DIABOLICALLY CLEVER, THESE KOCH BROTHERS, ET AL.
Diabolically clever, these Koch brothers et al.
Rely on the conservative majority in the Supreme Court to elect George W. Bush in 2000.
Bush can be counted on to throw out the Bill of Rights through Patriot Acts/National Defense Authorization Act in the name of the War on Terrorism — America’s “Enabling Act" Bush can also be counted on to mount full-scale invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11 attack of suspicious origin, assuring defense contractors of perpetual prosperity (and Republican legislators of perpetual campaign funding from them) and providing an ongoing pretext for the suspension of constitutional civil-rights safeguards.
Silence opposing voices within academia and PBS by making generous contributions to these institutions.
Fund Republican governors and state legislators to take over a majority of statehouses in 2010, when the congressional districts were up for remapping , gerrymander (Redmap) the districts to provide disproportionately high representation in the House (i.e. majority of representatives from within key states despite receiving a minority of votes).
Disqualify likely Democratic voters in key battleground states in 2016 with Crosscheck to obtain more than 270 votes in the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote, as in 2000. (Notice the minority-rules pattern here.)
Use the presidency and Republican Congress to skew the Supreme Court in favor of conservatives, locking in SCOTUS support of the conservative agenda for a generation.
Strive to add 1 more state house in order to gain the 34-statehouse supermajority required to call a constitutional convention to rewrite the constitution along conservative principles.
“While amassing one of the most lucrative fortunes in the world, the Kochs had also created an ideological assembly line justifying it. Now they had added a powerful political machine to protect it. They had hired top-level operatives, financed their own voter data bank, commissioned state-of-the-art polling, and created a fund-raising operation that enlisted hundreds of other wealthy Americans to help pay for it. They had also forged a coalition of some seventeen allied conservative groups with niche constituencies who would mask their centralized source of funding and carry their message. To mobilize Latino voters, they formed a group called the Libre Initiative. To reach conservative women, they funded Concerned Women for America. For millennials, they formed Generation Opportunity. To cover up fingerprints on television attack ads, they hid behind the American Future Fund and other front groups. Their network’s money also flowed to gun groups, retirees, veterans, anti-labor groups, antitax groups, evangelical Christian groups, and even $ 4.5 million for something called the Center for Shared Services, which coordinated administrative tasks such as office space rentals and paperwork for the others. Americans for Prosperity, meanwhile, organized chapters all across the country. The Kochs had established what was in effect their own private political party.”
Mayer, Jane. Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right (Kindle Locations 5914-5923). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
With Big Money behind the scenes in their corner, the Republicans have consistently outplayed the Democrats, and are in a position to establish a right-wing dictatorship with a president who has adopted Hitler’s playbook , relies on Kellyann Conwayas his Goebbels, and placed Steve Bannon, foremost alt. right agitator as his top strategist. Within the Republican Party, resistance to the alt. right agenda seems to be evaporating as formerly adversarial party leaders elbow each other aside in the rush to smooch Trump’s derriere. Democratic resistance to the conservative juggernaut hangs on by a slender thread in the Senate, and that too is vulnerable to Republicans exercising the “nuclear option,” regarding filibusters. With the conservative agenda triumphant, the Koch brothers and their Big Money cohorts are in a position to continue enhancing their fortunes with which they can perpetuate their power by controlling the political process dominated by television.
As we used to say back in the ‘Sixties: “The Trend is Obvious.” The day seems not far away when commentaries like this will be classified as treasonous, rather than examples of free speech protected by the first amendment. Lest we forget: “First they came for the Socialists. . . "
The only way I can see out of this mess is by the grass-roots opposition setting up an alternative, citizen-funded organized political process bypassing TV and Big Money: "Occupy Theaters" merges social media with networked frequent Town Hall Assemblies in movie theaters when they would otherwise be dark. 40,000 screens linked variously at theater/town/city/county/state/national levels = 8 million activists working to elevate and elect representatives at all levels of government serving the interests of the People. Use the process to infuse the Democratic Party with new blood. Blueprint on Amazon http://amzn.to/2fNbHKf Summary: http://bit.ly/2fPkGbt Full text https://www.amazon.com/Predicament-How-Did-Happen-Bad/dp/0988872803
Vox clamantis in deserto.