Koch brothers, I wonder how they feel about this.

 

[Islam Imamate]

Now maybe if we could get rich people to experience being poor they might try to do something about that.

Reminds me of that Bill Maher bit about how Republicans only care about issues when they personally affect them. I guess that wouldn't apply to Koch if he funded cancer research before getting it himself.

 

[trac209]

Never heard of him

Me either

 

[VivaRevolution]

In before the leftists on this forum actively celebrate his death....

Made it through the first page without seeing this.

I bet when Soros dies the right won't make it through the front page without being low class.

 

[VivaRevolution]

i was poor and from a poor family. it fucking sucked. i took steps to better myself. life is good. fuck you if you can't succeed with so much support out there

Is that because you figured out the big lie, that hard work and knowledge are shit substitutes for networking?

 

[Higus]

Some excerpts from ''Dark Money'' by Jane Mayer. It shows how a net of wealthy individuals swayed public opinion in America by pervasively funding self-serving and hypocritical ''libertarian'' propaganda, a few decades (and a shit-ton of money) later and their talking points have become mantra among all strata of society.

''Koch claimed there was no need for government policing because corporations’ concern for their reputations would cause them to self-regulate [...] But as allegations concerning pollution mounted nationally, federal prosecutors began to piece together an enormous case against the company for violating the Clean Water Act. In 1995, the Justice Department sued Koch for lying about leaking millions of gallons of oil from its pipelines and storage facilities in six different states. Federal investigators documented over three hundred oil spills during the previous five years, including one 100,000-gallon crude oil spill that left a twelve-mile-long slick in the bay off Corpus Christi, not far from where the Koch refinery was located...In 2012, the Environmental Protection Agency’s database revealed Koch Industries to be the number one producer of toxic waste in the country. Producing 950 million pounds of toxic waste, it topped the list of 8,000 companies required by law to account for their handling of 650 toxic and carcinogenic chemicals spun off by industrial processes...''

''What he discovered was that from 2005 to 2008, a single source, the Kochs, poured almost $25 million into dozens of different organizations fighting climate reform. The sum was staggering. His research showed that Charles and David had outspent what was then the world’s largest public oil company, ExxonMobil, by a factor of three.''

''By creating “Carlton” as a decoy, the Kochs and their allies evidently hoped to convince the public that government action on climate change posed a threat to “people like you” or ordinary Americans’ pocketbooks. But it of course posed a far greater threat to their own. With ownership of refineries, pipelines, a coal subsidiary (the C. Reiss Coal Company), coal-fired power plants, fertilizer, petroleum coke manufacturing, timber, and leases on over a million acres of untapped Canadian oil sands, Koch Industries alone routinely released some 24 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere a year. Any financial penalty that the government placed on carbon pollution would threaten both their immediate profit margins and the long-term value of the enormous investments they had in still-untapped fossil fuel reserves.''

''During the next three decades, they contributed well over $100 million, much of it undisclosed, to dozens of seemingly independent organizations aimed at advancing their radical ideas. Their front groups demonized the American government, casting it as the enemy rather than the democratic representative of its citizens. They defined liberty as its absence, and the unfettered accumulation of enormous private wealth as America’s purpose. Cumulatively, the many-tentacled ideological machine they built came to be known as the Kochtopus [...] their quest to remake America along the lines of their beliefs, their ideas were, if anything, considered marginal. They challenged the widely accepted post–World War II consensus that an activist government was a force for public good. Instead, they argued for “limited government,” drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry, particularly in the environmental arena. They said they were driven by principle, but their positions dovetailed seamlessly with their personal financial interests.''

''In all, the Bush energy act contained some $6 billion in oil and gas subsidies and $9 billion in coal subsidies. The Kochs routinely cast themselves as libertarians who deplored government taxes, regulations, and subsidies, but records show they took full advantage of the special tax credits and subsidies available to the oil, ethanol, and pipeline business, among other areas of commerce in which they were engaged. In many cases, their lobbyists fought hard to protect these perks.''

