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Page added on January 11, 2016
Father of Koch Brothers Helped Nazis
The father of the billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch helped construct a major oil refinery in Nazi Germany that was personally approved by Adolf Hitler, according to a new history of the Kochs and other wealthy families.
The book, “Dark Money,” by Jane Mayer, traces the rise of the modern conservative movement through the activism and money of a handful of rich donors: among them Richard Mellon Scaife, an heir to the Mellon banking fortune, and Harry and Lynde Bradley, brothers who became wealthy in part from military contracts but poured millions into anti-government philanthropy.
But the book is largely focused on the Koch family, stretching back to its involvement in the far-right John Birch Society and the political and business activities of their father, Fred C. Koch, who found some of his earliest business success overseas in the years leading up to World War II. One venture was a partnership with the American Nazi sympathizer William Rhodes Davis, who, according to Ms. Mayer, hired Mr. Koch to help build the third-largest oil refinery in the Third Reich, a critical industrial cog in Hitler’s war machine.
The episode is not mentioned in an online history published by Koch Industries, the company that Mr. Koch later founded and passed on to his sons.
Ken Spain, a spokesman for Koch Industries, said company officials had declined to participate in Ms. Mayer’s book and had not yet read it.
“If the content of the book is reflective of Ms. Mayer’s previous reporting of the Koch family, Koch Industries or Charles’s and David’s political involvement, then we expect to have deep disagreements and strong objections to her interpretation of the facts and their sourcing,” Mr. Spain said.
Ms. Mayer, a staff writer at The New Yorker, presents the Kochs and other families as the hidden and self-interested hands behind the rise and growth of the modern conservative movement. Philanthropists and political donors who poured hundreds of millions of dollars into think tanks, political organizations and scholarships, they helped win acceptance for anti-government and anti-tax policies that would protect their businesses and personal fortunes, she writes, all under the guise of promoting the public interest.
The Kochs, the Scaifes, the Bradleys and the DeVos family of Michigan “were among a small, rarefied group of hugely wealthy, archconservative families that for decades poured money, often with little public disclosure, into influencing how the Americans thought and voted,” the book says.
Many of the families owned businesses that clashed with environmental or workplace regulators, come under federal or state investigation, or waged battles over their tax bills with the Internal Revenue Service, Ms. Mayer reports. The Kochs’ vast political network, a major force in Republican politics today, was “originally designed as a means of off-loading the costs of the Koch Industries environmental and regulatory fights onto others” by persuading other rich business owners to contribute to Koch-controlled political groups, Ms. Mayer writes, citing an associate of the two brothers.
Mr. Scaife, who died in 2014, donated upward of a billion dollars to conservative causes, according to “Dark Money,” which cites his own unpublished memoirs. Mr. Scaife was driven in part, Ms. Mayer writes, by a tax loophole that granted him his inheritance tax-free through a trust, so long as the trust donated its net income to charity for 20 years. “Isn’t it grand how tax law gets written?” Mr. Scaife wrote.
In Ms. Mayer’s telling, the Kochs helped bankroll — through a skein of nonprofit organizations with minimal public disclosure — decades of victories in state capitals and in Washington, often leaving no fingerprints. She credits groups financed by the Kochs and their allies with providing support for the Tea Party movement, along with the public relations strategies used to shrink public support for the Affordable Care Act and for President Obama’s proposals to mitigate climate change.
The Koch network also provided funding to fine-tune budget proposals from Representative Paul D. Ryan, such as cuts to Social Security, so they would be more palatable to voters, according to the book. The Kochs were so influential among conservative lawmakers, Ms. Mayer reports, that in 2011, Representative John A. Boehner, then the House speaker, visited David Koch to ask for his help in resolving that year’s debt ceiling stalemate.
“Dark Money” also contains revelations from a private history of the Kochs commissioned by David’s twin brother, William, during a lengthy and contentious legal battle with Charles and David over control of Koch Industries.
Ms. Mayer describes a sealed 1982 deposition in which William Koch recalled participating in an attempt by Charles and David to blackmail their fourth and eldest brother, Frederick, into relinquishing any claim to the family business by threatening to tell their father that he was gay.
David Koch has since described himself as socially liberal and as a supporter of same-sex marriage.
