Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Inside the New Book That's Giving the Koch Brothers a Heart Attack
________________________________________
Inside the New Book That's Giving the Koch Brothers a Heart Attack
By Charles Kaiser [1] / The Guardian [2]
January 17, 2016
Lots of American industrialists have skeletons in the family closet. Charles
and David Koch, however, are in a league of their own.
The father of these famous right-wing billionaires was Fred Koch, who
started his fortune with $500,000 received from Stalin for his assistance
constructing 15 oil refineries in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. A couple of
years later, his company, Winkler-Koch, helped the Nazis complete their
third-largest oil refinery [3]. The facility produced hundreds of thousands
of gallons of high-octane fuel for the Luftwaffe, until it was destroyed by
Allied bombs in 1944.
In 1938, the patriarch wrote that "the only sound countries in the world are
Germany, Italy and Japan". To make sure his children got the right ideas, he
hired a German nanny. The nanny was such a fervent Nazi that when France
fell in 1940, she resigned and returned to Germany. After that, Fred became
the main disciplinarian, whipping his children with belts and tree branches.
These are just a handful of the many bombshells exploded in the pages of
Dark Money [4], Jane Mayer's indispensable new history "of the billionaires
behind the rise of the radical right" in America.
A veteran investigative reporter and a staff writer for the New Yorker [5],
Mayer has combined her own research with the work of scores of other
investigators, to describe how the Kochs and fellow billionaires like
Richard Scaife have spent hundreds of millions to "move their political
ideas from the fringe to the center of American political life".
Twenty years after collaborating with the Nazis, Fred Koch lost none of his
taste for extremism. In 1958 he was one of the 11 original members of the
John Birch Society, an organization which accused scores of prominent
Americans, including President Dwight Eisenhower, of communist sympathies.
In 1960, Koch wrote that "the colored man looms large in the Communist plan
to take over America". He strongly supported the movement to impeach chief
justice Earl Warren, after the supreme court voted to desegregate public
schools in Brown v Board of Education. His sons became Birchers too,
although Charles was more enamored of "antigovernment economic writers" than
communist conspiracies.
After their father died, Charles and David bought out their brothers' shares
in the family company, then built it into the second largest privately held
corporation in America.
"As their fortunes grew, Charles and David Koch became the primary
underwriters of hard-line libertarian politics in America," Mayer writes.
Charles's goal was to "tear the government out 'at the root'."
Another man who studied Charles thought "he was driven by some deeper urge
to smash the one thing left in the world that could discipline him: the
government".
Much of what the American right has accomplished can be seen as a reaction
to the upheavals of the 1960s, when big corporations like Dow Chemical
(which manufactured napalm for the Vietnam War) reached the nadir of their
popularity.
In 1971, corporate lawyer (and future supreme court justice) Lewis Powell
wrote a 5,000 word memo that was a blueprint for a broad attack on the
liberal establishment. The real enemies, Powell wrote, "were the college
campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the
arts and sciences", and "politicians".
He argued that conservatives should control the political debate at its
source by demanding "balance" in textbooks, television shows and news
coverage" - themes that were echoed in inflammatory speeches by Richard
Nixon's vice-president, Spiro Agnew.
The war on liberals was so effective that practically everyone reacted to
it: from the New York Times, which hired ex-Nixon speechwriter Bill Safire
to "balance" its op-ed page, to the Ford Foundation, which gave $300,000 to
the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in 1972. The impact was cumulative:
almost four decades later, Barack Obama was astonished by one of the first
questions asked to him, by a New York Times reporter, after he became
president: "Are you a socialist?"
The AEI was one of dozens of the new thinktanks bankrolled by hundreds of
millions from the Kochs and their allies. Sold to the public as
quasi-scholarly organizations, their real function was to legitimize the
right to pollute for oil, gas and coal companies, and to argue for ever more
tax cuts for of the people who created them. Richard Scaife, an heir to the
Mellon fortune, gave $23m over 23 years to the Heritage Foundation, after
having been the largest single donor to AEI.
Next, the right turned its sights on American campuses. John M Olin founded
the Olin Foudation, and spent nearly $200m promoting "free-market ideology
and other conservative ideas on the country's campuses". It bankrolled a
whole new approach to jurisprudence called "law and economics", Mayer
writes, giving $10m to Harvard, $7m to Yale and Chicago, and over $2m to
Columbia, Cornell, Georgetown and the University of Virginia.
