DARK MONEY by Jane Mayer
THE SHOCKING HISTORY OF THE FAR RIGHT LIBERTARIANS AND USA POLITICS !!
The Jacket cover of the book says:
Why is America living in an age of profound economic inequality? Why, despite the desperate need to address climate change, have even modest environmental efforts been defeated again and again? Why have protections for employees been decimated? Why do hedge-fond billionaires pay a far lower tax rate than middle-class workers?
The conventional answer is that a popular uprising against "big government" led to the ascendancy of a broad-based conservative movement. But as Jane Mayer shows in this powerful, meticulously reported history, a network of exceedingly wealthy people with extreme libertarian views bankrolled a systematic, step-by-step plan to fundamentally alter the American political system.
The network has brought together some of the richest people on the planet. Their core beliefs—that taxes are a form of tyranny; that government oversight of business is an assault on freedom—are sincerely held. But these beliefs also advance their personal and corporate interests: Many of their companies have run afoul of federal pollution, worker safety, securities, and tax laws.
The chief figures in the network are Charles and David Koch, whose father made his fortune in part by building oil refineries in Stalins Russia and Hitler s Germany. The patriarch later was a founding member of the John Birch Society, whose politics were so radical it believed Dwight Eisenhower was a communist. The brothers were schooled in a political philosophy that asserted the only role of government is to provide security and to enforce property rights.
When libertarian ideas proved decidedly unpopular with voters, the Koch brothers and their allies chose another path. If they pooled their vast resources, they could fond an interlocking array of organizations that could work in tandem to influence and ultimately control academic institutions, think tanks, the courts, statehouses, Congress, and, they hoped, the presidency.
Richard Mellon Scaife, the mercurial heir to banking and oil fortunes, had the brilliant insight that most of their political activities could be written off as tax-deductible "philanthropy."
These organizations were given innocuous names such as Americans for Prosperity. Funding sources were hidden whenever possible. This process reached its apotheosis with the allegedly populist Tea Party movement, abetted mightily by the Citizens United decision—a case conceived of by legal advocates funded by the network.
The political operatives the network employs are disciplined, smart, and at times ruthless. Mayer documents instances in which people affiliated with these groups hired private detectives to impugn whistle-blowers, journalists, and even government investigators. And their efforts have been remarkably successful.
Libertarian views on taxes and regulation, once far outside the mainstream and still rejected by most Americans, are ascendant in the majority of state governments, the Supreme Court, and Congress. Meaningful environmental, labor, finance, and tax reforms have been stymied.
Jane Mayer spent five years conducting hundreds of interviews—including with several sources within the network—and scoured public records, private papers, and court proceedings in reporting this book. In a taut and utterly convincing narrative, she traces the byzantine trail of the billions of dollars spent by the network and provides vivid portraits of the colorful figures behind the new American oligarchy.
Dark Money is a book that must be read by anyone who cares about the future of American democracy.
………………..
THIS IS A SHOCKING EYE OPENER OF WHAT IS GOING ON BEHIND THE SCENES, BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. TRULY THERE ARE SOME MILLIONAIRES/BILLIONAIRES WHO SECRETLY ARE OUT TO MANIPULATE USA POLITICS TO EFFECTUALLY BRING IN THEIR CRAZY, SILLY, SELFISH, DAFT, UNBALANCED, IDIOTIC, ABSURD, MAD AS A HATTER, FROM PLANET PLUTO LIBERTARIAN BELIEFS, THAT ONLY SERVE THEMSELVES AND THEIR MONEY HUNGRY GREED.
INDEED THIS IS A BOOK EVERY AMERICAN SHOULD READ, TELL OTHERS ABOUT, AND SO BE INFORMED AS TO WHAT SOME EXTREMELY WEALTHY PEOPLE, ARE TRYING TO DO TO INFLUENCE POLITICIANS, AND CREATE AN AMERICA TO BENEFIT THE FILTHY RICH.
Keith Hunt