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The Koch Brothers, Wisconsin & Citizens United v. FEC

On Tuesday, March 1st, the Story of Stuff Project took out a full-page ad in the Wisconsin State Journal with the banner headline:  “Governor, Mr. Koch is holding for you on Line 3.”

The ad includes a graphic still from our new movie – The Story of Citizens United v FEC — as well as the URL for the movie site: www.storyofcitizensunited.org.

The Story of Citizens United v FEC explores the crisis of corporate influence in American democracy and was inspired by the January 2010 Supreme Court decision that gave corporations the right to spend unlimited funds to influence elections. We made the movie because we believe getting corporations out of our democracy is critical to making progress on a huge range of issues that we Americans (and many others around the world) care about, from good jobs to clean air to safe products.

As we point out in the movie, the kind of independent groups that corporations are now allowed to support spent $300 million to influence the 2010 midterm elections, more than every midterm election since 1990 combined.

Koch Industries — which was one of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s largest campaign contributors — spent over $1 million alone and Koch-backed groups like Americans for Prosperity and the Cato Institute have argued in favor of more corporate money in politics and fought attempts in Congress to force shadowy corporate-funded independent groups to disclose their donors.

Citizens United means union-busting climate-deniers like the Koch Brothers will have even more political power than they do now. We think its high time we got the corporations out of our democracy and got the people back in.

If you agree, we urge you to share our new movie with your colleagues, friends and family.

More Resources:

Koch Industries was one of the biggest contributors to Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign

 

The New York Times

“State records also show that Koch Industries, their energy and consumer products conglomerate based in Wichita, Kan., was one of the biggest contributors to the election campaign of Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a Republican who has championed the proposed cuts.”

Koch founded Americans for Prosperity running ads in support of Walker’s union busting efforts

 

Reuters

“The group Americans for Prosperity, founded by David Koch and aligned with the Tea Party movement, has launched a $342,000 advertising campaign in support of Walker’s effort to end collective bargaining for most state workers.”

Koch front groups argued in favor of corporate money in politics

 

Think Progress

When the Supreme Court took up the Citizens United case, Koch-funded front groups filed a series of amicus briefs arguing that the First Amendment protects unlimited corporate money in politics. For example, the Cato Institute, founded and financed by the Koch brothers, submitted a brief that called for “unfettered” corporate “speech” and the Institute for Justice, founded and financed by David’s brother Charles, submitted a brief claiming that campaign finance laws prohibiting unlimited corporate money “trump the First Amendment.”

Koch funded organizations fought the DISCLOSE Act

 

Think Progress

When Members of Congress introduced the DISCLOSE Act, which attempted to curb campaign abuses in the wake of the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court, a Koch funded organization—the Cato Institute—called it a “gambit to chill speech.”

For more on the Koch Brothers, union busting and Citizens United v. FEC, see this excellent piece by Michael Keegan, the President of People for the American Way, on Huffington Post.

posted by Michael O'Heaney
March 1, 2011
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  • http://www.hiddenhealthscience.com Aaron

    It would be nice if you would actually place the blame where it belongs: GOVERNMENT

    Every branch and every division of our government is beholden to Big Banks, Big Industry, and the Pharma-War profit machine.

    Government cannot fix the problem. It is the problem.

  • http://www.GenuineThriving.com/ Jeremiah Stanghini

    I think you’ve picked a great time to raise awareness around the issue of “The Corporation.” Like you’ve said in the video, I’ve got nothing against corporations and think it’s great that they make money for their shareholders and workers, but as has been pointed out, corporations probably shouldn’t get all the same rights and freedoms as people. There’s a Canadian documentary called “The Corporation” that really goes into great detail about how the corporation came to hold some of these rights (it was actually accidental!).

    With Love and Gratitude,

    Jeremiah

  • Jon

    I agree, but we don’t actually live in a democracy. We live in a republic. Perhaps the most important thing we can do to solve all of these problems is educate Americans about the world around them.

