Peter B. Collins receives Brad Friedman of BradBlog.com with groundbreaking news. Friedman succeeded to get access to a recording of the Summer Seminar organized by the Koch brothers in 2011 in Vail, Colorado. An anonymous source who participated in this activity taped key portions of this Seminar, featuring both Charles and David Koch, Governor Chris Christie and Judge Napolitano, and provided Brad Friedman with the recording. Friedman posted the complete audio and transcript of it on his blog and released the story as well to Mother Jones publication. Well, the revelations of this recording are so juicy and crusty. While listening to this tape, we have the « pleasure » of hearing Charles Koch referring curiously to Saddam Hussein while he speaks about defeating Obama, David Koch talking about Governor Chris Christie as « my kind of guy », speakers describing how the rich are the victims of an evil Obama, and how Democrats have been stupid (I agree with that statement!) to accept cuts in social programs and the social safety net, etc. Overall, you will hear a bunch of ultra-rich potentates showing absolutely no respect for the poor and the people who suffer in the lower classes. After years of constant attacks and attempts to rob and crush the poor and the middle class in the U.S. during the Bush Administration, a « second wave » is now under way with these neo-extreme-right activists, who for the most part stay in the shadows, well hidden behind the Tea Party useful fools. But now they have been masterfully exposed and showed for what they trully are by this anonymous inside source and by investigative journalist Brad Friedman. I have joined the podcast of Brad Friedman’s interview with Peter B. Collins, some of the related articles published on Mother Jones, and the integral audio files and transcripts of the recording of the Summer Seminar, posted on BradBlog.com. Excellent work, guys! Excellent anti-fascist researcher Dave Emory has been working as well on the Koch brothers case for some time. In particular, FTR #726 is of great interest to get acquainted more with these shadowy figures of American politics. What the Koch brothers are proposing to America leads directly to fascism. In effect, their machinations and use of the Tea Party clearly intends to repel the New Deal implemented by Roosevelt to replace it by something that would go along the lines of Mussolini’s Corporate State. Also, to read another example of Republican Reverse Robbing Hooding that I covered in a previous article, click here.
Before I let you go listening to the interviews, recordings and reading the transcripts, I also want to add a song by Pink Floyd, Have a Cigar. Peter B. interjected suddenly at one point during the conversation with Brad Friedman to play a short extract of that song, and I think it was just marvellous. It’s a song about the different lies, deceptions, manoeuvres and manipulations that, sometimes, managers and agents in the music industry use to dupe young bands and singers that are emerging. In the context of our discussion, it’s a great image of the kind of manoeuvres the Koch Brothers and Chris Christie are showing before their upper class audience. They are trying to convince them that it is O.K. to exploit the poor and rob and break down the middle class. Basically, they are saying to them, « Hey, have a cigar, we are going to ride the gravy train »…
Peter B. Collins receives Brad Friedman
Fallout from Christie-Koch exposé
Inside the Koch Brothers’ Secret Seminar