Say whether you support/oppose the Keystone pipeline before Obama gives you the right answer

[freshwest]

201. Well said, and needs to be said more often. Forest and trees... (warning, long post)

Anyone who 'can't see how the Kochs and their minions have fooled him/her into believing Obama is the enemy' is bambozzled or else is here depressing us from going forward, which would also be exactly what the Koches want. How anyone cannot see the money behind the media is beyond me. A DUer wrote this and I saved it, to think on and recall the items in it. I have no link, as it was in Meta:

But there are, on the internet, also some individuals, and groups, who clearly promote agendas that coincide with the same agendas as the wealthiest and most powerful interests on the planet.

DU, Kos, etc. may seem insignificant to some, but as we all know,

(1) Money strongly influences information
(2) Information becomes public opinion
(3) Public opinion elects power
(4) Power greatly influences profit margins and the distribution of power
(5) The outcome of any election can depend on a single vote

I'm just sayin'...that there are people out there with unlimited wealth, who have no qualms about sparing no expense in using their money to spread information that will form public opinion, in order to elect candidates favorable to their private profit and power interests.

There are no restrictions, or financial considerations, preventing them from doing so. If I were of their corrupt ilk, corrupt ilk meaning individuals such as the Koch Brothers, I would definitely spend a few pennies to sway public opinion in my favor, everywhere, in order to promote my self interests.

(Come to think of it, I would probably even help finance a think tank to promote my self-serving agenda. Makes good logical sense.)

I would certainly finance individuals and groups whose function it would be to swing public opinion, and the Democratic Party, to the right in any way that I possibly could. Being filthy rich beyond comprehension, I would most assuredly do this. Actually, I would probably not even have to think about it, as it would be the task of some of my highly talented, extremely well paid employees, to insure that this was done.

The Koch brothers are some of the richest people on the planet, and have used their money to influence every kind of media, from childhood and on, if they don't buy it directly. They once stayed in the shadows, behind the John Birch Society, the Libertarian Party and all its associated institutions and think tanks, they personally created.

They funded the AFP and FreedomWorks, but at long last came out of the shadows and showed themselves to threaten Obama in 2010 and created the Tea Party. Charles Koch publicly demanded, along with their pal Nordquist that they would hurt Obama if he didn't bow to them but the fabled DU version of a spineless Obama didn't.

And they have carried through on every one of their threats. You mentioned the Palast article. I posted on that and Keystone in the BOG. You know, where the weak minded Obamabots hang out and worship him, haha. They further helped their buddy, Ron Paul and now Rand, and have changed the USA from ALEC legislation state to state, with nothing less than the destruction of the public square and the federal government which obstructed their aims.

They are against all civil and human rights, which are not the same as these 'civil liberties' they sold so many on, who don't comprehend the Koches' philosophy or the consequences, but want something shiny and new, that is really as old as the monarchy. Bambozzled and not able to confess it, they now demand we bow to their ideas and incite the mob against Obama, which is the Koch brothers goal. Going at it from both sides, the best technique ever. How anyone could forget Thom Hartmann's piece here at DU and what we're up against is not a person I'll bow to, anymore than I do PBO:

Thom Hartmann: Conservative Millennials, Boomers & Libertarians all being Conned

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1017&pid=44227

Just one of many articles on their long ranging work to destroy Obama and democracy. They and their media created the Tea Party to stop the Bush tax cuts sunsetting, to get this pipeline, to destroy faith in our government and take down Obama. Not because of what he has or has not done. They want his ideals of uplifting the poor and saving this nation destroyed.

Covert Operations - The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.

by Jane Mayer August 30, 2010


David H. Koch in 1996. He and his brother Charles are lifelong libertarians and have quietly given more than a hundred million dollars to right-wing causes.

On May 17th, a black-tie audience at the Metropolitan Opera House applauded as a tall, jovial-looking billionaire took the stage. It was the seventieth annual spring gala of American Ballet Theatre, and David H. Koch was being celebrated for his generosity as a member of the board of trustees; he had recently donated $2.5 million toward the company’s upcoming season, and had given many millions before that. Koch received an award while flanked by two of the gala’s co-chairs, Blaine Trump, in a peach-colored gown, and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, in emerald green. Kennedy’s mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, had been a patron of the ballet and, coincidentally, the previous owner of a Fifth Avenue apartment that Koch had bought, in 1995, and then sold, eleven years later, for thirty-two million dollars, having found it too small.

The gala marked the social ascent of Koch, who, at the age of seventy, has become one of the city’s most prominent philanthropists. In 2008, he donated a hundred million dollars to modernize Lincoln Center’s New York State Theatre building, which now bears his name. He has given twenty million to the American Museum of Natural History, whose dinosaur wing is named for him. This spring, after noticing the decrepit state of the fountains outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Koch pledged at least ten million dollars for their renovation. He is a trustee of the museum, perhaps the most coveted social prize in the city, and serves on the board of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where, after he donated more than forty million dollars, an endowed chair and a research center were named for him.

One dignitary was conspicuously absent from the gala: the event’s third honorary co-chair, Michelle Obama. Her office said that a scheduling conflict had prevented her from attending. Yet had the First Lady shared the stage with Koch it might have created an awkward tableau. In Washington, Koch is best known as part of a family that has repeatedly funded stealth attacks on the federal government, and on the Obama Administration in particular.

With his brother Charles, who is seventy-four, David Koch owns virtually all of Koch Industries, a conglomerate, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, whose annual revenues are estimated to be a hundred billion dollars. The company has grown spectacularly since their father, Fred, died, in 1967, and the brothers took charge. The Kochs operate oil refineries in Alaska, Texas, and Minnesota, and control some four thousand miles of pipeline. Koch Industries owns Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra, among other products. Forbes ranks it as the second-largest private company in the country, after Cargill, and its consistent profitability has made David and Charles Koch—who, years ago, bought out two other brothers—among the richest men in America. Their combined fortune of thirty-five billion dollars is exceeded only by those of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett...

A lot more at the link:

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

Remember, folks, that they have much more money in their hands now. Even to fund the right and the left and conspiracy theorists. They have made it very profitable and popular to denigrate the Democratic Party and Obama. Some may not question negativity and jump on it like a dog on a piece of raw steak and get very excited about it. Better see who's tossing that red meat and why they're doing it. Big picture.