Progressives To ‘Uncloak’ Secret Financers Behind The Tea Party ('Uncloaking The Kochs' Event)

[Hissyspit]

Source: Raw Story / Common Cause

Progressives to ‘uncloak’ the secret financers behind the Tea party

By Nathan Diebenow
Sunday, January 16th, 2011 -- 8:35 pm

Progressive and liberal activists are planning at the end of the month to confront the secretive billionaire family that finances the so-called Tea party movement and a host of other right-wing causes and institutions.

- snip -

The Sunday, Jan. 30 event thrown by Common Cause, a nonpartisan, grassroots organization, aims to educate attendees in California on the Koch brothers who will be strategizing nearby with their mega-wealthy allies to win the 2012 elections. Afterwards, activists will rally in Rancho Mirage.

"We can't sit back while a few billionaires destroy the fragile fabric of democracy and the protections that are so necessary for the health of our society," Jodie Evans of CodePink told Alternet. "It is time for the progressive community to gather together and say no more, and what better place than where the Koch brothers are plotting their next moves."

- snip -

Among the top recipients of Koch funding are Americans for Prosperity, the Heritage Foundation, and the Cato Institute, which was co-founded by Charles Koch in 1977. Lesser amounts have gone to such groups as Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform and the Capital Research Center, which has been the primary source of ACORN-related conspiracy theories.

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/progressives-to-uncloak-the-secret-financers-behind-the-tea-party/

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http://www.commoncause.org/site/apps/ka/ct/contactus.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=6483805&en=ffIFLMMrEaLFKMPsFdKHKMOtFhJWJ0PyHdKGIUOBJlKXJaK

[Grassy Knoll]

1. Yes, I think Glenn Beck......

needs to expose this like he did George Soros , after fox fires him.
Koch Brothers have much more influence on politics in america
but 100 times more corrupt.

[SpiralHawk]

2. "But we like being manipulated by RepubliCorp cronies." - TeaBagliCon Suckerpuppets

[guitar man]

3. Quaker Oats

It's the right thing to do :spray:

[Turborama]

4. Any chance of C-Span covering this?

Even if they don't, I suspect there'll be some speeches coming out which we'll all have to help go viral.

This is great news, progressives pooling their resources together to pull the curtain on the reich wing's puppet masters.

I do have one issue with that article, though:

Recently, David and Charles Koch through their network of foundations and nonprofits outspent ExxonMobile on astroturf campaigns to misinform the American public about climate change legislation.

Their agenda is to disinform.


Misinformation is false or inaccurate information that is spread unintentionally. It is distinguished from disinformation by motive in that misinformation is simply erroneous, while disinformation, in contrast, is intended to mislead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misinformation

Disinformation should not be confused with misinformation, information that is unintentionally false.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation

[glinda]

6. Lying to the public about matters that affect our Government and its affairs should be a crime.

[sunnystarr]

16. A lie by any other name is still ... A LIE (nt)

[Turborama]

32. Actually, using the correct terms to define right wing propaganda is very important n/t

[Maineman]

5. Conspiracy to misinform the public about serious, dangerous issues.

Is it not possible to bring a law suit against the Kochs and their cronies?

[Jester Messiah]

23. There's a bad precedent

Fox already won the right to outright lie on air, as a free speech issue. It's a damned shitty precedent, but there it is.

[FailureToCommunicate]

7. We're rootin for ya Toto, pull back that curtain!

[patrice]

8. K&R

[patrice]

9. My FB post: Top-bracket TAX BREAK recipients SUBSIDIZE Tea Party & AFP.

[patrice]

13. Ergo, Tea Party & AFP are subsidized on our dollars. nt

[ElsewheresDaughter]

10. I am so there!!

[pacalo]

11. Welcome news!

That Grover Norquist's "Americans for Tax Reform" gave me an idea. If the rich guys, who already abuse the system with write-offs, tax shelters, etc., want a tax reform that will enable them to pay even less taxes, then there should be a "Pay Distribution Reform".

As CEOs are fattening their own bank accounts by slashing jobs, moving their companies overseas, cutting employee benefits/pay, they're looking to redo the tax structure so they can have their cake & eat it, too.

[Democat]

12. The right spends so much time demonizing Soros, why doesn't the left go after Koch?

The left could model their strategy against Koch on the right's strategy against Soros.

