"Occupy Koch Town" Event in Wichita This Weekend

 
koch kills democracy activists

Occupy activists fed up with the Koch Brother’s insane control over government are gathering this weekend in Wichita, Kansas for a series of events concerning energy, environmental, and climate policies.

The series of events is being termed “Occupy Koch Town” since Koch Industries is based in Wichita and since the Koch brothers are infamous as two of the biggest contributors to climate science confusion and global warming denial on the planet.

“Yvonne Cather, one of the event coordinators, said the 500 people who have confirmed that they will be attending the event are coming from as far away as San Francisco, South Dakota and Washington, D.C.,” Hurst Laviana of KansasCity.com writes. “Cather said she was hoping that area residents would attend one or more of the events.”

A representative from Koch Industries seems to think this is all about the Keystone XL pipeline, something the company claims it has nothing to do with. However, while that’s certainly part of what will be addressed, the event includes discussions and workshops on many other topics, as well. The schedule says the even “will include focused discussions of how energy policy is endangering our climate and ecosystem, and how corporate dominance of politics and distortion of science, exemplified by the Koch brothers, is perpetuating bad energy policy.” Cather confirmed that the Keystone XL was not the driving cause of the event.

Sponsors of the event include:

  • the Kansas chapter of the Sierra Club
  • the Missouri chapter of the Sierra Club
  • Occupy Wichita
  • Occupy Lawrence
  • Occupy Kansas City
  • Occupy Tulsa
  • Occupy Oklahoma City
  • Occupy Barber County

This seems to make it pretty clear, at least in this region of the country, that the Occupy movement is strongly concerned about climate and environmental matters, and super-rich fossil fuel industries’ influence over politics.

Koch Industries has a yearly revenue of about $100 billion and is one of the largest privately held companies in the world. The Koch Brothers, David and Charles, were tied for 5th richest person in the U.S. in the last such ranking I’ve seen (though, I think I’ve heard that they have moved up the ranking in the past year).

Koch Activists photo via losinghand

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