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Koch Brothers and US Chamber: Polluting Our Earth and Our Democracies
Wisconsin Workers and Enviros Everywhere Face Same Enemy
Among other truths made completely clear by the showdown in Wisconsin: the outsized role of the Koch brothers in American politics.
(Photo by Steve Rhodes.)
Charles and David, the third and fourth richest men in America, first gained notoriety in the fall, when a remarkable expose by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker showed how they'd funded not only the Tea Party but also the hydra-headed campaign to undermine the science of global warming, all in the service of even more profit for their oil and gas business.
But it was in Wisconsin that the down-and-dirty details of their operation began to emerge -- they'd not only funded the election campaigns of the governor and the new GOP legislature, but also an advertising effort attacking the state's teachers. They'd helped pay for buses to ferry in counter-protesters. We were even treated to the sight of new Governor Scott Walker fawning over them in what turned out to be a hoax phone call. The Kochs are right up there now with the great plutocrats of American history, a 21st century version of the robber barons.
The trouble is, they don't care. And they don't really have to care. Their business is privately held and answers to no one. Last week their spokesman said they would "not step back at all ... This is a big part of our life's work. We are not going to stop." So those of us who care about things like the climate will need to go on tracking them. But we'll also need to pay attention to their ideological twin, the Pepsi to their Koch. It's the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Unlike the Koch brothers, everyone's heard of them. That's because there's a chamber of commerce in almost every town in America -- they're the local barbers and florists and insurance guys, the folks who arrange the annual chili cook-off or the downtown Christmas lights. You know why Lindbergh's plane was called the "Spirit of St. Louis"? Because it was paid for by the by St. Louis Chamber of Commerce.
But that's not the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The U.S. Chamber is a hard-right ideological operation, which provides massive funding to conservative Republicans, including the new GOP majority in Wisconsin. If you want a sense of just how far right: Glenn Beck held a telethon on their behalf, and donated $10,000 of his money. "They are us," he said -- and an executive of the chamber called in to thank him. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent more money lobbying in 2009 than the next five biggest players combined; they spent more money on politics than either the Republican or Democratic National Committees. They're the biggest elephant in the jungle.
Despite their claim to represent three million American businesses, more than half their budget comes from just 16 companies. They don't have to identify them, but it's pretty easy to guess who they might be, since the chamber has devoted much of its time to thwarting any effort to control carbon emissions. For instance, they filed a brief with the EPA demanding they not fight global warming because "populations can acclimatize to warmer climates via a range of behavioral, physiological, and technological adaptations."
And here's the thing: Unlike the Kochs, the Chamber has some real vulnerabilities. Though thanks to the Supreme Court they can keep their secret flow of money going, their credibility depends in part on the idea that they're representing all those millions of businesses. That's why we've launched a big nationwide campaign: "The U.S. Chamber Doesn't Speak for Me." Businesses big and small are already joining in -- a thousand in the first week -- making the case that in fact capitalism can adapt to new sources of energy. Capitalism's great virtue, after all, is supposed to be nimbleness and flexibility.
Those of us who work on climate change have spent years trying to figure out why Congress pays no attention to what's clearly the most dangerous issues the earth faces. For years we thought we simply needed to explain the crisis more skillfully. But in the last year the truth is becoming clearer: Hidden in the shadows are the guys with money who pull the strings. We need to illuminate those shadows, with the Kochs and even more with the U.S. Chamber.
Originally published at GreenBiz.com.
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Show All"Those of us who work on climate change have spent years trying to figure out why Congress pays no attention to what's clearly the most dangerous issues the earth faces. For years we thought we simply needed to explain the crisis more skillfully. But in the last year the truth is becoming clearer. . ."
I respect McKibbon and think he is one of the best leading environmental activist writers, but has it really taken him "years" to figure out why Congress pays no attention? I could have told him why back in the 70s, when I believed that things would go bad in a much shorter time frame than has turned out to be the case (things are proceeding just as I have always believed they would but at a much slower rate, allowing me to achieve old age just in time for the big crash). The crisis must be explained more skillfully not to Congress (they'll only make supportive sounding speeches or appeal to the right wing base), it is to those American people who so many dismiss scornfully on this site. Get them sufficiently worked up and members of Congress will find themselves forced to at least appear to fall in line.
