THE FANSASIES OF THE KOCH BROTHERS…..

 

…The billionaires, Charles & David Koch

Charles Koch should be banned from writing articles for real newspapers.

 

Every once in a while, one or both of the Koch Brothers, Charles or David, do something that is not covered up by their normal family secrecy cloak.  For a company that Charles once said would become a public company, “Over my dead body!”, being sneaky comes as natural as their waking up every morning in their Wichita, Kansas mansions.

Now, for those of us that have been following the sneaky actions of the “Brother’s Grimm” for so many years, the potential deadly results that Charles had stated, (if Koch Industries were to ever go public), would only be wishful thinking on the part of most Americans.  Being that Charles is only 79 and David is 74, they still have a number of years to continue causing holy-havoc with their many billions of conservative dollars.  (By the way, the Koch Brothers combined net worth is well over $115 billion as of 2013.)  Therefore, you can understand why spending a few hundred million on campaigns against the Affordable Care Act or to support more restrictive voter registration regulations, that is just a drop in their proverbial over-sized bucket.

The reason for my bringing up these two misguided human missiles, is that occasionally, the elder brother takes “pen-in-hand” as he puts his concepts of what his and his brother’s purpose is, on this here world globe.  Usually, his inputs are just a list of bizarre claims as to how difficult it is for he and his brother to keep their businesses surviving under all the harsh corporate regulations that of course were established just to hamper their various business endeavors. 

 

You know, such as the regulations that would have protected average home owners from the major pollution leaks such as those of the Freedom Industries tanks last year in West Virginia.  This is just one of the many “not so reputable” companies that is “connected-at-the-hip” to the Koch Brothers main petroleum interests.

 



 

…The pollution caused by the Freedom Industries leak.

But I digress.

The reason for this article on these two brothers is that in the August 5^th edition of USA TODAY, they published an op-ed article penned by Mr. Charles Koch.

In his article, Mr. Koch gives us his vision for the same country that he feels exists, solely for the benefit of the nation’s largest corporations and for the wealthiest 1%.  In other words, for he and his brother. 

 

But what is so bizarre is that he claims that his agenda is not for his family’s companies, it’s for struggling American families……Oh, yeah, right!!!!!!!  Obviously, to say the op-ed is laughable is a very serious understatement.

So, okay, here is the first item that goes against most people’s normal reality.

Charles Koch actually has the gall in his article to quote Martin Luther King Jr. 

 

…The John Birch Society was founded in 1958.  An early picture of a chapter meeting in a member’s home.

The Center for Media & Democracy has shown that Charles Koch, as was his father, a member of the far-right John Birch Society, which strongly opposed racial equality and civil rights.  In addition, the Koch Brother’s various non-profit organizations have supported groups that push for voter suppression laws that make it harder for people of color to vote. The Koch’s also support the busting of labor unions, despite the fact that Dr. King was a very strong supporter of unions.  In fact, Dr. King was assassinated during a trip to Memphis for supporting a local sanitation workers' union strike.

Charles Koch stands against everything for which Dr. King stood.

Just as Charles says he is opening their Kimono as to what the Koch Industries sees for the future, Charles definitely doesn’t open it all the way.  In the article, Charles references some research from the Mercatus Center and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.  Of course, nowhere in his op-ed does he mention that both of these groups receive large amounts of financing from himself, his brother David, and their Koch Industries. No one knows how much because, as a private company, they are not required to publish those numbers. (Another reason they will never go public.)  But it must be a tidy sum as Charles Koch and the Koch Industries executive, Richard Fink, have permanent seats on the Mercatus's board of directors.  This think-tank has received millions from Koch resources over the years. The Koch fortune also heavily funds the Competitive Enterprise Institute.  However, to the average American, those organizations seem like independent sources to validate Kochs' misguided free-market arguments.  The truth is they validate Kochs' arguments because the Kochs' pay them to do so.

In many of the Koch’s past written comments, it is obvious that they are both against the American workers receiving a fair minimum wage.  They are not only against raising the minimum wage, they are against the concept of there even being a minimum wage.  This is despite the fact that research has shown raising the minimum wage would actually help the economy and alleviate poverty.  In addition, waging the minimum wage would bring many people out of poverty to where they would not have to rely on any social programs such as Food Stamps or unemployment insurance.  These are the exact items provided by the US government that the Koch Brothers are already totally against.

Charles then goes after the old homily of those, "costly programs that are paying able-bodied people not to work".  Of course, Charles totally ignores the reality that, “Over 90% of those Americans receiving what he calls ‘entitlements’ are either elderly, disabled, or members of full-time working households.”  In addition, if he’s referring to Social Security and Unemployment Insurance, those are programs that those that receive those payments were paid into from many years of hard work.  Being that Charles and his brother inherited all of their billions, they have no clue about what it’s like to actually work for a living or to earn Social Security.

Charles, who as I said, inherited all his billions, he actually had the cojones to say, "Most Americans understand that taking a job and sticking with it, no matter how unpleasant or low-paying, is a vital step toward the American dream."  This “pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps” story from someone like Charles is totally ridiculous. First, a person has to actually have some “bootstraps”, and the reality is that anyone in that low-paying, unpleasant job today has even less of a chance today of making it into the middle class. 

 

Due to the agenda that Charles Koch has pushed on this country over the last forty years, his agenda rewards big corporations that pay low wages, ship jobs overseas, and pollute the planet. His agenda limits workers' ability to collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions. His agenda also rewards the richest and wealthiest with big tax breaks because they are the so called the, "job creators".  The people who actually earn and spend money to make the economy run are those usually left with higher bills for healthcare, college tuition, food, energy, and housing.

As usual, the op-ed by Charles Koch is more of a visit to Disney’s Fantasy Land than it is a testament to an agenda for the average working American.

I sometimes wonder what kind of workers the Koch Brothers would have been, had they have had to actually have worked for a living.

Nah, too hard to even visualize. 

I’ll stick with the vision of the two small Koch children, running around with Silver Spoons sticking out of their……..?

Copyright G.Ater  2014