Re: [blind-democracy] Re: Billionaires vs. Billionaires: How TrumpCare's Defeat Was Actually a Victory for the Koch Brothers

Hi Miriam,
The article was a good one. I just went off the rails on a tangent.
Tangents are good to go off on when you don't really want to plow
through with a long tirade on the fore mentioned article.
But it does tie in with our discussion about Capitalism. In my
opinion, there is no such a thing as a good Capitalist. Cancer is
Cancer, whether you have just a little Cancer or a great amount of it.
Cancer is not normal. It is an aberration.
So we know folks who practice Capitalism. Probably at some point in
our lives we might have done so, too. Since it is the System we live
under, practicing Capitalism, in and of itself, does not turn us into
monsters. It is the accepted method of maintaining our place in
society.
But without strong checks and balances Capitalism nearly always seeks
to suffocate competition. Take a nice guy who opens a little store.
Say his name is Walton. Let's give him his due, believing that an
underlying motive, beyond wanting a better life for his family, was to
provide products at a reduced cost for his neighbors. He seems to
have found the combination to success. He opens a second store,
equally successful. Mister Walton is still the "nice friendly" guy
next door...except "next door" is now a mansion on the hill behind
gates. Does this once friendly fellow ever stop to assess whether his
philosophy of providing folks with cheap products might be harmful to
other businesses, or to the "Associates" he is now finding he must pay
low wages and few benefits to, in order to stay ahead of his
competition?
What has happened, assuming that Walton really did begin with an eye
to helping his town, is that he has forgotten his original desire, and
is now caught up in a different fight.
Capitalism must depend upon expansion to survive. That friendly small
grocer down on the corner will soon be pushed out of business by the
big corporate Safeway store if he can't find the backing to expand his
store into a supermarket.
Bill Boeing, a nice guy wandering around the Pacific Northwest, opened
a small airplane factory on the shores of Lake Washington. George
Westinghouse, Tom Edison, Henry Ford, and more recently, Bill Gates.
All of these men began in a business that was going to make life
better for us all. Did they succeed? Well it sure worked for them.
But at whose expense? Did they really deserve the unbelievable riches
they gathered into their personal off-shore banks? If a little
Capitalism works, how come it doesn't improve the lives of those who
labor each day to bring in the profits? How come the folks in town
have to tax themselves more in order to provide the food banks, the
free clinics, the day care and other basic services that these workers
cannot afford? Like cleaning up the messes left behind.
When those first oil wells sprang up in "back yards" in Pennsylvania
and Oklahoma, and then in Texas, making regular poor folks into
millionaires...back when it meant something to be a millionaire, could
anyone possibly believe that such good luck would lead to Drones
blowing the dreams of thousands of people into fragments of flesh and
bone? People struggling to exist from day to day, never having the
where with all to open that little corner store...or even a Roach
Coach.
No, there is no such thing as a little Capitalism. Human nature being
what it has become, Greed is constantly entering into the mix, erasing
the bottom line that called for helping neighbors, and instead turning
those neighbors into indentured servants.
But we keep trying to tweak Capitalism, as if we can keep it small and
make it do good. So far, looking around at those warring
international corporations, the score is, Capitalism 1 billion, and
the People, Zero.

Carl Jarvis

On 3/31/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> Carl,
>
> When I read this article, I immediately thought of you because it's a clear
> explanation of how the elites run the show, even as they fight each other
> for power.
>
> Miriam
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org
> [mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
> Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2017 11:28 PM
> To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
> Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Billionaires vs. Billionaires: How
> TrumpCare's Defeat Was Actually a Victory for the Koch Brothers
>
> Dirty Oil? Not to worry. Donald Trump has promised us "Clean Coal...I mean
> really clean."
> If washing the outside of coal makes it "clean", then can we make dirty oil
> clean by running it through clean pipelines? I had a buddy in high school
> who showered in the morning and again at night. "My hair gets too greasy,
> so I might as well wash all of me while I'm washing my hair", he told me.
> But as clean as his hair was, he still had the dirtiest mind in the twelfth
> grade.
