Kochs Invade the Land of Enchantment

Hyatt Tamaya Resort

Saw on the teevee "news" yesterday that access to the Hyatt Tamaya Resort on the Santa Ana Pueblo, just  was barred to the public because some mysterious "private party" had booked the entire place for an event.

Who?

They wouldn't say. But valiant reporters ferreted out the truth:

The Koch brothers, both of them together, had rented the entire place for a do of some kind and demanded that no member of the public be allowed within a mile of the place. Prolly a good thing, too.

The Zombie Eyed Granny Starver was with them.

Golden Boy, eh?

Presidential timber.

The Face of the Future.

I am in awe.

New Mexico deserves better than this.

[Now they say that little weasel Cantor was there, too. Ick. And Susana La Tejana. Ew. Unclean.]

Post Mortem Nostrums

Ancient election graffiti, Pompeii, c. 79AD

So Walker actually did better in the recall election than he did in the 2010 election. The latest statistic I saw last night before toddling off to slumber was 52/47 Walker -- same as 2010; checking the news this morning it's now at 54/45 Walker.

Oh. Dear.

This despite the fact that Walker is not popular except among the Billionaires as their hired goon, and his policies (well, their policies) are widely  deplored -- even by many of those who voted for him.

The post mortems have largely been piles of horseshit and excuses as is the way in the midst of political carnage. It was all that ad money from the Kochs! It was all the dirty tricks! Everyone's tired of recalls! God, if only Russ had run! etc, ad infinitum.

Let's not forget that one of Walker's promises was that he would get rid of the recall process if he was confirmed in office.

Think about that. One of the principal Progressive reforms from long ago, which I believe was first introduced in Wisconsin (or nearby, I'm too lazy to look it up right now) will be on the block now that Walker has been confirmed in office with a bigger majority than when he was first elected. This is insane. But there you are. That's our politics in a nutshell.

The insight I had was that if the People of Wisconsin were really voting based on their disgust with recalls, then ultimately it's an issue of a deeply flawed electoral and political process; they may or may not be thinking of it in terms of rejecting Progressive reforms, but clearly they recognize a systemic problem with the way our politics and elections are conducted. The way it is is not the way it should be.

If, that is, animosity at the recalls themselves was the driving force behind the failure of the voters to recall Walker and his LG. This idea has mostly been the product of Charles Pierce's insights for Esquire.  Pierce has long been one of the better writers on topics of this sort, and though he may be wrong in this case, he may be right. If he is, then the broader issue of a deeply flawed political and electoral system must be addressed.

If keeping Walker in office turns out to be a comment on the system itself -- not in any way an approval of him and his policies on behalf of the Billionaires who own him -- then there is a good deal of potential for positive change, though not as long as he and his crew are in office. If Democrats were in office, though, it might be more difficult to address the issues of systemic flaws.

At this point, there's no sign that those flaws will be addressed any time soon, but you never know.  People can be spurred to action by all kinds of things, and if the criminal investigation of Walker and his cronies continues and results in indictments, it's quite possible that something unexpected will happen.

Nevertheless, whether the People of Wisconsin decide to do anything about it or not, the problem is systemic. We have a political system that is almost completely unresponsive to the People, and we have an electoral system in which candidates are quite openly bought and sold by a relative handful of plutocrats and oligarchs -- that is when those plutocrats and oligarchs choose not to rule directly themselves.

This is the kind of ersatz "democracy" of the late Roman Empire Republic*, not quite what our Progressive reformers had in mind a century ago. (Actually, perhaps it is, since the Progressives were servants of wealth and power -- and mostly Republicans, too.)

People in office are proud of themselves for defying the People's interests and the People's will in order to serve their real constituents: the plutocrats and oligarchs who choose them and get them elected. We, the People, have not had any significant say in the actual political process for many years (some would say since the foundation of the nation), and our access to the governing process -- and even physical access to those who rule us -- is diminishing all the time.

