Meet the Koch brothers, the greasy corporate wheels driving the machine.

Obama said, “They don’t have to say who, exactly, Americans for Prosperity are. You don’t know if it’s a foreign-controlled corporation”—or even, he added, “a big oil company.”

***


August 26, 2010
Chances are you've never heard of Charles and David Koch. The brothers own Koch Industries, a Kansas-based conglomerate that operates oil refineries in several states and is the company behind brands including Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Lycra fibers and Stainmaster carpet. Forbes ranks Koch Industries as the second-largest privately held company in the U.S. — and the Koch brothers themselves? They're worth billions.

And in the past 30 years, they've funneled more than $100 million into dozens of political organizations, many of which are trying to steer the country in a more libertarian direction. Among the organizations they've backed are the Cato Institute, a Washington think tank that has recently raised questions about climate change, and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia — which one Democratic strategist called "ground zero for deregulation policy in Washington." ...cont'd

Listen to remainder of the Fresh Air interview with author Jane Mayer, about her article for the New Yorker Magazine:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129425186

Or read the transcript:
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=129425186


Covert Operations(New Yorker Magazine article)
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all

heh sorry couldn't resist

Koch Industries gave funding to the DLC and served on its Executive Council
http://www.americablog.com/2010/08/koch-industries-gave-funding-to-dlc-and.html

"...Meyer's article has been generating a lot of attention.

...But, here's a key piece of information: the Kochs haven't just given to right-wingers. Back in April of 2001, The American Prospect's Bob Dreyfuss reported that the Kochs also funded the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC)...

...One member of the DLC's executive council is none other than Koch Industries, the privately held, Kansas-based oil company whose namesake family members are avatars of the far right, having helped to found archconservative institutions like the Cato Institute and Citizens for a Sound Economy. Not only that, but two Koch executives, Richard Fink and Robert P. Hall III, are listed as members of the board of trustees and the event committee, respectively--meaning that they gave significantly more than $25,000...

...The DLC board of trustees is an elite body whose membership is reserved for major donors, and many of the trustees are financial wheeler-dealers who run investment companies and capital management firms--though senior executives from a handful of corporations, such as Koch, Aetna, and Coca-Cola, are included..."

Here's the 2001 article:
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=how_the_dlc_does_it

While the DLC will not formally disclose its sources of contributions and dues, the full array of its corporate supporters is contained in the program from its annual fall dinner last October, a gala salute to Lieberman that was held at the National Building Museum in Washington. Five tiers of donors are evident: the Board of Advisers, the Policy Roundtable, the Executive Council, the Board of Trustees, and an ad hoc group called the Event Committee--and companies are placed in each tier depending on the size of their check. For $5,000, 180 companies, lobbying firms, and individuals found themselves on the DLC's board of advisers, including British Petroleum, Boeing, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Coca-Cola, Dell, Eli Lilly, Federal Express, Glaxo Wellcome, Intel, Motorola, U.S. Tobacco, Union Carbide, and Xerox, along with trade associations ranging from the American Association of Health Plans to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. For $10,000, another 85 corporations signed on as the DLC's policy roundtable, including AOL, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Citigroup, Dow, GE, IBM, Oracle, UBS PacifiCare, PaineWebber, Pfizer, Pharmacia and Upjohn, and TRW.

And for $25,000, 28 giant companies found their way onto the DLC's executive council, including Aetna, AT&T, American Airlines, AIG, BellSouth, Chevron, DuPont, Enron, IBM, Merck and Company, Microsoft, Philip Morris, Texaco, and Verizon Communications. Few, if any, of these corporations would be seen as leaning Democratic, of course, but here and there are some real surprises. One member of the DLC's executive council is none other than Koch Industries, the privately held, Kansas-based oil company whose namesake family members are avatars of the far right, having helped to found archconservative institutions like the Cato Institute and Citizens for a Sound Economy. Not only that, but two Koch executives, Richard Fink and Robert P. Hall III, are listed as members of the board of trustees and the event committee, respectively--meaning that they gave significantly more than $25,000.

The DLC board of trustees is an elite body whose membership is reserved for major donors, and many of the trustees are financial wheeler-dealers who run investment companies and capital management firms--though senior executives from a handful of corporations, such as Koch, Aetna, and Coca-Cola, are included. Some donate enormous amounts of money, such as Bernard Schwartz, the chairman and CEO of Loral Space and Communications, who single-handedly finances the entire publication of Blueprint, the DLC's retooled monthly that replaced The New Democrat. "I sought them out, after talking to Michael Steinhardt," says Schwartz. "I like them because the DLC gives resonance to positions on issues that perhaps candidates cannot commit to..."

Oh yes there's more at the links...

I certainly hope that DU Dems aren't naive enough to believe that corruption is one-sided and restricted to those 'other' guys. Let's face it, corporations have infiltrated and taken the helm of our government, and it couldn't have been accomplished without the willingness and greed of our "representatives". In other words, our government was absorbed through a hostile (or perhaps not so hostile) takeover with the assets, agendas and jobs being divided up like the spoils of
a plundered ship.

And that became particularly obvious during the last administration when big oil, pharma and finance grabbed the wheel and steered us directly into the storm in search of treasure with only enough life boats for themselves.