Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show, fellow conspiracy realist. Back in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, a real life character straight out of Atlas
Speaker 1: Shrugged passed away. You have doubtlessly heard of the Koch Brothers.
Speaker 1: You have probably heard of David Koke, who was a philanthropist,
Speaker 1: real life business tycoon and diplomatically put a political activist.
Speaker 2: And do you guys.
Speaker 1: Remember how it was similar to Luigi Mangione, The public
Speaker 1: discourse on social media was incredibly different from the establishment
Speaker 1: media's eulogies and the awards and analysis they heaped upon
Speaker 1: this guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, reminds me of the more recent one with Kissinger
Speaker 2: a it keet Rip that guy. Isn't it funny how
Speaker 2: somebody like this that is so influential on the planet
Speaker 2: people just don't know much about him. But you know,
Speaker 2: they can tell you much of the life story of
Speaker 2: you know, their favorite pop singer or something. And you know,
Speaker 2: I could do that with some of the Dave Matthews
Speaker 2: Band members, But I couldn't have told you much about
Speaker 2: this guy until we did this episode.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what are you saying? You don't know all the
Speaker 1: backstory and bias of every member of the Dave Matthews Band.
Speaker 1: Past and present.
Speaker 2: Matt, Oh no, no, I'm saying I do. I didn't know,
Speaker 2: mister Coke.
Speaker 1: Okay, got it. However, you don't need to, mister Coke.
Speaker 1: Is like understanding physics. You don't need to understand physics
Speaker 1: to be affected by the principles of the reality in
Speaker 1: which we live and in a very real way. David
Speaker 1: Koch's legacy continues. He created or co created a political
Speaker 1: engine that still wields enormous influence on the United States today,
Speaker 1: up to and including recent elections. What do you say
Speaker 1: we jump right into this classic episode, from UFOs to
Speaker 1: psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events.
Speaker 1: You can turn back now or learn the stuff they
Speaker 1: don't want you to know. A production of iHeart Radios
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 2: Nola isn't here today, but he'll be back shortly.
Speaker 1: They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
Speaker 1: our super producer Paul, Mission Control decand most importantly, you
Speaker 1: are you. You are here and that makes this stuff
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for tuning in, fellow conspiracy realists. Today's episode is a
Speaker 1: bit of a retrospective, but it involves a bit of
Speaker 1: the future as well. And this episode may be divisive
Speaker 1: to some of our listeners. We always hope our episodes
Speaker 1: are divisive. That means we're doing something right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Ultimately, this episode is the It's about the line
Speaker 2: between freedom and wealth. What that means is freedom, wealth
Speaker 2: is wealth? Freedom? What are we all struggling to do
Speaker 2: here with our jobs and trying to prosper? Like, what's
Speaker 2: the end goal?
Speaker 1: So as we as we explore today's strange tale, as
Speaker 1: we dig through the rabbit hole, peel back layers of
Speaker 1: the figurative onion, we'd like to hear from you, as
Speaker 1: longtime listeners, know you do not have to wait till
Speaker 1: the end of the episode to let us know your thoughts.
Speaker 1: If the spirit so moves you, you can pause and
Speaker 1: call us directly.
Speaker 2: We are one eight three three STDWITK, So keep that
Speaker 2: in mind.
Speaker 1: And there may be some things that feel a little
Speaker 1: bit high level because we are exploring the life and
Speaker 1: times and the long shadow of a man named David
Speaker 1: Coke koc H. Who is David Coke? Great question? Here
Speaker 1: are the facts. David Hamilton Coke was born on May third,
Speaker 1: in Wichita, Kansas, in nineteen forty. His dad, fred Coke
Speaker 1: fred Sea Cooke, was a chemical engineer, and his paternal grandfather,
Speaker 1: a fellow named Harry Coke, was a Dutch immigrant. He
Speaker 1: was a newspaperman. He was one of the founding shareholders
Speaker 1: of a railway interest. Now David Hamilton Coke was the
Speaker 1: third of four sons. He had two older brothers, Charles
Speaker 1: Coke and Frederick Cooke, and then he had a fourth brother.
Speaker 1: This is an interesting story. He had a fourth brother
Speaker 1: named Bill. Bill is technically the youngest of the four
Speaker 1: Coke boys. He was born nineteen minutes after David. Yes,
Speaker 1: they're twins.
Speaker 2: That's right. And then we just kind of continue following
Speaker 2: David's life as he attended Deerfield Academy. This is in Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: It's a prep school. It's a very nice place, has
Speaker 2: a very good reputation.
Speaker 1: Right. Deerfield Academy is a gathering place for quite a
Speaker 1: few influential people, or the children of influential people who
Speaker 1: will go on to inherit their parents' position. People like
Speaker 1: King Abdullah the second All Hussein of Jordan. Well Rockefellers
Speaker 1: go there, and of course COOCHX go.
Speaker 2: There, there you go. And another place that highly influential
Speaker 2: people go is where David ended up. Next, he went
Speaker 2: to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and there he earned
Speaker 2: a bachelor's of Arts and Sciences. Then he went on
Speaker 2: to earn a Masters of Science.
Speaker 1: In chemical engineering. Both of those he was He's a
Speaker 1: tall guy and was a tall guy, about six and
Speaker 1: a half feetal and he was known for being pretty
Speaker 1: good at basketball during his time. He averaged twenty one
Speaker 1: points per game over the course of three years. I'm
Speaker 1: throwing in this fact to humanize him a little bit.
