Kochs and the John Birch Society: a Love Story

http://claireconner.com/2013/11/13/koch-john-birch-society-a-love-story/

John Birch Society HQ in Grand Chute, Wisconsin = Senator McCarthy’s hometown.

John Birch Society = Scoundrels buried deep in the recesses of American history

John Birch Society (JBS) = “Could Eisenhower really be simply a smart politician, entirely without principles and hungry for glory, who is only the tool of the Communists? The answer is yes….With regard to … Eisenhower, it is difficult to avoid raising the question of deliberate treason.” = “paranoid and idiotic libels” = “Buckley was beginning to worry that with the John Birch Society growing so rapidly, the right-wing upsurge in the country would take an ugly, even Fascist turn rather than leading toward the kind of conservatism National Review had promoted.”

Bircher name echoes across today’s political landscape:  Fred C. Koch, founding and national council member.

John Birch scoundrels = Echoes today David and Charles Koch = Corporate power

Koch family wealth came from a brutal Communist dictatorship in Russia = NOT FREEDOM OR FREE ENTERPRISE.

Koch views on civil rights. “The colored man looms large in the plan to take over America….it will use the colored people by getting a vicious race war started.” = Labeled Dr. Martin Luther King a Communist.

Koch Brothers = Re-shaping USA into the country their father Fred wanted = Pint-sized federal government + NO SAFETY NET FOR LAZY AMERICANS = AYN RAND UTOPIA! = UNLIMITED PROFITS + NO TAXES ON RICH = VAST ACCUMULATION OF WEALTH IN THE HANDS OF THE FEW!

Ultimate Koch Irony = Bribery in the $100s of Billions subvert the country that made them so fabulously wealthy.

Before Koch’s sons―David and Charles―became synonymous with Today’s corporate power, Koch built a fortune from an oil refining techniques he may have BORROWED.

Companies in US refused his BORROWED PATENT so Koch asked STALIN in the USSR.

In 1929, he landed a $5,000,000 contract for his company to build fifteen oil refineries in Russia, Joseph Stalin’s Communist Russia.

Koch supervised the refinery installations, traveling extensively across the country over three years.

Later Koch claimed that his hatred for Communism grew out of his Russian experiences, but he had pocketed $500,000 (his part of the company’s profits) before his outrage set in. That money, $8,000,000 in today’s dollars made Fred Koch a very rich man.

Ironically, the wealth of the Koch family came from a brutal Communist dictatorship. Hardly the image of “free enterprise” the Kochs invoke so passionately.

In 1960, thirty years after he took Communist money and parleyed it into an even bigger fortune, Koch wrote his book, A Businessman Looks at Communism, in which he rails against labor unions and civil rights efforts as part of the Communist plot to take over America.

“Labor Unions have long been a Communist goal,” Koch wrote. “The effort is frequently made to have the worker do as little as possible for the money he receives. This practice alone can destroy our country.” (p. 16)

My father, who served on the John Birch Society National Council with Fred Koch, had identical views on labor unions.

“As long as there is breath in my body,” Dad vowed, “there will never be a union in my company. I’ll board it up first. Fred (Koch) sees it like I do, one hundred percent.”

Koch had equally damning views of civil rights. “The colored man looms large in the Communist plan to take over America,” he said (p. 25) and “it will use the colored people by getting a vicious race war started.”

Koch’s views on civil rights were identical to those of the John Birch Society. Early in the civil rights movement, the Birch founder labeled Dr. Martin Luther King a Communist and marshaled the Birch leadership to fight every piece of civil rights legislation.

Fred Koch died in 1967, leaving his company and his vast fortune to his four sons: Freddie, Charles, David and Bill who spent the next twenty years battling over the estate. Eventually, David and Charles emerged with control over Koch Industries, one of the largest privately-held corporations in the country. The sons acquired dozens of companies and diversified their fossil fuel assets into every commodity from silicon chips to toilet paper. Koch Industries continues to build its corporate wealth (and the Koch brothers’ personal wealth) with government contracts and government tax breaks.

The Koch brothers have enormous personal fortunes, somewhere around $100 billion in net worth. They are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in their favorite causes, right-wing, libertarian, anti-government ones.

David identified himself as the wallet behind Americans for Prosperity, the big umbrella for Freedom Works and the Tea Party. Charles founded the Cato Institute, a powerful think-tank specializing in selling right-wing policies on everything from taxes to entitlements.

Their father must be proud. They’re re-shaping the United States into the kind of country Fred wanted―a country with a pint-sized federal government and none of the expense of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid or any other social program and against non-whites and the poor.

