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MIKE PAPANTONIO: The billionaire Koch brothers, the geniuses who helped bankroll the Tea Party
movement are trying to buy up media outlets across the country. If they're successful,
they'll be able to spread their anti-consumer lies to millions of Americans. I have Howard
Nations and Mike Berg with me now to talk about the conservative takeover of the media.
Well guys it looks like the Koch brothers, obviously they wanna control politics by way
of PAC money. They wanna control the courts by way of packing the court system with their
favorite kinds of judge. Now they wanna really embrace, as much as they can, the media. They
don't think it's enough that Rupert Murdoch is out there with FOX News. They don't think
it's enough that you have - as we sit here and speak for every 6 minutes there is of
progressive talk or progressive media in America, there is 3 hours, 3 hours of conservative
media. So now the Koch brothers come on the scene and they say "Hey that's not enough
for us. We wanna buy up all the newspapers." Howard let me begin with you, what is your
take on this? HOWARD NATIONS: Well in 2010 at a convention,
the Koch brothers announced a three prong, ten year strategy and their goals in it are
smaller government, less regulation, and less taxation. The part that they're looking at
here which is very big is less taxation. They're grassroots activists; their three goals are
grassroots activism, influence in politics, but then their third goal was to control the
media. And this is such a dangerous thing. If you look at what they've done in the past
in the things that they buy in to and what they control. A quick example is what they
did at Florida State University. When Florida State sold to the devil in exchange in 2008
for millions of dollars contributed to their economic department. When they got -
PAPANTONIO: The Koch brothers - NATIONS: Yeah the Koch brothers -
PAPANTONIO: Right, right. NATIONS: Contributed money. And when they
got in to Florida State, they were financing multiple seats for new faculty members. Well
when you do that normally, that's just donated money. What they did is they controlled the
hiring's, and they denied 60 percent of the faculty members that were to be hired within
the University. They reviewed all public materials, and they reviewed all publications, and they
maintained the right to withdraw if they were not happy with the results that they were
getting from the publications. PAPANTONIO: Yeah, Iran had to be taught at
FSU you can't teach anything about global climate change; you have to teach the economics
of deregulation. That's the Koch deal. Now Michael, let me ask you this, what are the
newspapers, what is the media that's targeted by the Koch brothers right now as we speak?
MICHAEL BURG: Well they're looking to buy The Chicago Tribune, the L.A. Times, the Baltimore
Sun. What's interesting about this is as we go back through history, in the '30s we know
in Germany if you control the media, you control the propaganda, you're able to sway public
opinion and basically control the thoughts of people. But there's really a two-prong
thing they're gonna accomplish here. They're gonna do that, but the other thing is these
are in places where Obama and the Democrats have done really well, you know? In Illinois,
in Chicago, in Baltimore, in Los Angeles. These are also unionized papers. What I see
happening if they buy them, they're gonna break the unions, they're gonna fire as many
people as possible, they're gonna put their own people in there. They're gonna actually
destroy those papers, and bring them all up and resurrect them in their conservative bent
to try to put out propaganda to try to continue to rule this country with the corporate entities
controlling government. PAPANTONIO: Well Howard let me ask you, right
now if they accomplish what they want, it's not just that they're gonna control these
papers. What they're gonna control is the narrative and the dialogue that spans as many
newspapers as possible. In other words, you create the talking points on the editorial
page of the L.A. Times for example - NATIONS: Right.
PAPANTONIO: That's picked up by all of the other feeder newspapers and feeder media.
Isn't that where they're headed just to control? For example, regulations, deregulation. What
would they do with that? NATIONS: Well their idea is to distort science
on deregulation. They are very heavily financing now the fake scientific studies that regard
climate change as a hoax. The reason they do that, and the reason they're so big on
deregulation is because they are the fifth largest air polluters in the United States.
Their industries include fertilizer, fracking, coal, chemical plants, things of that nature.
And we can see from just what happened a few days ago in Texas what happens with deregulation.
In the Texas fertilizer plan and explosion there were 15 people killed and 200 injured;
10 of the people killed were first responders. That fertilizer plant was classic deregulation,
which is brought about by Governor Perry. He goes around the country bragging about
how "I come to Texas where a business is not regulated. Well there had been no inspection
of that plant since 1985, and they also are required to report to Homeland Security; they
had never reported to Homeland Security that they were stockpiling that much fertilizer
in one location. So this is the type of consequences that you get when you get no business regulation.