  • http://www.greenpeacecorps.org Thomas Thirion

    The ‘Green Peace Corps’ is now working on a plans and projects to unite progressives in forming a universal umbrella organization for sustainable food & environment. In addition we putting together plans with other progressive groups to form two more organizations. One will be an organization to help expose everything that negatively affects our environment and health. It will deal with exposing both the wrongdoers and wrongdoings of our most serious offenders concerning war, factory farming, Big Ag, Big Pharma, fossil fuel energy and more. The third organization will be set up a third political party of integrity. Where each candidate from local government to president signs a binding contract with the party and to the American public that if he is judged guilty of any serious corruption by his peers(other party officials, that he forfeits both his position, his money, any income and possessions. Only then will we be able to end this special interest and corporate plutocracy and build a truly democratic government as stated in the our constitution. If you are interested in becoming part of the solution, write us at agraorganic@yahoo.com…

  • Mary from Montco PA

    Aaron: I agree today’s corrupted, broken government is a huge problem. But The Problem is corruption of democracy by the wealthy few and their overblown, monopolistic corporations.

    There is no Solution, except to FIX the government. The role of government is is to check and balance the power of the wealthy abusers. The founders checked the abuses of King George III and his monopolistic, international, colonialist corporation called the East India Company. (Yes, the Boston Tea Party was ANTI-corporation!)

    And that’s exactly what the movement for this constitutional amendment is all about: FIXING the government so it represents ALL Americans, not just rich Americans. There is no other entity that comes close to being able to balance off the power of Big Money, except truly democratic government.

    Give up on fixing government, and we have no way to defend ourselves. Hopelessness is self-defeat.

  • Paul

    Although I care about many issues regarding humanity, the planet and my country, I sincerely believe that the only way U.S. citizens will triumphantly recapture their country is to enlist sympathizers in a single movement.

    One single issue must be chosen—one which can be resolved, which in turn will then resolve or begin the resolve of others. I believe, as the “Story of Citizens United v. FEC (2011)” masterfully illustrates, the most important issue is that of finance reform… removing the influence of business from our democratic voting process. If that can be accomplished, the protective corporate “force field” over other issues will be substantially weakened.

    If there is a lack of unity of purpose, we will not suceed. If the various movements, committees, groups or organizations all have a glut of ambitions and goals, the populace will be distracted, confused, and overwhelmed. If the egos of the leaders of these forces cannot join and be focused on a single issue—those forces—the people—will fail.

    Undoubtedly our founders had numerous issues with King George III and the British Parliament. Without a doubt, black Americans had numerous issues with their fellow countrymen and the lack of respect and equality afforded by laws throughout the country. And I suspect that the people of India had many grievances against their British overlord, as well as that of the Princely States.

    In all of these instances, from the Continental Congress, to Martin Luther King, to Gandhi, the single issue they focused on was tyranny. In the first instance, “disobedience” led to a war, and success. In the next two, non-violent disobedience succeeded without war. In all three, the cry was against tyranny. We, in the U.S., are suffering the tyranny of a “Wall Street” government. We need to join together on a single issue— with a single cry.

    Hell, even Hitler understood it and he almost succeeded. In regard to enlisting the populace and to put it in modern communication terms, it’s all about messaging.

    If the various “people” organizations can coalesce, using the successful examples of business consortiums (know your enemy), a single cry can be grasped by the people. Around 600 BC, Sun Tzu, in “The Art of War” wrote, “One defends when his strength is inadequate, he attacks when it is abundant.”