Nevertheless, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet is a good example of not giving up in the face of overwhelming oppositional forces.
Getting the people to pay attention is another time thing that will be slow as it will have to effect their pocketbook to get them sufficiently worked up. We have 21 republican governors doing the same thing in a little different way but bottom line the loss of democracy. It will probably never happen here in Oregon, we are a progressive state, an environmental state but we could be unemployed for a long time and our wages may go down slowly. Not enough to get the people to the streets. All media is complicit with their corporate masters so we do not have a well informed citizenry or informed about the rights being take away from workers that will eventually effect them. About powers that these governments are taking. We need to first taken down Citizens United, get lobbyist/money out of Washington making it a crime to take money from any industry, and then take back our Media public airways. Break up the conglomerates.
Very true...waking people from their slumber is the first challenge...but once people are pushed to the edge...revolutions can happen.
We are done being treated like serfs in a 'democracy' that exists in name only...the people control their democracy not unelected multinational corporations and plutocratic billionaires like the Koch brothers.
It is time for a revolt against the corporate elite and their fascist conservative enablers who have polluted our air, water and land, stolen our money, taken our rights and shredded our democracy.
It's heartening that the audience for Glenn Beck's TV show has dropped by a third (over 1 million) in the past year; Bill O'Reilly has gone down by half in four years, and the audience for Fox News and right-wing radio in general has fallen and will continue to decline since the average age of their demographic is 64.
Meanwhile, most people under 30 get their news from The Daily Show. the Internet, and MSNBC's primetime shows (gradually inching up in the ratings), and this group is voting for progressives in large numbers. Adding to this will be Keith Olbermann's new show on Current, premiering in late spring.
Also, the six multi-national corporations that own most of the U.S. media, and the major daily newspapers, are losing customers, especially in the news arena.
I think the demonstrations in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan will have an impact on other states as well, and help wake them up from their GOP-induced torpor. The corporate crapitalists have shown their hand and most Americans don't like their cards or the way they play the game. All of this adds up to the general public being more informed as to what's really going on and, hopefully, reacting to it by turning these neo-fascists out. Policing no-paper-trail computerized voting machines, of course, is another problem, along with preventing 'caging' lists of voters, but not insurmountable with an awakened and aware electorate.
Maybe, like the former USSR, Americans will come to reject as propaganda any info from the 'official' big media and corporate ad campaigns. Then the Citizens United decision will have been rendered useless.
Environmental changes wrought and accelerated by industrialization is the greatest crisis that humankind face worldwide. The Koch brothers insidious campaign to discredit environmental science for the sake of their profit is a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY. All humans will suffer because of the greed of the Koch brothers. We live on a precious lifeboat in the cold void of space and there is no where else to go. The short-sighted greed of these vile criminals puts our own species at risk. This pair of slimey, smiling scumbags think only of their own profit and power. They are a CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER TO ALL HUMANKIND.
BRAVO, Thomas R. Arnold. This was the same visceral reaction I had to a numb skull on the thread responding to the disastrous quake that just hit Japan. People who profit from diluting the Truth when it's so vital that that same Truth wake people up are consigning mankind to a collective suicide. At least with a massive awakening, ingenuity, intelligence, and perhaps even support from higher agencies could be galvanized, and help to inspire solutions, or ways to deal with the obvious Transition that's well underway. Life may NEVER be the same again. These major disruptive events ARE speeding up...
Leave it to the probable embeds in this forum to do their best to split hairs trying to separate which events are seismic from those that are "weather" related just to diffuse the seriousness of the topic. What we once knew as stability and security are probably over... disruptions to harvests, fuel supplies, and streams of income, with government agencies failing to step in (to genuinely provide aid) may well become the new norms.
We're ALL New Orleans natives now!
The stupidity of this article is that it acts as if public relations is the goal. It is not!
As we learned in Wisconsin, public relations means little or nothing. Demonstrations mean little or nothing. The ONLY power left to Americans that works is the GENERAL STRIKE! Both the Democratic and Republican parties will resist the GENERAL STRIKE because they know it will harm the Corporate State.