Speaker 1: So now with that, yeah, he likes basketball and he
Speaker 1: was pretty good. Yeah, just him as a person. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about his career. Coke joined Coke Industries, the family business,
Speaker 1: working for his older brother Charles. David started out as
Speaker 1: a technical services manager and nine years later, nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: he becomes the president of the company's engineering division and
Speaker 1: it's renamed Chemical Technology Group. All the while, ever since
Speaker 1: the death of the patriarch, fred Seacoke, there's been growing
Speaker 1: tension between the four brothers. This came to a head
Speaker 1: in June of nineteen eighty three when Frederick and Bill,
Speaker 1: the younger twin and the older brother when their shares
Speaker 1: of the company were bought out for one point one
Speaker 1: billion dollars. And this bitter feud has a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff going on, like they didn't speak for years after
Speaker 1: the conclusion of this stuff. The family felt betrayed by Bill,
Speaker 1: who essentially blew the whistle on some sketchy behavior by
Speaker 1: Coke Industries and Native American land.
Speaker 2: And Bill is the youngest of the two twins David.
Speaker 1: And Bill nineteen minutes younger, and all three of them
Speaker 1: attempted to blackmail their brother Frederick based on what they
Speaker 1: suspected about his sexual orientation.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the money changed the family dynamics anyway, without
Speaker 1: going too far into the Shakespearean tension between the siblings,
Speaker 1: long story short, by twenty ten, David and Charles Coke
Speaker 1: controlled the company. Each of them owned forty two percent
Speaker 1: of Coke Industries.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's really high. That's a high number in something
Speaker 2: as high stakes as Coke Industries. And then on June fifth,
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, We're jumping quite a bit ahead here, but
Speaker 2: David Coke announced he was going to retire from that
Speaker 2: from his position within the company, but he was He
Speaker 2: would end up staying on a little bit as like
Speaker 2: kind of a from twenty eighteen well into twenty nineteen
Speaker 2: as kind of a ceremonial position within the company, but
Speaker 2: he was officially stepping down due to health concerns because
Speaker 2: he had cancer.
Speaker 1: That's correct, Yes, David Coke was diagnosed with prostate cancer
Speaker 1: way back in nineteen ninety two. Like anyone who is
Speaker 1: diagnosed with something as terrible as prostate cancer, he definitely
Speaker 1: has the motivation to pursue every possible avenue of treatment.
Speaker 1: Unlike many people diagnosed with prostate cancer, he also has
Speaker 1: the means to pursue these treatments. He goes through chemotherapy,
Speaker 1: he goes through radiation treatments, he gets surgery. This all
Speaker 1: fails to completely eliminate the cancer, and it keeps returning.
Speaker 1: And so it comes to pass that, after a long
Speaker 1: battle with prostate cancer, David Coke passes away in New
Speaker 1: York on Southampton, New York, on August twenty third of
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. He's seventy nine years old, and according to
Speaker 1: the official statements of his loved ones his relatives in
Speaker 1: the press, there is no definitive cause of death that
Speaker 1: was cited yet, but you know, most people are reasonably
Speaker 1: assuming or speculating that this was somehow related to his
Speaker 1: ongoing cancer battle. Sure, at this level of wealth, the
Speaker 1: Coke estate, just David Coke's part of it can function
Speaker 1: in many ways as though the person who helmed it
Speaker 1: is still very very much alive. The institutions and systems
Speaker 1: that David Coke helped create didn't pass away when he
Speaker 1: passed away. But what sort of systems did he create?
Speaker 1: How much money are we talking? Let's take a break
Speaker 1: for a word from our sponsor, and assuming that Coke
Speaker 1: Industries doesn't buy us in the next few minutes, let's
Speaker 1: continue to explore this story.
Speaker 2: And we're back. And we are also now owned by
Speaker 2: Coke Industries.
Speaker 1: Who are also owned by Illumination Global Unlimited.
Speaker 2: So we're straight. Everything's fine, We're.
Speaker 1: Back in the family. But what is Coke Industries? This
Speaker 1: is how we This is the best way for us
Speaker 1: to answer the questions about wealth. Here's the gist. The
Speaker 1: thing we call Coke Industries today began way back in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty as the Wood River Oil and Refining Company.
Speaker 1: This was co founded by Fred C. Coke in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven in honor of Fred Coke, it was renamed
Speaker 1: Coke Industries. Since then, that's been the shorthand way to
Speaker 1: refer to this enormous conglomerate. And when we say enormous conglomerate,
Speaker 1: we're talking about a disquieting number of things.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Coke
Speaker 2: Industries is what you would call a private conglomerate. They've
Speaker 2: got all kinds of different things, companies that they control,
Speaker 2: and everything from petroleum and chemicals, the productions of that
Speaker 2: and the distribution of those chemicals through pipelines. There's some
Speaker 2: ranching going involved. There's some chemical chemical tech occurring here.
Speaker 2: There's all kinds of commodity training, minerals, how do you
Speaker 2: get them, where do you find them? What do you
Speaker 2: do with those minerals? Capital markets and fibers are in
Speaker 2: everything you guys, financial services, you got paper, the pulp
Speaker 2: that you need to build the paper, as well as
Speaker 2: business development, which is interesting in its own right because
Speaker 2: that's how you get a lot of the other companies
Speaker 2: to become or come to fruition right exactly.
Speaker 1: Today, Coke Industries is the second largest private company in
Speaker 1: the United States. What's number one, you may ask. It's
Speaker 1: a company called Cargill, which we can save for a
Speaker 1: different episode. Coke Industries has an annual revenue of one
Speaker 1: hundred and ten billion dollars and it has around one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty thousand employees. So two things about those numbers.
Speaker 1: That one ten billion dollars indicates a growth trend, because
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen it was one hundred billion, so they
Speaker 1: went up by ten bill And those one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty employees, those that number may not factor in contractors, freelancers,
Speaker 1: so on. So depending on how we define employee, that
Speaker 1: number could be a little bit higher. It's also active
Speaker 1: in sixty countries, which means that it is probably selling
Speaker 1: something to you. You have almost certainly bought or used
Speaker 1: a product created by Coke Industries, because in short, they
Speaker 1: sell a ton of stuff.
