There are two important messages in
this piece. One is that the Koch Brothers, Charles and David are trying to copy
the methods that helped the anti-abortion, so called “pro-life” (for fetuses,
not women or their doctors) organizations that learned to take over small
offices than no one paid attention to. The anti-abortion groups were able to
use those small local offices to pressure higher office politicians and
candidates to accept their agenda.
It has been successful for the
anti-abortion groups. So it was not surprising that the Koch Brothers, and
their many front PACs have tried to use those same tactics.
But the use
of big-city mud-slinging tactics doesn’t seem to be helping them win races in
all the small places they are trying to take over. The Daily Show covered
their lack of success in Coralville, Iowa. Also, this is from Becky
Sarwate, Politicus
USA;
And this pattern
relates similarly to our country’s broken political discourse. The increasingly
unproductive, shrill nature of the nation’s legislative branch is yielding a
collective estrangement between elected “leaders” and the constituents they are
purported to serve. The cynically-minded among us (count me a member of this
group) might argue that populist disengagement is one of the explicit goals of
some of the more nefarious lobbying groups, who may find it easier to sneak
democratically harmful legislation through the back door when no one is
looking.
Though
it can certainly be argued that the movement toward complete inertia and
recklessness at the Federal level has been decades in the making, the situation
certainly escalated with the ascension of the Tea Party and its moneyed
financial backers. And it’s very possible that no duo has prompted the Tea
Party faction to wreak its irresponsible government havoc more than the Koch
brothers. The brothers Koch have shielded their patently unpatriotic activities
behind the ironically named group, Americans for Prosperity. It has been clear
for sometime now that the “prosperity” this concerned body favors begins and
ends with corporations, and the top one percent of the nation’s wealth holders.
But
while Team Koch has a virtual stranglehold on Washington Republicans, Americans
for Prosperity is finding it a bit harder to ram its agenda down the throats of
voters at the local level – folks who have suffered in real time at the hands
of a low tax, low personal freedom (for minorities, women and the gay
community), low job creation agenda.
Monday
morning’s edition of The New York Times carried a feature story
entitled, Koch Group Has Ambitions in
Small Races. At first glance this is a rather dispiriting headline.
But a closer read carries a beacon of hope for those wondering when the
predatory siblings might get their comeuppance. Writer John Eligon takes a look
at the coming local elections in Coralville, Iowa, where voters are preparing
to select their next Mayor and City Council members.
It is important for activist to pay
attention to the antics and dirty tactics of the Koch Brothers, their Americans
of Prosperity and all their other phony PACs. សតិវ អតុ
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