This libertarian utopia would free businesses to make a profit unrestrained by regulation. Corporate taxes and taxes on the rich would be tiny, allowing vast accumulations of wealth for the wealthy. Workers incomes would be set by corporations without the requirements of minimum wages and union scale.

They are taking the country back. It’s about time.”

The ultimate irony of the Koch Brothers is this: they are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to subvert the country that helped make them so fabulously wealthy.

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Fred C. Koch Born: September 23, 1900 in extremely small town of Quanah, TX 

Fred C. Koch was son of a Dutch immigrant = worked over a year at printers shops in The Hague and in Germany before coming to the US in 1888.

Koch started his career in OIL in 1925. In 1927 Koch developed a lower cost refining process for turning crude oil into gasoline for smaller oil companies. He quickly had 44 sued filed against hum by Big Oil companies – Losing one that him out of business. So Koch turned his focus to USSR and Stalin and built 15 refining units for them between 1929 and 1932. = FAMILY FORTUNE that ended up as Koch Industries and one of the founding members of the John Birch Society (JBS) of the Radical Right and the founders developed an elaborate organizational infrastructure in 1958 that kept a very tight rein on the chapters. Lead to the Mc Carthy anti-communist embarrassment and identified as a fringe element of the conservative movement = radicalization of the Extremist Far Right. = The Blue Book of the John Birch Society (JBS) became (THE BIBLE) a cornerstone of its beliefs, with each new member receiving a copy.

JBS HQ = Grand Chute, Wisconsin, JBS owns American Opinion which publishes the journal The New American. = Christian + Next to NO government + Opposes Reducing Wealth Inequality (emphasis on GREED) + Opposes European Socialism + Loves Conspiracy Theories + Opposes Civil Rights = “What’s Wrong With Civil Rights?” = Communist movement that violates state’s rights and the Tenth Amendment + Opposes “one world government” + Opposes immigration + Opposes the United Nations + Opposes Free Trade Agreements + Lover the patriot movement + Believes liberals are “secret communist traitors” + Believes “both the U.S. and Soviet governments are controlled by the same furtive conspiratorial cabal of internationalists, greedy bankers, and corrupt politicians. If left unexposed, the traitors inside the U.S. government would betray the country’s sovereignty to the United Nations for a collectivist New World Order, managed by a ‘one-world socialist government.’” + Opposed water fluoridation + Calls many things Communist Plots. + Opposed ALL UNIONS as Communists.

Fred Koch, founder of Koch Industries, was one of the founding members of John Birch Society (JBS).

JBS = “There are many stages of welfarism, socialism, and collectivism in general, but Communism is the ultimate state of them all, and they all lead inevitably in that direction.”

JBS GOAL = “Get US Out!” of United Nations + Take over the school PTAs + Impeach Liberals

JBS “pioneered grassroots lobbying = educational meetings + petition drives + letter-writing campaigns + . 1962 William F. Buckley, Jr. said the John Birch Society is “far removed from common sense” and urged the GOP to purge it out of the GOP. JBS was rejected by most conservatives because of its conspiracy theories. Even the LDS church issued a statement distancing itself from the Society. Uses Communism as an excuse to fight for equal rights and to cover for its awful policies against the less fortunate = An underlying hate of non-Whites.

JBS pushed for Barry Goldwater for the Republican presidential nomination. = “the increasing tempo of radical right attacks on local government, libraries, school boards, parent-teacher associations, mental health programs, the Republican Party and, most recently, the ecumenical movement.” = JBS was characterized as “by far the most successful and ‘respectable’ radical right organization in the country. It operates alone or in support of other extremist organizations whose major preoccupation, like that of the Birchers, is the internal Communist conspiracy in the United States.”

JBS = “Could Eisenhower really be simply a smart politician, entirely without principles and hungry for glory, who is only the tool of the Communists? The answer is yes….With regard to … Eisenhower, it is difficult to avoid raising the question of deliberate treason.” = “paranoid and idiotic libels” = “Buckley was beginning to worry that with the John Birch Society growing so rapidly, the right-wing upsurge in the country would take an ugly, even Fascist turn rather than leading toward the kind of conservatism National Review had promoted.”

JBS = Against Occupational Safety and Health + Against China Communism + labels others as “anti-American” + Opposed US military intervention overseas Opposes all TAXES (especially on the RICH) + Supports the eventual dismantling of the Federal Reserve System = Only Congress has ability to coin money + Against IRS

JBS co-sponsor of the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference ending its decades-long exile from the mainstream conservative movement.

JBS supported Mussolini’s suppression of communists + Founder said “The colored man looms large in the Communist plan to take over America.”