191–200 of 483 posts
You don't just go from what he and his brother have done to the US to:
> Boy, did we screw up!
Without an inkling as to how or why they screwed up, there's no way to gauge what, if any, change to expect.
This reminds me of George Wallace’s famous realization that his long term institutionalization of racism in Alabama was wrong when he was getting close to death’s door. It was kind of nice to hear, but lots of damage was done.
The Koch Family Foundation for Fossil-Free Energy would go a long way.
Shouldn't have been allowed to have undemocratic control over that amount of political power (wealth) to begin with.
Elections are in the public interest and therefore should be publicly funded -- exclusively. Each registered candidate with more than a certain number of signatures of support should be given a budget of money and pre-paid airtime on all major networks by the FEC, and that's it. Once it's out, it's out. All other contributions (including in-kind) to political campaigns are tantamount to bribery and should just be ill…
That doesn't really follow. Why should something be exclusively publicly funded just because it is in the public interest?
>All other contributions (including in-kind) to political campaigns are tantamount to bribery and should just be illegal.
What about completely anonymous donations? If the receiver doesn't know who is giving the money, how could it act as a bribe?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It changes my evaluation of the claim, which is sourced by Greenpeace. In the long run I have no doubt that Greenpeace will have caused more damage than the Koch family. We could have clean energy right now if it weren’t for the decades of nuclear fear mongering, and the Koch family isn’t even opposed to nuclear.
Is this a troll? Comparing a single point on greenpiece's agenda to literally hundreds of millions of dollars Koch dollars to climate change deniers as a whole are simply incomparable. Just in case this is somehow contestable, let me highlight a few points * Climate change deniers oppose solutions that don't involve oil/gas/coal - this means nuclear power * Koch funding > greenpiece funding * greenpeice didn't start…
This reminds me of George Wallace’s famous realization that his long term institutionalization of racism in Alabama was wrong when he was getting close to death’s door. It was kind of nice to hear, but lots of damage was done.
Apologies if this is covered in the article, which I can't get to, but what is he doing to make amends? Or is this just empty, placatory words?
> Mr. Koch is now trying to work together with Democrats and liberals on issues such as immigration, criminal-justice reform and limiting U.S. intervention abroad, where he thinks common ground can be found. He has partnered with organizations including the LeBron James Family Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union and even a handful of Democratic state legislative campaigns. In 2019, he renamed the Koch netw…
A pragmatic choice given that a Democrat just won the White House. He can sit it out, or try to work with them and possibly influence their position.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He's 85, his brother died recently, and he's very likely concerned about "legacy". According to Greenpeace, these assholes have poured $145,555,197 into groups that worked counter to climate policy changes being enacted (from 1997 to 2018). _Partisanship_ should be the least of his worries - he'll be remembered as a key figure who spurred inaction at the exact time that we should have been taking drastic action.
Greenpeace is directly working against nuclear energy, which is the best way to have clean energy in the future for a large portion of humanity.
Shouldn't have been allowed to have undemocratic control over that amount of political power (wealth) to begin with.
This last round of elections showed how money doesn't buy elections as easily as you'd think. Democrats massively over-spent Republicans, and what did it get them? A narrow Biden win, a smaller lead in the house, and a smaller gap in the Senate. Bloomberg's image and as businessman and politician is pretty strong, but for all his spending, the only votes he won in the primary were form American Samoa.
The US seems to be in the middle of another realignment, like in the 60s. The Democratic party is consolidating its support from the big corporations, while the Republican party is making inroads with the working class.