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Newest Reality

(12,712 posts)
Mon May 6, 2013, 04:38 PM May 2013

The Koch Brothers – Exposed!

On the evidence of Koch Brothers Exposed, the more relevant question is: What aren't they up to? The film – scrappy and low-budget, but effective all the same – weaves together a string of shorter videos produced over the past year by Greenwald’s nonprofit Brave New Films, each looking at a separate tentacle of the "Kochtopus," as lefty wags have dubbed the Kochs' network. It recounts how the brothers have:

• helped fund efforts to undo a model diversity policy in the Wake County school system in North Carolina, effectively resegregating the district – part of a larger campaign, the film alleges, to weaken the public school system and prepare the way for widespread privatization;
• pushed voter ID laws – purportedly aimed at combating ballot fraud but really designed to keep Democrats from voting – through their financial support for the American Legislative Exchange Council, an increasingly radioactive business group specializing in the drafting of corporate-friendly pick-up-and-pass legislation for state lawmakers. (ALEC is also behind the insane "Stand Your Ground" gun laws at issue in the Trayvon Martin shooting case);
• pumped millions of dollars into more than 150 colleges and university in exchange for control over hiring and curriculum decisions, to ensure students will be exposed to the free-market fundamentalism of Ayn Rand, Freidrich von Hayek and like minds;
• bankrolled a coordinated campaign to swing public opinion in favor of privatizing Social Security, deploying Koch-funded think tanks, experts, and pundits to spread the myth that the program is on the brink of bankruptcy.

(Greenwald might equally well have documented Koch-funded efforts to repeal Obama's health care law, deny climate change, undermine collective-bargaining rights, or block Wall Street reform, but there's only so much a single film can cover.)


http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/the-koch-brothers-exposed-20120420
21 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
The Koch Brothers – Exposed! (Original Post) Newest Reality May 2013 OP
K & R !!! WillyT May 2013 #1
Charles and David Koch: Public Enemies #1 and #2 meow2u3 May 2013 #2
+1000000000 Initech May 2013 #4
Their plans for Education are the most frightening. redstatebluegirl May 2013 #3
Found this on You tube octoberlib May 2013 #5
Thanks for that! Newest Reality May 2013 #8
Thanks for posting the article! octoberlib May 2013 #10
Yes, I feel for you! Newest Reality May 2013 #11
I hope that everybody will Newest Reality May 2013 #16
Thanks. Will watch this tonight. progressoid May 2013 #19
I was hoping for nude photos. K&R trof May 2013 #6
It stands to reason that Newest Reality May 2013 #7
I have this on DVD - HIGHLY recommended. Triana May 2013 #9
K&R!! hue May 2013 #12
Please - do something about that subject line. geckosfeet May 2013 #13
Do you mean of the original post? Newest Reality May 2013 #15
You are right about the protocol. But the subject line is gruesome. geckosfeet May 2013 #17
I'm sorry, Newest Reality May 2013 #18
Those two need to lay down sulphurdunn May 2013 #14
We can expose these criminal hypocrites all we want . . . HughBeaumont May 2013 #20
True. Newest Reality May 2013 #21

Initech

(99,915 posts)
4. +1000000000
Mon May 6, 2013, 05:11 PM
May 2013

They're traitors through and through. Truly the two single worst human beings on planet earth.: mad:

octoberlib

(14,971 posts)
10. Thanks for posting the article!
Mon May 6, 2013, 06:18 PM
May 2013

Since the Republican takeover of NC in January , ALEC legislation has torn our state apart. I'm going to tell everyone I know to watch this doc.

Newest Reality

(12,712 posts)
11. Yes, I feel for you!
Mon May 6, 2013, 06:39 PM
May 2013

Glad you are aware and active about it.

The State level, and local is where it is really taking a strong foothold and wreaking havoc for the people. That's the place to step-up and get some attention on the problem.

Newest Reality

(12,712 posts)
16. I hope that everybody will
Mon May 6, 2013, 08:06 PM
May 2013

rec this thread after watching that, and maybe post some comments on the site or movie and share their thoughts and feelings about this.

How does it change your perspective on mainstream politics and corporate media coverage?

