The Belly of the Beast

The following is what circulated on email blasts around town and country to whet appetites for the late-June screening at hundreds of lib/progressive fever swamps in Manhattan and elsewhere:                            

What: We're getting together to watch Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014 Edition. This acclaimed new release pulls back the curtain on Charles and David Koch, yanking them out of the shadows and exposing them for what they are: a self-interested, ultraconservative demolition crew hell-bent on crushing the Affordable Care Act, Social Security, the Environmental Protection Agency, and so much more. Will you join us?

Under cover of a not-real name and identity, we attended, taking care to stay subdued and unobtrusive, to listen, to take mental note of what a conservative, ideologically middle of road or Republican non-extremist might make of these people, film, and the moveon.org phenomenon.

With the endless rounds of presidential traffic-snarling fundraisers from the Hamptons to Vegas to idtown, one would think money is pouring in, even with the guttering poll numbers of this scandal-barnacled presidency. But if 800 movie-showing living rooms are sharing popcorn to zealously leap on any imagined sins of the charitable Koch Brothers, the obvious extrapolation is that the Democrat Party is in a panic to  cut down on the margin of win come this November midterm election. With millions in their coffers already, why would the tainted president scuttle about to tony evenings in $1,000 rubber-chicken meets to fluff out the hope chest of the Dems?

How scared are they?

We attended one of these myriad meetings on the appointed weekend, in Manhattan’s Upper East. The attendees were friendly; we wore name tags, and moveon.org (funded in large part by George moneybags Nazi-sympathizer -- look it up -- Soros) urged every meeting host to snap a photo of attendees. We begged off, not surprisingly.

Though the meeting was supposedly ‘full’ with eight attendees when we called to reserve our place (these were all private homes), we counted only seven, including the host. Two men, one of whom left during the screening of the film, never to reappear, and one quite frail woman who left immediately after, using her walker. The age range was toward 40-80, with perhaps one other woman younger than that, who said not a word during the two hours of chat and screen-viewing. 

We noted in the discussion portion of the afternoon that no one mentioned the name of the president. Nor did anyone mention Hillary. Chuck Schumer came in for a dose of disapproval, since the attendees distrusted him, and were amused when we recited the old joke: What is the most dangerous place to be in the country? Between Schumer and a TV camera. Contrarily, showing you he has a problem, “Republican” Haley Barbour was approvingly noted, because he has several positions that are highly friendly to the assembled on at least the “immigration” problem.

To Screen and to Scheme 

Partisanship was thick enough to cleave with a hatchet, alas. One attendee admitted that, years ago, she had voted for a Republican. One woman admitted she would rather vote for a Republican today rather than for Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is in bad odor at present. She was chided by the host: “No, that is wrong. never vote for a Republican.” We almost admitted that we had several times voted for a Democrat. But we kept our counsel and said nothing that would have given us away as a toadstool among the creminis. The other woman paused, then acknowledged, “OK, maybe a third party candidate…?” She was, with this, now toeing the correct line.

One woman admitted that “Of course, Reagan was an idiot. And he ruined the economy.” We again started. We had to correct this: “Well, no. We read his papers, and his radio speeches, and he was far from an idiot, and was instead prescient on any number of issues.” (True.) We could not even begin to correct the factual ignorance that led her to say that the economy was bad during the notably booming Reagan years. Someone else said, “Ach, and he gave so many tax reductions! And so many for the rich…!” The Democrats seem to have a problem with wealthy people, except when they are in the Weinstein, Bill & Hill, or Soros camp of wealth, gleaned legally or illegally, so long as there is a “D” next to their registration. The meanness and envy of the Democrat crowd came to the fore, as the film made segment after segment on the wealth of the Koch brothers seem like a sin in and of itself.

“Reagan tried to destroy the unions, too.” The crowd on the sofas loves and supports the unions, no questions asked. “What do you mean?” we asked.

 “The air traffic controllers -- he fired the whole lot of them, remember.”

“But,” we responded, “what the air traffic controllers did in striking was illegal, you know that. Had Reagan let that stand, there would have been pandemonium with unions all behaving illegally.”

Grumpy, slow agreement. Pivot subject.

The film spent some time on raising the retirement age, which the Democrats absolutely oppose, despite the clear inevitability, since the population is living to far greater ages than when the original retirement age was set.

It also made the Koch brothers seem as if they are opposed to Social Security. And considerable energy was expended on mocking anyone who said SS is “going broke,” though it is also on the wall for the near future. The stance taken by the film is to the left of Tinkerbell and Aladdin’s lamp. The Affordable Care Act is uncriticized, but the Koch efforts to repeal it come in for heavy derision and disgust.

The micromanagement aspects of the effort to destroy the power of the Koch sibs went so far as focusing on the corn chips and popcorn being served. “Turn them over,” one attendee urged, to general chorus. “Maybe they are Koch products.”

They weren’t. But we got a handout with all the Koch Industries’ product lines so that we could avoid purchasing them in the future.

We hereby provide a listing below of the products readers should patronize, as the Kochs, brothers Charles and David, are massive benefactors for those who are disturbed by the left’s monopoly on ever more schools, now filtering down from colleges to high schools and even elementary school venues. The Kochs are for voter IDs, which was a huge part of the slasher film attention. Love is lavished on the problematic EPA.