Speaker 2: Oh, you've certainly encountered them. I remember ages ago when
Speaker 2: we were doing this show, we did a check up
Speaker 2: to see what Coke Industries owned, and we listened off
Speaker 2: some things, including things like if you're just walking through
Speaker 2: a grocery store, let's say, if you're in the United
Speaker 2: States or maybe in another country, you may see things
Speaker 2: like quilted, Northern, or soft and gentle or brawny, maybe
Speaker 2: angel soft, mm sparkle to any of those catch your
Speaker 2: ear because it's probably a paper product that you use
Speaker 2: to clean something or wipe your hands up on. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of this. Mardi Gras, another one Dixie as
Speaker 2: in cups from Dixie.
Speaker 1: They also own Georgia Pacific, which is the largest manufacturer
Speaker 1: of plywood and corrugated boxes and containers in the US.
Speaker 1: They produce all sorts of textiles and plastics to the
Speaker 1: world's largest producer of lycra. They produce stain Masters, solar
Speaker 1: max all a polyshield, oxy Clear. They make gasoline, diesel,
Speaker 1: jet fuel, asphalt, fracking chemicals, ethylene.
Speaker 2: I'd just like to point out here that they own
Speaker 2: a lot of the raw materials that end up becoming
Speaker 2: a lot of the other products. That's kind of what
Speaker 2: Coke Industries does here when you're talking about, you know,
Speaker 2: getting crude oil to then process for a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of different kinds of textiles and plastics, right or you're
Speaker 2: talking about Georgia Pacific getting all the wood that you
Speaker 2: need to create all of the other paper products and
Speaker 2: other things like that. It's it's smart business, I guess,
Speaker 2: like essentially controlling controlling the processes which you need to
Speaker 2: make an end thing, right, the products of production. Yeah, owning,
Speaker 2: owning the means of production. They own the means of production. Yes,
Speaker 2: got it. But yeah, you can really see it illustrated here.
Speaker 1: And it's no secret that after a certain threshold of scale,
Speaker 1: whether we're talking whether we're talking fame, infamy, or just finance,
Speaker 1: right after this certain threshold, any entity becomes inherently controversial.
Speaker 1: So it's it's true, right, It follows logically that coke
Speaker 1: industries has had a troubled legal history congressional investigations, DOJ
Speaker 1: consent decrease, civil lawsuits, felony convictions, and so on. One of
Speaker 1: the biggest controversies that's getting a lot of attention now,
Speaker 1: especially from politicians on the left side of US politics,
Speaker 1: will be the active role that coke industries plays in
Speaker 1: pollution and climate change denial.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Again, like you said, Matt, what's good for business versus
Speaker 1: what's bad for business?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, And in the end, there are so many
Speaker 2: profits to protect for the people that run this massive industry,
Speaker 2: or it's not even industry. They conglomerate. There's so many
Speaker 2: moving parts you have to or you're at least incentivized
Speaker 2: to deregulate as much as you possibly can and do
Speaker 2: what you have to do to make sure that those
Speaker 2: profits go up by three percent each year. But they've had,
Speaker 2: you know, as part of their legal troubles in the past.
Speaker 2: If you go back to nineteen eighty eight, you get
Speaker 2: a really interesting look into a specific thing that they
Speaker 2: were accused of doing and then found out that they
Speaker 2: were doing where they were apparently stealing oil from Native
Speaker 2: American reservations within the United States.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, This comes from an excellent book called Cokeland
Speaker 1: by an author named Christopher Leonard, in which he traces
Speaker 1: the twist and turns of this nefarious tale. So, as
Speaker 1: you said, this stuff hits the fan in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: eight in November, and it's the result of an investigation
Speaker 1: that was launched in October of nineteen eighty seven by
Speaker 1: the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs. They were inspired
Speaker 1: by a series of articles in the paper of the
Speaker 1: Arizona Republic that said, hey, big Oil is stealing oil
Speaker 1: from Native Americans who own these various oil wells. Here's
Speaker 1: how the scam worked. Companies would pick up crude oil
Speaker 1: from the wells and they would take it to the
Speaker 1: quote unquote marketplace. But when they did this, they falsified
Speaker 1: their receipts, their invoices to make it look like they
Speaker 1: had a picked up less oil than they actually did.
Speaker 1: So they were getting a viig they were skimming off
Speaker 1: the top or b that the oil was of a
Speaker 1: lower quality than it actually was, therefore worth less on
Speaker 1: the marketplace. Therefore we're paying less.
Speaker 2: Well, look at that and throughout this whole controversy because
Speaker 2: it was a controversy for the Cokes and for coke industries.
Speaker 2: This is when David really becomes and the Coke brothers
Speaker 2: I guess as a whole or as a duo. It
Speaker 2: gets them enmeshed within the politics. The like forward facing politics.
Speaker 1: Right, this is a big stage for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the company later admits in court that it collects
Speaker 1: about ten million dollars worth of crude oil each year
Speaker 1: without paying for it over the course of this scam.
Speaker 1: And this is just one illustration of what big businesses do.
Speaker 1: It's important to say that coke industry is by no
Speaker 1: means unique in this sort of thing. And that's why
Speaker 1: countries and state actors have legislative mechanisms in place that are,
Speaker 1: in theory meant to prevent these kind of shenanigans. But
Speaker 1: despite the ongoing controversies, this family business made David Coke
Speaker 1: an even wealthier man. And we have some we have
Speaker 1: some stats about his about his his position in financial society.
Speaker 1: At the time of his passing.
Speaker 2: Yes, according to Forbes, he was number eleven on the
Speaker 2: list of wealthiest men on the planet. He had a
Speaker 2: total asset amount of forty two point two billion dollars,
Speaker 2: again according to Forbes, and he had an estimated net
Speaker 2: worth of fifty point five billion dollars.
Speaker 1: And let's pause here for a second, Matt, because that
Speaker 1: is a huge number. We're throwing a lot of huge
Speaker 1: numbers out here, and that makes it very easy number
Speaker 1: to glide over without fully understanding or grocking it. There's
Speaker 1: a guy named Sam Parr writing for a website called
Speaker 1: The Hustle, and he did a great walkthrough. I've combined
Speaker 1: a couple of different things here to make it to
Speaker 1: help us imagine just one billion dollars in my head.
