Class Warfare With The Dunce As Valedictorian
I am only into Chapter One of "Dark Money" by Jane Mayer. I say only because the Preface and Introduction were so powerful, I thought that the rest of the book would be anticlimactic. And then I got into Chapter One.
When the "House On Haunted Hill" first hit movie theaters, there was a TV advertising campaign that had a "doctor" cautioning you not to see this movie if you had "heart" problems. I remember talk of signing "medical releases" in the theater before being allowed to take a seat.
Of course that was all hype. It was over-the-top camp advertising. It is not over-the-top to say that "Dark Money" is terrifying to anyone who cares about freedom and democracy. It is terrifying because in it there are countless details about events which have actually taken place. Events which do not bode well for our country.
In "House On Haunted Hill" there were scary things lurking behind your back, around corners and in closets. In the first 42 pages of "Dark Money" there are scary things on every page. We are taken deep into the Koch family's closets.
Apparently daddy Koch made his fortune selling technology to first Stalin and then Hitler. He was selling high octane fuel refining capability. High octane fuel kept the NAZI war machine going. It literally fueled the Reich.
The brothers have done daddy one better. They don't just want to fuel a government, they want to control one - they want to control our government. They have been hosting meetings with other like minded billionaires for years. They opposed Obama at every level. The money they raise buys unprecedented influence at every level. It is used to shape national debate.
Apparently the billionaire boys are all big on Libertarianism and ascribe to the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Ayn is pretty scary. She is not someone you want to find lurking behind the formation of United States' economic policy.
The Koch brothers' version of the "He Man Women Haters Club" is nothing like what Spanky had in mind. "Their Gang" is not "Our Gang". These boys want whatever they want whenever they want it. They believe they have the right to buy political influence much like you might buy a pacifier or a blankie or a teddy bear.
Our lives are very real. We are not toys. We are not disposable. We are human beings. We come in all shapes and sizes and we represent all manner of ideas and beliefs. When the economy tanked in 2008, our lives were at risk. Billionaires' fortunes were at risk.
If I lose my home or job or ability to pay for healthcare, I could die. If a billionaire loses a few billion, it's not quite the same. Koch's billionaires opposed the government stepping in to save the financial industry in 2008, as did the Kochs. The Kochs, Libertarians at heart, opposed it too until they realized they would lose a lot in the stock market and then they didn't oppose it.
2016 was to be the culmination of the takeover of our political process that the Koch boys and their friends had been working so hard to bring about. It was to be the year their candidate entered the White House. And then along came Vlad.
Vladimir Putin has his own plans for controlling the United States and they proved to be more affective. Vladimir is a bona fide dictator. He runs a kleptocracy which the MSM quaintly refers to as Russia. He has people who get in his way killed.
Putin has been grooming and funding Trump for decades. Vladimir hired a tech army and they literally contaminated every aspect of the 2016 elections. They stole the election from the Kochs. They put Vlad's boy in the White House.
So we've been living through real "class warfare" for decades. The one tenth of one percent of people who own the majority of things in this country vs. us - vs. the U.S. We lose to them and they lose to Putin. The class clown, the dunce is now head of the class.
The Kochs are pragmatic ideologues. They flipped when it came to bailing out the economy. They flipped after the election results were in. They know Trump is a fool and a puppet. They don't care. They still own all the politicians they got elected to Congress. They still control the legislative process and they got a big return on their investments when Congress passed tax reform legislation which gave them everything while taking substantially from the rest of us.
In the meantime, the Dunce, l'asino, has been left to destroy the government and wreak havoc on the world stage. The destruction of the EPA was right in line with the Koch agenda. Environmental regulations were getting in the way of profits. The same can be said for most government regulations and oversight.
So far the Dunce has been destroying our relationships with our allies, destroying our trade agreements and trashing vital alliances like NATO. He is embracing dictators and criticizing the leaders of the world's democracies. This month he is going to address NATO. Then he is going to Russia to meet with Putin - godfather Putin.
Class warfare and Russian interference have resulted in Donald Trump being our spokesman to NATO and the world at large. In a very real sense he is the United States' Valedictorian. He is appearing on one world stage after another speaking in our name.
Remember during the campaign when Trump asked. "What have you got to lose?" The correct answer was and still is "everything".
Holy Moly!
Ha, I hadn’t read this one before commenting on the other article you posted on Twitter. I posted numerous times today, as a matter fact, on Republicans and how Trump is just a stooge puppet for the Libertarian Republicans being able to enact their Ayn Rand-based policies, and that’s why they couldn’t care less about all his antics. They particularly don’t care about the deficit or debt, because they’re just going to use fiscal responsibility as a way to nix all entitlement programs, because, as you know, Ayn Rand said it is immoral to help the poor/weak/needy. And what she said, goes!
ReplyDeleteThe worst, most frightening aspect of what the Kochs are up to is what they’re trying to do with this Constitutional Convention. Yikes!
Holy Moly!
ReplyDelete