The amount of spent money has been staggering. Between 2005 and 2008, the
Kochs alone spent nearly $25m on organizations fighting climate reform. One
study by a Drexel University professor found 140 conservative foundations
[6] had spent $558m over seven years for the same purpose.
The next step for the radical right was to support the creation of the Tea
Party movement, through organizations like Americans for Prosperity, which
was funded by the Kochs.
"The Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute and Americans for Prosperity
provided speakers, talking points, press releases, transportation, and other
logistical support," Mayer writes. As the writer Thomas Frank has pointed
out, the genius of this strategy was to "turn corporate self-interest into a
movement among people on the streets".
The last element of this multi-pronged campaign saw the direct investment of
hundreds of millions of dollars in political campaigns at every level, from
president to city councilman. In 1996, a last-minute $3m campaign of attack
ads against Democrats in 29 races, a campaign which may have been financed
by the Kochs, was considered outrageous and extravagant. But after the
disappearance of virtually all restrictions on campaign contributions -
another result of rightwing lobbying and the supreme court's Citizens United
decision [7] - $3m is now a tiny number.
In the 2016 elections, the goal of the Koch network of contributors is to
spend $889m, more than twice what they spent in 2012 [8].
Four years ago, because Obama had the most sophisticated vote-pulling
operation in the history of American politics, and a rather lackluster
opponent, a Democratic president was able to withstand such a gigantic
financial onslaught. This time around, it's not clear that any Democrat will
be so fortunate.
. Charles Kaiser [9] is a writer based in New York. He is the author
of 1968 in America, The Gay Metropolis and The Cost of Courage.
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Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [10]
[11]
________________________________________
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/inside-new-book-thats-giving-koc
h-brothers-heart-attack
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/charles-kaiser
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/
[3]
http://fortune.com/2016/01/14/executive-disputes-role-of-koch-brothers-fathe
r-in-nazi-oil-refinery/
[4]
http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-History-Billionaires-Radical/dp/0307970655
[5] http://www.newyorker.com/contributors/jane-mayer
[6]
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-climate-change-de
nial-effort/
[7]
http://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jun/25/supreme-court-citizens-united-mon
tana
[8]
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/07/koch-brothers-database-2012-ele
ction
[9] http://charleskaiser.com/
[10] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Inside the New Book
That's Giving the Koch Brothers a Heart Attack
[11] http://www.alternet.org/
[12] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Inside the New Book That's Giving the Koch Brothers a Heart Attack
Inside the New Book That's Giving the Koch Brothers a Heart Attack
By Charles Kaiser [1] / The Guardian [2]
January 17, 2016
Lots of American industrialists have skeletons in the family closet. Charles
and David Koch, however, are in a league of their own.
The father of these famous right-wing billionaires was Fred Koch, who
started his fortune with $500,000 received from Stalin for his assistance
constructing 15 oil refineries in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. A couple of
years later, his company, Winkler-Koch, helped the Nazis complete their
third-largest oil refinery [3]. The facility produced hundreds of thousands
of gallons of high-octane fuel for the Luftwaffe, until it was destroyed by
Allied bombs in 1944.
In 1938, the patriarch wrote that "the only sound countries in the world are
Germany, Italy and Japan". To make sure his children got the right ideas, he
hired a German nanny. The nanny was such a fervent Nazi that when France
fell in 1940, she resigned and returned to Germany. After that, Fred became
the main disciplinarian, whipping his children with belts and tree branches.
These are just a handful of the many bombshells exploded in the pages of
Dark Money [4], Jane Mayer's indispensable new history "of the billionaires
behind the rise of the radical right" in America.
A veteran investigative reporter and a staff writer for the New Yorker [5],
Mayer has combined her own research with the work of scores of other
investigators, to describe how the Kochs and fellow billionaires like
Richard Scaife have spent hundreds of millions to "move their political
ideas from the fringe to the center of American political life".
Twenty years after collaborating with the Nazis, Fred Koch lost none of his
taste for extremism. In 1958 he was one of the 11 original members of the
John Birch Society, an organization which accused scores of prominent
Americans, including President Dwight Eisenhower, of communist sympathies.
In 1960, Koch wrote that "the colored man looms large in the Communist plan
to take over America". He strongly supported the movement to impeach chief
justice Earl Warren, after the supreme court voted to desegregate public
schools in Brown v Board of Education. His sons became Birchers too,
although Charles was more enamored of "antigovernment economic writers" than
communist conspiracies.
After their father died, Charles and David bought out their brothers' shares
in the family company, then built it into the second largest privately held
corporation in America.
