Koch Wealth Comes at a Great Cost to Communities

The Koch story — seriously?

The recent Op-ed by Dr. Timothy G. Nash looks like it was copied from a Koch Industries PR pamphlet. As the late Paul Harvey would say, “Now for the rest of the story.”

I’ve been researching the Koch brothers’ background and activities for several months. I have yet to find anything positive about them and their business/political activities. I’ve tried. Credit to Dr. Nash — The Kochs are masters at making money. Unfortunately it comes at great cost — to the environment, financial regulation and even to the roots of American democracy.

The Kochs and their undisclosed financial dark money partners have contributed untraceable millions to influence elections nationwide. Here in Michigan, they have poured more than $6.5 million into the U.S. Senate race, our congressional races and even our local legislative races.

Koch Industries is one of the 20 biggest polluters in the U.S. In fact, one of their facilities is so bad that it accounts for 5 percent of the total carbon footprint of all facilities monitored by the EPA.

The more I dig the worse it gets. A condensed version of my findings would fill at least three pages in the MDN.

All I can do is ask readers to go to Google. Look for the documentary “The Koch Brothers Exposed” or the Rolling Stone article “Inside the Koch Brothers Toxic Empire,” or “11 things the Koch Brothers Don’t want you to Know.” These are the tip of the iceberg.

The Kochs are also major investors in the Canadian Tar Sands oil field. This field has the most toxic crude on the planet and it would be pumped across the U.S. through the Keystone Pipeline. This pipeline would cross above the Ogallala Aquifer which is the source of irrigation from Nebraska to Oklahoma.

None of this matters to the Kochs. It is about money and political power. David Koch is the richest person in New York state and Charles is the richest person in Kansas. Obviously this is not enough.

They are founders of Americans for Prosperity. It is obvious it is all about Koch prosperity and the rest of us are nothing more than Tar Sands sludge at the bottom of a Koch refinery crude oil storage tank.

It is all on Google. Please try to prove me wrong.

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