30 Comments on "Father of Koch Brothers Helped Nazis"
Joe D on Mon, 11th Jan 2016 7:12 pm
No surprise here!
Apneaman on Mon, 11th Jan 2016 7:41 pm
MEGACANCER ~ Exploring the pathology of industrial civilization.
Roller Coaster
“Humans are mostly unaware that using technology to eat and despoil the biosphere is necessarily a bad thing, especially since they are trapped within an evolved mental cocoon more suited to jungle tribal life than technological existence, where their attentions are constantly upon those things their brains are evolved to notice (Facebook Twitter, office politics, presidential politics, religion, gossip, sports (how did our warriors do against theirs). The MSM simply panders to human behavioral/attention proclivities to gain as much profit as possible even though their “attention” should be focused upon things of real importance, like the collapse of their feeble cancerous civilization. Since most humans are still not awake and have nearly accomplished the destruction of their environment, it is unlikely that they will ever be awake. Instead they will fall back into their default mode, fight over a “fair” share of resources, gossip, play politics, believe in Gods, go to war with neighboring tribes, think very little and seek any reward the environment still offers.”
more
http://megacancer.com/2016/01/08/rollercoaster/
Go Speed Racer on Mon, 11th Jan 2016 7:43 pm
I used to think this website was about Peak Oil. My mistake. This website is about the Coca-Cola brothers and the Nazi’s and the Gloomer-Doomers.
http://usedtobepeakoil_nowitis_the_gloomerdoomer_nazisite.com
onlooker on Mon, 11th Jan 2016 7:54 pm
“The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology” E.O. Wilson
makati1 on Mon, 11th Jan 2016 8:02 pm
Go Speed, oil is a small part of reality. It is ALL tied together by money, greed, and power. This site would not last long if the articles and comments were only about the daily price of petroleum. What can you say? Up? Down? Sideways? It really doesn’t matter to the 99.999% of the world’s population who are not invested financially or career wise in it. The sooner the whole thing goes bust, the better for humanity as a whole.
makati1 on Mon, 11th Jan 2016 8:03 pm
Perfect quote, Onlooker.
Apneaman on Mon, 11th Jan 2016 8:12 pm
Speed Racer, you’re just confused by the title. Many peak oil articles and discussions around here for sure. If you go to the front page you will notice a drop down box with all the different oil related categories of articles and discussions. Let me know if you need help making the connections.
Go Speed Racer on Mon, 11th Jan 2016 8:30 pm
It is all good. Kidding only. It’s a good mix of info at this site.
Apneaman on Mon, 11th Jan 2016 8:34 pm
Ditto
turningpoint on Mon, 11th Jan 2016 9:50 pm
What kind of article is this? Fine, the information is out there, assuming it’s true, but in the modern West, it’s not part of our tradition to blame kids for the sins of their parents. I’m almost in my 50’s. Are the sins of my grandparents, of which I’m sure there were many, my fault?
ennui2 on Mon, 11th Jan 2016 9:51 pm
“it’s not part of our tradition to blame kids for the sins of their parents.”
The current generation is racking up enough sins as it is.
GregT on Mon, 11th Jan 2016 10:33 pm
“The current generation is racking up enough sins as it is.”
And it isn’t part of our tradition to blame it on their kids.
Apneaman on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 1:36 am
The bros are just as bad as the father. Worse infact. Two of the biggest cancer pimps the planet has ever known. Two old fuck billionaires (73, 70)), with only a decade or so left, bending all their will like Sauron corrupting everything and anyone they can while turning the landscape into Mordor. Why? in an infinite quest for more. That’s the goal – more. Every extra unneeded billion is more dopamine hits for the sub human cancer monkey brothers. They deserve the fate of all enemies of the people.
Long live the revolution bla bla bla.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk5PBRYQzn0
joe on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 1:57 am
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Teller
It should be noted that the worst nazis and engineers came from Europe, not America. America supplies the material, the evil ideas come from the minds of evil people.
If the barrier to enter the heights of a ‘moral’ American was whether your father made money or exploited nazis then we had better shut NASA, and end our use of rocket technology, stop using almost all cars, shut down all European rail companies etc etc.