[Enthusiast]

21. Both Maddow and Olbermann

have condemned the practices of the Koch brothers. But exactly what other venue could we expect to hear criticism of excess corporate influence? In print, of course, but millions won't read. Our voice is but a whisper.

[molly77]

27. That is a good question. MSM makes sure progressive voices are silenced.

[molly77]

28. And not only MSM

Arianna Huffington used Andrew Breitbart to set up Huff Po. according to Vanity Fair this month.

And Amy Goodman this week was saying that he was also behind the attacks on Frances Fox Piven. The university professor who worked for welfare recipients and all Americans having the right to vote.Glenn Beck is saying she is the reason for our financial problems . Bankruptcy.

Andrew's other claim to fame was being the master mind behind destroying ACORN. He seems to be out for poor people.

[snot]

14. Better late than never.

[Crystal Clarity]

15. Recommend. But one question

How does Common Cause propose to get this information out to the people beyond us libs/progressives?

I well remember getting out on the street on 2/15/03 in protest over the impending illegal attack of Iraq with the rest of the world, yet there was nary a peep about it from the MSM.

It was a huge event, yet I bet if I were to poll random people in my area about the significance of that day, maybe 1 in 20 (and I'm being charitable) know about it. All because the MSM chose to sweep it under the rug.

I'm not saying that this would be an exercises in futility. At the very least it may help motivate us and maybe even inform a few who may otherwise not have known. But unless we get the MSM on board, I'm afraid that most of the people we are trying to reach won't get the message.

[molly77]

29. Address the real problem. Fascism.

[sam sarrha]

34. problem: top 1% richest hold 42% of Financial wealth, 6 TIMES the bottom 80% with 7 percent >Link>

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

so...20% own 93% of americas financial wealth. there is a recession simply because there is no money left to go around to fuel an economy

the Psychotic Cleptocratic Plutocrats are OCD wealth and power Hoarders and wall street gambling addicts play'n a game they cant lose.. but WE LOSE.. then they speculate and hedge on the necessities of life of the poor and cause the inflation they say will happen if we all get jobs.

that is why they hate the French... the French really know how to throw a Revolution..!

[fascisthunter]

17. Fake Populism brought to you by Wealthy Families

using dumb dumbs to spread propaganda everywhere they go. Pretty embarrassing... patriots? My ass you fools are. You were the same dumb dumbs who didn't blame the Great Depression on the wealthy class back then too...

[No Elephants]

19. Beginnings of family fortune courtesy of Josef Stalin. How's that for irony?

[No Elephants]

18. Koch brothers. lie about carcinogens, too.

Must reading: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

(changed my sig line as soon as I read it.)

Despite the title, it's more about the evil deeds of the Koch brothers in general than it is about Obama.


Official reply of {lying} Koch brothers: http://www.kochind.com/kochFacts/


See also: http://www.businessinsider.com/mystery-reporters-plagiarism-smear-plot-against-the-new-yorker-collapses-2011-1

(Smear Plot Against The New Yorker Writer Who Profiled Koch Brothers Collapses)

[mopinko]

20. i hope they will have materials from the campaigns.

i really want to know the nitty gritty of what they did to whom to cause those town hall "riots". did they troll the blogoshere, did they send direct mail to the nra mailing list? can we see a piece? what did they do exactly is what i want to know. how much did they spend? i want this to be a granular as possible.

this is awesome, at any rate. and will be interesting to see who shows up to cover it.

[Bragi]

22. Koch industries and products to boycott

See http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/8/24/895947/-Boycott-Koch-Products

[sam sarrha]

24. did the Koch family get their start up money from tanning the hides of murdered jews? >Link>>

maybe not, but in germany they seem to have decorated their homes with them..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy
here is a study about the Genetic potential of Psychopathy.. combine that with the possibility of OCD wealth and power hoarding.. and a delusional view that wealth and power over people is proof of gods favor of a man.. so it is a sin to tax a rich man/coporation... thus the poor are being punished by god so it is a sin to help them.. who fills that description.? ..i mean other than the GOP in general..

http://makemoneymachine.ws/how-did-the-koch-bros-get-thier-money-from-nazi-camps/
"snip...Erich Koch... ...worked together with the General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment, providing the Reich with forced labor.
Due to his brutal actions, Nazi rule in Ukraine was disturbed by a growing number.
before once more getting away himself",by escaping through this Baltic Sea port on April 23, 1945, on the icebreaker Ostpreußen.
He faced charges of war crimes for the extermination of 400,000 Poles, but was never indicted for his crimes in Ukraine...snip"


http://unknownjournal.wordpress.com/2010/10/06/%E2%96%BC-report-the-kochs-their-nazi-past-american-oil-the-foundation-of-republican-ideology/

Notorious Nazis Ilse Koch, her husband Karl Otto Koch and Erich Koch are the ghosts of Koch Industries, who seized the U.S. conservative political agenda years ago and seem capable of seizing the government in total through the Tea Party. Ilse Koch was the Nazi’s specialist in making objects from human skin; was the only woman charged with war crimes; and along with her husband was in charge of one of the most horrific horror camps in Nazi Germany.