(As a local side note, a "citizens commission" was set up last year to work with city planning consultants on schemes to "improve" the neighborhood's main street, Broadway. The People of the neighborhoods involved had no say in any of this; many had no idea there even was such a thing as a commission until an announcement appeared in the paper, as it hadn't been discussed with or approved by any of the neighborhood associations. The people on the commission were mostly unknown in the neighborhoods, no one was aware of any request to the city that Broadway be "improved," and no one had any idea who these consultants were, and they became alarmed when they researched some of the projects this outfit had done. It was all just imposed from on high, with the appearance of public participation and input. Complaints were made and noted. The commission continues to work with the consultants on plans for improvements nobody seems to want. That's how government works these days.)

When serving the oligarchs is the primary function of elected representatives, their secondary task is to market their unwanted product to the public. We see it all the time at every level of government from the White House on down. One of the points I made about the election of Barack Obama in 2008 was that he was auditioned (for two years) and vetted on his ability to manage the masses -- which he demonstrated he was more than capable of in some of the enormous rallies he presided over at home and abroad.)

Their skill at marketing unwanted product is actually one of the chief means of evaluating the success or failure of various politicians. Viz: the entirety of the Bush/Cheney reign of error and terror.

At no point are the real interests of the People even considered.

This situation can only be addressed if it is acknowledged, and we haven't reached that point in the wider political scheme of things. It is acknowledged among the rebels and those who have consciously withdrawn from the process, but with the political/electoral firmament the real public interests are avoided like the plague; this holds true for both major parties, most especially for the Republicans, but for the Democrats, too. Elections have no effect political recognition of the People and their interests and will in large part because they are marketing campaigns, not policy considerations.

The only way We, the People have found to affect the course of events is through various forms of rebellion outside the system.

But we need to go well beyond rebellion and create living alternatives.

[ * The illustration above is of election graffiti in Pompeii, c. 79AD, when Rome was still sort of something of a Republic -- at least superficially; elections continued under the Empire, of course, until long after they were completely meaningless.]

The Wisconsin Thing

I have no idea how the Wisconsin Recall is going to turn out, but it looks like all the smart money is on Scott Walker to retain the Governor's seat. I saw one prediction, in fact, that expected him to win the recall with 52% of the vote to Tom Barrett's 47% -- exactly the same outcome as the 2010 election which swept out the Democrats and replaced them with the most reactionary of Republicans in a rout.

Lessons learned? Well, if the vote is 52/47, probably none. If Walker wins by any amount, probably none. If Barrett wins (and can survive the inevitable recount challenges) the lesson will be that "The People Have Won!" but that would be premature and probably in error.

The lesson ought to be not to rely on elections and the political system to produce positive and desirable results for the People, because it is not going to do that. It is not designed to do that, it is designed to respond to money and to produce positive and desirable results for the Ruling Classes; in other words, the political system exists to serve itself first and foremost. And that will be true of any political system.

From the outset, though, the whole Wisconsin Thing has had the aspect of both farce and tragedy. Of course it was the spectacular reaction to the Walker-Billionaire-Servicing program put forth in the Wisconsin legislature that triggered the round of rebellions and revolutionary fervor we're still immersed in. Wisconsin led the way with huge demonstrations in Madison and a month-long occupation of the Capitol.

The Flight of the Democrats to Illinois so as to disable the legislative system for lack of a quorum was a strategically sound move, but it led to more than a few questions about loyalty and such that focused on process rather than issues.

The effort to flip the State Senate through recalls failed. Yes, two state senators were recalled, but it wasn't enough for a flip of political control, it wasn't even enough for a stalemate, and yet delusionists hailed it as a "triumph."

The lesson that should have been learned was that Scott Walker and his billionaires were getting away with everything they wanted to do and that they were unstoppable by ordinary political means. Something had happened, something profound, to alter the political landscape in Wisconsin, and no amount of marching, singing, occupying, or voting as it happened, was going to change it.

