William Rhodes Davis appears to have been a bit more than a Nazi "sympathizer." According to Wikipedia, captured Nazi documents released by the U.S. govt. in 1957 showed that Davis "funneled Nazi funds into the 1940 U.S. elections." Davis also funded a radio address against Roosevelt during the 1940 election by United Mine Workers and CIO president, John L. Lewis,
On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 6:15 PM, Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote: > NY Times, Jan. 11 2016 > Father of Koch Brothers Helped Build Nazi Oil Refinery, Book Says > By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE > > The father of the billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch helped > construct a major oil refinery in Nazi Germany that was personally > approved by Adolf Hitler, according to a new history of the Kochs and > other wealthy families. > > The book, “Dark Money,” by Jane Mayer, traces the rise of the modern > conservative movement through the activism and money of a handful of > rich donors: among them Richard Mellon Scaife, an heir to the Mellon > banking fortune, and Harry and Lynde Bradley, brothers who became > wealthy in part from military contracts but poured millions into > anti-government philanthropy. > > But the book is largely focused on the Koch family, stretching back to > its involvement in the far-right John Birch Society and the political > and business activities of the father, Fred C. Koch, who found some of > his earliest business success overseas in the years leading up to World > War II. One venture was a partnership with the American Nazi sympathizer > William Rhodes Davis, who, according to Ms. Mayer, hired Mr. Koch to > help build the third-largest oil refinery in the Third Reich, a critical > industrial cog in Hitler’s war machine > The episode is not mentioned in an online history published by Koch > Industries, the company that Mr. Koch later founded and passed on to his > sons. > > Ken Spain, a spokesman for Koch Industries, said company officials had > declined to participate in Ms. Mayer’s book and had not yet read it. > > “If the content of the book is reflective of Ms. Mayer’s previous > reporting of the Koch family, Koch Industries or Charles’s and David’s > political involvement, then we expect to have deep disagreements and > strong objections to her interpretation of the facts and their > sourcing,” Mr. Spain said. > > Ms. Mayer, a staff writer at The New Yorker, presents the Kochs and > other families as the hidden and self-interested hands behind the rise > and growth of the modern conservative movement. Philanthropists and > political donors who poured hundreds of millions of dollars into think > tanks, political organizations and scholarships, they helped win > acceptance for anti-government and anti-tax policies that would protect > their businesses and personal fortunes, she writes, all under the guise > of promoting the public interest. > > The Kochs, the Scaifes, the Bradleys and the DeVos family of Michigan > “were among a small, rarefied group of hugely wealthy, archconservative > families that for decades poured money, often with little public > disclosure, into influencing how the Americans thought and voted,” the > book says. > > Many of the families owned businesses that clashed with environmental or > workplace regulators, come under federal or state investigation, or > waged battles over their tax bills with the Internal Revenue Service, > Ms. Mayer reports. The Kochs’ vast political network, a major force in > Republican politics today, was “originally designed as a means of > off-loading the costs of the Koch Industries environmental and > regulatory fights onto others” by persuading other rich business owners > to contribute to Koch-controlled political groups, Ms. Mayer writes, > citing an associate of the two brothers. > > Mr. Scaife, who died in 2014, donated upward of a billion dollars to > conservative causes, according to “Dark Money,” which cites his own > unpublished memoirs. Mr. Scaife was driven in part, Ms. Mayer writes, by > a tax loophole that granted him his inheritance tax free through a > trust, so long as the trust donated its net income to charity for 20 > years. “Isn’t it grand how tax law gets written?” Mr. Scaife wrote. > > In Ms. Mayer’s telling, the Kochs helped bankroll — through a skein of > nonprofit organizations with minimal public disclosure — decades of > victories in state capitals and in Washington, often leaving no > fingerprints. She credits groups financed by the Kochs and their allies > with providing support for the Tea Party movement, along with the public > relations strategies used to shrink public support for the Affordable > Care Act and for President Obama’s proposals to mitigate climate change. > > The Koch network also provided funding to fine-tune budget proposals > from Representative Paul D. Ryan, such as cuts to Social Security, so > they would be more palatable to voters, according to the book. The Kochs > were so influential among conservative lawmakers, Ms. Mayer reports, > that in 2011, Representative John A. Boehner, then the House speaker, > visited David Koch to ask for his help in resolving a debt ceiling > stalemate. > > “Dark Money” also contains revelations from a private history of the > Kochs commissioned by David’s twin brother, William, during a lengthy > legal battle with Charles and David over control of Koch Industries. > > Ms. Mayer describes a sealed 1982 deposition in which William Koch > recalled participating in an attempt by Charles and David to blackmail > their fourth and eldest brother, Frederick, into relinquishing any claim > to the family business by threatening to tell their father that he was gay. > > David Koch has since described himself as socially liberal and as a > supporter of same-sex marriage. > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
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