Koch Industries is the child of the violence of Buchenwald, widely regarded as one of wartime Germany’s most notorious “death camps”.

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/dachauscrapbook/DachauTrials/IlseKoch2.html
At the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal, on December 13, 1945, the US prosecution introduced Exhibit #253, which consisted of three pieces of tanned human skin that had been removed from prisoners by doctors at Buchenwald. A forensic report confirmed that it was human skin. Although this skin had not been fashioned into a lampshade, US prosecutor Thomas Dodd claimed that Ilse Koch had ordered tattooed human skin to be made into lampshades for her home. Exhibit #254, also introduced by Dodd, was a shrunken head, allegedly used by Ilse Koch as a paperweight, which Dodd claimed was the head of a Polish prisoner at Buchenwald.,snip"

so how much could someone make by possably sifting the oven's ashes for the gold from jew's teeth, etc..

[goforit]

25. Maybe these delightful Koch Bros. provided Palin with the "blood libel" jargon.

[sam sarrha]

33. yes beyond any doubt.. they are funding extremist blogs oll over the internet.. Link>>

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/case-study-the-koch-funded-c/

In November 2009, anonymous hackers illegally obtained and disseminated thousands of personal emails from climate scientists housed on the server of the University of East Anglia. The emails spanned 13 years of correspondence and a handful of selected emails were taken out of context by a number of climate-denier organizations. These organizations, many part of the Koch Web, claim the emails prove a “conspiracy” of scientists and cast doubt on the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change.


http://exiledonline.com/a-peoples-history-of-koch-industries-how-stalin-funded-the-tea-party-movement/

They bankroll scores of free-market and libertarian think tanks, institutes and advocacy groups. Reason magazine, Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute are just a few of Koch-backed free-market operations. Greenpeace estimates that the Koch family shelled out $25 million from 2005 to 2008 funding the “climate denial machine,” which means they outspent Exxon Mobile three to one.


I first learned about the Kochs in February 2009, when Mark Ames and I were looking into the strange origins of the then-nascent Tea Party movement. Our investigation led us again and again to a handful of right-wing organizations and think tanks directly tied to the Kochs. We were the first to connect the dots and debunk the Tea Party movement’s “grassroots” front, exposing it as billionaire-backed astroturf campaign run by free-market advocacy groups FreedomWorks and Americans For Prosperity, both of which are closely linked to the Koch brothers.

A LIST ...
http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&q=blogs+funded+by+koch&aq=&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&fp=77a6fa40f303a0e3

CHECK OUT PLACES LIKE THIS, THEY ARE ON A "HUB" OF HATE HOUNDING BLOGS. they all have the same sort of photoshopped displays.. i immediately got the impression they were professional works

http://weaselzippers.us/ hey these guys are not as bad as most

[fascisthunter]

30. my gawd

[goforit]

26. Exposure will hurt their wallets with boycotts out the kazoo.

[TygrBright]

31. Unfortunately not. Most of their products are not sold directly to consumers.

The oil products that DO go to consumers go through franchisees who are small business people and neighbors.

But the bulk of their products are purchased not by consumers, but by other corporations.

Trying to boycott enough to make an impact would be fairly futile.

No, what's needed is to shine the light on these roaches and watch them scurry.

They WANT to be thought well of, that's why they give so much money to toney artsy charities and sit on boards and stuff.

Once they are exposed as the sleazy scum they are, if they start getting the social cold-shoulder, they'll hurt. They won't stop doing what they're doing, but they'll hurt.

The only thing that will stop them from buying politicians is if their name gets so tainted that even money passed through two or three intermediaries but originating with this slime is an automatic vote-depressing factor to the extent that the pols won't take their cash.

That or campaign finance reform.

Of the two, it's hard to say which is more likely.

I wouldn't bet anything substantial on either.

cynically,
Bright