Recently I was watching CNN and some commercials were on. I was tuning out as I usually do during commercial breaks when a line from one commercial penetrated my self induced haze, “We are Koch”. Whoa, what was that? Was that really a commercial for Koch Industries, owned by those weasels the Koch brothers who have been handing out zillions of dollars in their bid to buy numerous US Senate and House elections? Surely not! Why would those guys advertise which products their company produces when they are ticking off a major percentage of the country’s citizens? That doesn’t make good walking around sense. I started pay closer attention, but the commercial was over before I could figure out what it was really about.
A couple of days later, I was again watching CNN when the commercial ran again. This time I’m tuned in from the start. Sure enough, it is a public relations gig for Koch Industries – you know the kind of commercial where they are trying to familiarize the viewer with the company rather than pushing any one product. It was one those “This is who we are, this is what we do” commercials meant to build up good will. But again, if you have almost single handedly funded the Tea Party and you are buying tons of a commercials bashing, often with lies, political candidates which roughly half of the population is going to vote for, wouldn’t you and your company want to lay low, especially in the middle of the election season? I mean, isn’t that like saying these are the products we make, come on out and boycott them?
The commercial got me to thinking. We hear a lot about how the Koch bothers, Charles and David, are using their seemingly unlimited wealth to trying to buy elections for candidates who support there extreme right wing views, but don’t hear much about the company which made them extremely wealthy. I did some research and came across a wonderful article from “Rolling Stone Magazine” which I referenced in a previous blog entitled XXXX. It covered in gory detail how the Koch brothers used unsavory and often illegal business practices to build their huge empire which now has its tentacles in just about every aspect of American business. In many other references I was shocked to discover that many of the products that my wife and I use in our home on a regular basis are manufactured by subsidiary companies owned outright by Koch Industries.
I have decided that whenever possible I can do without products which produce profits which the Koch brothers use to try to subvert our democracy. I won’t urge you to do the same. Everyone should make up their own minds about such matters. However, I do think that it is very interesting to see which products we encounter all the time are produced by subsidiaries of Koch Industries. So I have put together the list of the Koch products with which I am most familiar. How you chose to use (or not use) this list is up to you.
Paper and wood products made by Georgia-Pacific – a fully owned subsidiary of Koch Industries:
- Georgia-Pacific paper
- Brawny paper towels
- Dixie plates, bowls, napkins and cups Northern tissue
- Angel Soft toilet paper
- Vanity Fair paper towels,
- Angel Soft products
- Quilted Northern toilet paper
- Georgia Pacific Paper
- Mardi Gras napkins and towels
- Vanity Fair napkins;
- Sparkle napkins
- enMotion paper towels and dispensers
- Coronet products
- MD Bathroom tissues
- Soft ‘n Gentle toilet paper
- Zee napkins
- Georgia Pacific wood and plywood products
Koch Industry gasoline is sold to the general public by:
- Chevron
- Union
- Union 76
- Conoco
Invista, a fabric and fiber company subsidiary of Koch Industries has many brand names with which you might be familiar:
- Stainmaster Carpet
- Lycra
- Coolmax
- Tactel
- SolarMax
- Polarguard
- Dacron
- Thermolite
- Comforel
- Antron Carpet Fiber
- Cordura
Flint Hill Resources, LP, another fully owned subsidiary of Koch Industries, owns the largest oil sands tracks in Canada. The oil Industry is pushing to build the Key Stone pipeline which would transport Canadian oil sands crude to the gulf coast of Texas where it can be shipped by sea all over the world. No wonder Republican politicians in Washington are trying their best to push through the authorizations to build the pipeline over the objections of environmentalists.
Cajun 10/8/14