    The strength in a single issue is unstoppable…

  • http://www.freewheelcoffee.com Kris Simons

    Quite an intriguing video. I would assert however that it is only part of the problem. We have to ask ourselves why elected officials seem to beckon and bend over to big corporations. One thing I believe which is affecting this action, is the insulation by individuals within government from the realities of the world around them. Let’s be honest, most politicians have a career in government. This is masked by the ideals of the desire to serve others publicly. However, as government grew to a now astronomical size, we find more and more of these individuals making careers that are pretty damn good by any standard. Ask yourself, what is the only institution that still provides pensions? (The Government) What is the institution that pays individuals for laziness and simply following orders? (The Government) What institution has massive amounts of people applying to work for them because of almost a lifetime guarantee of employment. (The Government) Who makes the most of ALL graduating individuals from my Bachelor’s degree program? (A person who now works for the IRS and at 28 years old rakes in over $80,000 a year)

    I am glad to see things transpiring in Wisconsin with collective bargaining rights being removed from public workers and quite happy to see people waking up to the inefficiencies of our government. If we are to innovate and avoid falling from the now present third largest economy, to the fourth, we need to make the government a fast running unit that can work efficiently. Sadly I do not think that is possible and have no idea how it is even feasible by any standard.

    Signed,
    A Gen Y’er bound to shoulder the debts of the present world.

  • http://www.strongerdemocracy.org Joe Goldman

    It is worth noting that the US House of Representatives passed a budget about 10 days ago that would cut public financing of presidential elections, as well as several other important elements of a healthy democracy, like public media, national service, etc. Take a look at http://www.strongerdemocracy.org/action

  • http://communitydevelopmentcooperative.wordpress.com/ Larry Baumgart

    Being a Boomer, I think that Boomers should resurrect their attitude of the 60s and go out leaving the world a better place by creating a bucket list, that is, bucket with a “b” and not an “f” or a “d”. Accordingly, I would suggest in part:
    1. restore democracy
    2. institute universal health care like any other civilized nation
    3. overhaul the legal system to reflect justice and eliminate legalized extortion through unwarranted and frivolous law suits
    4. fair and equitable taxation
    .
    .
    .
    Vote for the politicians that are conscientious and representative of these needed changes regardless of party.

  • http://www.wethepeoplenews.net john kelley

    I dont understand why we would pass an amendment that removes corporate protection of the first amendment only. It seems like removing corporations from using the 14th amendment is the real issue.

  • mandy barrge

    We are a republic the fact you got that incorrect makes no sense to me.

  • Monica D. Castillo

    Annie and friends, congratulations on your latest Citizen’s United video!

    On the “What You Can Do” page: please add information on the UN 2012 International Year of Cooperatives, that can help replace Corporate structures. This is a more deep-rooted solution that people can come together on right now, no delays. Read more here…

    http://social.un.org/coopsyear/

    This is an excellent opportunity for you to help spread the word about the need to focus on replacing Corporate structure with Cooperatives. There is already an international move in this direction, and it’s an opportunity for all of us to combat the corporate griphold from the bottom up. Cooperatives growing and uniting to create “Cooperative Conglomerates” that create competition for Corporations will force them to compete on ethical and environmental standards, and will eventually starve them out of existence. Consumers will naturally choose the cleaner, more ethical products. And with solar and wind electric now at our disposal for lowering both production overhead and transport/distribution costs, as well as creating income boosts with surplus energy paybacks, cooperative business start-ups have never been more affordable at relatively little risk.

    For example, organic crops for foods, cosmetics and other products can now be produced abundantly at virtually no overhead for running organic agriculture methods, such as greenhouses, hydroponics, machinery and other methods on solar or wind electric. This can bring the price of healthy foods, cosmetics, and other products way down, and make their production more available to all around the world – combating poverty, hunger, disease, child labor, crime, conflict, promoting abundance, health, education, culture, conservation, business, local and national economies, etc.

    This combination of equal access worldwide to cooperative models, clean energy, conservation, organic foods, and clean business can help to eliminate two major causes of war: scarcity and territoriality.

    Opting for Cooperative business structures vs. Corporations also guarantees us Equity and Sustainability, by legal statute and mission of the very business entity.

    Cooperatives have been officially declared by the UN Secretary General as the sustainable business model for our future. 2012 is the International Year of Cooperatives, and the international Cooperative Alliance already has preparatory activities underway. The success of an International Year depends on how widely it is spread, and what we all make out of it. It is a tool at our disposal, in everybody’s hands.

