In the 1970s, this faction began in earnest to change our nation to their ideal of a Confederacy. The Conservatives organized to use what might be described as a siege approach for a political coup d’état. Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Arz) and author William F. Buckley Jr. put together an organization called the Conservative Union. Their goal was to create a permanent conservative power structure and governance of the country.
At about the same time, American corporations had just experienced incredible growth, but the American economy was leveling off. Europe and Japan had recovered from the war and now competing with goods in the world marketplace. They knew they had to gain more power in government to protect profits and influence trade deals. They hated the demands on them from labor unions that took more of the profit away from the capitalists and management. They hated the regulations and oversight that the Great Society created as a result of the Great Depression these wealthy corporations caused. To them democracy was an enemy to their need of control and obtaining as much wealth as can be obtained.
And like a perfect storm, the theocrats who have always wanted a theocratic country were shaken by the sexual and feminists revolutions of the 1960s and early 1970s. The Supreme Court's ruling in Roe Vs Wade (1973) acknowledging a woman's right to privacy under the 14th Amendment regarding her health, thus legalizing abortions was the major catellus these theocrats needed to inflame the emotions of their members to become single issue focused in the voting booth. They too saw that they had to obtain political power to curb this liberalization of society. To them as well, the advancement of science, especially cosmology and space exploration gave them huge fear that people would learn that their faith does not match the science and knowledge coming forth.
Each group started out independently working toward their disparate goals. But then came along political strategist Lee Atwater during Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign. He knew that if he can get these various conservative groups to work together within the Republican Party and shift the southern Democratic racists (Dixiecrats), who are also Bible thumpers, he could obtain control of the south and all their electoral college votes.
Combine these Bible thumpers with those of the Bible belt Midwest and they could win and hold the Presidency for several generations by securing most of the needed Electoral College votes without much campaign effort. Then they could focus money and resources on just a few swing states. The southern strategy worked, the Dixiecrats flipped to the Republican Party and became a stronghold for them. Lee Atwater worked with Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority to start to build a coalition of evangelical organizations into a political power base. Pat Robertson formed the Christian Coalition and knew the power of television. He formed the Christian Broadcasting Corp and founded the 700 Club to rack in huge money from faithful donations of viewers. Many other religious organizations followed with titles that always included the word “Family.” The use of Family was key to capturing the hearts and minds of the faithful in a battle against the heathen Secularists.
Since the moment they coalesced into an orchestrated effort to gain power, the coup d’état began in earnest. One of the major outcomes of this coordinated overthrow of America is the use of Stealth Politicians. This was a program to take Christian Activists and train them in the art of politics. They were to run for and gain office starting at whatever entry level they could win. Ralph Reed, the executive director of the Christian Coalition, set out to give seminars and workshops to handpicked soldiers on how to not show their true colors, appear mainstream to earn respect, learn the political process, learn how to gather donors for elections, who to message to win, all without revealing their true intent in due course to overthrow our Constitution.
Corporatists realized they needed this religious voting block to achieve their goal, so they intertwined “Free Market Capitalism” into the faith tenets of this religious coalition. This was the shift in the core American Christian based religions from focusing on the poor and sick through their charities, to supporting the gaining of wealth, which afforded them political power. They no longer support social programs that provide for the poor, children, or the sick to the extent they originally performed. It is all about political power now. That is what we are witnessing now.
In the early part of the 20th Century, bankers and industrialists in Europe were forming what we now call FASCISM. Around 1920 American bankers and industrialists saw how fascism was the form of governance that would secure their power and authority over the political process. When Nazis took over political power in Germany, they quickly converted it from a liberal democracy into a fascist state. There were many in America who supported the Nazi party movement. Even though the name Nazi means "National Socialist German Workers' Party" it was never a socialist or workers ideology.
Fascism: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control. Severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.
This is a compendium of articles I have found on the Internet that talks about this subject. When the author is known, I have listed them. This is but a small sample of the volumes of articles and documents that clearly demonstrate this takeover is occurring. Please add your comments and any additional articles or information you might have.
