WHY KOCH BROTHERS ARE UN-AMERICAN

Harry Reid is right in calling the Koch brothers un-American, because they are, and here is why. As I have explained before in several posts on this web site, they are using “their” money to corrupt our democracy for their own purposes. I am going to explain again because this morning Joe Scarborough on MSNBC went “off the rails” spewing all of the Republican talking points about how it was below the dignity of Reid’s office to call them un-American. Clearly, he does not understand what they are doing; he is blinded by the fact that their money seems to be benefiting his party. He, like most Republicans, is quick to point out—with a big dose of self-righteousness—Democratic billionaires doing the same thing; the objective of this post is to explain that is not true. There are democratic billionaires donating money just as there are Republican billionaires donating money to political causes. Many more billionaires that are Republican donate money simply because there are more of them. Likewise, many more $3 donations come form Democrats because there are more of them. That is just the name of the game; to given money to political campaigns is a legitimate thing to do; it is one of the many “freedoms” this country was built on.  That is not what the Koch brothers are doing.

As Joe said this morning, it is their money and they can use it as they chose; thus, Joe was trying to put words in Senate Majority Leaders Reid’s mouth; Reid is not saying and never even implied that it was not their money. The first response to any thing a Republican gets caught doing that seems off-color or illegal is that Democrats do it too. This is the basis for much of right wing criticism of Reid. Everyone has heard the tired old rhetoric, it is bipartisan; and so, it must be all right. For example, 100 percent of Republican congressional representatives voted for the farm bill that cut food stamps, and two blue dog democrats (4% of democrats); therefore, it is just as much the Democrats fault as the Republican fault that the food stamp program was decimated—suddenly it is 50:50. We hear this about gerrymandering, voter suppression, racism, many other things, but especially about not increasing taxes, with the proviso that they leave out taxes on whom.

We could argue that the money Republican billionaires have been ill gotten like the John D. Rockefellers, Cornelius Vanderbilt, or other robber barons of the past. That would not be true. Koch industries are wide spread but as far as I know, are no more corrupt then Bill Gates’ and his Microsoft Empire.

Of course, it is their money; of course Democratic billionaires donate money to political campaigns; of course it is legitimately earned, so then what could possible be un-American about the Koch brothers giving large sums of money to political purposes.   

Our ancestors built American on one principle above all others; we are a democracy; the first in the world. We live in a country where one person has one vote. It was not planned; it just happened as woman’s suffrage and freeing slaves shows. We abandoned royalty and religious dictatorships, which often went hand in hand. A startlingly frank book, if you want to read it that way, Albion’s Seeds: Four British Folkways in America written by historian David Hackett Fischer in 1989 reveals the complexities of the birth our political thinking and clearly makes this point.

That basic principle was upset by our Supreme Court, the Robert’s court, as the result of a perfect storm of political malfeasance. Judicial activism, Karl Rove’s campaign for supreme court and federal justices, as well as, as increasing political power in the hands of the economic elite due to the devastation of Reaganomics. The precise ruling was the Citizens United Ruling and most recently, the McCutcheon et al. v. federal election Commission ruling. The part of these ruling that hurt democracy the most was declaring that corporations were people. One person one vote now means one corporation has all the votes: still that is not the problem with Koch brothers that Harry Reid is fighting.

As Reid points out, the problem with the Koch brother giving is deeper than that. Republicans, such as Joe and his followers fail to see what they are doing because they seem to be supporting their cause, which is creating an America ruled by the economic elite. To many of us, that is bad and un-American, but what the Koch’s are doing is worse than that. First, they are using K-Street to influence legislation with huge campaign donations. This falls under the category of both parties are doing it so it is all right; no, it is not all right. In addition, they are buying influence the same way gang members in poor neighborhoods buy influence; they are running a protection racket. If they say to an elected representative, “you vote the way we want or we will primary you”. People like #Joe Scarborough might say that is just plain old democracy in action until they say, as they can now say with the Supreme Court rulings, that, “we will spend more money to do it than you could collect in a million years”. Money that does not come from the voters in their congressional districts and spend it on a candidate they hand pick that does not represent the views of the people in that district. That is not all right. That is not democracy!

Think about this; Koch brother are on the verge of becoming the most powerful people in the United States. Do you know about the way they were raised by their father Fred Koch? If you don’t, maybe it is about time you do. With the help of communist hating Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio and working class hating Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, and Kevin McCarthy among other Ayn Rand ideologues, they have control of the United States Congress. As soon as they primary these people, there so call friends, with people like Michelle Bachman, Louie Gohmert, and other people “who are not witches”, they will have a free hand to do what ever they want to do.   

Let me pose the question; “What if the Koch brothers were communists, or Moa supporters, or supporters of any other dastardly form of dictator ideology and were on the verge of controlling the United States Congress; would it bother you?” Maybe you think what I have written here is all nonsense and that they do not have the power I have ascribed to them or worse yet think we still have a “one man one vote Democracy”. Proceed at your own peril.

URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated