Power And Money

Power begets money and money begets power. If you have enough money you can buy power, rewriting laws  to your advantage that will make you richer. If you have enough power you can stifle dissent, or at the very least drown it out in a cacophony of attacks. All you have to do is pay out a few million to make billions, for there is always an eager horde who will gladly obey anyone with power. Authoritarian followers are most comfortable in a hierarchy, in which they know whom to obey and whom to force to obey them. They want clearly defined lines, detailed laws and rigid rules. They live to obey their authority; follow his commands, fight his enemies, and sacrifice for his good to prove their devotion.

Naturally, authoritarian leaders enjoy this arrangement very much as well. They believe that laws are for the followers, that they are innately superior to the followers, and that their rightful place is in the lead, reaping their rightful awards. Authoritarian followers who are born to a high position in their hierarchy sometimes think that they are actually authoritarian leaders. We call these people libertarians. Deep inside they realize their proper position on the totem pole but they have enough power and wealth to separate themselves physically above the rabble and they have the full force and power of the real leaders behind their backs. Just as long as they continue to support their leaders, the elite followers can wield an inordinate amount of power against the lower castes.

The elite followers are also highly motivated to wield it in an arbitrary and petty manner, since they must constantly be given proof that they are, indeed, leaders and not lowly followers. One way to do that is through petty power plays, such as jerking around women's health care. Another way is to blandly lie to the lower orders, knowing full well that there is nothing they can do about it. If the looters and moochers complain they can be drowned out by the employees and devotees of the rich. If they start to become dangerous they can be forced to back down by the legal and security systems, which are under the ultimate control of the elite. There is nothing the 99% can do to these liars, and they know it.

In fact, they find it highly amusing to watch the rabble struggle against their betters. They gather on balconies, manicured fingers wrapped around glasses of expensive wine, and laugh at the sheep as they bleat their despair. And they mock the feeble attempts of the poor to hold them accountable for their lies, to be so very pathetic as to think the truth matters, instead of power and wealth.

Which brings us, yet again, to Megan McArdle. As I noted before, Megan McArdle has been on a tear lately, attacking a man who had made himself an enemy of her elite. She has written six posts, a couple of them incredibly long, in the defense of Heartland Institute and the Koch brothers, despite the fact that she says she has no interests in common with either. But they are her elite, and when they are attacked she leaps to defend them, a trait that has made her happy and wealthy. She does not need to be told to obey. Obedience in the service of the elites is a way of life for authoritarian followers. She enjoys it. Her critics make her laugh.

Megan McArdle capped her support of the Koch brothers and the Heartland Institute with a very sarcastic post about an Obama fundraising letter capitalizing on the unpopularity of the Koches.

I just received a new mailer from BarackObama.com. Even before the primaries are finished, Obama is apparently kicking off the campaign against his now-inevitable opponent: the Koch brothers.

Friend -- In just about 24 hours, Mitt Romney is headed to a hotel ballroom to give a speech sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, a front group founded and funded by the Koch brothers. Those are the same Koch brothers whose business model is to make millions by jacking up prices at the pump, and who have bankrolled Tea Party extremism and committed $200 million to try to destroy President Obama before Election Day.

Obviously, the campaign is not yet fully fleshed out. How will Obama distinguish himself from the Kochs on important issues like the Iranian missile program, gay marriage, and national education standards? How will he counter the favorability boost that the Kochs are expected to get from the fact that their name sounds like a popular soft drink (and will people get confused when pollsters ask them if they prefer "Coke, or Obama")? Will he be courting the paleolibertarians whose hatred of the Kochs is second only to that of the Center for American Progress? How will he counter if the Kochs promise to lower gas prices in exchange for the presidency?

I know it's customary to whine about the permanent election, but I confess, I'm excited to see this one unfold. Sure, it was historic to have our first black president--not to mention the first president who was a professor at my alma mater--and I don't mean to take anything away from that. But it would also be a pretty big landmark to have our first joint presidency.

Not that that will influence my vote, mind you. I vote the issues. Which is why I'm not proffering an endorsement until I know how the Kochs feel about soda taxes and those videos of animals being killed. 

Full disclosure: my husband once had a fellowship with the Charles G. Koch foundation.

 I reproduce the entire post so the reader can see the full context and the extent of McArdle's amusement at the presumption of the lower orders to criticize their betters. McArdle, however, did not want to see her amusement  dimmed by any whining and complaining from what she refers to as the "peanut gallery." She did not want to have to fight all those old, embarrassing arguments about her connections to power. She prefers to to think of her self as a witty, intrepid girl reporter, a Hildy Johnson, or perhaps a Dorothy Parker, the feminine shining star of the Algonquin Atlantic Round Table, or a film noir femme fatale, deadly yet seductive. She does not like to think of herself as the willing and sycophantic tool of the elite. So she lied, claiming that "my husband once had a fellowship with the Charles G. Koch foundation" was a full disclosure. Sure, it might piss off a few people to repeat this ellipses twice in one week while excoriating Peter Gleick for lying to the Heartland Institute to trick them into sending him some of their propaganda. But who cares? If they do she'll just go on the attack, if she can stop laughing long enough, and there is nothing they can do about it.

susanoftexas 1 day ago
Full disclosure: my husband once had a fellowship with the Charles G. Koch foundation.

At Reason magazine, where he still works as associate editor.