America is Under Siege as the Koch Brothers Look to Replace the Constitution
By: Rmuse -- Jun. 30th, 2013, published online at PoliticusUSA.com
In military parlance, a siege is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict with the intent of conquering, by attrition and sustained assaults, an enemy holding a static defensive position with no means of escape or chance of marshaling assistance from outside forces. Siege warfare can last months, and even years, but if the attackers are patient and keep up constant pressure, the final defeat of the besieged is swift and extremely violent as the attackers take out their rage on the vanquished for not surrendering at the start of the war. For thirty years, Republicans have besieged 98% of the population with constant, and sometimes, low-intensity conflict that is reaching fruition and threatens to usher in a swift and violent end for most Americans at the behest of corporate and theocratic factions.
It is no longer a question of how or why Republicans are imposing corporatism and theocratic laws on the American people, but when they will finally transform this once democratic nation into a fascist state under authority of plutocrats and theocrats. The bad news is that America is one election away from total dominance by the Koch brothers billionaire club and religious extremists on the verge of replacing the Constitution with the bible and Milton Freidman’s manifesto “Capitalism and Freedom.” In fact, in preparation for oligarchs and theocrats ascendance to unchallenged authority to reign over the people, Republicans are eliminating the last vestiges of democracy, economic independence, and freedom from religion as they openly oppose the Constitution in their final push toward fascism.
The truth is that Republicans have panted to destroy New Deal protections for 80 years, but it was during the Reagan administration they began their siege in earnest and started transferring the nation’s wealth to plutocrats in the banking and financial industry. It was also the era the religious right gained unfettered access to the halls of Congress that is culminating in a blatant push toward rule by religious edict. Over the past four years, Republicans have tapped into racial animus rampant in a large segment of the population to garner support to give inordinate power to corporations with assistance from the Koch-influenced Supreme Court that gave corporations power over free and fair elections. Events of the past few weeks revealed that Republicans have now abandoned any pretense of governing for the people, and they are blatantly advocating for theocracy and corporatocracy.
It can no longer be argued that Republicans are not deliberately creating poverty to make room for tax benefits for the rich. In North Carolina, Republicans increased poverty by becoming the first of many Republican states to eliminate unemployment benefits despite the state has the fifth highest unemployment rate in the nation. North Carolina Republicans also are amending the state constitution to permanently make it a “right to work” (for less) state to keep corporate profits high and worker wages at poverty level that is a trend in Republican-controlled states. The Republicans’ goal is not to encourage hiring, but to increase corporate profits and produce a population barely surviving on less-than subsistence wages.
In the U.S. Senate, Lamar Alexander (R-TN) called for abolishing the federal minimum wage as part of the New Deal abolitionist crusade, and is a complement to Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) legislation abolishing overtime pay to send more Americans into poverty. All of the Republican attempts at creating poverty are in conjunction with calls to cut social safety nets to fund greater tax advantages for corporations and the rich. Republicans have stopped touting their poverty-creating agenda as necessary to spur hiring because they sense victory in their siege against Americans and it is in no small part due to their voter-suppression tactics the conservative Supreme Court just ensured will advance unimpeded by federal law. All that remains for the High Court to do to finish the Republican siege against Americans, and the Constitution, is strike down the 1st Amendment’s Separation Clause
There was a time that even the hard-core evangelical wing of the Republican Party couched their theocracy ambitions in phony concern for family values, but they abandoned those tactics and have gone full-tilt for embracing religion as the law of the land to enforce harsh measures on gays and women. After the High Court struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s ban on same-sex marriage, a phalanx of Republican legislators stood boldly before the media and, one by one, condemned the rulings as outright opposition to the Christian bible. In Ohio and Texas, Republicans are attempting to ban abortion services on “sanctity of life” grounds, and protestors outside family planning clinics are not waving medical journals, but bibles as they see their Republican representatives advancing the idea that America is a theocracy, and not a democracy. One Texas legislator was so deluded that there is never a condition or reason for an abortion, even in case of rape, that he claimed rape kits are a form of abortion and it justified excluding rape as a legitimate reason for an abortion.