Our colleagues around the room grumbled and exclaimed, “Outrageous!” and “Disgusting” as the film unreeled with the chutzpah to talk about how the brothers wanted to ensure that people were registered and citizens before they cast their vote. This was tossed about as -- what else? -- “Suppressing the vote.”

Unstated: every country in the world has an ID system before people are permitted to cast a vote. Only the Democrat crowd want the dead, the underage, the undead and the multiple personalities as well as the “undocumented Democrats” to vote without a question -- so as to maintain that  irresistible Dem edge in all forthcoming elections. The illiterate sub-par kids flooding our southern states are more of the same, they hope. Grateful for the opportunity to sneak into the great USA, these shabby, criminal, snivelly, sick, unsupervised aliens will, Jarrett et al. trust, pull the lever for their donkey colleagues come adult voting time.

One trick the slow, overdramatic, screaming-headline happy film indulged in, like their anti-fracking film that has been soundly debunked, is to state a questionable environmental problem, then make a correlative series of interviews with kids or nonprofessional non-experts -- so that watchers could assume the juxtaposition of horror issue and the Koch brothers product line or factory could be linked. Correlation is, we know, not causation.

Another trick is to count Koch donations to think tanks as prima facie evidence of wrongdoing. But the think tanks existed long before this hyperpartisan administration, and work on vast numbers of policy issues outside the narrow scope of this would-be snuff-film against the brothers.

Yet another: the millions donated by these charitable and committed brothers reeled off so quickly on film that if you were not paying scrupulous attention, you would miss the repeats salted endlessly in the reel. The same donations appeared four or five times as if they were separate contributions, when the filmmakers merely changed the category of sleaze, and then cited the same millions, even if the contribution were for art, museum, hospital, or other cause that had no possible connection to the awful, terrible evils the film was trying to establish.

The total monies donated are, yes, amazing. But the envy was, too. For some illogical reason, when trying to pump up the idea of raising minimum hourly wages, the film again and again made a false syllogism between a poor black mother living modestly on some fast-food income as compared to the Koch industries’ making some $14 million per day. But that is fatuous. Wealthy people, yes, of all parties, make lots more than minimum wages; comparing them and making the corporate earning of a vast corporation a fair comparison to a lowly, uneducated, unskilled single mother is an unconscionable and rather unjustifiable grab for the easily scared democrat watchers. The Kochs are for the market setting these rates, not artificial government edict setting them; but that was never stated anywhere in the endless slam of the “documentary.”

Re voting “rights,” the elderly, the feeble, the non-Asian minority and the young are all apparently simply unable to obtain any sort of usable ID for voting and elections. They all live in squalor without a toilet or water, presumably, in some sort of remote fastness of the desert. There are 41 horrible, terrible states that now demand ID before one can vote.

Citizens United: The Supreme Court ruling that permits free speech to corporations provides endless hysterics and conniptions among the moveon.org acolytes and rabid followers of Saul Alinsky and similar free-speech suppressors. Unions can speak as they wish. Media ditto. Soros and his minions and secretly funded subversive gangs can pay for ads and set up dummy companies to achieve their ends. They can buy senators and governors. No prob.

Only legally constituted pro-conservative outfits, these hyperventilating hypocrites maintain, ought not have the right to do as they wish, publish as they wish, support their values and causes as they wish.

Insofar as one needs to actually hear these sorts of things and observe first-hand what is being spoken, one is living in a partial bubble. We are bound to help pop the bubble whenever possible.

Supporting the Koch Brothers

A listing of the Koch products [incomplete] you can patronize, because they will not be intimidated by the Democrat octopus, the lucre-filled unions, the 95% leftist professoriate and media, or the Socialist stealth president:

American Greetings; Angel soft/Angel soft ultra; Brawny towels; Dixie products; Insulair cups; Mardi Gras napkins; Perfect touch Cups; Quilted northern & products; Sparkle paper towels; Vanity Fair napkins/paper towels

Georgia-Pacific Office products; spectrum paper; Georgia-Pacific enMotion paper towel dispenser; Georgia-Pacific engineered lumber

Invista brands; Invista PET polymer (used in Oxygen-sensitive packaging for food & bewverages; Adi-Pure® Adipic acid; Antron® carpet fiber; C12™ Intermediates; Comforel® fibre; Coolmax® Fabric; Cordura® Fabric; Dacron® Fiberfill; Dytek® Idea intermediates; FlexisolV® solvent solutions; Lycra® Fiber; Lycra HyFit® Fiber; Oxyclear® Barrier resin; Polyclear® Pet; Polyshield® resin; Senzaa™ Additive; Stainmaster® Carpet; Supplex® Fabric; Supriva™ fiber; Tactel® Fiber; TecGen® Garments; Terate® Polyols; Terathane® Polether Glycol; Terrin™ Polyols; Thermolite® fabric; Torzen® PA66 resin.

Note: We are not here saying all these products do not have associated problems, particularly paper products and byproducts, chemicals and offshoots. 

The thrust of their campaign is not to particularly outlaw any of these legal products, but to starve the parent company of funds so that the company cannot donate legal contributions to causes the Koch brothers endorse, which actions are within their 1st Amendment and citizens’ rights.

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