Speaker 1: All right, let's start with a one hundred dollars bill.
Speaker 1: Pretty cool, right, Imagine it's a crisp new one straight
Speaker 1: from the Men's Love It. Now, stack one hundred of
Speaker 1: those together. This makes us stack about an inch high.
Speaker 1: That's ten thousand dollars. And when you look at it,
Speaker 1: it's just a stack. It's not that impressive. If you
Speaker 1: add enough stacks together, you'll get a million dollars. Also,
Speaker 1: weirdly enough, not as impressive as it may seem in film,
Speaker 1: because when you stack it that way, when you add
Speaker 1: it up that way, it's not enough to fill up
Speaker 1: an average briefcase. I mean like a carry on for
Speaker 1: a plane. It's still a lot of money, and a
Speaker 1: billion is much different. A billion gets us into the
Speaker 1: the realm of imaginary scenarios.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So let's say you save one hundred dollars a day.
Speaker 1: That's awesome, great job doing that. It will take you
Speaker 1: ten million days round a little over twenty seven thousand
Speaker 1: years to save up one billion dollars. Wow.
Speaker 2: And well, also if you try and visualize I remember
Speaker 2: seeing videos with this before where you try and visualize
Speaker 2: what a billion dollars looks like. So if you were
Speaker 2: going to do that, if you're going to look at it,
Speaker 2: it would be a four square mile area, or what
Speaker 2: would be the equivalent of two thousand, five hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty five acres of just money.
Speaker 1: Yeah if you put if you took that billion and
Speaker 1: made it one dollar bills, right, yeah, yeaheah yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you would also have more money than several entire countries.
Speaker 1: You would be you know, you would have more than
Speaker 1: their GDP for instance.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, and by let's talk about what you can
Speaker 2: buy with a billion bucks.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, with just one billion dollars per the AJAC,
Speaker 1: you can buy six point seven f thirty five a
Speaker 1: Fighter Jets. Oh yeah, you can also if you bargain
Speaker 1: a little bit. Getting into sports.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you can get an NFL team for a
Speaker 2: billion bucks. Oh for sure, you can almost almost. By
Speaker 2: let's say I don't know, a palace.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Buckingham Palace is just one point four billion dollars.
Speaker 1: After all, these are all crazy things to buy, right,
Speaker 1: So that's a billion dollars. David Coke as an individual,
Speaker 1: as one guy, directly controlled enough wealth to do this
Speaker 1: fifty times over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and remember that's assets and money, you know, cash, money, accounts,
Speaker 2: all those things. It's all of it together. In property
Speaker 2: in particular, it becomes very important.
Speaker 1: So what to do with all this scratch, all this cheddar,
Speaker 1: all these gains, this real superpower, this genuine superpower, this
Speaker 1: very real version of time travel, which is a nice
Speaker 1: easter egg there for some of our longtime listeners, well time.
Speaker 1: David Cooke was a man of principle as he saw it,
Speaker 1: and his most well known spending fits into two broad categories,
Speaker 1: first philanthropy and second politics. In terms of philanthropy, we
Speaker 1: see a I guess well and yeah, well intentioned but
Speaker 1: imperfect person. He's been on the Chronicle of Philanthropy's list
Speaker 1: of the world's top fifty philanthropists consistently since two thousand
Speaker 1: and six. In a twenty thirteen interview with The Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal, he called himself a sugar daddy for charity,
Speaker 1: his words, not ours. He said he had a moral
Speaker 1: obligation to help. He said he preferred to donate his
Speaker 1: money to outstand institutions rather than use it on buying
Speaker 1: a bigger house or a one hundred and fifty million
Speaker 1: dollar painting. That again, is a direct quote from him.
Speaker 1: I get it, that feels like the right thing to do.
Speaker 1: He conducted most of his visible philanthropy through his foundation
Speaker 1: named the David H. Coke Charitable Foundation. They save the
Speaker 1: money on creative names and pass those savings to you.
Speaker 2: I guess you've probably heard that mentioned a couple of
Speaker 2: times in passing from you. Know, this is brought to
Speaker 2: you and thanks thanks to impart by that foundation.
Speaker 1: And they're doing good work. They're giving, they're giving to
Speaker 1: institutions and causes that are making pioneering breakthroughs, especially in
Speaker 1: the medical space.
Speaker 2: Yes, and sometimes it is difficult to square these things
Speaker 2: when depending on what you think about David Coke or
Speaker 2: the Koch Brothers, knowing that this is a real side
Speaker 2: of him and his spending and his wealth and his
Speaker 2: family's wealth, this charitable side, it is real, and it's
Speaker 2: you can't deny it.
Speaker 1: Well, I have some I don't want to call him
Speaker 1: hot takes, but I have some observations on that. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll get to him in a second. Right, It's you're right, Matt,
Speaker 1: objectively not bad. So he gave over a billion dollars
Speaker 1: to charity throughout his life, so over or right around
Speaker 1: one fiftieth of his assets he donated to things like
Speaker 1: the Lincoln Center of the American Museum of Natural History.
Speaker 1: In terms of medical causes, he started the Coke Institute
Speaker 1: for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT New York Presbyterian Hospital,
Speaker 1: M D. Anderson Cancer Center, JOHNS. Hopkins, Stanford University Hospital,
Speaker 1: Mount Sinai, the Hospital for Special Surgery. Good stuff, great stuff,
Speaker 1: saved lives. Right inarguably, here's the thing though, here's the
Speaker 1: thing that some of his critics will point out, and
Speaker 1: that I have to admit, has some sand people who
Speaker 1: people who argue that coke industry's business practices have raised
Speaker 1: the rates of cancer in their communities, right, people who
Speaker 1: have never smoked, never drank, gay lung cancer left and right.
