Almost every page of Democracy in Chains, Nancy MacLean’s remarkable book/exposé about the stealth plan to disrupt current politics by privatizing Social Security, Medicare, and education makes my head spin.
But I keep plodding along, morbidly fascinated by how much of today’s evil can be traced back to John C. Calhoun, my ancestral uncle multiple-times removed,1 who’s been dubbed “the Marx of the master class. . . America’s first tactician of tax revolt,” and “the nation’s most influential extremist.”2
So what does this have to do with Democracy, Evil, or anything else? I’m getting there.
Only three delegates to the United States original Constitution declined to sign: Governor Edmund Randolph (Virginia), George Mason (Virginia), and Elbridge Gerry (Massachusetts).3
George Mason is particularly interesting because Jefferson lifted much of his wording of The Declaration of Independence, in particular, the part about our “inalienable right to happiness” which no country or government had ever promised. The wording was later changed to “unalienable” but more importantly, the word “happiness” appears only one more time in our hallowed documents before being changed forever more to definitions of property. Alas. Mason was much richer than John C. but despite his eloquent assertion, he never freed any of his many slaves. But John C. was way more influential in defining that the economy should be a realm of total liberty for men of property, who would be oppressed if the federal government fell under the control of the majority. Authority does not come from the American people collectively but from “the consent of the people of the several [individual] States.”4 We’re still struggling with that one!
So it’s rather ironic that the Koch gang under the coordination of Richard Fink moved all their various programs close to the U.S. Capitol, the Center for the Study of Free Market Processes at George Mason University. This center’s been renamed The Mercatus Center (mercatus is just Latin for “Market”). It’s still there and that’s still where Koch-funded intellectuals staff their huge network of foundations, including:
- The Cato Institute,
- The Heritage Foundation,
- Citizens for a Sound Economy,
- Americans for Prosperity,
- The State Policy Network
- the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and
- the Charles Koch and Koch Industries.
But it was James Buchanan, born and raised in Rutherford County, Tennessee, (one county north of my father’s homestead) who first inspired all the above players by adapting Calhoun’s attack on democracy to the modern age. He not only laid the ground plan, but his original Center was the first to tutor top legislative staff in strategies for privatizing Social Security and Medicare, downsizing government and developing Citizens United. He retreated permanently to his log cabin when he realized how out of control the messianic movement he had spawned had become at the new “ Fink Center,” as he referred to it. So much for winning the Nobel Prize and “economic freedom.”
For an example of how creative they became, in 2001, fifteen years later, the Mercatus Center suggested in a public comment to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on vehicle emissions that global warming would be, “beneficial, occurring at night, in the winter, and at the poles. If a slight warming does occur, historical evidence suggests it is likely to be beneficial, stimulating plant growth and making humans better off.”
They’ve stepped up the pace since then, From 1997 to 2014, the Koch brothers funneled over $88 million to 80 organizations that advance the Kochs’ attacks on climate change science while presenting themselves as experts. And persuading the public that health and safety regulations are illegal because they act as “hidden taxes. ” They’re still at it with even more fervor, and have convinced the Corporation for Public Broadcasting its regulations require them to be given equal time on all talk shows, even though they don’t consider these apply to Fox, or MSN.
They’re actually rather incoherent, and rely instead on the magic of phrase repetition. As can be seen in the fascinating list of the top 53 recipients of Koch money listed on Greenpeace’s site at:
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/climate-deniers/front-groups/
It’s staggering. But not hopeless, yet. Check out the Solutions section at the bottom of the Site for specific steps you can take. For example, you can help get rid of The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is now twice the size of Texas, by joining those demanding that CEOs of Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, Unilever, Starbucks, Procter & Gamble invest in alternatives to single-use plastic!5
And be sure to support your representatives who voted “No” on the SECURE American Energy Act (H.R. 4239) that would have permitted further off-shore drilling!