Fact is money and greed drove support for Nazis and as they became scared of mass popular communist and anarchists movements, the rich turned to people in a movement they liked but didn’t think matter much. The elites never feared nazis, Vichy France testifies to that. It wasn’t until Italy threatened British interests in Egypt, and got smacked down, thus forcing Hitler to back his buddy il duce that western elites started to hate nazis.
My own view is that Mussolini not Hitler ruined the elites plan to topple communism, and that by trying to threaten British interest directly, Italy erred. Before the axis tried to enter Cairo and take the Suez Canal it’s possible to imagine that the Kochs of the world living happily with nazis that was until Germany honored it’s treaties and backed it’s ally in north Africa. The attempt to threaten the British Empire set of a chain of event that spun the war in Europe out of control., because the main thesis of nazis was hate of groups. Kochs etc main thesis is love, love of money, they think they are like nazis but they are not, true nazis are like IS jihadists, Erdogan in Turkey is another Koch brother.
Apneaman on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 2:44 am
joe, what rocket technology?
Washington Quietly Lifts Sanctions on Russian Rockets
“Washington, who leveled widespread sanctions against Russia in an increasingly tenuous bid to isolate and undermine the stability of Moscow, has found itself humiliated and backtracking as it lifts bans on Russia’s RD-180 rocket engines.
And even as Washington does so, the US media finds itself still painting Russia as a villain even as the US finds itself forced to buy rockets from a nation it claims invaded Crimea, is fostering a “hybrid war” in eastern Ukraine, and is bombing US-backed “rebels” in Syria. It is worth mentioning that Russia’s RD-180 rocket engines, possessing unparalleled performance US firms have yet to match, will be used to launch payloads into Earth orbit for the US Department of Defense.”
First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2016/01/07/washington-quietly-lifts-sanctions-on-russian-rockets/”
No space for US without Russian rockets
https://www.rt.com/business/322886-us-russia-rocket-engines/
I wonder if those Russians have installed killswitch backdoors in them? They sneaky like that.
Maybe next year the Russians will send their people to teach y’all how to build a nuke plant in under 3 decades.
After 36 Years, Nuclear Plant in Tennessee Nears Completion
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/11/us/after-36-years-nuclear-plant-nears-completion.html
As a gesture of international goodwill, y’all can do a cultural technology exchange thingy. Their best for yours. Send them a couple of fast food smartphone coupon apps and a tutorial on making world class youtube cat videos.
Cloud9 on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 7:05 am
You have to take admiration of the Nazis in the context in which it was born, the economic collapse of the 1930’s. A number of prominent Americans to include Lindbergh and Ford admired the seeming miracle the Nazis brought to Germany during this period. There was a plan afoot to install General Smedley Butler as the American Dictator. Butler declined the opportunity and informed on the plotters.
Even today we have this yearning for a miraculous leader that will lead us to the promised land. Obama was the embodiment of this dream for the left. Trump is the current example from the right. There are no magical solutions. Magic is not real boys and girls. What appears to be magical is nothing more than a slight of hand we don’t understand.
Look to your stocks of beans and rice. Our trajectory is evident.
Charlie Bucket on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 8:51 am
You should try working for them. I did, and they force their ideology down your throat! It is disgraceful! Luckily I still have a gag reflex and couldn’t swallow their shit, so I quit. The rest of the employees walk around like a bunch of Branch Davidinians with this strange glaze in their eyes. It creeped me out to no end. I would also like to see someone’s take on why Koch Industries owns so many ethanol plants. Can you say subsidies anyone? Total hypocrisy!
bug on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 9:41 am
Charlie, Apnea’s post said it.
People like the mentioned have something you and I and most don’t have, it is the “more” syndrome. They can never get enough money, power or stuff, whatever.
At this age most of us want to relax spend time doing enjoyable endeavours, not chasing more. Sickness
Kenz300 on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 9:48 am
What do RepubliCONS believe…….. depends who is paying….. follow the money……. fossil fuels….. NRA………the top 1%
Apneaman on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 11:28 am
“WCU is among dozens of universities nationwide to land in the Koch-money crosshairs. The Koch brothers and their various funding arms awarded $108 million to 366 colleges and universities from 2005 to 2014 — with $19.3 million across 210 college campuses in 2013 alone — according to political funding analysis by the Institute for Southern Studies and Center for Public Integrity.
The billionaire Koch brothers are well-known political operatives, spending hundreds of millions a year on a sweeping, comprehensive strategy aimed at reshaping national politics to their conservative ideology.