Newest Reality

(12,712 posts)
7. It stands to reason that
Mon May 6, 2013, 06:02 PM
May 2013

if you do not know the nature, intent and strategy of your opponent, then you have little chance at winning any struggle to resist or defeat them.

The Koch Brothers have over fifty-years of experience at this game behind them and they have just recently been coming into fuller view for our scrutiny and that means we cannot avoid a challenge if we do not want to live in their Libertarian Fiefdom.

We see here, a clear threat to our concepts of freedom and justice. We are put in a position where we have to ask ourselves if those concepts are merely a product of a superficially upheld form of propaganda as a means to placate us, or if they are substantial values that deserve more of our attention and motivation to put them on the front line as icons for resistance.

In a loose sense, the Koch's function like a meta-third-party in our politics and economy and that's a semi-covert affront to our own security, wealth, health and well-being in the short and long-term of it.

When you consider the kind of effect their funding and policies, (along with the lists of large corporations that are a part of ALEC) could have for generations to come, that makes this an alarming and critical situation that looks more like an internal threat to most of us in the 99% and our children and theirs, as well. While we are told to worry about terrorists, their is a covert movement by Oligarchs to change everything for the benefit of a few and make this country, (and the world) anew in their own image. It is not a pretty picture for us.

You may feel overwhelmed by just how infused ALEC is, and how much money is involved in buying our political process, commons, and everything else, at the very least, you can spread this information around with a confidence that, even if they fully succeed, it will not be a "we didn't know what hit us" outcome. That could be a game changer and will certainly help foment a struggle and a resistance to this kind of takeover.



 

Triana

(22,666 posts)
9. I have this on DVD - HIGHLY recommended.
Mon May 6, 2013, 06:04 PM
May 2013

Have a viewing party with friends, family, neighbors. World needs to know about these scum.

Newest Reality

(12,712 posts)
15. Do you mean of the original post?
Mon May 6, 2013, 07:29 PM
May 2013

That's the title of the article that is linked to because the article is about both the Kochs and the website that covers and exposed the related issues.

Sorry if you find it displeasing, but I think that the common protocol here is to use the title of the linked article as the OP when you are referring to one.

geckosfeet

(9,644 posts)
17. You are right about the protocol. But the subject line is gruesome.
Mon May 6, 2013, 08:42 PM
May 2013

Protocol also allows for tasteful paraphrasing.

HughBeaumont

(24,461 posts)
20. We can expose these criminal hypocrites all we want . . .
Tue May 7, 2013, 10:35 AM
May 2013

. . . it's not like we can do anything to stop them. It's not like anything but the Grim Reaper can stop them, which is precisely why these wrong-side-of-their-70s fossils are getting their kicks in now, introducing every disastrous policy in their unspoken race against time.

This country loves and protects it's super-wealthy and their businesses without question, and that is a problem that needs to be solved before this whole elaborate system of transfer they've finagled caves in on itself . . . . and us.

Newest Reality

(12,712 posts)
21. True.
Tue May 7, 2013, 10:58 AM
May 2013

I agree and thanks.

What I find useful is something more subtle. It is somewhat like a catharsis concerning the growing, cognitive dissonance that affects us all to some degree.

There may well be a benefit in better understanding just how this system functions and how we have internalized its ideas, values and intent. There is a relief that can come after the series of shocks that come with the revelations. It is by no means total.

The relief is a smoothing of a tension that builds from expecting something based on conditioning that can translate into wishful thinking or an increasing desire to escape and deny the situation at hand.

There is a potential clarity that can emerge from insights based on more complete knowledge. The result, for instance, is evident when you hear or see something in the mass media and it is understood in a different way because you are more aware of what factors have contributed to the results or how the issue is propagandized as a skilful way to shape your perspective and manufacture your consent and acquiescence to the methods employed.

That may very well be where change can emerge more comfortably and naturally, especially when we look into the face of the future and see a fate where dynasties strip away the remaining facade and reveal the boot that stomps the human face forever.

No matter how many resources, advisers and minions, (all the King's horses and all the King's men) are applied to retaining, growing and creating inheritance, that dominant pathology has one, undeniable ramification that transcends equitable access to wealth: there has to be a viable environment for life to thrive in or all of the affluence may only be enabling a death wish that is embedded in the trappings of wealth and the shibboleths of greed.

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