    I share this in hopes that it will reach many, and people will in turn pass along this information and come together on it:

    http://social.un.org/coopsyear/

    http://www.ica.coop/al-ica/

    http://www.ica.coop/activities/iyc/index.html

    Story of Stuff could be a perfect channel for publishing on its page about the International Year for Cooperatives, and at least, list it under the “What You Can Do” section of the new Citizens United video, that is fast going viral around the web. This would be a particular service to Americans, who rarely get this international information, and can help get them on the same page towards partnering with the rest of the world on deeper, more lasting solutions.

  • burro

    I’ve got a problem with the Constitutional Amendment being proposed here — it leaves too many loopholes and we’ll end up having to come back again.

    The amendment bill should not state that the First Amendment does not apply to corporations.

    The amendment bill should state that the Bill of Rights (yes, all of it) applies wholly and solely to individual human beings.

    That should be followed by a campaign to establish overarching business laws requiring ethics and precautionary principles.

  • Sean Doyle

    The tendency is for people to not rise up until they are suffering…take Egypt, Libya, etc. for example. So my question to all out there is: how long do you want to continue to suffer the indignities of what
    your(?!) government and fellow ‘humans’, the corporations, are more-than-happy to subject you to?
    How much more of the rampant corruption? The psychotic nature by which they are willing to steal the wealth and livelihoods of anyone without a thought as to consequences, other than to their own self-interests?
    Did you know that Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs had the gall to say he was doing “God’s work” after stealing your money with the help of congress? That people working for Enron and Wells Fargo laughed when people froze to death or lost their houses and their life savings? That not one banking executive has lost their job or their obscene salaries/pensions in the wake of the Wall Street crime scene? Bernie Madoff (appropriate last name, don’t you think?) only went to prison because he made the mistake of stealing from those who have money and do the stealing themselves.
    You see, stealing from the majority of us peons who really drive this thing under the official banner of a
    Democracy, although it is unofficially a kinder, gentler Fascism, is not worrisome to psychopaths like the Kochs or the Bushs. They know that although you’ll lose everything, you’ll still go back to the teat with which they’ve weaned you, and of which you have become accustomed to the taste, that is until you have finally come to realize how rancid and unappetizing it has truly become.

    And as the great, late Howard Zinn so aptly stated, don’t go looking to the courts for any justice because it ain’t there. Citizens United, remember? Clarence Thomas meeting with the Federalist Society? His wife willing to be the voice of the Tea Party, and having taken $700k in speaking fees from the Heritage Foundation. And what of John Roberts, or of Scalia who hunts with that “fuck you” VP/ex-defense secretary/ex-Halliburton guy, Dick Cheney.

    The time is ripe for protest, and it’s past time and a perfect time before incurring more suffering. We should use the examples of Egypt and Libya, and test our government’s ‘honesty’ as it condemns other regimes for abuses against its citizenry. Are Hillary Clinton’s words official, or unofficial? Would she defend or swallow her words when the American people rise up and condemn the abuse at the hands of a corporatized Plutocracy at home? Time to find out.

    Albert Einstein eloquently stated: “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the level of thinking that created them.”

  • http://leorockway.com.ar Leo

    Could you please provide the videos in a free format with an open standard? Something like WebM or ogg / theora / vorbis.

    Publishing the videos only as mov files goes against what you say in your videos.

    Thanks a lot.

  • http://leorockway.com.ar Leo

    For what is worth, YouTube has the video available as WebM, but YouTube doesn’t let you download the files =[

  • Mark81150

    Uh yeah,.. You list Think Progress as a legitmite source?

    seriously?

    Why not just admit you’re hard left and be done with it. This is a center right nation, a Constitutional Republic, with barely 20% of it’s people openly calling themselves progressives. 41% calling them selves conservatives, with the rest moderates in the center. That would of all these groups make your political position kinda fringe wouldn’t it?

