The “Kochtopus,”
as described in Jane Meyer’s classic 2010 New
Yorker takedown, is always at the ready to pick up its anti-Obama campaign
with aims of “drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social
services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry.” Translation: anything
that that will sell more Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups and Stainmaster
carpets at a higher profit without environment laws or bothersome trade-union
interference.
Now
the Brothers are expressing solicitude in TV ads aimed at women over how
Obamacare will damage their family’s health as they struggle, in some cases successfully,
to overcome the glitches and sign on.
In
this week of JFK remembrance, Kennedy’s warning in 1961 “discordant voices of
extremism” seems particularly apt:
“Men
who are unwilling to face up to the danger from without are convinced that the
real danger comes from within. They look suspiciously at their neighbors and
their leaders. They call for a 'man on horseback' because they do not trust the
people. They find treason in our finest churches, in our highest court, and
even in the treatment of our water. They equate the Democratic Party with the
welfare state, the welfare state with socialism, and socialism with
communism...
“But
you and I and most Americans take a different view of our peril. We know that
it comes from without, not within. It must be met by quiet preparedness, not
provocative speeches...
“So
let us not heed these counsels of fear and suspicion. Let us concentrate more
on keeping enemy bombers and missiles away from our shores, and concentrate
less on keeping neighbors away from our shelters. Let us devote more energy to
organize the free and friendly nations of the world, with common trade and
strategic goals, and devote less energy to organizing armed bands of civilian
guerrillas that are more likely to supply local vigilantes than national
vigilance.”
The
Koch brothers weren’t around back then, but their father was already at work
undermining American democracy as a founding member of the John Birch Society,
which was rightly seen as a crackpot expression of right-wing extremism by William F. Buckley.
His
heirs are carrying on the family tradition half a century later, but that’s no
cause for celebration.
1 comment:
"Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs,you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. but their number is negligible and they are stupid."
Dwight David Eisenhower
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