Can't Hide, Even the Shadow Knows
One in the Shadows, One More to Go
This post is a topic worth following, and one I have a big
interest in, and also like millions of others who feel helpless in a losing battle about the what concerns me: (1) truly representative
government, (2) less big money corrupting the system (and yes it is corrupt),
and (3) what “we the people” is supposed to really mean. I don’t intend to
sound to sound like a TEA type, 'cause I am not, but I am concerned about those
three topics and be as honest and realistic as possible on those topics, so here
goes.
The Koch brother’s latest push is to reform the criminal
justice system. It is both an effort that has made allies out of former enemies
and softened the billionaire Koch’s image as their lead man, Mark Holden, their
top lawyer and a close adviser, who also happens to be a former jail guard with
a decades-long interest in criminal justice issues, shuttles back and forth
between Wichita and Washington to champion legislation to reduce the prison
population and to give ex-felons second chances. (Note: I presume job offers
will also be made the Koch’s to help that transition from prison to work?).
So, Lawyer Holden spends most of his time highlighting one
of the few political beliefs of the Koch’s that some liberals find palatable (i.e.,
prison reform and second chances), thereby tempering the blowback that their
enormous political spending has generated in other areas found unpalatable.
That blowback (Holden’s description) can be traced back (he
says) the hateful article against the brothers back to 2010 written by Jane
Mayer of The New Yorker, who published a
10,000-word piece about the Koch brothers’ under-the-radar conservative
political network, labeled: “Covert Operations,” and no, before you look,
it’s not an article about SEAL Team 6 running a “covert Op” to knock off another
bin-Laden terrorist in some mountain stronghold someplace, either.
The Mayer article, which is pretty darn good, shows how the
Koch’s have given hundreds of millions of dollars to Republican candidates and rightwing/and
their stanch libertarian causes.
Even now this early, for 2016, they
have already pledged to raise and spend a cool $900 million (report
from NPR) and here
from the NY Times and here
from the Washington Post. Yeah – yeah, that much – and all to buy
the President they want.
So, no wonder they are no longer under the radar and rightly
so. They are now in plain sight with one goal for the country to see: to fund,
buy, and own most, if not, every aspect of government and thus, the country. That
is harsh reality and the power of massive money that the Supreme Court
unleashed on the country in the name of “money is speech.” So, based on that
alone, hide your dictionaries and not as they say: “the DEMS are coming for
your guns” – ha – the Koch’s are coming for your Scrabble set, Thesaurus,
Macmillan, Merriam-Webster, and Cambridge word sources.
Related article here from Slate: Money Isn't Speech and Corporations Aren't People
On top of that and all over the political map, a small
handful of billionaires are up to the same old technique: dump billions and buy
the kind of government they want for their own greedy ways. Some may say that
is good – but, how can it be?
Representative government is supposed to mean from the
people up; not from the money down. It appears that in their eyes that whoever
has and spends the most money ends up with the most representative government
for them and their interests and not yours or mine, and they have a good number
of representatives tucked neatly in their pocket, or if you choose, firmly in
their wallet to prove it.
Words worth
remembering from the Citizens United (5-4) ruling from Justice John Paul
Stevens dissent: “This ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of
elected institutions across the Nation. The path the Court has taken to reach
its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution.”
Thanks for stopping by ... as I said, a serious topic that
impacts us in the end!!
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