By OcJim
If you are even partially tuned in, you most likely know something about facts of mal-distribution of income: the rich are getting richer and the middle class and the poor, poorer. You probably also know the right vs. left debate: the rich deserve their wealth and the market naturally rewards them; the middle class and the poor don’t deserve a larger share and do not create anything of value.
The argument for the rich can easily be dispelled, for much of wealth is inherited, gained through exploitation, gamed from the system, or manipulated by using others. To get or stay wealthy, you must manipulate the whole system by controlling its leadership: for example, lax regulation helps you to defraud investors and turn the stock market into a casino; not being responsible for fraud, death and destruction of the environment, makes your product cheaper and forces others to pay for your damage to people and environment.
Thus you use your money to buy the system’s leadership to set your rules, demonize government, and control the populace as well.
One of the best known inheritors of great wealth are the Koch brothers, David and Charles, said to be worth about $25 billion each. Their names have been popping up more and more in connection with buying and controlling access to our quickly eroding democracy, from the three branches of federal government to Republican state government leaders.
By now, the role of the Koch brothers in union busting in Wisconsin is well known, being the biggest contributors to the Scott Walker governor campaign, who served as their puppet in breaking unions in Wisconsin. Also revealed by Common Cause earlier this year was the Koch brother link to Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia who, after being courted at their soiree of plutocrats, voted for corporate personhood, which set the stage for corporations like Koch Industries to buy elections.
In the past 30 years, the Koch moguls funneled more than $100 million into dozens of secretive political organizations (half of it in the last few years), most of which are courting personal favor for libertarian causes. Among them are the Cato Institute, a Washington think tank that has recently raised questions about climate change and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia — which one strategist for Democrats called “ground zero for deregulation policy in Washington.”
The brothers also have created several wholesome-sounding groups like Citizens for a Sound Economy — which enlisted media events to oppose President Clinton’s proposed BTU tax on energy — and Citizens for the Environment, which called many environmental problems, including acid rain, “myths.” More recently, they funded Americans for Prosperity which helped to start and direct the anti-health-care, anti-government Tea Party movement.
To close their circle of control, another secret effort was set up by the Koch brothers 18 months ago with $2.5 million of their seed money. It involves a nationwide database connecting millions of Americans who share their anti-government and libertarian views. It is designed to enhance the political influence of the rich even more, most notably the Koch Brothers, just in time for next year’s presidential election.
According to a recent Guardian report by Ed Pilkington in New York, this will bypass political parties and directly cement their grip on US politics, in effect, pulling the puppet strings of leaders in the Republican Party and causing Democrats to warily notice.
If there is any doubt about Koch brother attitudes towards average mortals, the name of their rich voter file network is Themis, the Greek goddess who imposes divine order on human affairs.
I am sure that Charles and his younger brother, David, visualize themselves as gods far above the unwashed crowds, an image that neo-conservatives like to cultivate, for example, when speaking of Occupy Movement serfs around the world.
Atlas Shrugged novelist, Ayn Rand, also believed that rich industrialists imposed an almost divine order on mere humans. For this reason, she is somewhat of a scripture goddess for industrialists like the Kochs as well as political leaders they financially support like Republican Wonder Boy Paul Ryan.
Like current plutocratic policies, her ideas scorn altruism, crown herself as an elite, and rebuke the masses.
In response to an early interviewer’s question which referred to her atheist belief, “What happens when you die?”
Narcissist that she was, she promptly said, “The world stops.”
Certainly Koch Brother plans would stop our world.