It was reported here on Friday that in Pennsylvania, a gay elected representative was barred from speaking on the floor of the Pennsylvania House because according to a conservative Christian Republican; he was a violation of god’s law. Republican Daryl Metcalfe (Butler) said without hesitation that “I did not believe that as a member of that body that I should allow someone to make comments such as he was preparing to make that ultimately were just open rebellion against what the word of God has said, what God has said, and just open rebellion against God’s law.” The fanatical evangelical’s comments notwithstanding, it was the ease and audacity at which he silenced a fellow government representative on religious grounds that informs America is on the verge of a theocracy if it has not already been established in the shadows with valuable assistance from the corporatist wing of the Republican Party.
Some pundits claim there is no relationship between theocracy advocates and corporatist attempts to subvert democracy, but it is a marriage of convenience Republicans have made good use of over the past four years in particular. It is likely there is little the extremely wealthy and their corporations have in common with hard-core religious extremists, but Republicans take advantage of evangelicals’ passionate opposition to gay rights and women’s reproductive choice to garner support for candidates devoted to slashing social programs to fund tax cuts for corporations and the rich, and that is where the real danger lies. There is little doubt the most vocal evangelicals in Congress and the states are sincere in their attempt to rule by religion, and with funding from wealthy conservative groups whose only regard is grabbing wealth from all the people, the likelihood that a well-funded theocratic agenda giving free reign to oligarchs to plunder what is left of the people’s assets is the outcome Americans should fear most.
These assaults on Americans from religious extremists and corporatists in Republican ranks are in stark contrast to the will of the majority of Americans, and yet instead of backing off out of fear of electoral demise, they are increasing their efforts with brazen disregard as if there is no recompense from an angry electorate. That can only mean one of two things; they are convinced their voter suppression tactics will reap benefits in the next election, or they are intent on causing as much damage to the people and the nation as possible before they are voted into oblivion. Regardless their motivation, it is the people who will suffer and with little hope of outside assistance to defend their interests, the thirty year siege against the American people will reach fruition and they will indeed live in a nation ruled by a corporate theocracy.
The Players in the takeover of our nation and the Elimination of our Constitution:
- The fellowship aka The Family and C Street Center.
- Moral Majority
- American Conservative Union
- Christian Coalition – now the Faith and Freedom Council
- American Legislative Exchange Council - ALEC
- Koch Brothers of Koch Industries
- The Tea Party caucus of the Republican Party
- The NRA
> THE FELLOWSHIP aka The Family and C Street Center.
The Fellowship, also known as The Family, is a U.S.-based religious and political organization founded in 1935 by Abraham Vereide. The stated purpose of the Fellowship is to provide a fellowship forum for decision makers to share in Bible studies, prayer meetings, worship experiences and to experience spiritual affirmation and support.
The organization has been described as one of the most politically well-connected ministries in the United States. The Fellowship shuns publicity and its members share a vow of secrecy. The Fellowship's leader Doug Coe and others have explained the organization's desire for secrecy by citing biblical admonitions against public displays of good works, insisting they would not be able to tackle diplomatically sensitive missions if they drew public attention.
Although the organization is secretive, it holds one regular public event each year, the National Prayer Breakfast held in Washington, D.C. Every sitting United States president since President Dwight D. Eisenhower, including President Barack Obama, has participated in at least one National Prayer Breakfast during his term.
The Fellowship's known participants include ranking United States government officials, corporate executives, heads of religious and humanitarian aid organizations, and ambassadors and high-ranking politicians from across the world. Many United States Senators and Congressmen who have publicly acknowledged working with the Fellowship or are documented as having done so work together to pass or influence legislation.
In Newsweek, Lisa Miller wrote that, rather than calling themselves "Christians," as they describe themselves they are brought together by common love for the teachings of Jesus and that all approaches to "loving Jesus" are acceptable. In contrast, Jeff Sharlet, who was interviewed on NBC News and wrote a book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, and an article in Harper's about his experience serving as an intern in the Fellowship, has stated that the organization fetishizes power by comparing Jesus to "Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Bin Laden" as examples of leaders who change the world through the strength of the covenants they had forged with their "brothers".
