“We have Saddam Hussein,” declared billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, apparently referring to President Barack Obama as he welcomed hundreds of wealthy guests to the latest of the secret fundraising and strategy seminars he and his brother host twice a year. The 2012 elections, he warned, will be “the mother of all wars.”
That’s Bradblog’s Brad Friedman reporting for Mother Jones on what Charles Koch says about the president behind closed doors. The Koch brothers are key funders of climate science disinformation, the Tea Party extremists, and right-wing causes.
It is beyond ironic that Koch would call the president “Saddam Hussein,” when Obama was elected in a free and fair election and has done more than any other president to reduce dependence on imported oil. Charles Koch, on the other hand, is the unelected Petro-Boss whose money comes in large part from oil and who spends millions fighting to keep America addicted to oil.
Here’s the audio of Koch’s remarks obtained by Friedman:
Here’s a partial transcript:
But we’ve been talking about — we have Saddam Hussein, this is the Mother of All Wars we’ve got in the next 18 months. For the life or death of this country. So, I’m not going to do this to put any pressure on anyone here, mind you. This is not pressure. But if this makes your heart feel glad and you want to be more forthcoming, then so be it.
Yes, if hearing the President of the United States called Saddam Hussein — and learning your donations are aimed at turning the 2012 election into the Mother of All Wars — “makes your heart feel glad,” well, then you must be a billionaire pollutocrat.
As TP reports:
Koch also read off a list of 32 donors who gave a million dollars or more to his efforts to build up far-right infrastructure. Mother Jones’s Gavin Aronsen notes that this list was largely corroborated by ThinkProgress research published in 2010. The list includes financiers such as Charles Schwab of the Charles Schwab Corporation and John Templeton, Jr. of the powerful John Templeton Foundation.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
Who will save Capitalism from the capitalists?
…Who will save Earth from the Earthlings?
I think physics and chemistry – Nature – will save earth by making conditions inhospitable for soft mammals.
With extinction comes speciation. What new types of cacti and bugs will evolve in a hotter earth?
Shaheer, it will come to pass and maybe that is ultimately a good thing.
Saddam Hussein, infamous for shooting guns in the air and dooming his own people to a lifetime of suffering…kinda sounds like Rick, Yosemite Sam, Perry.
They are making their fears so much more likely. Do the actually want the masses to rise up against them.
While every gets a small slice of the pie, gets to share the dream, all will be fine. It is the people who have nothing to loose that are dangerous. Yet they want to ensure the mobs go hungry and still have guns, a very dangerous combination.
Or would they rather destroy the country, just to “get that (insert N word here) out of the White House”. Giving the brothers their pipeline will not make them love Obama, they still hate the thought if an African American president.
Comparing an American election cycle to the Iraq War is nauseating to me and possibly other Americans. Did the Koch brothers and their associates profit so much from the Iraq War that they relish such a comparison?
It’s time to fight back! As they have so successfully created doubt about the science, so we create a little doubt of our own.
It is time to capitalize on your recent year of disasters by linking these extreme events back to the science. For example:
“Welcome to the new ABnormal – as predicted by climate scientists”
“Enjoying our days of disasters? – as predicted…”
“Welcome to the era of extremes – as prdicted…”
“And there’s more to come – as predicted…”
First hand experience is still the bedrock of belief so by reinforcing the validity of their experience and inserting the constant “as predicted”, the doubt about their previous denial begins to grow. Once that doubt is established, it is going to be more of a fair fight with the Koch Bros and their ilk.
We’ve got the disasters on our side – they have only money and in a fight between reality and money, I’ll bet on reality. No amount of Koch-backed nonsense can compete with the gradual realization that scientists predicted it all along — and now it’s happening! ME
Not nearly enough Americans are aware of the horrible policies that Charles and David Koch are foisting on them.
The Koch brothers insist on doing awful things to their fellow citizens and fellow humans.
They provide two more reasons that we must tax the rich. They have far too much political power. (For an example, see the previous post about David Brooks’ column . . . )
Eat the rich!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfzl0Y1WbTQ
Replace “Hook” with “Koch”
Thanks for pointing out another reason to heavily tax the rich:
They wield too much power by using their money to buy special interests.
More taxes means less spending money at the special interest store. But it’s fair because they’d still wield power, just less.
They sure appreciate the tar sands pipeline and the the clean air rollbacks a lot.
True, they’ve benefited from the pro fossil fuel & pollution decisions made by Sadam Huss..er our President.
Just to hear these traitors say such a thing about a sitting President (and one that is basically a moderate Republican in action) is nauseating. The earth will be a better place once they’ve left, but they are going to do alot of damage in the mean time (and leave a playbook for others to follow).