Speaker 1: They say, you know why is if this guy really
Speaker 1: wants to fight cancer, why doesn't he change what his
Speaker 1: company is doing? Why is he donating after the fact?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: That's quite a good point.
Speaker 1: Was I thought it was. I thought it was a
Speaker 1: good point. Additionally, he cites a close call he had
Speaker 1: an aircraft accident with inspiring him to become a philanthropist.
Speaker 1: But also if you look at the specific acts of
Speaker 1: philanthropy that he's responsible for, a lot of them do
Speaker 1: center on cancer. And again he was diagnosed in nineteen nine.
Speaker 2: He certainly has a personal reason to be very interested
Speaker 2: in that.
Speaker 1: A personal identification with it. So again, objectively inarguably good things,
Speaker 1: but you can see why people would criticize even that
Speaker 1: part of this person's life. And that's not even talking
Speaker 1: about the other huge category of donations for the Coke industries,
Speaker 1: for David Cooke himself, for his brother as well, and
Speaker 1: all their related name brands. And that is the realm
Speaker 1: of politics.
Speaker 2: And we're going to get into that right after a
Speaker 2: quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1: So politics, right, Yeah, you become a billionaire and two
Speaker 1: things happen. People keep trying to draw you into politics, right,
Speaker 1: and you are, as we said, inherently going to be
Speaker 1: a controversial figure to some. That is literally the most
Speaker 1: fair way to say it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, on the bottom of that spectrum is you're going
Speaker 2: to get frequent calls when there's an election coming up.
Speaker 1: Right, So David Coke did become involved in politics. In fact,
Speaker 1: he ran for vice president once back in nineteen eighty.
Speaker 1: He did not run on the GOP ticket. He did
Speaker 1: not run on the Democratic ticket. He ran as a
Speaker 1: libertarian along with the presidential candidate Ed Clark, so they
Speaker 1: had a very i would say nowadays for most people
Speaker 1: who are familiar with the concepts of libertarianism. They had
Speaker 1: to pretty much buy the book Libertarian Platform. Let's get
Speaker 1: rid of minimum wage laws, Let's get rid of corporate taxes,
Speaker 1: agricultural subsidies, Let's give the FED the boot a cavalcade
Speaker 1: of federal agencies. Interestingly enough, the FBI and the CIA
Speaker 1: were on that list, and I thought, wow, you guys
Speaker 1: are not going to win this election if.
Speaker 2: We don't want any policing either here or abroad.
Speaker 1: Right. They also they also wanted to get rid of
Speaker 1: Social Security, but and some of our fellow listeners are
Speaker 1: already well aware of this, the ticket had some things
Speaker 1: that could be seen as surprisingly socially progressive, especially for
Speaker 1: that time and era.
Speaker 2: Yeah, specifically, if they were seeking equal rights for the
Speaker 2: LGBTQIA group, they wouldn't have referred to it as that
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty, but yes, they were looking for equal
Speaker 2: rights for all people. They wanted to end the drug war,
Speaker 2: which you know is if anything is progressive, that feels
Speaker 2: like one of the top things. And especially you have
Speaker 2: to remember that if you're thinking about a conservative person
Speaker 2: or group of people with so much wealth. You don't
Speaker 2: imagine that those two things would exist on a ticket,
Speaker 2: or are as policies on it ticket.
Speaker 1: And it's strange because it is. It is surprisingly progressive,
Speaker 1: or appears to be so if you just look at
Speaker 1: that one fastt of it. But things like cutting a
Speaker 1: ton of federal agencies, that's a harder pill for a
Speaker 1: lot of people to swallow.
Speaker 2: But it's one of those it's one of those things
Speaker 2: that sticks out in some of our minds so strongly
Speaker 2: that maybe we don't even think about the other things.
Speaker 2: We just know, Oh, those those guys represent this one
Speaker 2: thing that I really like. But all the rest I'm
Speaker 2: not even going to pay attention.
Speaker 1: To, right, Yeah, the danger of single issue voting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it did work out. They did not win. They
Speaker 1: were positive in terms of their surprise at just how
Speaker 1: much of the vote they did get, which was small
Speaker 1: but measurable, I believe.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they were like, hey, that's actually pretty great.
Speaker 1: But not winning that election did not spell the end
Speaker 1: of political involvement for David Koch. Quite the opposite. You see,
Speaker 1: he and his brother Charles had already been active in
Speaker 1: politics behind the scenes for a long time, and they
Speaker 1: escalated their operations over the following decades because they have
Speaker 1: been working on this kind of stuff since the seventies.
Speaker 1: Cooke's political spending, both through his institutions and his donations,
Speaker 1: was nothing if not thematically consistent. It was very much
Speaker 1: inligne with his deeply held libertarian beliefs as far as
Speaker 1: we know. In the money that we can trace, which
Speaker 1: is a pretty small slice of the pie, a tip
Speaker 1: of the financial iceberg here, the Kochs have collectively spent
Speaker 1: at least one hundred million dollars building this massive political machine,
Speaker 1: sometimes called the Coke to Pus Have you heard that one?
Speaker 2: In a few places.
Speaker 1: This machine is meant to bring mainstream US and maybe
Speaker 1: over a larger swath of the mainstream West in general,
Speaker 1: much more in line with their own right leaning libertarian beliefs.
Speaker 1: Critics have accused the Cookes of buying influence. That part
Speaker 1: is true. That is how lobbying works. Lobbying is legal
Speaker 1: in this country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially the kind of lobbying that the Koch brothers
Speaker 2: and several other groups of billionaires and people representing billions
Speaker 2: of dollars put through as.
Speaker 1: Law right exactly shout out to Alec.
Speaker 2: Yeah, shout out to Citizens United.