> And that got me to thinking. Donald Trump seems to spend a great deal of
> time primping his hair. Probably washes it every day, too. And yet...well,
> maybe his mother should have used the old Ivory soap treatment for his dirty
> mouth.
> Of course even Ivory soap will only clean the surface of the hands, while
> doing absolutely nothing for where and when the hands go groping. But what
> the Heck, wash the coal and call it clean.
>
> Carl Jarvis
>
>
>
>
> On 3/30/17, Mike Edwards <mike@ultraemail.us> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>>> On Mar 30, 2017, at 6:00 PM, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> David and Charles Koch. (photo: Getty)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Billionaires vs. Billionaires: How TrumpCare's Defeat Was Actually a
>>> Victory for the Koch Brothers
>>>
>>> By Greg Palast, OpEd News
>>>
>>> 30 March 17
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> When RyanCare-TrumpCare finally ended up face-down in the swimming
>>> pool, triumphalist Democrats whooped and partied and congratulated
>>> themselves on defeating the Trump-Ryan monstrosity.
>>>
>>> But deep in their counting house, counting their gold, three brothers
>>> cackled with private jubilation.
>>>
>>> David and Charles Koch knew the day was theirs.
>>>
>>> Joining them in the celebration was Brother Billy, William Koch, who
>>> will share in their $21 billion windfall that the President arranged
>>> for them only hours before TrumpCare crashed--when Trump announced
>>> his State Department had formally approved the Keystone XL Pipeline.
>>>
>>> Let's start with that $21 billion.
>>>
>>> The XL Keystone Pipeline would take the world's heaviest, filthiest
>>> crude from Canada's tar sands, and snake with it all the way down to
>>> Texas.
>>>
>>> [Watch this clip from The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.]
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Now here's a question I never hear from our sleep-walking media:
>>> Exactly why are we sending oil all the way across the United States
>>> to Texas. I mean, doesn't Texas already have a little oil?
>>>
>>> In fact, Texas is drowning in oil, choking in it. But the Kochs'
>>> Texas refinery can't use much local crude. The Koch Industries Flint
>>> Hills refinery on the Texas Gulf Coast was designed specifically to
>>> crack only the world's "heaviest" (i.e. filthiest) crude.
>>>
>>> Texas crude ain't heavy enough, ain't dirty enough, for the Kochs'
>>> Gulf Coast operation, originally designed for imports for the world's
>>> major source of heavy crude: Venezuela. The price the Kochs paid for
>>> Venezuela's oil was set by its President Hugo Chavez, and now, by
>>> Chavez' chosen successor, Nicolas Maduro.
>>>
>>> Chavez and Maduro both told me they'd squeeze the Kochs by their
>>> tankers.
>>> They have.
>>>
>>> Enter the Mounties: Canadians sell their super-heavy crude at a $12
>>> to $30 a barrel discount to the Venezuelan price. If the XL Pipeline
>>> is complete, the Kochs can suck down Canada's cheap cruddy crude for
>>> a minimum savings of
>>> $1.27 billion in a single year.
>>>
>>> The Kochs pocket billions while we fry: burning the Canadian tar
>>> sands reserve will, all by itself, raise the temperature of the
>>> entire planet by
>>> 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit.
>>>
>>> Over the life of the XL Keystone Pipeline, the various Koch
>>> operations will put at minimum, $21 billion in Koch family pockets.
>>> Because we have to add in not only Charles' and David's gains, but
>>> Brother Billy's windfall as well"
>>>
>>> Brother Billy's Filth Factory
>>>
>>> The third, lesser-known Koch is Brother William, now principal of
>>> Oxbow Carbon. The name itself gives environmentalists the
>>> heebee-jeebies.
>>>
>>> To keep the tar sands gunk flowing through the Keystone pipeline, the
>>> worst of the tar must be extracted and processed as "petcoke," stuff
>>> so filthy and toxic it is illegal to burn in the USA. So Billy Koch
>>> sells the compressed filth to China and Mexico.