Relationships with other organizations
The Fellowship Foundation is linked to numerous other organizations:
• Wilberforce Foundation IRS Form 990 filings confirm that Wilberforce is related to and shares common management with the Fellowship Foundation.
• Traditional Values Coalition. Uses the C Street Center for "faith-based diplomacy" in the fight against what Louis P. Sheldon calls the "Marxist/Leftist/Homosexual/Islamic coalition."
• Three Swallows Foundation
• International Center for Religion & Diplomacy
• Young Life International
• Trees for the Future
• National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise
• Cornerstone Development
• World Concern
• Project Mercy
• Timothy Trust
• Associación Desarrollo en Democracia
• World Vision
Current and former members
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
>C Street Center
The Fellowship runs a $1.8 million three-story brick mansion in Washington D.C. known as "C Street. It is the former convent for nearby St. Peter's Church. It is located a short distance from the United States Capitol. The structure has 12 bedrooms, nine bathrooms, five living rooms, four dining rooms, three offices, a kitchen, and a small "chapel".
The facility houses mostly Republican members of Congress. The house is also the locale for:
• Wednesday prayer breakfasts for United States Senators, which have been attended by Senators Sam Brownback, Tom Coburn, James Inhofe, John Ensign,Susan Collins and Hillary Clinton.
• Tuesday night dinners for members of Congress and other Fellowship associates.
• An annual Ambassador Luncheon. The 2006 event was attended by ambassadors from Turkey, Macedonia, Pakistan, Jordan, Algeria, Armenia, Egypt,Belarus, Mongolia, Latvia, and Moldova.
• Receptions for foreign dignitaries, including the Prime Minister of Australia.[who?]
C Street has been the subject of controversy over its claimed tax status as a church, the ownership of the property and its connection to the Fellowship, and the reportedly subsidized benefits the facility provides to members of Congress.
Finances
The Fellowship Foundation, which since 1935 has conducted no public fundraising programs, relies totally on private donation. In 2007, the group received nearly $16.8 million to support the 400 ministries. Among the Fellowship's key supporters are billionaire investor Paul N. Temple, a former executive of Esso (Exxon) and the founder of the Institute of Noetic Sciences and the Three Swallows Foundation. Between 1998 and 2007, Three Swallows made grants totaling $1,777,650 to the International Foundation, including $171,500 in 2004, $203,500 in 2005, and $145,500 in 2006.
Another supporter, Jerome (Jerry) A. Lewis, established Denver-based Downing Street Foundation to provide support to three organizations: the Fellowship Foundation, Denver Leadership Foundation, and Young Life. Between 1999 and 2007, Downing Street donated at least $756,000 to the Family, in addition to allowing the group to use its "retreat center."
Madelynn Winstead, a Downing Street director, was paid $21,600 by the Fellowship Foundation as managing director of the retreat center.
The Kingdom Fund (Kingdom Oil Christian Foundation t/a Twin Cities Christian Foundation) also provides support to the Family and World Vision.
The Fellowship Foundation earns more than $1,000,000 annually through its sponsorship of the National Prayer Breakfast.
>Moral Majority: The Moral Majority was a prominent American political organization associated with the Christian right. It was founded in 1979 and dissolved in the late 1980s.
The origins of the Moral Majority can be traced to 1976, when Jerry Falwell embarked on a series of “I Love America” rallies across the country to raise awareness of social issues important to Falwell.
Falwell and Weyrich founded the Moral Majority in June 1979. The Moral Majority was a southern-oriented organization of the Christian Right, although the Moral Majority’s state chapters and political activity extended beyond the South. After the Moral Majority’s establishment, the state chapters grew quickly, with organizations in eighteen states by 1980. The variety of resources available to the Moral Majority at its founding facilitated this rapid expansion, which included Falwell’s “Old Time Gospel Hour” mailing list. In addition, the Moral Majority took control of the “Old Time Gospel Hour’s” publication, Journal Champion, which had been distributed to the show’s donors. Falwell was the organization's best known spokesperson throughout the 1980s. By 1982, Moral Majority surpassed Christian Voice in size and influence.