    That schools were showing your propaganda films is chilling, and I like a great many parents are demanding that your films be identified as political and offer parents an opt out of your indoctrination agenda. You openly distort the facts of the FEC case, and slipped your films quietly into schools knowing it’d outrage conservative and moderate families.

    Even the president got the Supreme Courts ruling wrong in his childish dig at them in his SOTU speech, embaressing himself. You don’t mention that the ACLU, hardly rightwing sided with the courts ruling, that it allows big unions to have a say too, and we know they love to buy democrat politicians.

    I doubt you mind though when they do it.

    I don’t mind that everyone gets a say in our republic. What I mind is dishonesty and distorting the facts in an attempt to rig the system in your favor, exactly what the left accuses corparations of, they do with a lot of enthusiasm.

    When you control speech, especially by distorting the facts at issue, you subvert our republic. The very reason the 1st Amendment was written was to keep special interests (like you) from distorting the public debate. There is no such thing as too much free speech, and we need to be very distrustful of those like you who claim there is.

  • Jonathan Frieman

    There’s a few inaccuracies in the video.

    First, Annie conflates people with persons. This is an important distinction. Corporations have had personhood for at least 120 years, which means they have had some of the rights that people do. A corporation is a fictional entity. It has a structure of a board, shareholders, and employees. The shareholders, who may be employees, the board, or other corporations, decide who the directors will be who then hire the CEO.

    The cloak of personhood is placed upon that structure. Taking it off won’t do anything, because people are still allowed to gather in assembly.

    More importantly, corporations have more power than humans do. Just giving them this one bit of power to “speak” in the way they may now do did not really open the floodgates–the floodgates were already wide open. This just opened them a bit wider.

    Is all.

    To be specifick, CU allows corpses to give directly from their treasuries right to an IE message, such as TV ad or a radio ad or a newspaper ad. That’s all. It only means they now don’t have to go through a PAC or a 527 in order to do so.

    That’s destructive. They can hide those donations.

    Second, Ms. Leonard declaims that corporations, by law, must benefit their shareholders. Untrue. Here’s the trooth: they must act in a manner believed to be in the best interests of the corporation and its shareholders. (Frances T. V. Village Green Owners Association, et al. (1986) 42 Cal.3d 490, 513. Maine law says “directors and officers of a corporation shall exercise their powers and discharge their duties with a view to the interests of the corporation and of the shareholders.” §716, Business Corporation Act.

    “Best interests of the shareholders” can speak much more towards a corporation’s long term survival rather than short term profit. It could also mean that corporations must be concerned for the welfare of STAKEholders, those folks who are affected by the actions of those who are employed by a corporation, because a shareholder could be a stakeholder.

    In actuality, the behavior of corporate employees is quite sad and tragic. Leonard doesn’t speak to what happens when human beings are motivated by profit.

    They get really mean and stupid.

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  • Veelan

    With regards to the attempts at increasing corporate political power being fostered by the Republicans, see the following quote:

    David G. Mills

    11/10/04 “ICH” — The early twentieth century Italians, who invented the word fascism, also had a more descriptive term for the concept — estato corporativo: the corporatist state. Unfortunately for Americans, we have come to equate fascism with its symptoms, not with its structure. The structure of fascism is corporatism, or the corporate state. The structure of fascism is the union, marriage, merger or fusion of corporate economic power with governmental power. Failing to understand fascism, as the consolidation of corporate economic and governmental power in the hands of a few, is to completely misunderstand what fascism is. It is the consolidation of this power that produces the demagogues and regimes we understand as fascist ones.

    While we Americans have been trained to keenly identify the opposite of fascism, i.e., government intrusion into and usurpation of private enterprise, we have not been trained to identify the usurpation of government by private enterprise. Our European cousins, on the other hand, having lived with Fascism in several European countries during the last century, know it when they see it, and looking over here, they are ringing the alarm bells. We need to learn how to recognize Fascism now.

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