In what is a very open and public battle the billionaire Koch brothers are paying off politicians in an attempt to kill organized labor in Wisconsin.
Governor Scott Walker a right wing Republican from Wisconsin is the first we know of so far to accept a "contribution" from the Koch brothers to help kill his state's public workers union. The Koch brothers began by giving Walker $43,000 for his campaign. Then they paid off some Wisconsin legislators.
In a back-again move the Koch Brothers gave the Republican Governor's Association one million dollars. The RGA turned around and spent $3.4 million in ads against Governor Walker's opponent.
But it didn't end there. The Koch brothers created a group called Americans for Prosperity, and that organization gave $432,000 in an effort to stop collective bargaining. This group is trying to do the same in Kansas, whose House has already approved a bill that would kill speech rights for unionized workers.
Why would the Koch brothers want to kill unions so badly?
They are self-professed "Libertarians," whose father was an early John Birch Society supporter. As libertarians they believe in no funding for welfare or social programs, for low-to-no taxes for people and corporations and no regulations for corporations, particularly environmental.
Each brother is worth over $17 billion and a world without unions would be a much better place for these two controversial figures.
The UMass Political Policy Institute says they are one of the top ten polluters in America.Their corporation is the second largest privately owned corporation in the United States.
Charles Lewis who founded the non-partisan Center for Public Integrity has this to say about the Koch brothers, "There is no one who has spent this much money. The sheer dimension of it is what sets them apart. They have a pattern of law-breaking, political manipulation and obfuscation. . . They are the Standard Oil of our times."
They own 4000 miles of oil pipeline, oil refineries in Alaska, Texas and Minnesota, 450,000 acres of cattle ranch, Georgia Pacific lumber, Stainmaster Carpet, Dixie Cups, Brawny Paper Towels and Lycra, which is used in almost every cloth on the market today.
For now they are concentrating on union busting, Recently someone called Wisconsin's ready-for-possible-indictment governor claming to be one of the Koch brothers. He was not a Koch brother. But on the tape the not-too-swift governor thanked him for his "continued support." What support would that be?
"Koch" and Walker discussed ways to get the democrats back to the state house to vote on this bill that the Koch Brothers have virtually paid for. One tactic was to stop direct deposit of their paychecks. Later the fake Koch jokes about how baseball bats were once used on unionists. Walker said he had a baseball bat is his office, "a slugger with my name on it."
Thanks to the New Yorker Magazine and Reuters Group for some of the figures used in this story.
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