Anti-Koch campaign shows liberal conceit
By E. Thomas McClanahan
That's the narrative being peddled by the left in recent weeks about the Koch brothers and their various enterprises, Koch Industries.
The two brothers do make an inviting target. They're billionaires. They shovel money into right-wing causes. In the eyes of the environmental left, their privately held energy and industrial businesses are the epitome of everything that's wrong with our wasteful, destructive modern economy.
The smearing of the Kochs, unfortunately, is how the game is played these days.
Not too long ago, the website ThinkProgress started digging into the Kochs' activities and found out they funded Americans for Prosperity, a group that helped get tea parties going.
Next thing you know, protesters started showing up at Koch-sponsored events such as a gathering of conservative political donors in California earlier this year. Demonstrators waved signs saying "Koch Kills" and "Uncloak the Kochs," as if over the several decades of their political involvement they had tried to hide their activities — despite public appearances and speeches and donation reports on foundation websites.
A New Yorker hit piece on the Kochs last August perfectly captured this vibe with its headline: "Covert Operations."
What's interesting is that many of the anti-Koch groups are working the other side of the same street: They are getting behind-the-scenes money from a billionaire, too, except that their rich dude is a good guy, a man of the left: George Soros.
The sudden attention to the Kochs can be seen as one byproduct of Obama's election and the issue mix he has pursued. Before Obama, the Kochs operated in relative obscurity in part because they are libertarians, a relatively narrow slice of the ideological spectrum.
But an agenda suddenly dominated by issues such as health care and "cap-and-trade" triggered visceral opposition from the entire right wing: economic conservatives, social conservatives, small-government advocates and libertarians such as the Kochs.
After Obama, the fissures dividing the normally fractious world of right-wing politics all but vanished, and the Kochs were suddenly important players in a united coalition.
In some respects, the Kochs make unlikely media villains. From what I read, they blame the Republicans as much as the Democrats for our bloated government. They favor gay marriage, drug legalization, a smaller defense budget and fewer U.S. foreign adventures.
And they seem to be good employers, judging by a recent piece by United Steelworkers vice president Jon Geenen, who opposed plans for a boycott of Koch products.
The Kochs own Georgia Pacific and, according to Geenen, its plants use advanced manufacturing technology, its workers are well-paid, and it has "positive and productive collective-bargaining relationships with its unions."
What you see in the campaign against the Kochs is the left once again acting out its conceit that its positions automatically define morality. "Our billionaire money is good, yours is tainted."
Kansas City Star
Wichita has a big energy and industrial conglomerate run by a pair of right-wing robber barons named David and Charles Koch. Every morning they get up and do their best to bring down the federal government, pump gunk into the environment and add to their pile of filthy money. They're even global-warming skeptics. Can you believe it?That's the narrative being peddled by the left in recent weeks about the Koch brothers and their various enterprises, Koch Industries.
The two brothers do make an inviting target. They're billionaires. They shovel money into right-wing causes. In the eyes of the environmental left, their privately held energy and industrial businesses are the epitome of everything that's wrong with our wasteful, destructive modern economy.
The smearing of the Kochs, unfortunately, is how the game is played these days.
Not too long ago, the website ThinkProgress started digging into the Kochs' activities and found out they funded Americans for Prosperity, a group that helped get tea parties going.
Next thing you know, protesters started showing up at Koch-sponsored events such as a gathering of conservative political donors in California earlier this year. Demonstrators waved signs saying "Koch Kills" and "Uncloak the Kochs," as if over the several decades of their political involvement they had tried to hide their activities — despite public appearances and speeches and donation reports on foundation websites.
A New Yorker hit piece on the Kochs last August perfectly captured this vibe with its headline: "Covert Operations."
What's interesting is that many of the anti-Koch groups are working the other side of the same street: They are getting behind-the-scenes money from a billionaire, too, except that their rich dude is a good guy, a man of the left: George Soros.
The sudden attention to the Kochs can be seen as one byproduct of Obama's election and the issue mix he has pursued. Before Obama, the Kochs operated in relative obscurity in part because they are libertarians, a relatively narrow slice of the ideological spectrum.
But an agenda suddenly dominated by issues such as health care and "cap-and-trade" triggered visceral opposition from the entire right wing: economic conservatives, social conservatives, small-government advocates and libertarians such as the Kochs.
After Obama, the fissures dividing the normally fractious world of right-wing politics all but vanished, and the Kochs were suddenly important players in a united coalition.
In some respects, the Kochs make unlikely media villains. From what I read, they blame the Republicans as much as the Democrats for our bloated government. They favor gay marriage, drug legalization, a smaller defense budget and fewer U.S. foreign adventures.
And they seem to be good employers, judging by a recent piece by United Steelworkers vice president Jon Geenen, who opposed plans for a boycott of Koch products.
The Kochs own Georgia Pacific and, according to Geenen, its plants use advanced manufacturing technology, its workers are well-paid, and it has "positive and productive collective-bargaining relationships with its unions."
What you see in the campaign against the Kochs is the left once again acting out its conceit that its positions automatically define morality. "Our billionaire money is good, yours is tainted."
E. Thomas McClanahan is a columnist for the Kansas City Star.
Read more: http://www.kansas.com/2011/04/09/1800479/anti-koch-campaign-shows-liberal.html#ixzz1J4mCvELq
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