From Sourcewatch:

The Reason Foundation is a self-described "libertarian" [1] think tank. The Reason Foundation's projects include NewEnvironmentalism.org and Privatization.org, as well as Reason Magazine[2] It is part of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation network.
The Reason Foundation is funded, in part, by what are known as the "Koch Family Foundations,"[3] and David Koch serves as a Reason trustee. [4]

[From the list of Reason funders]
Between 1985 and 2009, the Reason Foundation received funding from the following sources, in the following amounts: [13]
Koch Family Foundations:
Charles G. Koch Foundation $57,000Claude R. Lambe Foundation $857,000David H. Koch Foundation $1,522,212


[Why does anyone care what the Koches do?]

Koch Industries is also a major polluter. During the 1990s, its faulty pipelines were responsible for more than 300 oil spills in five states, prompting a landmark penalty of $35 million from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In Minnesota, it was fined an additional $8 million for discharging oil into streams. During the months leading up to the 2000 presidential elections, the company faced even more liability, in the form of a 97-count federal indictment charging it with concealing illegal releases of 91 metric tons of benzene, a known carcinogen, from its refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas. Koch Industries was ranked number 10 on the list of Toxic 100 Air Polluters by the Political Economy Research Institute in March, 2010. [1][2]
In a study released in the spring of 2010, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the United States’ top ten air polluters. [15]
Republican TiesIf convicted, the company faced fines of up to $352 million, plus possible jail time for company executives. After George W. Bush became president, however, the U.S. Justice Department dropped 88 of the charges. Two days before the trial, John Ashcroft settled for a plea bargain, in which Koch pled guilty to falsifying documents. All major charges were dropped, and Koch and Ashcroft settled the lawsuit for a fraction of that amount.
Koch had contributed $800,000 to the Bush election campaign and other Republican candidates.
Alex Beehler, assistant deputy under secretary of defense for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health, previously served at Koch as director of environmental and regulatory affairs and concurrently served at the Charles G. Koch Foundation as vice president for environmental projects. [16] Beehler was later nominated and re-nominated by the Bush White House, to become the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Inspector General. [17]

Ms. McArdle also donated her time to the Koch's IHS [Institute For Humane Studies] 50th Anniversary Dinner; Charles Koch is its chairman.

There is no shame in being closely aligned with billionaires, as Ms. McArdle has noted. Everyone has to be paid by someone. Journalists should all be as open as possible when it comes to their actions, as Ms. McArdle has noted repeatedly in reference to Mr. Gleick.
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McMegan 1 day agoin reply to susanoftexas
I am curious to know what you think that this little section has to do with my decision to donate my time to the Institute for Humane Studies, or how that constitutes my being "paid by someone".
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susanoftexas 1 day agoin reply to McMegan
You want to know what your donation of your time to the Koch brothers has to do with your ties to the Koch brothers? Do you also want to know what your husband's continuing employment at Reason has to do with his ties to Reason?
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McMegan 1 day agoin reply to susanoftexas
I didn't donate my time to "the Kochs"; I donated it to the Institute for Humane Studies, an organization whose goals I support. Is anyone who donates time or money to an organization to which George Soros donates also "tied to Soros"? Does that donation somehow constitute getting "paid by" George Soros?
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Money is fungible on the left, but not on the right, as I pointed out in the comments one of her posts. Any time or money donated to or received from the Koches frees up money to spend on Republican candidates and destroying environmental regulation, or paying fines for wrongful deaths and oil spills.

susanoftexas 1 day agoin reply to McMegan
So you deny that you are affiliated in any way with the Koch brothers.
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McMegan1 day agoin reply to susanoftexas
I have met Charles Koch twice, for about a minute each time. I don't think I have never met David Koch. I receive no personal income from the Kochs, nor, to my knowledge, from any institution with which they are affiliated. I believe that David Koch is still a donor to the Reason Foundation, but I do not know that to be the case, and what I write is certainly not affected by that--except to the extent that the tedious disclosures mean that I spend somewhat less time making fun of the hilarious conspiracy-mongering than I otherwise would. The Kochs had nothing to do with my support of IHS, which predates my learning of their existence.

I'm curious, Susan: who's paying you to troll my blog? Could it be . . . SOROS??? Surely you wouldn't waste all this time to so little effect unless someone was paying you, would you?
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susanoftexas1 day agoin reply to McMegan
Like you, I donate my time.
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Again, McArdle avoids the truth. DC is a community property "state" and half of her husband's income at Reason magazine is hers. For the purposes of her response she pretends that she receives no personal income from the Koches. She easily convinces herself that a magazine supported in part by the Koches, which pays her husband, is a far enough connection to deny it altogether. McArdle also pretends that people do not donate their time or effort and must be paid to do anything. In her youth she had volunteered for various organizations and of course she donated her time to the Koches for their annual Institute of Humane Studies dinner.

When I wrote that comment I did not realize that her involvement with the IHS was far greater than I knew or she led us to believe. McArdle is an alumni alumnus of the IHS Journalism Internship Program and was on the 2011 faculty for their summer seminar program. For which, I am guessing, she did not donate her time.

Shortly after my comments McArdle changed her disclosure, without noting her changes. The new disclosure:

Full disclosure: my husband once had a fellowship with the Charles G. Koch foundation, and works for Reason Magazine, which has been a recipient of funds from Koch charitable organizations. We also sometimes use Vanity Fair paper napkins and Dixie brand paper products, which are owned by the Kochs.

Tee-hee! There's nothing funnier than the yapping of the little people and their silly demands for accountability and the truth.