{"id":1335,"date":"2010-09-09T10:07:26","date_gmt":"2010-09-09T15:07:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/09\/09\/fomenting-rebellion\/"},"modified":"2010-09-09T10:07:26","modified_gmt":"2010-09-09T15:07:26","slug":"fomenting-rebellion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/09\/09\/fomenting-rebellion\/","title":{"rendered":"fomenting “rebellion”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve just read Jane Mayer’s New Yorker article on “The billionaire Koch brothers\u2019 war against Obama”<\/a>, which I’m happy to see is publicly available online. It’s a good summary of what corporate watchers have been saying for years (see, e.g., here<\/a> and here<\/a>), but with a lot of interview material updating what the libertarian duo have been up to more recently, including their connections with the Tea Party movement. (I really should be putting “libertarian” in scare quotes, since good people like Noam Chomsky use the term to refer to a love of liberty, though their definition of liberty is much more substantial than the kind of free-for-all-for-the-wealthy that the Kochs stand for.)<\/p>\n

Charles and David Koch (pronounced “Coke”) are on Forbes’ list<\/a> of 20 wealthiest people in the world, and they, along with Scaife, Olin, Searle, Bradley, Coors, and other millionaire family foundations, have provided the funding that’s built up the network of conservative, libertarian, and right-wing organizations, think-tanks, pseudo-populist front groups, and spin machines that has kept this country in a right-wing holding pattern for the last three decades.<\/p>\n

It’s true that their “more than a hundred million dollars” spent on these causes is a drop in the bucket compared to their multibillion dollar fortune, but the money gets amplified as it works its way through the system — which is why Americans for Prosperity, which has fought health-care reform and cap-and-trade climate legislation, among other things, can plan to spend another $45 million dollars between now and November on electoral races around the country.<\/p>\n

On the Kochs’ climate and environment connections, see Joe Romm’s piece from last April<\/a>, this update<\/a>, and David Levy’s piece here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve just read Jane Mayer’s New Yorker article on “The billionaire Koch brothers\u2019 war against Obama”, which I’m happy to see is publicly available online. It’s a good summary of what corporate watchers have been saying for years (see, e.g., here and here), but with a lot of interview material updating what the libertarian duo […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[691215],"tags":[16845,123663],"class_list":["post-1335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics_postpolitics","tag-climategate","tag-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-lx","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12618,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2022\/06\/27\/is-there-life-after-big-data\/","url_meta":{"origin":1335,"position":0},"title":"Is there life after ‘big data’?","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 27, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Big data + authoritarian governance = techno-totalitarianism. At least that's the equation we're most familiar with, and the route that appears to be being laid out in Xi's China, according to this lengthily researched New York Times piece. (To be fair, the authors only use \"techno-authoritarianism,\" and the titular and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/politics_postpolitics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2022\/06\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2022\/06\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2022\/06\/image.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2022\/06\/image.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2022\/06\/image.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2022\/06\/image.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1228,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/04\/02\/climate-intelligence\/","url_meta":{"origin":1335,"position":1},"title":"climate intelligence","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"April 2, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Greenpeace has done a nice (counter) intelligence report on Koch Industries' funding of the climate denial machine. According to the report, the Kansas-based petroleum and chemical industry conglomerate funded a network of lobbyists, think tanks, and front groups including the Mercatus Center, the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, the Heritage Foundation,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Climate change"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8482,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2015\/11\/29\/the-rojava-experiment\/","url_meta":{"origin":1335,"position":2},"title":"The Rojava Experiment","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"November 29, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Wes Enzinna's New York Times Magazine article on \"The Rojava Experiment\" finally gives mainstream recognition to what has been happening among the Kurds of northern Syria. As he writes, \"In accordance with a philosophy laid out by a leftist revolutionary named Abdullah Ocalan, Rojavan women had been championed as leaders,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/politics_postpolitics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7269,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2014\/02\/03\/climate-denials-dark-money-smoke-machine\/","url_meta":{"origin":1335,"position":3},"title":"Climate denial’s “dark money” smoke machine","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Since I was traveling at the time, I failed to note an interesting story that got covered in the science press about the organizational support and funding behind the climate denial movement. As reported in articles in Scientific American, The Guardian, and elsewhere, a recent peer-reviewed study published in Climatic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Climate change"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"SloMoSmokeScreen07-5930","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2014\/02\/SloMoSmokeScreen07-5930-275x139.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8032,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2015\/02\/16\/the-ecology-of-syriankurdish-freedom\/","url_meta":{"origin":1335,"position":4},"title":"The ecology of Syrian\/Kurdish freedom","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Eco-theorists may recognize the title of this post as a variation on the title of Murray Bookchin's audacious and\u00a0deeply\u00a0influential (for many, including myself) 1982 book The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy (pdf here). What's little known to anyone following recent news about the war in Syria\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/politics_postpolitics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/_38eVyMfag0\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1030,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/02\/22\/a-pretty-complex-history-of-sustainability\/","url_meta":{"origin":1335,"position":5},"title":"a pretty complex history of sustainability…","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 22, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Every grad student in environmental studies (and related areas) should be quizzed on this map: The Complex History of Sustainability. Departments could be evaluated based on how well they cover the spectrum portrayed in it... Within reason, of course -- we don't really need an eco-Nazi, a global warming conspiracy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Eco-culture"","block_context":{"text":"Eco-culture","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecoculture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1335\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}