What had happened?

The blame for this state of affairs has been placed squarely on the shoulders of those whose money seems to be controlling the capitol, specifically the Koch Brothers. They through their oil and commodities empire have decided to spend essentially unlimited amounts of money to get their way. Permanently. And they have been very successful.

But there is much more to it than just Koch money. The money is almost peripheral. The problem runs much deeper.

One fundamental problem is the belief that the political system is supposed to be responsive to the People. It is not. In fact, it is purposely designed to thwart the People's interest and to serve the interests of a Ruling Class -- which may be of one or the other party or both simultaneously. The People have no direct role in the process of Rule, regardless of which party is in control of government.

Voters may think that by electing Walker, for example, they are getting what they want, but the fact is they aren't. The voters have essentially no influence at all; Walker serves those who bought and paid for him. Not the voters of Wisconsin.

Any semblance that he might be doing so is more a matter of marketing a product than reality; propaganda in other words.

He's serving those who pay his freight. Make no mistake.

But that would be just as true of Barrett if he had been elected in 2010 or manages to upset Walker in today's recall election.

Just because Barrett is a Democrat doesn't mean he is necessarily a People's candidate. In fact, it is just as likely that he is a servant of the Ruling Classes -- even if they aren't paying his freight -- as any other ranking pol. It's simply the way it is.

There's been incessant yakking about how stupid voters keep voting against their own interests, but those who make these sorts of observations don't seem to be able to handle something much more fundamental going on, something that seemed to be obvious in Wisconsin in the 2010 election, but which has been largely ignored or dismissed.

The Dems weren't seen to be serving the People's interests, and so Dem voters and Indie voters stayed home.

Now the prediction is for a larger turnout but with the same basic result -- and the result will be the same (if it is) because the Dems still aren't seen to be serving the People's interests.

It's not hard to figure this out. But these ideas are fiercely resisted by Dem pols and others who simply can't seem to imagine that voter actually do get it and they aren't actually voting against their interests; in many cases, they're simply opting out of a deeply flawed and often fraudulent system.

When voting cannot produce the results you seek, it's very rational not to play the game any more.

I noted with interest that the Dem Party apparat largely stayed out of the Wisconsin demonstrations against Walker's program early in 2011, and their support of the initial round of recalls was lukewarm at best. From my outsider's perspective, the Dem apparat was essentially absent. It was mostly certain unions and a fired up grass-roots (both of which looked like they were being sabotaged from within and without) that conducted the recall effort.

A clue here was that St. Russell Feingold, supposed arch-liberal-progressive pol, refused repeatedly to get involved in either the demonstrations or the recall effort, saying he had other priorities and wishing the activists well. It wasn't until the demonstrations were essentially over that he even addressed the demonstrators. He refused to stand for election in the recall of the Governor. He made quite clear he did not want to be part of what was going on -- but nevertheless he wished the activists well. That is well.

Mainstream media largely ignored the tumult in Wisconsin, and if national politicians were aware of it, they didn't seem to let on. The People of Wisconsin appeared to tire of the whole thing fairly early, even though the protest marches were huge. The problem seemed to me to be that the demonstrators could never seem to get on the same wavelength as the People.

While the issues being pressed by the demonstrators -- such as collective bargaining rights -- were important, they were more important to public employees who would be affected than they were to the general public; ultimately the focus on collective bargaining rights and pensions for public employees seemed to be self-serving. There was no apparent recognition that Wisconsin private sector workers by and large didn't have the benefits of unions, collective bargaining, pensions or what have you, and that most of them would never have them. As important as it may have been to preserve public employee rights and benefits that had been hard-won through struggle over so many years, it was probably more important in the eyes of the public that most Wisconsinites had no chance of ever gaining these sorts of benefits for themselves. It might have worked better to focus on extending to all workers the same sort of rights and benefits the public workers were trying to preserve for themselves. But that dawning seems never to have come (actually, the case was made several times, but it never became the focus of the protests).

