Never before in American history have we seen a pair of people more determined to take America backwards. Never before have we seen two people more determined to buy elections and seize control of government in an effort to control United States policy and turn the country into a corporate state. The Koch family has been trying to do this since the 1950′s and their plans are on the verge of being realized.
The year was 1958. America was in the middle of the Red Scare and the Cold War was in full swing. A man named Robert Welch, Jr. founded a new conservative group dedicated to accusing liberals of communism in an effort to use fear to convert people to conservatism, and seize control of the United States government. The John Birch Society began with 12 founding members. One of these members, Fred Koch, is the founder of Koch Industries, an oil refinery firm which is the second largest privately owned company in the United States.
The Kochs may be looked upon by conservatives as a normal wealthy American family but they have ties to one of the most evil regimes in world history. Fred Koch created his company, Winkler-Koch, here in America, and was sued for patent infringement because of his process for turning crude oil into gasoline. Litigation put Winkler-Koch out of business in the U.S. for several years. In other words, Koch was banned. Koch then turned his focus to foreign markets, including the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany with the help of Erich Koch. A high level Nazi official in charge of Prussia, Erich Koch invited Fred Koch to sell his oil in Nazi Germany after he was banned from doing business in the US. After the fall of Nazi Germany, Erich Koch and Fred expanded the oil empire to the Soviet Union. A few years later, the Soviets took Fred Koch’s oil and prosecuted Erich for war crimes. Fred Koch returned to the US as an anti-communist, and was allowed to do business in America once again. In 1963, Fred Koch gave a speech warning of “a takeover” of America in which Communists would “infiltrate the highest offices of government in the U.S. until the president is a Communist, unknown to the rest of us”. Koch also “wrote admiringly of Benito Mussolini’s suppression of Communists in Italy, and disparagingly of the American civil-rights movement.” Fred Koch was a crazy right wing entrepreneur that was relegated to the extreme fringe of the Republican Party and as such, he had no real power. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of his sons.
Since the 1980′s, the Koch brothers, David and Charles Koch, have made it their mission to assault all of the aspects of American life and history that they hate or disagree with. To that end they have created a number of conservative think tanks and organizations dedicated to eliminating these aspects. Liberalism and virtually anything that has to do with government is their number one target. For example, when David Koch ran for the presidency on the Libertarian ticket in 1984 he was pretty blunt about his goals. According to David Koch, they would “like to abolish the Federal Elections Commission and all the limits on campaign spending.” The Koch ticket promised to abolish Social Security, the Federal Reserve Board, welfare, minimum-wage laws, corporate taxes, all price supports and subsidies for agriculture and business, and U.S. Federal agencies including the SEC, EPA, ICC, FTC, OSHA, FBI, CIA, and DOE.
Since this failed attempt, the Koch brothers have abandoned trying to control government through legal elections, and have instead opted to gain power through buying elections and the Republican politicians that run in them. As part of the strategy, the Kochs and their groups are using an old fear tactic. Scaring the voters into electing conservatives by accusing liberals of being secret communists. The Kochs should know all about that tactic. Their father helped invent it. And through their groups, the Kochs remain in the shadows of this movement all while still pulling the strings and providing the cash. The names of the various groups that the Koch brothers fund include Americans for Prosperity Foundation, FreedomWorks, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, and have membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council, which allows them to actually write the legislation that they want to be enacted. The Koch brothers funnel millions of dollars into each of these groups for the purpose of buying elections and paying politicians to do what the Koch brothers want them to do.
After the Citizens United decision destroyed campaign finance laws, the Koch brothers unleashed millions upon millions of dollars and spent the great majority of that money buying elections for their Republican lackeys. For example, Koch groups were the largest oil and gas industry donors to Congressmen on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is responsible for legislation affecting the industry. Koch-backed groups donated $279,500 to 22 Republicans and $32,000 to five Democrats, including $20,000 to committee chairman Fred Upton. The Kochs have spent a lot on lobbying in Washington in recent years, from $857,000 in 2004 to $20 million in 2008. The Kochs then spent another $20.5 million over the next two years to influence federal policy, as the company’s lobbyists and officials sought to mold, gut or kill more than 100 prospective bills or regulations.
With the backing of the Koch brothers, the Heritage Foundation recently provided Republican Darryl Issa a wish list of regulations they want to see repealed, including environmental regulations, consumer protections, and worker protections. Without these important protections and regulations, the Koch brothers would be free to screw over consumers, treat their workforce like slaves, and pollute the environment as much as they want. And we are seeing these attempts to eliminate protective policies play out in the halls of Congress as we speak. But it is just not in Congress, its in individual states as well.
Over the course of the 2010 elections, the Kochs poured hundreds of millions of dollars into elections around the country. Many Republicans that were swept into office are beholden to the Koch brothers. One of these Governors, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, has slammed a bill through the state legislature that effectively destroys unions in the state. The Kochs are all for this maneuver. They hate organized labor, and have a strong belief that workers have no rights and have no purpose other than to work at whatever price an owner wants them to work for. Koch Industries does not employ union workers for this reason. This anti-labor belief stems directly from the Koch familial ties in Nazi Germany. Erich Koch was a high ranking Nazi official in the Ukraine, who, in addition to having control of the Gestapo and the police, worked together with the General Plenipotentiary for Labor Deployment, to provide the Reich with forced labor. Erich Koch faced charges of war crimes for the extermination of 400,000 Poles.
Another family member, Karl Koch, was a colonel in the German SS and the first commandant of the Nazi concentration camps at Buchenwald.
The Koch brothers have taken it upon themselves to make sure that our government is their puppet. They have bought and paid for many Republican politicians and since they created the Tea Party, they have sent a message, that if they can’t take the government legally, they are willing to buy it and overthrow it and take control that way. This family is dangerous. They have a deep hatred of the United States government because the United States government makes them act responsible for the environment and makes them treat their workers and consumers fairly. They absolutely hate unions as well, being a big contributor to and supporter of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. The Kochs refuse to hire any worker that is in a union and are now in the process of telling their workers who to vote for. This kind of tactic is spreading as well. Employers across the country are now beginning to tell their workers how they should vote.
The Kochs assault on the United States must be stopped. They are nothing more than treasonous enemies of the state that stand in the shadows, pulling the strings of the people they help elect to power. Corporations were never supposed to get involved in the political process for this very reason. We must rise up as Americans and forever ban corporate involvement in politics. The Kochs never gained political power for a reason. People rejected their platform because it was too extreme. The American people didn’t like it then, they don’t like it now. But the Kochs are more dangerous now than ever before, because they have chosen to buy politicians as a way to control government. Democracy doesn’t work that way. But when a corporation like Koch Industries can dictate policy, that is called fascism, something the Nazi Kochs knew all about. And we can either stand by and let them get away with it. Or we can cut the roots of this conservative extremist movement by hunting down these enemies of the state and sending them to a country where their style of government is accepted. I suggest China, Venezuela, or Iran.
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