PEOPLE MUST GET THIS INTO THEIR HEAD ONCE AND FOR ALL "THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY DOES NOT REPRESENT THE PEOPLE." Anyone who attempts to convince you that Democrats represent people are fucking liers with an emphasis on liers. Fight the Dem's or perish.
If you're gonna talk about liars, at least spell it right: Liars.
Should we fight Dems like the 14 who left Wisconsin and stayed away so that Walker couldn't pass his neo-fascist bill? Or the Dems who exiled themselves from Indiana to prevent Daniels from passing his fetid union-killing bill? Should we fight Dems like WI Sen. Russ Feingold who was turned out of office by Koch Bros. money? Are these the dangerous liars you're talking about, Stone?
Some Dems are bad, it's true, and we should vote them out. As far as I can tell ALL of the Republicans, without exception, are trying to destroy our democracy and hand the nation over to the corporations. If you want any semblance of a constitutional government, fight the GOP first.
Bill McKibben,
I understand your concerns but, really, until you address the HEART of the matter, you are just blowing smoke. When you go after General Dynamics in Vermont for polluting our country and other countries with their weapons, not to mention polluting Vermonter minds with weapon manufacturer jobs and justifications from the likes of Leahy and Sanders, then you will be addressing the HEART of darkness that has the USA in its' thrall.
Bill, the US military is the greatest polluter on the F__king planet! The USA makes matters worse by exporting weapons to other countries so they can pollute the air, sea and land to their heart's content.
Take the bull by the horns, Bill. Military spending is destroying our environment and our finances. They are blowing right past your CO2 number while you stand mute about war and pick issues that won't get you in too much trouble with our fascist government. This undermines your credibility.
There is more than one kettle of fish to fry. I fail to see how someone not including the MIC in an environmental article is just blowing smoke. I don't disagree that the MIC is a huge problem on many levels, but it is not the only issue affecting society. Just because your hung up on it, doesn't make it a requisite for someone's credibility...
Unlike most professional environmentalists, McKibben has finally ventured to criticize and point at a part of the capitalist system that will do anything to the environment for profits on their bottom line. It is long past time for the environmental organizations to stop trying to cut deals with the beast of capital and develop a clear understanding of the central engine of destruction of the global environment: the crazed addiction to endless growth and profit central to corporate capitalism. And then join forces with others who see that contination of the capitalist system is a death sentence for all higher forms of life on the planet.
Most progressives are losing patience with capitalism. If capitalism, socialism, or other system is to persist and provide for all the people, it has to be led by the people, not by oligarchs, commissars or theocrats:
https://votep2.us/login.php
"Businesses big and small are already joining in -- a thousand in the first week -- making the case that in fact capitalism can adapt to new sources of energy. Capitalism's great virtue, after all, is supposed to be nimbleness and flexibility."
So that's capitalism's "great virtue"--nimbleness and flexibility? I'm sure the Koch brothers would heartily agree. The dreadful Chamber as well. How can you go about wrecking the planet for personal gain, get away with it decade after decade, and buy every politician in sight, unless you are plenty nimble and flexible?
So this is what McKibben wants to do? Save capitalism by persuading its worst abusers to adopt new sources of energy? He's always seemed fairly naive but this is ridiculous. They can't make as much money adapting to new sources of energy, Bill, and until they can they won't be interested in your nationwide campaign. The real money is in fossil fuels, damn the cost to the environment, and until they can be certain that there's more money in solar, wind, biomass or old-fashioned horsepower, capitalists aren't going to budge from their fixation on carbon-based energy sources. They won't do it if they don't have to. The political class now wrecking everything isn't inclined to make them do it. So they don't have to.
As a result of Santa Clara County vs Southern Pacific Railroad the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Corporations are Persons. This was our death knell.
As has been said, if corporations are people, let them pay the same taxes people do. ExxonMobil, GE and other multi-nationals didn't pay a penny in federal income taxes last year.