As troubling as the failure to connect with the struggles of private sector workers -- who were getting hammered by the Recession -- was the fact that the public sector unions were conceding pay and benefit reductions without even a struggle. This has been commonplace everywhere. The concessions and the givebacks by public sector employee unions have become standard practice; the problem is that every time they engage in this behavior, they lose support as well as pay and benefits. It's a self-reinforcing downward spiral.

It's not hard for the public to be convinced that the public sector workers are not really interested in the problems of the People themselves, and to see the struggles of the public sector workers as entirely self-serving. Not surprisingly, it's hard to translate self-serving into a populist cause.

Even harder is to translate it into successful political action against a well-funded hyped up political propaganda machine that is out to use every trick in the book to institute radical change.

That process is going to continue regardless of whether there is a Dem or an R in office; it has been stunningly successful already, and it looks to continue in triumph until the end of days, whether or not a Dem office holder pretends to thwart the march of reactionary money.

Ames and Levine on the Kochs

Go see what Ames and Levine have to say about the Kochs and Kochevism (which they call Koch-whoring) over at the EXiled Online.

I've tried to summarize some of the important points in my Koch series up top, but really, Ames and Levine are the masters of this material. They understand it perhaps better than any other Americans because they lived and worked in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union and the establishment of a Potemkin "democracy" under the glare and the grip of the Oligarchs.

When they saw it happening in the USA, they wanted to tell people.

The rest is history.

Go read the stories and watch the interview with Dylan Ratigan. Then go get some pots and pans and bang them in the streets.

Srsly, Ames and Levine rule.

"The Gods Who Walk Among Us"

This is one of the most appalling things so far in the Saga of Wisconsin:





Thanks to "aed" over at another site I was able to access the Buffalo Beast site before it crashed from all the traffic now that the call has been verified and the YouTubes of it have gone viral.

It's just amazing.

The Mother Jones site seems to be able to handle the traffic, and David Corn is (AFAIK) the one who first verified the call with Walker's office.

Just as a side note, The Buffalo Beast is a badass gonzo site calved off the notorious -- and wonderful! -- Exile, which in turn was shut down in Russia and re-emerged as The Exiled Online, starring Mark Ames and Yasha Levine. The Exile is where Matt Taibbi now of Rolling Stone was incubated.

You see.

Small world innit?

Let there be Gonzo for the Gods Who Walk Among Us.

Kochevism in Action

Wisconsin is widely acknowledged as the Test Case for the state-by-state Triumph of Kochevism and the Koch brothers Vision of Liberty -- for the Worthy. That would be Themselves first and foremost. Their friends and allies next. Their loyal servants like Scotty Walker. And then, if there is anything left over, their mindless loyalists -- such as the TeaBaggers assembling in Madison as I write.

I did not know how deeply the Koch Industries influence runs in Wisconsin. In fact, they have long had a heavy presence, and the election last November -- which many Wisconsin Dems sat out in protest or annoyance over the betrayal of the People from Congress and the White House since Obama's election -- was seen by them as the Main Chance to get what they want, screw you and everyone who doesn't like it.

From MotherJones: Scott Walker funded by the Koch Brothers

According to Wisconsin campaign finance filings, Walker's gubernatorial campaign received $43,000 from the Koch Industries PAC during the 2010 election. That donation was his campaign's second-highest, behind $43,125 in contributions from housing and realtor groups in Wisconsin. The Koch's PAC also helped Walker via a familiar and much-used politicial maneuver designed to allow donors to skirt campaign finance limits. The PAC gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, which in turn spent $65,000 on independent expenditures to support Walker. The RGA also spent a whopping $3.4 million on TV ads and mailers attacking Walker's opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Walker ended up beating Barrett by 5 points. The Koch money, no doubt, helped greatly.

