Want to see more of the Koch brothers at play in our tar sands? Vote Conservative

No 159 Posted by fw, April 21, 2011

Charles and David Koch

Why are Charles and David Koch smiling? (Pronounced “coke” as in “coal”)

Perhaps it’s because Alberta’s lobbyist registry reveals that on March 15, Koch Industries signed up to lobby the province on energy and resource development policy issues, as well as taxation and economic development.

According to a story in the Edmonton Journal, Billionaire Tea Party financiers to lobby the Alberta government, a Koch Industries spokeswoman released this one-sentence statement about the lobbying registration: “Koch companies want to add value by providing quality services and products our customers desire and value in a way that is compliant with all laws and regulations.” But it remains a mystery what the company hopes to achieve by lobbying the Alberta government.

The article goes on to point out some, shall we say, “iffy” details about the brothers Koch. Here are the salient ones:

• Flint Hill Resources, with offices in Calgary, is one of Canada’s largest crude oil purchasers, shippers and exporters, and a subsidiary of Koch Industries
• The Koch’s contributed to the Tea Party movement, a right-wing, loose affiliation of national and local groups in the U.S. that determine their own platforms and agendas. A review of Tea Party tax records revealed the brothers’ handouts in excess of $100 million amounted to a subsidization of pro-corporate movements.
• A 2010 university research institute named Koch Industries one of the nation’s top air polluters
• In the same year, Greenpeace reported Koch Industries contributed upwards of $25 million to organizations that oppose clean energy and climate policy. Koch Industries is known to environmentalists as “a financial kingpin of climate science denial.”
• The bothers are alleged to be among the largest contributors to Wisconsin Governor’s Scott Walker’s campaign. And we all know what Walker is doing to public service employees there.
• Alberta’s Federation of Labour president worries that the Kochs will use their power and influence to promote the same kind of decisive and destructive policies here that they routinely practice south of the border

On another news front, The Nation magazine has just published a story right out of Orwell’s 1984: Big Brothers: Thought Control at Koch. Here is the opening paragraph:

The Nation obtained the Koch Industries election packet for Washington State—which included a cover letter from its president and COO, David Robertson; a list of Koch-endorsed state and federal candidates; and an issue of the company newsletter, Discovery, full of alarmist right-wing propaganda. Legal experts interviewed for this story called the blatant corporate politicking highly unusual, although no longer skirting the edge of legality, thanks to last year’s Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which granted free speech rights to corporations.

See any parallels between the bullying, controlling Koch brothers and the bullying, controlling Harper regime?

Won’t Sun News, the new conservative channel, also known as Fox News North — the final cog in the right-wing media machine — be pleased to have the Koch brothers here to glorify.

Had enough yet — of the Harper government, that is? If you’re not worried about a Conservative majority, you should be.

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