Speaker 1: So critics have also said that the Kochs are using
Speaker 1: this political machine they built to manipulate elections and government
Speaker 1: policies like you're pointing out, Matt, under the cover of
Speaker 1: vague and nice sounding words like liberty, freedom, patriotism. To
Speaker 1: supporters of one or more of these in depth, this
Speaker 1: is in line with their own ideological beliefs. To critics,
Speaker 1: this is a shell game, with the ultimate end being
Speaker 1: something very much like neo feudalism. There is not a
Speaker 1: state that functions the way that states are supposed to
Speaker 1: function in democracies or representative democracies, et cetera. But what
Speaker 1: is this machine exactly? Is this business as usual or
Speaker 1: is this a vast conspiracy? And perhaps most importantly, what
Speaker 1: happens to the engine once the driver has passed away.
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 2: It gets handed down to the next in line in succession,
Speaker 2: just like that TV show, HBO.
Speaker 1: What is the TV show Secession? Yeah, okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: So yeah, there's I'm being facetious. Let's let's get into it. No,
Speaker 1: I think you're absolutely right. Actually, we both know you're
Speaker 1: at spread. So yes, there is a conspiracy of foot.
Speaker 1: The issue here is that people will maybe disagree with
Speaker 1: the characterization of the conspiracy or focus on smaller parts
Speaker 1: of the whole. Probably the best or most well known
Speaker 1: of the coke critics is the investigative journalist and author
Speaker 1: Jane Mayer. In her book Dark Money, The Hidden History
Speaker 1: of Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, she
Speaker 1: explores the coke system and what she sees as its
Speaker 1: ultimate aim, which is instituting policies that directly benefit coke
Speaker 1: industries and protect it from the consequences of the widespread
Speaker 1: pollution it creates. So also it's weird because it's also
Speaker 1: advancing the libertarian ambitions or ideologies of the Koch brothers
Speaker 1: and their affiliates, but at the same time it's helping
Speaker 1: their bottom line in a very easily provable way, like
Speaker 1: a one to one match. If you look at if
Speaker 1: you look at how different members of the House of
Speaker 1: Representatives vote for what they prioritize, and that's again, that's legal,
Speaker 1: that's lobbying.
Speaker 2: It is and it is certainly heartening to think of
Speaker 2: it in those terms the way Jane Mayor describes it
Speaker 2: in Dark Money, just about how and it's kind of
Speaker 2: what we talked about before, just how the consequences of
Speaker 2: their actions and their industries, and they're the way they're
Speaker 2: attempting to free those up to do whatever they want
Speaker 2: to do, however long they want to do, and however
Speaker 2: much they want to do in the end having those
Speaker 2: things also hurting the people that surround those industries. I
Speaker 2: mean that is that this is where we get into
Speaker 2: that territory really is dark money. It's it's scary, right.
Speaker 1: Dark money is dark in that it is untraceable.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, it's untraceable, but it's also like dark thematically,
Speaker 2: like it's uh, I don't know, not evil is a
Speaker 2: strong word, but it's uh, it has ill intentions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, dark money typically does not refer to anonymous donors
Speaker 1: on a mission to give every kid a library with
Speaker 1: him walking distance or you know, free lunch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or prevent any of those kids from ever developing
Speaker 2: prostate cancer.
Speaker 1: Right, right, that's the issue. So there's this other journalist,
Speaker 1: Peter Overbet writing for MPR, and I like the way
Speaker 1: that he phrased this. It's also clearly coming from a
Speaker 1: specific stance, right he says, quote, the Koke political network
Speaker 1: remains famous and infamous for its secret funding and fiercely
Speaker 1: negative advertising, which often aimed at then President Barack Obama
Speaker 1: and other Democrats. Their group, Americans for Prosperity, was funded
Speaker 1: with Koch Brothers money as well as contributions from other
Speaker 1: rich donors they recruited, and although David Cooke denied giving
Speaker 1: money to Tea Party candidates, in twenty ten, the Koch Brothers'
Speaker 1: efforts helped the Republicans win a net gain of sixty
Speaker 1: three seats in the House of Representatives. So again I
Speaker 1: agree or disagree with the aims of those representatives, the
Speaker 1: aims of the Cokes. The point here, the takeaway here
Speaker 1: is that the system they created works. You know what
Speaker 1: I mean, the secret seminars they have, which is a
Speaker 1: real thing. The secret seminars they have do result in
Speaker 1: actionable plans, and they do make a difference to your
Speaker 1: life if you live in the US well.
Speaker 2: And they also were working to target specific I guess
Speaker 2: you would say, types of people within the United States.
Speaker 2: And they were doing this in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 2: But some of these groups aimed directly at veterans, some
Speaker 2: directly at senior citizens, at latinos or women, and a
Speaker 2: lot of this stuff. It's strange how it would appear
Speaker 2: on the surface to not necessarily be political, like a
Speaker 2: lot of the ways that they would kind of get
Speaker 2: in the door. I don't know. But again, what we
Speaker 2: do know is that they were exploiting stuff. And this
Speaker 2: is a commonality that we'll see throughout a couple of
Speaker 2: other things with the Kochs, like loopholes in pollution standards
Speaker 2: with the EPA, loopholes in production standards, things like that.
Speaker 2: But in this case it was a lack of transparency
Speaker 2: within the US law and also weak enforce them by
Speaker 2: the IRS, and the Supreme Court had made some decisions
Speaker 2: in the past that created some serious loopholes or at
Speaker 2: least places for abuse.
Speaker 1: And then, of course the other controversial causes, one of
Speaker 1: the big ones in the news today being climate change
Speaker 1: denial organizations. Examples of this would include funding studies and
Speaker 1: then directing those studies to spend the perspective or spin
Speaker 1: the data right. In an interview once upon a time,
Speaker 1: one of the Koch brothers argued that climate change was
Speaker 1: actually good for humanity and that it would create more
Speaker 1: arable land to grow food, or that it would help
Speaker 1: drive innovation.
Speaker 2: It's really going to clear up Greenland for all the
Speaker 2: stuff we need to do on it.
