I think we bypassed subtlety and nuance in public pronouncements many years ago. Why not take a look at the message blitzkrieg he’s countering? The tsunami of extremist shit engulfing the airwaves, cable TV and internet is as toxic as the plumes billowing from a Koch Industries paper mill. Harry’s a boxer, you know. He knows how to punch.
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True. It’s me, you and everyone on TPM that has the power to impact climate change. But it’s easier to do the 1984 “five minutes of hate” thing. Granted, the Kochs are evil polluters but they know the key to slowing global warming lies in managing the behavior of consumers.
It’s easy, convenient and refreshing to shake our fists at the Kochs while we sit stalled in traffic, one person to a car waiting to to our heated/air-conditioned homes powered by dirty energy in someone else’s backyard and then light the charcoal to cook a steak from a beeve raised in the high desert of Nevada while the kid next door uses a two cycle engine powered lawnmower to cut his 100 square foot of grass then fires up the 2 cycle leaf blower to “rake” up the grass which is then bagged and put by the curb for a large lumbering truck to carry away somewhere else.
This is called Convenience.
You mean ALEC? The same ALEC that saw it’s riders attached to Oklahoma’s bill on solar energy pass? The bill that levied a tax on people installing solar or wind energy?
The Koch Industries are polluters for sure. But it"s the amplified actions of two old entitled white guys to maintain the earnings of Koch industries that are the larger issue.
Thanks for taking my response out of context by ignoring the rest of my comment.
As all good carding liberals, I think the Kochs are scum. But it is the American consumerist way of life that has put us into the environmental predicament we find ourselves in this century. The Kochs alone aren’t driving the 260 million autos owned in just the U.S. The Kochs aren’t filling all the swimming pools or running all the air conditioning in the desert Southwest. The Kochs aren’t responsible for getting the Canadian government to permit the “harvesting” of the tar sands in Alberta. The Kochs aren’t building all the new coal-fired power plants in China. The Kochs aren’t the cause of any of these things. They are symptoms of 30 years of a declining progressive influence in American politics since the 1980s. While the Kochs make it difficult to combat these things, the American public in general is ultimately responsible.
As to Reid, his leadership in the Senate has been laughable since he became majority leader. He has a habit of saying stupid things and this is just another case of it.
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Sorry, but read the last line. Koch-owned industries are some of the largest polluters. These senile billionaires, driven to harm our democracy (they’re currently meddling in a Columbus, Ohio election to raise a small tax to support the city’s famous zoo; they have meddled in local school board and city council elections across the country) are fanatics trying to make us conform to their warped vision of the world.
Their vision is based on terminology at least a century old (‘collectivism’ vs. ‘individualism’)-- as old as the hills, it is a psychopathological mania with these sons of the founder of the John Birch Society. They’re still battling Joe Stalin in the 1930s. What a way for our nation to be ruled.
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Yet how careful are the GOPers, with their sham statistics on Obamacare, they’re claiming that every single piece of legislation coming from Democrats is ‘the Holocaust’ or ‘Hitlerian’ – or that 47% of Americans are ‘takers’? Reid has gotten down to their level, and is actually hitting them where it hurts.
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No, not the Kochs alone, but they have certainly meddled extensively in local affairs, in DC political positions and the rest. Obama has been miraculous in his turning the conversation away from what the Kochs have specifically wanted it to be: not about global climate change, not about pollution, not about fuel efficiency, solar and energy efficiency.
They are the major stakeholders in the tar sands oil, and hence in the XL Keystone Pipeline.
Enough of what they have meddled in to begin to demonstrate their actual causality in the things you decry?
I agree with what you say about consumerism and the Kochs but must take issue with calling out Reid’s leadership as “laughable”. By combining these comments in one post the result is that what you say in your first paragraph is rendered moot by your comments on Reid.
Their holdings would be a non-issue were it not for consumer demand. You cannot have one without the other.
So why attack one another over positing these issues separately? It makes no sense and sucks energy out of the discussion.