American Conservative Union
Founded in December 1964 by author and commentator William F Buckley Jr, the ACU was established after the defeat of Barry Goldwater. By 1974, ACU had roughly 70,000 members.
David A. Keene was Chairman from 1984 until 2011, succeeded by Al Cardenas.
David Michael Keene, Keene's son, was sentenced in 2003 to ten years for attempted murder in a 2002 road-rage incident. He was ACU's director of online communications at the time. Diana Hubbard Carr, the ACU's former administrative director and ex-wife of David Keene, pleaded guilty in June 2011 to embezzling between $120,000 and $400,000 from 2006 to 2009, during her time as bookkeeper for the group.
FEDEX Controversy:
In June 2009, FedEx began a campaign against United Parcel Service (UPS) and the Teamsters union, accusing its competitor of receiving a bailout in an advertising campaign called "brown bailout". FedEx claims that signing the Federal Aviation Administration re-authorization bill, which would let some of its workers unionize more easily (and, according to the Memphis-based company, "could expose [its] customers at any time to local work stoppages that interrupt the flow of their time-sensitive, high-value shipments”), is equivalent to giving UPS a 'bailout'. Independent observers have heavily criticized FedEx's wording, claiming that it was "an abuse of the term". FedEx Express employees are regulated under the Railway Labor Act.
In a letter dated June 30, 2009, ACU offered FedEx the option of paying as much as $3.4 million for e-mail and other services for "an aggressive grass-roots campaign" to stop a legislative provision being considered by the U.S. Senate. The letter said the ACU's campaign could include "Producing op-eds and articles written by ACU’s Chairman David Keene and/or other members of the ACU’s Board of Directors."
On July 15, Keene and leaders of five other conservative organizations issued a letter saying that FedEx was mischaracterizing the legislative situation and was unfairly trying to tap into public resentment against federal bailouts to attack its competition. The letter included, at its top, logos from ACU and the other organizations. Whitfield said on July 16 that Keene had endorsed the second letter as an individual, even though the letter bore the logo of ACU. On July 17, ACU issued a press release saying that permission to use the logo had not been given by ACU, and that the ACU continued to stand with the policy supported by FedEx.
>Christian Coalition:
The Coalition is a political organization, made up of pro-family Americans who care deeply about ensuring that government serves to strengthen and preserve, rather than threaten, our families and our values. To that end, we work continuously to identify, educate and mobilize Christians for effective political action.
Their Mission:
• Represent the pro-family point of view before local councils, school boards, state legislatures and Congress
• Speak out in the public arena and in the media
• Train leaders for effective social and political action
• Inform pro-family voters about timely issues and legislation
• Protest anti-Christian bigotry and defend the rights of people of faith
Effective citizenship begins with knowledge. Since its inception, the Christian Coalition has worked to provide critical education and political training to the pro-family community in order to challenge and equip individuals and churches to make a difference at all levels of government.
Founder and former President: Rev. Pat Robertson President: Dr. Joel C. Hunter was announced as President in October 2006 to replace Roberta Combs. Founded in 1989.
Membership: Claimed nearly 2 million members at the height of its influence, but other data suggested 300,000-400,000 members. Directors or Trustees as of 2004: Dr. Billy McCormack; Drew McKissick; Roberta Combs, Chair Finances: In 1999, the Christian Coalition was stripped of its 501(c)(3) non-profit status for violating various IRS rules that govern non-profits. Contributions to the group have dropped from a record of $26.5 million in 1996 to their 2004 revenue, which was $1,321,774. The CC is now a non-profit 501(c)(4) organization supported through member dues. State chapters: As many as 30 chapters were listed on their website, though those lists have since been removed. Several state chapters have dropped their affiliation in 2006.
Publications: The coalition creates and distributes voter guides during primaries and elections in every state. They also have action alerts and newsletters via e-mail on state and federal legislation.