The Kochs also assisted Walker's current GOP allies in the fight against the public-sector unions. Last year, Republicans took control of the both houses of the Wisconsin state legislature, which has made Walker's assault on these unions possible. And according to data from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, the Koch Industries PAC spent $6,500 in support of 16 Wisconsin Republican state legislative candidates, who each won his or her election.

Walker's plan to eviscerate collective bargaining rights for public employees is right out of the Koch brothers' playbook. Koch-backed groups like Americans for Prosperity, the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Reason Foundation have long taken a very antagonistic view toward public-sector unions. Several of these groups have urged the eradication of these unions. The Kochs also invited (PDF) Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, an anti-union outfit, to a June 2010 confab in Aspen, Colorado; Mix said in a recent interview that he supports Governor Walker's collective-bargaining bill. In Wisconsin, this conservative, anti-union view is being placed into action by lawmakers in sync with the deep-pocketed donors who helped them obtain power. (Walker also opposes the state's Clean Energy Job Act, which would compel the state to increase its use of alternative energy.) At this moment—even with the Wisconsin uprising unresolved—the Koch brothers' investment in Walker appears to be paying off.

Oh but there's more: From Think Progress

But the greatest ally to Walker is the dirty energy company Koch Industries. In response to the growing protests in Madison, Koch fronts are busing in Tea Party protesters to support Walker and his union-busting campaign. Last night, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz reported on the involvement of Club for Growth and the Koch-financed Americans for Prosperity in the pro-Walker protest scheduled tomorrow.

...

Koch Industries is a major player in Wisconsin: Koch owns a coal company subsidiary with facilities in Green Bay, Manitowoc, Ashland and Sheboygan; six timber plants throughout the state; and a large network of pipelines in Wisconsin. While Koch controls much of the infrastructure in the state, they have laid off workers to boost profits. At a time when Koch Industries owners David and Charles Koch awarded themselves an extra $11 billion of income from the company, Koch slashed jobs at their Green Bay plant:

Officials at Georgia-Pacific said the company is laying off 158 workers at its Day Street plant because out-of-date equipment at the facility is being replaced with newer, more-efficient equipment. The company said much of the new, papermaking equipment will be automated. [...] Malach tells FOX 11 that the layoffs are not because of a drop in demand. In fact, Malach said demand is high for the bath tissue and napkins manufactured at the plant.

...

According to the EPA, Koch businesses are huge polluters, emitting thousands of pounds of toxic pollutants. As soon as he got into office Walker started cutting environmental regulations and appointed a Republican known for her disregard for environmental regulations to lead the Department of Natural Resources. In addition, Walker has stated his opposition to clean energy jobs policies that might draw workers away from Koch-owned interests.

Moreover, other organizers for the pro-Walker protest are from groups associated with corporate and Koch interests. American Majority, a Virginia-based front group founded by organizers funded by millionaire investor Howie Rich, is on the ground contacting Wisconsin Tea Parties to support Walker in Madison. Austin James, an American Majority official who was caught teaching Tea Party members to spam Amazon.com profiles of liberal books with negative comments, is the contact for the Facebook page organizing the pro-Walker protest. Eric O’Keefe, a longtime conservative operative who helps lead American Majority, attends Koch strategy meetings.


Update: Koch's Americans for Prosperity group has launched a new website and petition called www.standwithwalker.com. The new site attacks all collective bargaining, not just for public sector unions. Koch's front group also declares: "In fact, every state should adopt Governor Scott Walker's common sense reforms."

That's just a taste of what's out there regarding the intricate interplay between the Koch brothers and their willing stooges in office in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

The fight is engaged and as Christopher Fons put it at Global Research.ca, it is The Fight of Their Lives.

It is also the fight of our lives. And we must win.



Live blogging the uproar:

http://www.thedailypage.com/walker/

On Wisconsin!