>>>
>>> And Billy's bro's have joined the "petcoke" game too. David and Charles'
>>> subsidiary, Koch Carbon, already pulls the gunk from the current
>>> Keystone pipe where in Detroit it's accumulating in piles bigger than
>>> the pyramids.
>>> Here's a photo of Koch's coke wafting over Detroit's city parks.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Which explains why the Koch's political front operation, Americans
>>> for Prosperity, named approval of the XL Pipeline the number one
>>> priority for the Trump presidency.
>>>
>>> KochDon'tCare
>>>
>>> When TrumpCare breathed its last, the President blamed Democrats for
>>> its untimely demise.
>>>
>>> A stunned by-stander, Democratic Minority leader Nancy Pelosi, went
>>> for
>>> it:
>>> "We'll take credit for that."
>>>
>>> Sorry, Nancy, you can't.
>>>
>>> Because it was the Kochs' brownshirts, the self-styled "Freedom Caucus,"
>>> that, in a bestial assault, crushed a sitting President and their own
>>> leader of Congress, Paul Ryan. The thugs' secret weapon: heavy bags
>>> of cash, Koch cash.
>>>
>>> Kochs front groups, including Americans for Prosperity (the XL
>>> promoter, promised unlimited funds to any far-right Congressman who
>>> would vote against the bill. The Kochs' Freedom Partners Executive
>>> Director told members of the uber-right Congressional Freedom Caucus,
>>> "We will stand with lawmakers who keep their promise and oppose this
>>> legislation" with a "seven-figure" war chest. In the old days, that
>>> was called "bribery." But today it's called, "Koch."
>>>
>>> Blow-hard Trump threatened them, but Koch's money protected them.
>>>
>>> The Kochs don't want ObamaCare, TrumpCare, nor any care at all for
>>> Americans that add to their tax bill. Call it KochDon'tCare.
>>>
>>> Billionaires versus Billionaires
>>>
>>> But keen observers of TrumpCare would note that it was not really a
>>> health care bill, but a tax bill--specifically, a tax cut of some
>>> $157 billion that has been charged to the richest Americans to fund
>>> ObamaCare through a 3.75% tax on passive investment income--that is,
>>> money earned, not by working, but by speculating.
>>>
>>> Because behind the public creator of the bill, Speaker Paul Ryan,
>>> stood Ryan's number one funder, a billionaire known as The Vulture.
>>> The Vulture, aka Paul Singer, makes all his money by nasty methods
>>> excoriated even in the Wall Street Journal.
>>>
>>> In Trump's weird psycho-babbling press conference last month, he
>>> said, "So I want to thank Paul Singer for being here and for coming
>>> up to the office."
>>> Reporters scratched their head, not knowing who this "Singer" is nor
>>> why Trump brought it up.
>>>
>>> Now, you know what that was about.
>>>
>>> Singer makes all his money from speculation income. The Ryan-Trump
>>> "healthcare" bill was first and foremost a tax cut for Singer, likely
>>> worth billions to The Vulture (and more to his cohort including
>>> Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin).
>>>
>>> But to the Kochs, this tax break is nearly worthless. So, behind the
>>> curtain, this was a fight of billionaires versus billionaires.
>>>
>>> The Kochs, having built up their army of useful idiots--the
>>> Koch-funded Tea Party and Freedom Caucus, won this one. (Hey, no hard
>>> feelings. The Vulture still dines with the Kochs in Vail and donates
>>> to their super-PACs.)
>>>
>>> Sure, let's breathe a sigh of relief that, with ObamaCare momentarily
>>> saved, we won't have more amputees begging in the subway, meth
>>> addicts croaking in New Hampshire and my bank account emptied for my
>>> next heart surgery.
>>>
>>> It's not Trump's victory that portends fascism--it is the bending of
>>> Trump by the hands of the poisonously greedy Brothers Koch that
>>> brings the fascist corporatist state one day closer.
>>>
>>> And that is nothing to celebrate.
>>>
>>> e-max.it: your social media marketing partner
>>>
>>>
>>> Love Gregg Palast. Still need to get to his book, Best Democracy
>>> Money Can buy. It is waiting in my cue.
>>
>>
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