Affiliated Groups: Pat Robertson also created the 700 Club, Christian Broadcasting Network, American Center for Law and Justice, and Regent University, which awards graduate and law degrees and offers a bachelor degree completion program. Two CC projects that are no longer associated with the group are the Samaritan Project and the Catholic Alliance. The Christian Coalition launched the Catholic Alliance in an attempt to boost its membership among pro-family, anti-choice Catholics. The Samaritan Project was the Christian Coalition's vehicle for outreach to African Americans. -
Using Stealth Infiltration to Take Control of the Conservative Political Party, the Republicans.
Stealth conservative individuals or organizations are those that present themselves as progressive, liberal, or moderate while using that status to forward a conservative agenda. According to journalist Laura Flanders:
"This is the new face of the radical right. The attractive right-wingers who talk about 'choice' and 'civil rights' pose a threat to progressives who support the federal government’s role as a protector of individual citizens."
"Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed has openly advocated a policy of stealth politics by the right." In a March 1992 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Reed stated "It's like guerrilla warfare. If you reveal your location, all it does is allow your opponent to improve his artillery bearings. It's better to move quietly, with stealth, under the cover of night."
Stealth conservatives often frame their arguments in terms of ostensibly objective liberal legal principles such as "freedom of speech" and "freedom of expression" in order to cloak and promote explicitly right-wing policies. This is a popular tactic in obtaining popular support from political liberals who respond well to the language of liberalism but have not fully researched the power relations and practical policy outcomes involved in the particular issue at hand.
>American Legislative Exchange Council - ALEC
ALEC first came into being in Chicago as the "Conservative Caucus of State Legislators", a project initiated by Mark Rhoads, an assistant to an Illinois state senator. Conservative legislators felt the word "conservative" was unpopular with the public at the time, however, and the organization was renamed as the American Legislative Exchange Council. In 1975, under the auspices of the American Conservative Union, ALEC registered as a federal non-profit agency.
Conservative activist Paul Weyrich (Founder of the Moral Majority with Jerry Farwell) helped the new group find a meeting room. Henry Hyde, who later became a U.S. Congressman, and Lou Barnett, who later became National Political Director of Ronald Reagan's Political Action Committee, also helped to found ALEC. Early members included a number of state and local politicians who went on to statewide or national office, including Bob Kasten and Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin; John Engler of Michigan; Terry Branstad of Iowa, and John Kasich of Ohio. Several members of Congress were also involved in the organization during its early years, including Sen. John Buckley and Rep. Jack Kemp of New York, Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, and Rep. Phil Crane of Illinois. Duane Parde served as the executive director from December 1996 to January 2006.
ALEC currently has more than 2,000 legislative members representing all 50 states, amounting to nearly one-third of all sitting legislators, as well as more than 85 members of Congress and 14 sitting or former governors who are considered "alumni". The vast majority of ALEC's legislative members belong to the Republican Party. ALEC also claims approximately 300 corporate, foundation, and other private-sector members. The chairmanship of ALEC is a rotating position, with a new legislator appointed to the position each year. The current chair of ALEC is David Frizzell, a member of the Indiana House of Representatives.
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a 501(c)(3) American organization composed of legislators, businesses and foundations which produces model legislation for state legislatures and says it promotes free and conservative ideas. According to the organization's website, members share a common belief that "government closest to the people" is "fundamentally more effective, more just, and a better guarantor of freedom than the distant, bloated federal government in Washington, D.C." In a Dec. 2011 opinion piece critical of ALEC which appeared in The Nation magazine, John Nichols described ALEC as a "collaboration between multinational corporations and conservative state legislators."
ALEC provides a forum for state legislator and corporate members to collaborate on "model bills"—draft legislation which the members would like to become law. Some of the model bills are then brought back to their respective home states and introduced by ALEC's legislative members. Approximately 200 per year become law. ALEC has produced model legislation on issues such as reducing corporate regulation and taxation, tightening voter identification rules, streamlining or minimizing environmental protections (depending on how one looks at it), and promoting gun rights. ALEC also serves as a networking tool among state legislators, allowing them to research the handling and "best practices" of policy in other states.