Speaker 1: Finally, right, So the big question here why is there
Speaker 1: not more accountability or transparency for this web and others
Speaker 1: like it? I would also add a further question. If
Speaker 1: this is truly the right thing to do, if this
Speaker 1: is truly something for the greater good, then why does
Speaker 1: it need to occur in secret? Why does the money
Speaker 1: need to be dark? If we are helping humanity, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean?
Speaker 2: So it's more like a surprise for humanity.
Speaker 1: There we go. Well, far be it for us to
Speaker 1: ruin a good surprise party?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: According to Mayer, it's because these groups are considered charities,
Speaker 1: so they don't need to disclose the names of their donors,
Speaker 1: and she describes them as kinds of secret banks that
Speaker 1: affect American politics in a huge way without most people
Speaker 1: understanding who is behind them. Critics of the KOs operation
Speaker 1: don't stop at calling it dark money. You'll hear them
Speaker 1: accuse the Koch brothers of everything from actively conspiring to
Speaker 1: subverting democracy to enacting a slow motion, decades long coup
Speaker 1: detta God. And they certainly do again behave in a
Speaker 1: conspiratorial manner. A lot of the things that they support
Speaker 1: are things that the average US resident would be against
Speaker 1: or have have some serious concerns about. At the very
Speaker 1: least the Koch Brothers hold are held the co co organizations,
Speaker 1: a better way to say it, held twice a year seminars.
Speaker 1: They are carefully carefully hidden, sequestered, quarantined from the public.
Speaker 1: The guest list and the substance of the conversation at
Speaker 1: hand are closely guarded secrets. At one point, they even
Speaker 1: erected white noise machines that created static facing the outside
Speaker 1: due to concerns about people eavesdropping on what they're saying.
Speaker 1: And again, if what you're doing is the greater good,
Speaker 1: is the surprise that much more important than the substance
Speaker 1: of your actions?
Speaker 2: No, certainly not. Man Well, and here's the crazy thing.
Speaker 2: It's not just a small group of influential people right
Speaker 2: who end up at these places, who go to these seminars.
Speaker 2: There was a leaked guest list, and it was somewhere
Speaker 2: in the realm of four hundred to four hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty people, and not just any people. We are talking
Speaker 2: about the wealthiest conservatives in America. And they get together
Speaker 2: and they hang out. Who knows what they're doing. They
Speaker 2: could be swapping recipes, they could be planning, you know,
Speaker 2: strategic ways to use their gathered monies, their fortunes to
Speaker 2: I don't know, influence politics, change the way we have
Speaker 2: to do things.
Speaker 1: And they could be quantum leap fanfic. You know what
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I mean that is not beyond the realm of possibilities.
Speaker 1: It's a good show.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but that's what we know. We know the
Speaker 1: demo of the attendees, and we know some of what
Speaker 1: appear to be the results because we can see some
Speaker 1: other donations that these attendees make. And there's a fantastic
Speaker 1: ride up on this if you like more information about it. Again,
Speaker 1: a pretty biased source, but it's worth the read. It's
Speaker 1: called high toilow down dot org and this I wasn't
Speaker 1: familiar with this source beforehand, but they have They have
Speaker 1: a pretty good walkthrough of the mechanisms. Yea, some of
Speaker 1: the organizations that are the faces for these donations.
Speaker 2: Yes, but as a heads up, as and as Ben said,
Speaker 2: some of the language in there from the author is
Speaker 2: a little you can feel it. You can feel the
Speaker 2: bias immediately and inherently.
Speaker 1: This author probably does not attend those twice a year meetings.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna go out on a lim Matt, I
Speaker 1: don't think. I don't think this person is a fan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of the Coke to PUS. And one thing this
Speaker 2: author does point out that was intriguing for me was
Speaker 2: that they're they're really outlining the whole citizens United changes
Speaker 2: to packs and super PACs and viewing money as essentially
Speaker 2: a vote or or voting with your money. Right, This
Speaker 2: concept of being able to make unlimited campaign donations to
Speaker 2: any candidate whatsoever for any reason, the author equates that
Speaker 2: to essentially a coup within the United States.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I believe the author of this is Jim
Speaker 1: high Tower, who bills himself as America's number one populist.
Speaker 2: Oh that's his picture at the top, and he.
Speaker 1: Is an author, public speaker, and self described political spark plug.
Speaker 1: Twice he was served as the Texas Agricultural Commissioner, so
Speaker 1: he definitely has a anti corporate stance. Be aware of that.
Speaker 1: But with that in mind, they trace the nuts and
Speaker 1: bolts of the organism of the coctpus's functions pretty well.
Speaker 1: And that's where we go. That's the thing. So when
Speaker 1: David Coke passed away. There were quite a few people
Speaker 1: on Twitter, on social media and the pres and so
Speaker 1: on who were more or less lauding, dancing on the
Speaker 1: guy's grave, happy that he was gone, because they saw
Speaker 1: that as our species saw that as a way to
Speaker 1: prevent further damage right or further enactment of these policies.
Speaker 1: The thing is for everyone, everyone who is whistling in
Speaker 1: that particular graveyard, most of the people are celebrating this
Speaker 1: guy's death, are doing so because they object to the policies,
Speaker 1: the institutions, the machines that he helped create, and those machines,
Speaker 1: those policies, those institutions, they are alive and well, they
Speaker 1: are doing just fine. They are set to continue. The
Speaker 1: money is too good. We know a little bit about
Speaker 1: what comes next.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it's the succession thing we were talking about.
Speaker 2: According to the source Business Insider, there is somebody who
Speaker 2: is ready to take over the heir to the throne,
Speaker 2: if you will, and it is David Coke's nephew. It's
Speaker 2: his brother, Charles's son, Chase Coke. He's at least being positioned,
Speaker 2: let's say, as being the one to take over next.
Speaker 2: But again, according to business insider, Chase has something different
Speaker 2: in mind. He wants to shift focus of the company
Speaker 2: away from a lot of these conservative politics, a lot
Speaker 2: of the things. He wants to shift away from support
Speaker 2: of a lot of the things that his uncle David
Speaker 2: had been wanting to do as well as his dad Charles.