"As their fortunes grew, Charles and David Koch became the primary
underwriters of hard-line libertarian politics in America," Mayer writes.
Charles's goal was to "tear the government out 'at the root'."
Another man who studied Charles thought "he was driven by some deeper urge
to smash the one thing left in the world that could discipline him: the
government".
Much of what the American right has accomplished can be seen as a reaction
to the upheavals of the 1960s, when big corporations like Dow Chemical
(which manufactured napalm for the Vietnam War) reached the nadir of their
popularity.
In 1971, corporate lawyer (and future supreme court justice) Lewis Powell
wrote a 5,000 word memo that was a blueprint for a broad attack on the
liberal establishment. The real enemies, Powell wrote, "were the college
campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the
arts and sciences", and "politicians".
He argued that conservatives should control the political debate at its
source by demanding "balance" in textbooks, television shows and news
coverage" - themes that were echoed in inflammatory speeches by Richard
Nixon's vice-president, Spiro Agnew.
The war on liberals was so effective that practically everyone reacted to
it: from the New York Times, which hired ex-Nixon speechwriter Bill Safire
to "balance" its op-ed page, to the Ford Foundation, which gave $300,000 to
the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in 1972. The impact was cumulative:
almost four decades later, Barack Obama was astonished by one of the first
questions asked to him, by a New York Times reporter, after he became
president: "Are you a socialist?"
The AEI was one of dozens of the new thinktanks bankrolled by hundreds of
millions from the Kochs and their allies. Sold to the public as
quasi-scholarly organizations, their real function was to legitimize the
right to pollute for oil, gas and coal companies, and to argue for ever more
tax cuts for of the people who created them. Richard Scaife, an heir to the
Mellon fortune, gave $23m over 23 years to the Heritage Foundation, after
having been the largest single donor to AEI.
Next, the right turned its sights on American campuses. John M Olin founded
the Olin Foudation, and spent nearly $200m promoting "free-market ideology
and other conservative ideas on the country's campuses". It bankrolled a
whole new approach to jurisprudence called "law and economics", Mayer
writes, giving $10m to Harvard, $7m to Yale and Chicago, and over $2m to
Columbia, Cornell, Georgetown and the University of Virginia.
The amount of spent money has been staggering. Between 2005 and 2008, the
Kochs alone spent nearly $25m on organizations fighting climate reform. One
study by a Drexel University professor found 140 conservative foundations
[6] had spent $558m over seven years for the same purpose.
The next step for the radical right was to support the creation of the Tea
Party movement, through organizations like Americans for Prosperity, which
was funded by the Kochs.
"The Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute and Americans for Prosperity
provided speakers, talking points, press releases, transportation, and other
logistical support," Mayer writes. As the writer Thomas Frank has pointed
out, the genius of this strategy was to "turn corporate self-interest into a
movement among people on the streets".
The last element of this multi-pronged campaign saw the direct investment of
hundreds of millions of dollars in political campaigns at every level, from
president to city councilman. In 1996, a last-minute $3m campaign of attack
ads against Democrats in 29 races, a campaign which may have been financed
by the Kochs, was considered outrageous and extravagant. But after the
disappearance of virtually all restrictions on campaign contributions -
another result of rightwing lobbying and the supreme court's Citizens United
decision [7] - $3m is now a tiny number.
In the 2016 elections, the goal of the Koch network of contributors is to
spend $889m, more than twice what they spent in 2012 [8].
Four years ago, because Obama had the most sophisticated vote-pulling
operation in the history of American politics, and a rather lackluster
opponent, a Democratic president was able to withstand such a gigantic
financial onslaught. This time around, it's not clear that any Democrat will
be so fortunate.
. Charles Kaiser [9] is a writer based in New York. He is the author
of 1968 in America, The Gay Metropolis and The Cost of Courage.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [10]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[11]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/inside-new-book-thats-giving-koc
h-brothers-heart-attack
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/charles-kaiser
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/
[3]
http://fortune.com/2016/01/14/executive-disputes-role-of-koch-brothers-fathe
r-in-nazi-oil-refinery/
[4]
http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-History-Billionaires-Radical/dp/0307970655
[5] http://www.newyorker.com/contributors/jane-mayer
[6]
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-climate-change-de
nial-effort/
[7]
http://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jun/25/supreme-court-citizens-united-mon
tana
[8]
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/07/koch-brothers-database-2012-ele
ction
[9] http://charleskaiser.com/
[10] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Inside the New Book
That's Giving the Koch Brothers a Heart Attack
[11] http://www.alternet.org/
[12] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
