Subverting Democracy

There is an amazing interview with Greg Palast at therealnews.com, in which he describes some of the fanatical Koch family's history of subverting democracy. Palast describes how "Charles Koch personally ordered the pilfering of oil" royalties from Native Americans.

But the most interesting thing was my question: why? He was already a multibillionaire at the time. And so the amount of oil being stolen, you have to understand, is a few hundred bucks from a family from each of these native families, and they get some royalties. I said, why, but one of his executives asked the same question, why. And we know his answer because his executives were wired. And on the tape he said, I want my fair share, and that's all of it. This is the Koch brothers.

Their father was multi-millionaire Fred Koch, one of the founders of the John Birch Society, who became terrified of communism while working in Russia. His fear became fanaticism.

He claimed that the Democratic and Republican Parties were infiltrated by the Communist Party, and he supported Mussolini's suppression of communists. He wrote that "The colored man looms large in the Communist plan to take over America," and that "Welfare was a secret plot to attract rural blacks to cities, where they would foment a vicious race war." ^[19]

And he raised his children to be fanatical as well, in their own way. This world belongs to the strong, the wealthy. They own it, they want it, and they will get what they want, because nothing will stop them. Palast says that the law does not stop them because they have the laws rewritten to benefit themselves. The law belongs to them, it is their weapon and the source of much of their power. It is a terrible mistake to ignore violations of the rule of law that do not affect you. Those violations are warning signs of what is to come, the proverbial canary in the coal mine.

If your friends are violating the law and getting away with it, just imagine how much more your enemies are violating the law and getting away with it. But the two groups must turn a blind eye to each other so they can continue their once-illegal practices, so Obama refuses to prosecute Republicans for their crimes and Republicans pretend that Obama is their ideological enemy.  That giant hue and cry over socialism neatly prevented conservatives from observing that Obama was helping Wall Street over Main Street.

At that point [2010], there was this little group called Citizens United, which somehow hired the most expensive lawyer in the United States, Ted Olsen, to argue their case at the Supreme Court. But no one asked, how did they get Ted Olsen? He didn't volunteer. He was given leave from his day job as general counsel for Koch Industries. So Koch Industries, this was the way that Koch Industries—.


JAY: Which frees the Koch Brothers, in this election, to spend whatever they want.


PALAST: Right. And not only that, but (very important) it decriminalized their prior behavior. The Kochs were always giving money through Koch Industries, but it was criminal. They just decriminalized it. So it's not just what they could do now, but that they got away with their—basically, any attempt at bringing them to justice before.


And I want to give credit to a Republican senator, Fred Thompson—remember Mr. Law and Order, the guy who plays a federal prosecutor on Law and Order? As you'll see in Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, Fred Thompson wanted to blow the whistle on the Koch brothers, even though he was a Republican, 'cause I guess he took playing the part of a prosecutor kind of seriously, right? And he was told by Trent Lott, then the senator, the Republican majority leader in the Senate, back off, and his investigation was shut down. And why didn't the Democrats, who knew all about it, scream bloody murder?


JAY: Yeah, why?


PALAST: One did, and it's ["dik@n'sini], but they got—he told me the Koch brothers got him. That's when the Keating Five—he was smeared. And he said the Koch brothers were behind him losing his seat, 'cause he wanted to bring up this issue. But Fred Thompson, a Republican, shut it down.


And the Democrats didn't complain, because it was a trade, it was a deal, as you'll read—and true-blue democrats might be upset to hear this, but Bill Clinton apparently had taken not a small amount of change from his billionaires, called the Riady family. They're not American citizens. He met 95 times with them in the White House. That means he met with Chinese billionaires more often than his own daughter, Chelsea. And he—apparently, money went into the Clinton campaign and other favors were done by the Riadys, big favors for the Clintons. That's a real impeachable offense. Forget the stains-on-dresses stuff. This was really impeachable. And Trent Lott told Senator Thompson, we don't do the Riadys and Clinton, and they don't do the Kochs. So it was a billionaire trade. And that's how the game's played.


JAY: Okay. More of this is all in Billionaires & Ballot Bandits. And if you want to get more detail on this and much more like it, it's in the book.

People tell themselves that things won't get worse, that they have a president on their side who will hear their concerns and act on them, that they can work from inside to change the establishment. But it's too late. They refused to admit that their leaders were typical authoritarian leaders who believe that they do not have to follow the rules, have no empathy for anyone not like them, and will not stop their endless grab for more power. Power is a verb. It is an action. To truly have power you must use it, see it in action, inflict it on those weaker than you, who are everyone else in your kingdom. You must make others suffer to prove that you have all the power. The suffering of the poor is music to your ears, because it means you are superior, you are rewarded by God, you are one of the chosen ones, you are worthy and everyone else is not.

The poor and middle class let themselves be mistreated, which proves that they are weak and therefore immoral, since immorality is a sign of human weakness and the legacy of Original Sin. Suffering is pleasing to God, encourages morality, is a sign of obedience. It is a very, very good thing, and Koch Industries is here to make sure that good things happen to everyone.

Especially the Koches. They want it all, it belongs to them. The workers and the rivers, the fields and the politicians, the money and the power. They took billions from the 90% and they will take billions from the 9%.

You? You're just in the way.

Read the rest.

Via Naked Capitalism