Speaker 2: And apparently he isn't much of a fan of Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Right, well, Charles Koke was not much of a fan
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump either, because, you know, the policies of
Speaker 1: the current administration have at times clashed with the ideologies
Speaker 1: of the Coke libertarianism. Right.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, open aid with everybody. Let's all exchange all
Speaker 2: the money so that I can make more billions. Yes, sorry,
Speaker 2: that's putting it crudely, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Well, the thing is that he is apparently
Speaker 1: trying to how to Politico phrase it. They said, Chase
Speaker 1: Coke wants to steer the conservative juggernaut his family created
Speaker 1: toward a kinder, gentler libertarianism.
Speaker 2: Interesting, it sounds nice, but uh, what does that mean?
Speaker 2: Kinder gentler libertarianism.
Speaker 1: In addition to recruiting donors to the Coke Network, he's
Speaker 1: been doing things like anti poverty initiatives. He's been trying
Speaker 1: to grow relationships with high profile individual influencers Dion Sanders
Speaker 1: from the NFL. Yeah, he's getting down with him, or
Speaker 1: he's trying to build some kind of bridge, and you
Speaker 1: guide their philanthropy so that they can work together, guide
Speaker 1: their philanthropy and towards causes that they're both concerned with.
Speaker 1: And so the steps that Chase Coke is taking or
Speaker 1: is expected to take in the future are seen as separate,
Speaker 1: drawing a brighter line between what they do and the
Speaker 1: mainstream Republican party. And not all the donors are happy
Speaker 1: with this. They see the change as not one hundred
Speaker 1: percent on board with why they got into the game
Speaker 1: in the first place. Still, again, Chase Coke may be
Speaker 1: driving the machine, but it's still the same machine, maybe
Speaker 1: taking some different turns, some different routes. But it remains
Speaker 1: to be seen how different this will actually become. And
Speaker 1: there is in this case and an active conspiracy. It's inarguable,
Speaker 1: it's not a theory. The network created by the Koch
Speaker 1: brothers conspired through some backdoor things that were not very transparent,
Speaker 1: that were opaque, and they did this to bring their
Speaker 1: own their own belief system into the mainstream and to
Speaker 1: do their best to push conversation and thought in public
Speaker 1: policy toward that. So it's a real conspiracy. The difference here,
Speaker 1: or the big differentiation here is for some people that
Speaker 1: that is a conspiracy towards the greater good. For other people,
Speaker 1: that is a conspiracy to enrich the elite at the
Speaker 1: cost of not only every other living human being, but
Speaker 1: the planet upon which those human beings live.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and if if you look at this story individually,
Speaker 2: it's about a family consolidating power, right, Yeah, a single family,
Speaker 2: not just a whole bunch of elite people out there.
Speaker 2: It's the Koch family. And when you have an air
Speaker 2: coming through like Chase, who has been relatively unknown for
Speaker 2: forty two years or so, it's interesting to then thrust
Speaker 2: somebody like that into the spotlight and you know, have
Speaker 2: some some changes to what may happen or what the
Speaker 2: forward facing ideology is of your conglomerate or whatever, because
Speaker 2: there is change in the air. It's really interesting because
Speaker 2: it is just one small group of people who are
Speaker 2: all related by blood, who are managing to have these
Speaker 2: massive waves within our culture and society.
Speaker 1: So what do you think, folks, Is this all on
Speaker 1: the up and up. Is this how the game is played?
Speaker 1: Is this exceptionally evil or unethical? And if so, whatever
Speaker 1: your answer may be, why we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 2: If you controlled, let's say, one hundred billion dollar giant conglomerate,
Speaker 2: would you fight to have the rules and regulations put
Speaker 2: forth by the government in which you operate? Would you
Speaker 2: fight to have those weakened so that you could make
Speaker 2: more billions? Would you do that? I don't know. Put
Speaker 2: in that position, it feels like maybe we would if
Speaker 2: we knew that that money was all like for our
Speaker 2: family and for the future of our children. It's weird.
Speaker 2: It's a weird proposition.
Speaker 1: Well again, you know, nobody thinks they're the bad guy.
Speaker 1: Nobody thinks they're the antagonists in the story. We're all
Speaker 1: the protagonists of our own stories. We all feel like
Speaker 1: we in general know the best way to do something
Speaker 1: or have a good idea about how to go about it.
Speaker 1: So with that in mind, we also have to we
Speaker 1: also have to note that, in a purely financial sense,
Speaker 1: a lot of organizations of this size are similar to sharks.
Speaker 1: They have to keep swimming, they have to keep eating,
Speaker 1: otherwise they will perish. I mean, that's the that's the
Speaker 1: part of the concept, right, And does that make it correct?
Speaker 1: I mean absolutely not.
Speaker 2: No, But sharks are scary.
Speaker 1: Right right. But I still think it's a good comparison
Speaker 1: because I know, yeah, sharks are scary. Scary. Sharks are scary, indeed,
Speaker 1: And that's our classic episode for this evening. We can't
Speaker 1: wait to hear your thoughts. It's right. Let us know
Speaker 1: what you think. It can reach you to the handle
Speaker 1: Conspiracy Stuff where we exist on Facebook x and YouTube
Speaker 1: on Instagram and TikTok or Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2: If you want to call us dial one eight three
Speaker 2: three std WYTK. That's our voicemail system. You've got three minutes,
Speaker 2: give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if
Speaker 2: we can use your name and message on the air.
Speaker 2: If you got more to say than can fit in
Speaker 2: that voicemail, why not instead send us a good old
Speaker 2: fashioned email.
Speaker 1: We are the entities to read every single piece of
Speaker 1: correspondence we receive. A yet not afraid Sometimes the void
Speaker 1: writes back. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff they Don't Want you to Know is a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio, app,
Speaker 2: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.