By Daniel Rigney
A recent satirical post entitled “Is the Tea Party a Liberal Conspiracy?” drew several fun-loving comments from readers. Tom Cordle, for instance, suggested that a movie based on the Koch Brothers’ machiavellian political machinations could be called “Incognito Ergo Sum,” which I freely translate to mean “I am covert, therefore I exist,” or more loosely, “I slink, therefore I am.”
Tom’s suggested title is especially apt in the grim aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision in the “Citizens United” case (2010), which opened the floodgates to allow unlimited secret contributions to political operations thinly disguised as “social welfare” organizations.
Money has always talked, to be sure, but never in recent memory has corporate money talked so loudly as it has since 2010, drowning out the unamplified voices of democratic resistance.
During these years, the Koch Brothers in particular have woven an ever more elaborate and tangled web of conservative organizations to promote their far-right agenda for America -- namely, the thorough privatization of government.
Through its network of front organizations (call it the Kochweb), the Brothers Koch are playing multiple and simultaneous shell games, passing their unmarked bills from one shell organization to another, and making it nearly impossible to follow the money to its eventual destinations – typically "non-partisan" campaigns that parallel and reinforce the partisan campaigns of Tea Party candidates in strategically chosen races around the country.
There's dark irony in the fact that the Koch Brothers identify themselves as economic libertarians. Libertarianism has long stood in philosophical opposition to extreme concentrations of political and economic power and their consequent abuse. The Koch Brothers, engineering political outcomes by leveraging a private fortune estimated at $50 billion, are privately promoting the very concentration of power they publicly claim to oppose. Not that they lie awake at night with moral insomnia, or stew over philosophical conundrums like this one.
Yet there is hope. Even as the Kochweb expands, its scope and structure are coming under closer scrutiny through the investigations and analyses of a host of old and new media organizations. These include the New York Times, Daily Kos, and Muckety.com, home of the remarkable “muckety maps,” whose network diagrams document complex relationships among rich and powerful people and organizations, mainly in the U.S.
What we are beginning to witness now is the progressive uncloaking of the Koch machine, and its internal mechanisms of influence and control, by a smart new breed of technically savvy and progressively-minded muckrakers.
And so the KBs continue to operate through the underground tunnel system they’ve built to pump money into the political system via their various and circuitous plumbing routes.
Meanwhile, the muckrakers of our time are digging furiously to expose that underground system to the light of day.
Our 21st century muckrakers give us hope that we may yet preserve and sustain whatever is left of our democratic institutions, and replace the reigning motto of stealth donors, “Incognito Ergo Sum,” with an alternative Latin credo: “Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto.” Let the good of the people be the supreme law.
Danagram
;] … I post, therefore I am.
A recent satirical post entitled “Is the Tea Party a Liberal Conspiracy?” drew several fun-loving comments from readers. Tom Cordle, for instance, suggested that a movie based on the Koch Brothers’ machiavellian political machinations could be called “Incognito Ergo Sum,” which I freely translate to mean “I am covert, therefore I exist,” or more loosely, “I slink, therefore I am.”
Tom’s suggested title is especially apt in the grim aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision in the “Citizens United” case (2010), which opened the floodgates to allow unlimited secret contributions to political operations thinly disguised as “social welfare” organizations.
Money has always talked, to be sure, but never in recent memory has corporate money talked so loudly as it has since 2010, drowning out the unamplified voices of democratic resistance.
During these years, the Koch Brothers in particular have woven an ever more elaborate and tangled web of conservative organizations to promote their far-right agenda for America -- namely, the thorough privatization of government.
Through its network of front organizations (call it the Kochweb), the Brothers Koch are playing multiple and simultaneous shell games, passing their unmarked bills from one shell organization to another, and making it nearly impossible to follow the money to its eventual destinations – typically "non-partisan" campaigns that parallel and reinforce the partisan campaigns of Tea Party candidates in strategically chosen races around the country.
There's dark irony in the fact that the Koch Brothers identify themselves as economic libertarians. Libertarianism has long stood in philosophical opposition to extreme concentrations of political and economic power and their consequent abuse. The Koch Brothers, engineering political outcomes by leveraging a private fortune estimated at $50 billion, are privately promoting the very concentration of power they publicly claim to oppose. Not that they lie awake at night with moral insomnia, or stew over philosophical conundrums like this one.
Yet there is hope. Even as the Kochweb expands, its scope and structure are coming under closer scrutiny through the investigations and analyses of a host of old and new media organizations. These include the New York Times, Daily Kos, and Muckety.com, home of the remarkable “muckety maps,” whose network diagrams document complex relationships among rich and powerful people and organizations, mainly in the U.S.
What we are beginning to witness now is the progressive uncloaking of the Koch machine, and its internal mechanisms of influence and control, by a smart new breed of technically savvy and progressively-minded muckrakers.
And so the KBs continue to operate through the underground tunnel system they’ve built to pump money into the political system via their various and circuitous plumbing routes.
Meanwhile, the muckrakers of our time are digging furiously to expose that underground system to the light of day.
Our 21st century muckrakers give us hope that we may yet preserve and sustain whatever is left of our democratic institutions, and replace the reigning motto of stealth donors, “Incognito Ergo Sum,” with an alternative Latin credo: “Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto.” Let the good of the people be the supreme law.
Danagram
;] … I post, therefore I am.
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