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OIL, GAS, COAL, and KOCH:
The only way we are going to have any chance of getting out of our own extinction is to finally bite the bullet and STOP these big oil boys.
It’s time to end taxpayer handouts to Big Oil; it’s time to end dangerous new drilling handouts to Big Oil, and it’s time to invest in real solutions that end our oil addiction, including a 60 mpg standard for new vehicles and transportation choices such as public transportation and safe biking and walking; and massive investment in clean energy.
We are going to be at the bottom of our own LaBrea Tar Pit as the mastodons and saber-tooth fossils of our time if we do not act swiftly.
Hanging Out on Main Street
Dennis Kucinich: Creating Economic Democracy March 25, 2011 by Grit TV
“We have to change the balance here and the way you change the balance is a conceptual shift in what you see as the purpose of a nation. The purpose of a nation isn’t to make the rich richer or to make the poor poorer, it’s to make sure that you have a vibrant economy where there’s room for everyone,” says Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich. Laura sat down with Rep. Kucinich in Madison March 12 after his speech at a rally hosted by The Progressive magazine and discussed the attacks on public sector workers and what a real economic democracy would look like–full employment, universal health care and education, and a commitment to peace.
Public Enemies - Charles and David
GET THE KOCHS OFF OUR BACKS!
David and Charles are responsible for a vicious attack campaign aimed directly at obstructing and killing progressive reform. Their opposition is a long family tradition of trying to shift the country to the far right. Their father, Fred Koch, helped to found the John Birch Society in the late 1950s. Among the American Nazis, KKK hoods and militia toughs the John Birch Society ran Patrick Henry bookstores filled with scurrilous lying polemics attacking and undermining and diminishing government and advocating a treasonous program of subversion and sabotage. Fred’s sons continue to galvanize hundreds of thousands of middle class people into supporting the Kochs’ narrow agenda of cutting corporate taxes and avoiding consumer regulations to the ruin of our equality and democracy.
Their opposition is a long family tradition of trying to shift the country to the far right and intentionally intended to destroy our democratic republic.
P.s. David Koch presents himself as a champion of science. Nevertheless, Koch has done more to undermine the public’s understanding of climate change science than any other person in America. The Kochs financed the rowdies who disrupted the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
Surely, the Kochs must be criminally liable for something in the midst of all their selfish corruption. Up the Rebels!
Citizens United - bought and paid for corporate shills.
Persecuted Kochs
DIGEST: Billionaire Self-Pity and the Koch Brothers. Glenn Greenwald 3-28-11 Salon.com
Since the financial crisis of 2008, one of the most revealing spectacles has been the parade of financial elites who petulantly insist that they are the victims of societal hostility: political officials heap too much blame on them, public policy burdens them so unfairly, the public resents them, and — most amazingly of all — President Obama is a radical egalitarian who is unprecedentedly hostile to business interests. One particularly illustrative example was the whiny little multi-millionaire hedge fund manager (and CNBC contributor), Anthony Scaramucci, who stood up at an October, 2010, town hall meeting and demanded to know: “when are we going to stop whacking at the Wall Street piñata?”
The Weekly Standard now has a very lengthy defense of — including rare interviews with — Charles and David Koch, the libertarian billionaires who fund everything from right-wing economic policy, union-busting, and anti-climate-change advocacy to civil liberties and liberalized social policies — though far more the former goals than the latter. In this article one finds the purest and most instructive expression of billionaire self-pity that I think I’ve ever seen — one that is as self-absorbed and detached from reality as it destructive. It’s really worth examining their revealed mindset to see how those who wield the greatest financial power (and thus the greatest political power) think of themselves and those who are outside of their class.
There’s no question in my mind that the unrestrained power over the political process and both political parties enjoyed by oligarchs is the single greatest political problem the country faces — the overarching problem — but in the scheme of corporate and oligarchical dominance, the Koch Brothers are a small part of that dynamic. Nor do I believe that they’re motivated in their political activism by personal profit: for people with a net worth of $20 billion, there are vastly more efficient ways to convert one’s wealth into greater wealth than spending money to influence public policy; I think they’re True Believers.
Ask Charles Koch what he thinks about Obama and he looks like he’s just bit into a lemon. “He’s a dedicated egalitarian,” Charles said. “I’m not saying he’s a Marxist, but he’s internalized some Marxist models — that is, that business tends to be successful by exploiting its customers and workers.”
David agreed. “He’s the most radical president we’ve ever had as a nation,” he said, “and has done more damage to the free enterprise system and long-term prosperity than any president we’ve ever had.” David suggested the president’s radicalism was tied to his upbringing. “His father was a hard core economic socialist in Kenya,” he said. “Obama didn’t really interact with his father face-to-face very much, but was apparently from what I read a great admirer of his father’s points of view. So he had sort of antibusiness, anti-free enterprise influences affecting him almost all his life. It just shows you what a person with a silver tongue can achieve.”
So Barack Obama is a “dedicated egalitarian” who has “internalized Marxist” ideas in the Kenyan socialist tradition. Just compare that to actual facts. From The Huffington Post today:
Since Obama was inaugurated, the Dow Jones has increased more than 50% — from 8,000 to more than 12,000; the wealthiest recieved a massive tax cut; the top marginal tax rate was three times less than during the Eisenhower years and substantially lower than during the Reagan years; income and wealth inequality are so vast and rising that it is easily at Third World levels; meanwhile, “the share of U.S. taxes paid by corporations has fallen from 30 percent of federal revenue in the 1950s to 6.6 percent in 2009.” During this same time period, the unemployment rate has increased from 7.7% to 8.9%; millions of Americans have had their homes foreclosed; and the number of Americans living below the poverty line increased by many millions, the largest number since the statistic has been recorded. Can you smell Obama’s radical egalitarianism and Marxist anti-business hatred yet?
Read the full article at Salon.com
- Last Supper Spread
O, GOD, I’M GETTING FAT!
Church-going Christians are twice as likely to become obese as godless barbarians, says a new study by Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Even the apostles are eating more and more over the past thousand years. Though the body‘s supposed to be a temple and all, one academic suggests churches are “a feeding ground for gluttony and obesity.” Kinda harsh, but it may be time to cut back on those baked ham and mashed potato suppers.
John Legry's Blog 