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Community Corner

Documentary Film Screened in Greenbelt Investigates Billionaire Brothers

New film "Koch Brothers Exposed" discusses how billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch allegedly manipulate the political process with wealth and power.

 

The Reel and Meal film series partnered with the Utopia Film Festival to screen the documentary film “Koch Brothers Exposed” at the New Deal Café in Greenbelt on Oct. 15.

This film investigates Charles and David Koch, who are two of the world’s richest men and among the elite of the top one percent in this country. As of September 2012, David and Charles Koch are worth $31 billion each, according to Forbes. The brothers are tied to Koch Industries, which is a multinational group of companies active in trading, petroleum, plastics, chemicals, energy, consumer goods and more. Koch industries has annual revenues of $100 billion and in 2011; Forbes called Koch industries the second largest privately held company in the United States.

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The film, directed by Robert Greenwald and produced by Greenwald's political media company, Brave New Films, portray the Koch brothers engaging in practices that hurt American democracy. The film discussed how the brothers are investing in collegiate departments and faculties to get their point of view and ideologies into the classrooms. The Koch brothers have financial agreements with over 150 universities and colleges, the film states. It also portrays them as repeat offenders of environmental crimes. According to the documentary, they give a great deal of money in campaign contributions and fund studies that will highlight their agenda.

Stephen Shaff, who was the guest speaker at the screening, says he believes the Koch brothers hate big government and emphasize deregulation. Shaff is founder and president of DC-based Community Vision Initiatives, which focuses on community development and advocacy.

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Recently, Georgia Pacific, which is owned by Koch Industries, made headlines when it sent out a “voter information packet” to its 45,000 employees, suggesting Republican candidates.

“I think really one of the most obvious things that we can do that the Koch brothers have not figured out how to counter is they can’t come in often and talk in meetings like this,” Shaff said. “They can’t stop us from talking to each other. They can’t possibly prevent us from sharing our ideas.”

Shaff is involved with the Progressive Democrats of America, and says that community engagement is key and educating the community about these issues is vital. Social media is powerful too, he said.

“One of the things that will change this is to get the entire community to stand up and say this is wrong,” Shaff said. “People need to know how much they’re being abused.”

A phone call was made to the Koch Industries office in D.C., but there has been no response.

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