Like Father, Like Sons

The more you learn, the worse it gets.

The Koch brothers are infamous for their wealth, their massive political contributions, and their to desire to make the world easier and more profitable for themselves.  They come by their arch-conservative philosophies honestly enough.

The tree, Fred C. Koch

After teaching Josef Stalin how to drill for Russian oil in the 1930's, their father, Fred C. Koch, returned to Wichita with a big wad of rubles and founded Koch Industries in 1940.  He prospered, which puts it mildly.

In 1958, Fred became a founding member of the John Birch Society, a far-right group of hysterical anti-government fear mongers and race-baiters.  The John Birch Society was the 1960's forerunner of the Tea Party, but even crazier.  They spread conspiracy theories, fought against union organizers, led witch-hunts for "subversives", and warned of impending armed Communist takeover.  (The JBS is still around today, and as lunatic-fringe as ever.)

In 1960, Fred self-published his own book, A Business Man Looks At Communism.  Fred wrote, "The colored man looms large in the Communist plan to take over America."  He claimed that welfare was a secret plot to attract blacks and other minorities to Communism and "get a vicious race war started."  (The guy sounds like Charles friggin' Manson!)

The nuts, sons Charles and David Koch

The boys Charles, David and William, who inherited their dad's fortune and political mind-set, are still worried about Communists, except now they use the code word collectivists.  Either you believe in the Koch's definition of "freedom" -- unregulated, unfettered, totally laissez faire, free-market, buyer-beware capitalism, or you're just a pussy, share-the-wealth collectivist.

Just this week, the Wall Street Journal published a wretchedly self-serving column written by Charles Koch, in which he whined that "collectivists" are ruining the world and just don't understand that the Koch way, the no-rules, self-correcting markets way, is fairness in action and the only way to be truly free.

The boys obviously share their daddy's sense of privilege and superiority:  They are the top dogs, and the rest of us are just a bunch of fire hydrants.