Exactly. But the po-li-tics??? The Kochs are the among the richest people in the United States, if not the richest. They didn’t make that money off of inventing tiddly-winks. Daddy built an empire over fossil fuel energy and then left it to the privileged brats that have made ensuring protection of their personal wealth the driving force in every decision they make. I could give a shit whether they donate money to the Metropolitan Opera or even cancer research with their name tacked on for good measure, especially when their own industry, in their name, hypocritically leads to increasing cancer levels around the country. Too many communities that are exposed to the chemicals they use or unleash as a result of their digging, prodding, forcing and dumping on the rest of us needs to be better regulated then they are today and local communities should have a say in how that is done for their protection. In fact the Koch Bros. chemical division is one of the worst offenders of pollution in the country all by itself.
We may not be able to do much about what happens in China right now with their out of control pollution. But rest assured if there’s money to be made, the originally formed American fossil fuel companies, that have all gone transnational now, are everywhere around the world, helping create an even bigger mess for the planet. If not China today, then we already have Russia working with these once strictly American fossil fuel behemoths…And the kicker is…not a one of them pays any fucking measurable taxes to the Federal government while they’re destroying the our country and the planet at large. They actually get money back from the gov’t in the form of corporate welfare and tax loopholes that the fucking GOTP won’t allow anyone to take away from them.
Koch Bros. live here and they are the biggest fossil fuel and dumpers of illegal waste from fossil fuel extraction in the country bar none. That’s how they got to be the fucking rich pricks they are, and how they intend to stay that way. They want to mess with politics…let them run for office in Kansas or wherever the hell else.
Ah, scuzeme, SR, but uninformed? I’ve lived most of my life in Boston and NYC. And I was in Boston during most of Romney’s term and saw firsthand how he screwed the MA economy. Then just 7 years ago I moved to Dayton, OH for a job and now I’m stuck with K-sucks and Husted. I don’t know from AFP? Think again. I’m seeing how just this week AFP and the Kochs tried to manipulate the vote on a Zoo assessment for Columbus!
Yeah, Harry was a boxer, he knows how to jab and punch. But in this case, he threw a haymaker and may have missed. The best way to drive home a point is to tell 'em what you’re gonna tell 'em; Tell 'em; And tell 'em what you told 'em. In other words lead with a foundation — set up your point; State your point; Then follow it up with a rationale and support facts. IMHO, this time, Harry just “told 'em.”
Let him write an OpEd in the NTYTimes. Post the facts and evidence on his web page. Issue a white paper.
But I can see I’m pissing into the wind on this one, so I fold before my socks get wet.
Are you Jeffrey too?..Wow, I must’ve missed that.
You’re both arguing one aspect of an intertwined issue and are both correct. But instead of dissipating energy with your back and forth how about you recognize that you’re on the same page, shake hands and put you energy into a discussion relevant to what Reid said?
FYI, my comment was in response to a poster named Jeffrey. If I wanted to respond to Steve G. I would have put the comment under him. I can see now, that for some reason though the comment didn’t show “in reply to Jeffery” at the top of my comment. I don’t know why it didn’t, but that was who the comment was directed at, as evidence by what I wrote and quoted.
And Sooner, if I want to disagree with a poster you can either take a side or stay out of it. Your choice. Don’t try telling me I can’t disagree with someone’s POV. I do it all the time, as do you, and that’s where POVs are argued and debated. I don’t see Steve G. as a troll, but I don’t think I have to agree with everything some poster says just because they’re not the type of concern-troll most of us would recognize and are used to getting here. I totally agree with JEP and totally disagree with Steve G., no harm, no foul.
DOH! My bad. For some reason I thought you were responding to me. But I stand by my POV anyway — and I’m still done with this thread. 
Me too. My dog has her back legs crossed telling me she has to go out to pee for over a half hour now…Cheers.
Ok/Fine. You can disagree with whomever. Just seemed to be getting unnecessarily toxic and off base.
Besides, you and Steve are both correct, you just cannot have one issue without the other. The Koch dirty energy holdings are nothing without consumer demand and consumer demand is nothing if the dirty resources do not exist.
Overstatements like Obamacare is the same as the Holocaust, e.g.? Reid is getting down to the Koch’s level. I say good for him.
I’m sorry but I don’t see where I said Reid’s leadership was laughable? Reid has done as good a job as he could given GOP obstruction, bad faith and their extensive use of hyperbole to cover up their being bought and paid for by the Kochs.
I went back and fixed that. My apologies…did not see that the quote was not captured.
Sockpuppet…Your continued attempts to derail conversations is noted…two week suspension, and if you continue after that, it will become permanent. Create as many sock puppets as you wish; the community here will identify and I will eliminate them.