''As The Washington Post’s Dan Balz observed, “When W. Clement Stone, an insurance magnate and philanthropist, gave $2 million to Richard M. Nixon’s 1972 campaign, it caused public outrage and contributed to a movement that produced the post-Watergate reforms in campaign financing.” Accounting for inflation, Balz estimated that Stone’s $2 million might be worth about $11 million in today’s dollars. In contrast, for the 2016 election, the political war chest accumulated by the Kochs and their small circle of friends was projected to be $889 million, completely dwarfing the scale of money that was considered deeply corrupt during the Watergate days.''

''Once elected, Reagan embraced the Heritage Foundation’s [bankrolled by the Kochs] phone-book-sized policy playbook, Mandate for Leadership, and distributed a copy of it to every member of Congress. His administration soon delivered an impressive number of items on its wish list. Heritage had laid out 1,270 specific policy proposals. According to Feulner, the Reagan administration adopted 61 percent of them [...] Between 1981 and 1986, the top income tax rate was cut from 70 percent to 28 percent. Meanwhile, taxes on the bottom four-fifths of earners rose. Economic inequality, which had flatlined, began to climb.''

''The school [Freedom School funded by Charles Koch] taught a revisionist version of American history in which the robber barons were heroes, not villains, and the Gilded Age was the country’s golden era. Taxes were denigrated as a form of theft, and the Progressive movement, Roosevelt’s New Deal, and Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, in the school’s view, were ruinous turns toward socialism. The weak and poor, the school taught, should be cared for by private charity, not government. The school had a revisionist position on the Civil War, too. It shouldn’t have been fought; instead, the South should have been allowed to secede. Slavery was a lesser evil than military conscription, the school argued, because human beings should be allowed to sell themselves into slavery if they wished.''

That book is interesting. You should put the parts in there about how Fred Koch made his fortune from providing energy to both Stalin AND Hitler. Insanely enough, it just keeps getting worse from there.

I’ve heard Democracy in Chains is another good read about them

 

[hillelslovak87]

Me either

Him and his brother are chemical company billionaires who have branched out into meddling in the democratic process, filling the coffers of numerous US representatives, while fighting to put money into our political system even more, which they succeeded in.

 

[all caps]

Him and his brother are chemical company billionaires who have branched out into meddling in the democratic process, filling the coffers of numerous US representatives, while fighting to put money into our political system even more, which they succeeded in.

What do you mean by chemical companies. Like pharmaceuticals, gas and oil? All of the above?

 

[forum poster]

In before the leftists on this forum actively celebrate his death....

I thought this could be a uniting bi partisan celebration of his death considering he was a huge pusher of open borders.

 

[hillelslovak87]

What do you mean by chemical companies. Like pharmaceuticals, gas and oil? All of the above?

 

[Oeshon]

i don't get why people get upset about talking shit when people die. you are happy to do it when they alive, so what changes when they die?

better him than me

 

[hillelslovak87]

i don't get why people get upset about talking shit when people die. you are happy to do it when they alive, so what changes when they die?

better him than me

I remember Christopher Hitchens was asked that question after the piece of shit Jerry Falwell died. He said that he spoke ill of him when he was alive, and would keep doing so because of the harm the man caused across the world, and the hate he spread. He summed Falwell up by saying "If Jerry Falwell could have gotten an enema before dying, he could have been buried in a matchbox."

Savage, and uncompromising.

 

[forum poster]

 

[trac209]

Him and his brother are chemical company billionaires who have branched out into meddling in the democratic process, filling the coffers of numerous US representatives, while fighting to put money into our political system even more, which they succeeded in.

So in other words wgaf if he died

 

[hillelslovak87]

So in other words wgaf if he died

Or take his life into account when assessing his death, like an adult.

 

[Ruprecht]

Him and his brother are chemical company billionaires who have branched out into meddling in the democratic process, filling the coffers of numerous US representatives, while fighting to put money into our political system even more, which they succeeded in.

Their spending hasn't been limited to the US.

 

[trident]

Never heard of him

He is in Epsteins phone book

 

[Mr Holmes]

 

[SBJJ]

Made it through the first page without seeing this.

I bet when Soros dies the right won't make it through the front page without being low class.

You have 10 posts per page? Lol

The RBG is sick thread is pure class compared to this thread