BTW, Ocean, Jim Hightower, et al, claims in the Santa Clara v. So. Pacific RR case that the Supreme Court actually did not decide corporations were people -- a clerk to one of the SC judges added that language to the case, but it was not part of the decision. It's been a victory for the corporate elite in convincing generations of law professors and their students (who became SC judges) that corporate personhood had been a settled precedent when it was not.
GOP, GOP, GOP, KOCH BROTHERS, KOCH BROTHERS, Glenn Beck, bla, bla, bla....
OK-- point taken. What is stated in this story is true---BUT--
what about the Democratic Party getting monies from their corporate masters who are equally complicite in polluting and destroying democracy too?
This is very one sided journalism.
I'm tired of this BS.
Chelsea
Green Party USA
because some of us old timers have a hard time to remember to stop defending them or thinking that they are the party of the workers. We have done it all our lives and changes is hard. I have it harder because the democrats from Oregon represent my interests quite well and I am proud of them most of the times. Yes, there is a big corporate democrat bunch in house and corporate senators in the democratic party.
I was a Green so I could campaign for Nader and main reason was to get a third party 5% vote so would get federal $$ for the campaign an get maybe the media to include them. Well you saw how that worked in 2000, of course, you could also say the election was ?? illegal/stolen/supremes choice not the people.
I'd like to see Horace try to refute the statistics in this article with the familiar canard that elections are equally tainted by UNION money.
There's no end to the ways those on the right mangle, twist, turn, and invert Truth to serve their own selfish, narrow-minded, ego-driven ends.
These people are destroying OUR world!
I do not like to see Horace post anything. I mean it happens and all but it not something I could say I "like". :)
The amount of destruction & horror that the corporations are perpetrating is incommensurable comparatively speaking. The left & all progressive forces tend ot keep quite sometime, thus giving credibility to that nonsense.
No Terror, No Torture. just truth.
Shhhhhh. Please don't wake the sleeping trolls.
"This is a big part of our life's work."
The Koch Bruthers' life work is prime fodder for chop/compost/recycle by the shovels of the people. And the people are rising to the challenge of composting all private thuggery, given that being the source of 90% of all planetary destruction, with 90% public awareness. The elite thugs wear no clothes today, are disgusting to look at, are almost completely useless/unnecessary, and are standing in the people's way.
Thank you, Bill McKibben. I've been so focussed on the Koch Bros lately, I didn't understand about the U.S. C of C being a differnt entity. I will share this info and the link.
I find it rather unbelievable that Mr. McKibben will be "knocking on doors for Obama" come next election, considering Obama's recent speech to the US Chamber of Commerce in which he promised that his administration will “help lay the foundation for you to grow and innovate,” by eliminating “barriers that make it harder for you to compete - from the tax code to the regulatory system,” and by completing more trade deals.
"The trouble is, they don't care. And they don't really have to care. Their business is privately held and answers to no one."
Wrong. Their business is business and they answer to their customers. Their money doesn't grow on trees -- it grows on Georgia Pacific lumber, for starters.
Do not buy ANY GP products. Do not buy their paper products, such as Brawny paper towels, Dixie Cups.
Boycott these arrogant scoundrels.
What happened to the national STRIKE? Is it still set for April Fool's Day??
Let's quit playing OFFENDED VIRGINS. We are letting these people do it to us while we bla bla bla our life away ranting and raving about what we don't ever intend to do like losing money, jobs and our overstreatched lifestyle of comfort and leisure with large houses and 1 SUV’s per family member as we amuse ourselves to death with our gadgets that serve as social pacifiers which keep people docile. It’s called the "culture of contentment" where the "comfortably numb" expect the rest of us to become "comfortably numb", reasonable and contented like them or else. Wisconsin citizens have shown us the “or else” by letting a governing body of cronyism subvert workers rights with the help of jealous non unionized middle class workers that resort to back biting each other while the rich get richer and the poor get stupid. Maybe one-day sociologists will add this chapter of human ecology at it’s finest destroying each other and making up lame excuses for one’s behaviour. As the song said: “HATE YOUR NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOUR, BUT DON’T FORGET TO SAY GRACE”. Oh yes, I forgot then blame Obama for what we don't collectivelly have the courage to do. As René Girard would say we now need a scapegoat to assume our collective misgivings.