ALEC's membership list and the origin of its model bills are kept secret and they have been criticized for this. BusinessWeek wrote that "part of ALEC's mission is to present industry-backed legislation as grass-roots work."
In 2012, Walter Mondale, former Democratic Vice President of the United States, and Arne Carlson, former Republican governor of Minnesota, referred in an op-ed piece to the political activities of the Koch family and ALEC, saying:
"[ALEC] is the creation of the Koch brothers who amassed their fortunes in oil and who live in Florida. The goal of ALEC is to influence legislators across the nation."
According to Bloomberg News, ALEC receives at least $3,500 from Koch Industries Inc. and Exxon Mobil.
>Koch Brothers of Koch Industries.
Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch are the sons of Fred C. Koch. Their father founded the second-largest privately held company in the United States, Koch Industries. After having bought out two other brothers' interests, these two brothers remain in control of the family business and fortune left to them by their father. They also control the Koch Family Foundations.
The Koch brothers contribute a large amount of money to conservative, libertarian, and free-market individuals and organizations. They have given more than $196 million to dozens of free-market and advocacy organizations. Tax records indicate that, in 2008, the three main Koch family foundations contributed to 34 political and policy organizations, three of which they founded, and several of which they direct
Political organizations:
Citizens for a Sound Economy was co-founded by David Koch in the 1980s. According to the Center for Public Integrity, the Koch Brothers donated a total amount of $7.9 million between 1986 and 1993. In 1990, the brothers created the spinoff group Citizens for the Environment.
In 2004, Citizens for a Sound Economy was renamed FreedomWorks, while its affiliated Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation became Americans for Prosperity(AFP). Since then the Koch brothers have given more than one million dollars to AFP. At an AFP rally in 2009, David Koch said "Five years ago, my brother Charles and I provided the funds to start the Americans for Prosperity, and it's beyond my wildest dreams how AFP has grown into this enormous organization."AFP is the political arm of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, for which David Koch serves as chairman of the Board of Trustees. Americans for Prosperity created Patients United Now, which advocated against a single-payer healthcare system during the 2009-2010 healthcare reform debate. Both FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity have provided support for the Tea Party movement.
Charles and David Koch also have been involved in, and have provided funding to, a number of other think tanks and advocacy organizations: They provided the initial funding for the Cato Institute, they are key donors to the Federalist Society, and they also support, or are members of, the Mercatus Center, the Institute for Humane Studies, the Institute for Justice, the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, the Institute for Energy Research, the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the George C. Marshall Institute, the Reason Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and the Fraser Institute.
As of 2011, David Koch sits on the board of directors of the Cato institute, the Reason Foundation and the Aspen Institute.
Cato Institute
Following the 2011 death of William Niskanen, the co-founder and chairman of the Cato Institute, Charles and David Koch reportedly made an effort to procure the shares of that institute held by Niskansen’s widow, "arguing that they were not hers to hold.". Their efforts were criticized by some at the institute, including the institute's president Ed Crane, who in an email to staff told them the Kochs were "in the process of trying to take over the Cato Institute and, in my opinion, reduce it to a partisan adjunct to Americans for Prosperity, the activist GOP group they control.” Charles and David denied any wrongdoing. In June 2012, Cato and the brothers reached an agreement. Ed Crane would step down and be replaced by John A. Allison IV, and the Kochs withdrew two lawsuits.
Political activity
Koch Industries describes itself as being committed to free societies and free market principles and as supporting those who champion these things.
As of 2011, Koch Industries' political action committee has donated more than $2.6 million to candidates. The Koch brothers support primarily Republican candidates, who received over 80% of their political donations from 2005-2009, and in 2010 they supported California Proposition 23 (2010). The Koch brothers pledged to donate sixty million dollars last[when?] election season to defeat Obama.
U.S. education
The Charles Koch Foundation (and in the case of Kansas schools, the Fred and Mary Koch Foundation) provides grants to nearly 230 U.S. colleges and universities for "projects that explore how the principles of free enterprise and classical liberalism promote a more peaceful and prosperous society".
