UCSD was one of several universities represented at a rally against oil company executives held on Jan. 30 in Rancho Mirage, where a secret meeting was held by energy conglomerate Koch Industries and Tea Party members.
The rally was organized by the California Student Sustainability Coalition, an organization that works with universities across the state to increase sustainability and awareness. About 2,000 protestors, including 50 San Diegans, showed up with only a handful of peaceful arrests made.
“The goal of the protest was to really expose that the Koch brothers were having this secret meeting and continue to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to take over our democratic elections,” CSSC Campaign Director Gabriel Elsner said.
Andrew Breitbart, a frequent guest commentator for “Fox News,” attended the secret meeting held by the Koch brothers.
“He was on roller skates trying to rile up the crowd and insult them,” Elsner said. “It was uncalled for.”
The rally began at around 1 p.m. Participants marched in front of the Rancho Las Palmas Resort, where the Koch Industries meeting was held.
“Getting the Koch brothers into the light and showing the American public what these brothers are doing is one of our strategies to get corporations and dirty money out of our elections,” Elsner said.
Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas were in attendance at the executive meeting— two of the justices who voted in favor of protecting corporations, allowing unlimited spending on elections.
The Koch Industries meeting was to discuss approaches to the 2010 elections in light of last year’s Supreme Court ruling, which protects their unlimited spending.
“[The Koch brothers] are funding far-right wing politicians and groups that spread misinformation about our government so that they can elect politicians who want to deregulate and defund our governments institutions that safeguard the public,” Elsner said.
The New York Times received a leaked invitation to the meeting, according to Elsner.
“[The Koch brothers] keep their company private by owning 51 percent of it, so they can do whatever the heck they please,” UCSD Student Sustainability Collective Director Jared Muscat said.
Muscat organized buses to the meeting in Palm Springs from San Diego. Protestors were also bused in from Los Angeles and Santa Barbara.
“The Koch brothers do a really good job of keeping everything they do behind closed doors,” Muscat said. “But they do an extra special job of never having to answer to anyone but themselves.”
The Koch brothers invested at least $1 million to support Prop 23, which would have suspended the “Global Warming Act of 2006,” but was defeated in the Nov. 2010 election.
“The Koch ideology is more private profits at the expense of the health and prosperity of the American people,” Elsner said.
Students from the CSSC are also working with partner organizations including Greenpeace and ACLU.
“We’ve never been too big of fans of the Koch brothers,” Muscat said, “They’ve never really cared about the environment.”