Universities play an important role in the Koch political machine by generating academic research that in turn informs public policy, according to writings and talks by their own strategists.”
http://www.smokymountainnews.com/archives/item/16824-wcu-community-grapples-with-academic-pursuits-in-the-face-of-politically-charged-outside-funding
dissident on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 11:45 am
“Invaded Crimea” sums up the 1984 Orwellian dystopia organ of power that is the NATO mass media today. The Autonomous Republic of Crimea and its ethnic Russian majority had the right to choose whether to stay part of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine in 1991 or to leave. They chose to leave, but Kiev chose to annex them. And NATO laundered this annexation with its “recognition” of Ukraine’s Soviet borders.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_sovereignty_referendum,_1991
The above Wikipedia article tries to skew the interpretation. Khruschev’s “gifting” of Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR was not legal under the Soviet Constitution. And the main port city of Sevastopol was not even part of this gift. Yet somehow this detail was forgotten in 1991.
tahoe1780 on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 12:13 pm
Apnea – I really enjoyed watching The Martian but found it curious (Politically Correct?)that there was no mention of the Russians. Also noted all of the fossil fuel-based plastics, man-made fibers, etc., etc. comprising the Martian base.
Apneaman on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 12:17 pm
How do people or companies with vested interests spread ignorance and obfuscate knowledge? Georgina Kenyon finds there is a term which defines this phenomenon.
“In 1979, a secret memo from the tobacco industry was revealed to the public. Called the Smoking and Health Proposal, and written a decade earlier by the Brown & Williamson tobacco company, it revealed many of the tactics employed by big tobacco to counter “anti-cigarette forces”.
In one of the paper’s most revealing sections, it looks at how to market cigarettes to the mass public: “Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy.””
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160105-the-man-who-studies-the-spread-of-ignorance
Dredd on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 12:36 pm
Oil-Qaeda perverts (The Common Good – 11).
tahoe1780 on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 12:41 pm
Lest we forget – http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar
and as for Putin as KGB – Bush as CIA Director https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush
jjhman on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 1:20 pm
From one of Apnea’s links:
“According to Orbital, Russian rocket engines offer “the best combination of schedule availability, technical performance and cost parameters as compared to other possible options.”
I had an opportunity to visit Rocketdyne near Sacramento several years ago just after they concluded a contract to purchase Russian rocket engines. They were, at that time, quite impressed with the Russian hardware primarily because of the price. As the above quote suggests it isn’t that the Russians have some magic technological advantage. The make good motors cheaper than they can be bought ‘Made in USA”‘and they can deliver them quickly, probably because they are desperate for foreign cash.
When the revolution decides to hang all of the capitalists the capitalists will be happy to sell them the rope.
dissident on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 3:38 pm
In the early 1990s US rocket engine designers thought that the Soviet rocket engine specifications could not be real because no steel alloys existed that could withstand the high temperatures of a true high pressure, staged combustion cycle design. So no, it is not the price. The US was 20 years behind the USSR in efficient rocket engine design in the 1990.
http://www.americaspace.com/?p=89804
The talk is a US replacement for the RD-180 in 2020. So clearly the US did not develop this technology.
Go Speed Racer on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 4:45 pm
The fascinating video you need to watch, about Russian engines, is THE ENGINES THAT CAME IN FROM THE COLD.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TMbl_ofF3AM
A very good 49 minute show. The Russians are pumping some white hot pure oxygen gas, and that cut thru our alloys like a hot knife thru butter. Somehow the Russians got that done so they have a better fuel pathway.
Our engineers would have caught up by now, if not for our ‘blow up the shuttle’ USA management. Something practical about the Russians, they always have a bigger hammer, and they don’t have any Donald Trump. Check out the 49 minute video.
Annapurna on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 5:14 pm
Grandfather of George W. Bush helped Hitler rise to power:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar
makati1 on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 7:40 pm
Russia has a lot of things the FSA is missing. A good leader for one. An almost unlimited amount of resources, including land, for another. And some very intelligent people to make it all work. Not to mention a military surpassing that of the US and NATO.
With China at their back, the Empire is being blocked in all areas around the world and the USD is being destroyed by a thousand cuts. I see the blood on the Market Casino floor. LOL