Wisconsin
According to Mother Jones Magazine, Koch Industries' Political Action Committee contributed the second largest donation to Scott Walker's 2010 campaign for governor of Wisconsin, though that contribution was less than one half of one percent of Walker's campaign total. After Walker took office, he and the Republican representatives in the Wisconsin House enacted legislation that placed limitations on collective bargaining by public employees. Widespread protests ensued. In February 2011, the New York Times reported that Americans for Prosperity had actively supported Walker's proposed bill. Because of the Koch contribution to Walker's campaign, David Koch became a symbolic target for the protests.
According to the Palm Beach Post, David Koch has been very active in Wisconsin politics with the group Americans for Prosperity. Americans for Prosperity reportedly spending $700,000 on ads supporting Governor Scott Walker's changes to collective bargaining.
Mitt Romney
In July 2012, David H. Koch hosted a $50,000-a-person ($75,000 a couple) fundraising dinner for 2012 Republican Party Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, which was the subject of protests.
William Koch, the younger brother of Charles and David, gave $1 million to Restore Our Future, a super-PAC backing Romney. During the 2008 presidential race, David Koch donated $2,300 to Romney.
Competitive Enterprise Institute
The Kochs donated more than $17 million between 1997 and 2008 to various groups including the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The group has been accused of opposing unions. It describes itself as offering information on issues including, among others, energy, environment, biotechnology, pharmaceutical regulation, chemical risk, telecommunications, etc.
Lobbying for oil, gas, and chemical industries
Koch Industries and its subsidiaries spent more than $20 million on lobbying in 2008 and $12.3 million in 2009, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group. In an article about the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study (Chair Richard A. Muller), Los Angeles Times reporter Margot Roosevelt called the Koch Brothers "the nation's most prominent funders of efforts to prevent curbs on fossil-fuel burning".
The Claude R. Lambe Foundation, has donated to the American Energy Alliance, an offshoot of the Institute for Energy Research.
Free enterprise seminars
In recent years, Charles and David Koch have organized semi annual seminars to promote their political views. In June 2010, one such event was held in Aspen, Colorado, and titled "Understanding and Addressing Threats to American Free Enterprise and Prosperity". The invitation stated that "[our] prosperity is under attack by the current Administration and many of our elected officials" and "we cannot rely on politicians to [defend our free society], so it is up to us to combat what is now the greatest assault on American freedom and prosperity in our lifetimes". The seminar program indicated that "past meetings have featured such notable leaders as Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas; Governors Bobby Jindal and Haley Barbour; commentators John Stossel, Charles Krauthammer,Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh; Senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn; and Representatives Paul Ryan, Mike Pence, and Tom Price."
This is but just a few articles and information I have gathered regarding the takeover of our country. I will be updating this information as I obtain it. If you have an article or commentary, please join in and add it through the comments section, or email it to me and I'll post it in this post on my blog.
It is frightening what is happening to our nation. But like so many great nations in history, those who seek authoritarian power over the people and the economy will do whatever it takes to obtain that goal. It is history repeating itself again.
Now if you look at these players and the dots that are out there to connect, you will see how rapidly this country is shifting to a FASCIST form of government starting at the state level. If you follow what is happening in most RED, Republican controlled states, they have reduced social services, passed lower taxes on the wealthy and corporations, raised taxes on the middle-class, passed right-to-work laws to weaken the labor unions or eliminate them entirely, passed voter suppression laws of all types to reduce the votes of minorities and non-white voters, who tend to vote for Democrats, gerrymander state and congressional districts to give the Republicans non-contested voting districts, passed numerous laws to ban abortions and close women's health clinics that provide not only abortions, but even birth control and cancer screenings for women, block fair pay laws for women, passing laws to eliminate the minimum wage, eliminate regulations of businesses and industries, centralize the power with the Governor (Michigan's "Emergency Manager Law that grants the governor to appoint a private company to be the manager of a city or school district. The elected officials power to govern are eliminated), passing laws that forces teacher to teach creationism and not actual science, forcing doctors to tell their patients lies about their healthcare options or go to jail. These are just a few of the actions that are forming the bases of a new fascists regime in America.
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