Now what you have to ask yourself is this: "Would newspapers, which are currently coming
out and criticizing Perry, and criticizing deregulation, would those papers now be doing
the same thing and would they be investigating that explosion if they were owned by the Koch
brothers? PAPANTONIO: If I were to say what is the brand
of the Koch brothers? Understand the old man Koch was an evil little character. I mean
he is the guy that fought civil rights at every turn. He's the same guy that day in,
day out was trying to build the John Birch Society. But when you take a look at the heart
of what the Koch's have stood for, it is hate. I mean there's no other way - it is a hate
train Michael, and what I'm wondering is what we see - haven't we seen this pattern with
these hate groups? It start off with the Tea Partyers, and everything
coming out of their mouth was basically attacking the have nots of this country, attacking Obama,
attacking - it was constant attack and constant hate. You'd see them in line with their signs
of Obama depicted as a monkey: Obama depicted as Hitler, and the message was always hate.
The Koch brothers paid for that. What makes you think anything's gonna be different when
they own the newspapers Michael? BURG: There won't be anything different. As
you said, the father who was really the founder of what they've done here said that the black
man was nothing more than a communist plot to overtake America. The reality is is that
they're gonna continue to preach hate. They're putting their money in, and they have so much
money, in to Alec which we've talked about previous on this show. They're putting their
money in deregulation. They're putting their money in making sure that our environment
is not clean, and in fact they are one of the largest polluters in the world. The hate
that they're going to continue to spew out of these newspapers, and through the organizations
that they've cloaked in legitimacy will continue to happen in this country. And America should
be warned that this is what their agenda really is.
PAPANTONIO: Well Howard we have seen this, we have seen when they've taken over - you
pointed about Florida State University's, I don't even know how you call it a university
where you have any free thinking now, because now it is the University of the Koch brothers.
Because the Koch brothers at Florida State University are telling them what to say, how
to say it, who to hire, who to fire, what they can teach in their textbooks. And so
what see happening here is it's more - we've seen them time and time again when they take
over a company they fire the people who disagree with them. Now can you imagine going to the
L.A. Times and firing the editorial page because the writers on that editorial page are not
going to agree with anything that they Koch brothers have to say. They've investigated
the Koch brothers time and time again for all types of scams that the Koch brothers
have carried out throughout this country. So what's gonna be different here, I mean
they're gonna go in, they're gonna fire, they're gonna rehire people, they're nothing more
than parrots. Is that journalism? NATIONS: Well as indicated by Clarence Page
with the Chicago Tribune, one of the finest African American editorial writers in American.
He has indicated by he simply couldn't work for the Koch brothers, just as it was very
interesting that when this story circulated among editorial boards all over the country,
"How many people were afraid to comment?" These were journalists by they were afraid
to use their name in commenting on what they thought about the Koch brothers taking over
the newspapers. And another indication was the fact that when asked, they said they thought
"They would rather have Rupert Murdoch buy the paper than the Koch brothers.
PAPANTONIO: Oh God. NATIONS: What does that tell you? Look what
Rupert Murdoch just went through in England. They would rather - the editorial boards would
rather work for Rupert Murdoch - PAPANTONIO: Criminal conduct in the UK -
NATIONS: Absolutely. PAPANTONIO: Criminal conduct in the UK where
he's tapping people's phone. He's involved in absolute criminal conduct Rupert Murdoch
and these newspapers say "Look, give me Rupert Murdoch above the Koch brothers." Because
I guess it's a different brand of crime. Michael, it's not just the newspapers. We also see
one America news network that's coming up. It's being paid for by one of the wealthiest,
right wing neo-con nut billionaires in the country that says that we need more than FOX
News out there spewing hate. So they're gonna start the one American news network. Now here's
the point, liberals - and I got about a minute, tell me what is your gut feeling, why don't
liberals do the same thing? Why are we so unwilling to start our own networks and jump
behind the media? Why don't we see that? BURG: One of the problems is we don't have
the financial wherewithal or individuals, like we've been talking about, who can go
in and buy newspapers or start a brand new television station. Most of what goes on on
the liberal side is grassroots. And to be able to do that, we have to have number one
the fire to do it, we gotta raise the money to do it, we gotta get people interested so
we can have some balance in this country. What they wanna do is they wanna make FOX
News the moderate; they wanna make them the middle, and we all know that's crazy. Absolutely
not, they're gonna - PAPANTONIO: Howard have you seen an unwillingness,
in about 20 seconds, an unwillingness by the liberal political movement to jump behind
media? NATIONS: Yes, there's a definite unwillingness
and reluctance to do so. And unfortunately the nature of the beast is that people like
the Koch brothers who have so much money have it because they don't regulation. They want
to be able to move unrestrained, and that's the type of people that are putting their
money in to the right wing, because the right wing - when they say "small government," they
mean "Government we can control, and that will not regulate us and not tax us." And
that's where the money goes. PAPANTONIO: All right guys, thank you. Very
important story, it's one we have to keep up with because it's gonna continue to grow
as a problem with our democracy.