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But it is certainly telling. They backed the republicans to get the corporate tax cut. Mission accomplished. Now back the democrats to get what's next on the agenda. Government for sale.
The Koch Brothers are into dark money but their agenda has always been out in the open
Unlike Trump who preaches he believes in better health care, less expensive, more pervasive--and then decides to screw with Planned Parenthood to make hay with his evangelicals
The Koch brothers doen't really care where you are on the morality scale--
They aren't agitating for anti-abortion or anti-gay rights...
They don't want universal health care because it hurts their pocketbooks--they think--with higher taxes but it would actually probably benefit them in the long run because they would be able to hire healthier people AND get more reasonable health care/insurance costs if a decent system was put in place
They don't want universal health care because it hurts their pocketbooks--they think--with higher taxes but it would actually probably benefit them in the long run because they would be able to hire healthier people AND get more reasonable health care/insurance costs if a decent system was put in place
Can you support your statement?
Having heard a number of interviews from them, I think you're not understanding how they would oppose something like that just on the basis of government over-reach.
P.S. I'm not agreeing with the Kochs on this topic, just explaining that your depiction of the scenario may just be your opinion and not based in fact.
Right here. Koch's have never prominently backed dems. Where have you been?
But Koch survival is more important to the Kochs than politics.
The Koch brothers are victims of their own success. Too much success coming too quickly always brings a truckload of unintended consequences with it. The Kochs are smart, but no amount of intelligence can foresee all consequences from actions.
Actions have a way of producing stray events that can take over in un-anticipated ways.
Why? Because people all do impulsive, unpredictable things. Give them some power, and very little ever turns out as it was intended.
How often does throwing money at a problem work? We all know the answer to that- for only so long. All the Kochs are doing now is trying to limit the damage from past mistakes in their judgement.
When a family has several billion dollars to hold, damage control is much more important than it is to the average Joe on the street. Money comes to rule those family's thoughts completely.
When you have more money than you can ever spend, what else is left to make life interesting? There are a few things; drugs can relive the tedium of wealth, as can charity, but social and economic manipulation can be much more entertaining for some folks.
Obviously, the Koch family was never like the Rockerfellers- John D. realized the only way his family would ever remain intact was to give all the wealth he acquired back to the folks he got it from.
Daddy Koch thought differently. Like father, like sons and daughters. One family cleans up, another makes more messes.
The Kochs are playing the long game, they are funding right wing flavored education, they are subverting the studies of econ schools , they are pushing religion to keep the poor blind... and so much more that we likely don't even know about.
The only way the Koch boys help some dems is if they think the Rs are sure to lose and that they can control just enough dems to protect Trump and blunt the democratic party endeavours...
our politicians (both left and right) are owned by billionaires, (Koch bros, soros, buffett, even gates)
Let's start with what mommy and daddy taught us.
There is good - and there is bad. Bad Boy. Good Boy. Hard Work. Slacking off.
Giving....or stealing?
This being the case, dismissing Billionaires without carefully studying the actual causes which they are funding is crazy. If the Kochs spend their billions to enlarge the national debt and deficit so that they can get a few billion extra, that's "bad". If oil billionaires like wars and the spoils and use their influences to keep us in perpetual war, that's "bad".
If Gates wants to eliminate smallpox worldwide, that is "good". If Soros wants the jails empty of people who sold an oz. of pot, that's "good".
See the difference? There is a difference.
My neighbors are not religious. Yet they work regularly for Habitat for Humanity. Are they "bad" for giving time and money to a cause?
But if they, instead, attended meetings of the KKK and went out in the woods with camo on to train for the overthrow of their own government, that would differ...in it's effect on society.
All philosophers agree on one thing. We can only look at or judge the world in terms of our culture and particular civilization. It wasn't "bad" for a Roman to have slaves. It wasn't bad for them to slay the lowly people who didn't even know how to make a sword. It wasn't bad for them to have massive orgies and get drunk for weeks in a row.
But we may look at those things as not being "of our civilization"...
So, you have to have a "standard" from which to look at or judge things. If you think "money talks, The People Walk", then you like the way Devos, Kochs, etc. use their money to buy our government. But if your standard is the progression of freedoms and enabling technology and Power to the People, you'd like the efforts of Mr. Soros better.
Read the story of the Blind Men and the Elephant. They each "saw" something different.
The current POTUS is an authoritarian. I would bet, dollars to donuts, that among men and women who were beat as children (somewhat regularly), Trump would be much more approved of than among those with more gentle parents.
Some things we just cannot help. The Sins of the Fathers just keep on giving.
First, there are several Koch Brothers. They are not some multi-headed monster out of Greek mythology. David Koch is more libertarian, and libertarians tend to be more pro-immigration.
First, there are several Koch Brothers. They are not some multi-headed monster out of Greek mythology. David Koch is more libertarian, and libertarians tend to be more pro-immigration.
If liberals would spend more time reading & listening to HIS actual words instead of garbage from Daily Kos, they would already know this.
What makes you assume people don't know these things?
"Libertarian" is often shorthand for "more debt and deficit so I can get tax cuts". Or "no money for health care so I can get more tax cuts".
The Kochs are not 100% evil - maybe 75% of their actions are bad for humanity and the country and democracy while the other 25% are good things or neutral. Still, they have so much money and power that it skews our process.
The Kochs don't just donate money. They started and own think tanks (CATO, etc.) and have founded and financed and faked (astroturf) dozens of orgs designed to make people think a "real movement" is happening. They have used ALEC (their creation) to actually write legislation that their Republican employees then vote into law.
It's not just a matter of the $$$ involved - although that is massive. It's the organization over decades to create "alternative institutions" which go against the will of the people and project much more power than any citizen of a democracy should be able to.
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