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What the anti-Koch meme means to me

I’ve known about the Kochs, and about their legendary wealth and about their massive support with some of it for the US libertarian movement, ever since I first became a part of the London libertarian scene in the late 1970s. (Although, I’m still not sure how they are pronounced. Cock? Coke? Kotch? (Coach?)) So the idea that their support for libertarianism is now or ever was some kind of covert operation, rather than just rich people spending their own money trying to do and spread goodness as they saw it, is, to me, utterly ridiculous. One of the Kochs even ran for vice-President, I am reminded here. Was that secret too?

Well, I guess it sort of was. What happens is that you spend two or three decades generally stamping and shouting and raising all kinds of heaven and hell, saying that every bit of sex and drugs and rock and roll and free marketeering that you can think of should be legalised, and they ignore you. Finally you start making some rather big waves, in some way that doesn’t involve them helping in any way, even by them deigning to denounce you, and they then call you “covert”. It wasn’t even that they couldn’t get you on the phone despite trying, twice. No. You couldn’t get them on the phone, ever.

Personally I think it’s a very good sign that they are now attacking libertarianism, pro-capitalism etc., by pointing out that there are these rich capitalists who are in favour of it. This tells me that they feel they are running out of actual arguments. It also tells me that they don’t think that them drawing attention to the libertarian movement, by banging on about how these evil capitalists support it like this, can draw much more attention to this movement than we are now contriving for ourselves. In short, we are now up and running as a force in the real world beyond that of mere ideological intercourse among consenting ideologists, and they know it.

10 comments to What the anti-Koch meme means to me

  • It’s “coke“, apparently.

  • RRS

    The best analysis of this attack I read was that it is laying the groundwork for a defense of the Obama Catastrophe(s).

    He has been undermined by a “vast covert series of conspirencies.”

    Maybe Herr Soros ……???? (has also failed??)

  • Brad

    It is only covert because the mainstream media (left and right) has done its level best to ignore libertarians for decades. They simply hope that the average person will conclude since they have not heard of the Kochs before (and their activities) that they were acting covertly instead of being shit canned by the Keepers of the Editorial Pens.

  • guy herbert

    Brian,

    I don’t think that’s the argument of last resort. I think it is the argument of first resort. Closely followed by its relative: libertarianism is all right for privileged middle-class people like you, but what about the ill and unlucky? It is a sign that libertarianism is finally getting noticed.

  • Kockophobes have been around for quite a while in the DC scene. Its interesting that its now be taken up outside the beltway. What does trouble is that some of the so-con types in the tea party movement are participating in the Koch-bash-fest.

    In fact some are saying they are weary of staying involved because the Kochs are “funding” the entire movement. Still quite perplexed about the supposed wads of cash sloshing around the tea party movement. No one I know is paid or makes any money from this.

  • John B

    Assuming that those who want a controlled, centralised, harmonised, regularised, unified, homogenised society exist, and assuming they are getting on with their agenda, which, if one looks at what is going on around one, seems to make the most sense of what is going on.

    Then it is logical they will lay hold of the means that will control most of the people most of the time (the dear old MSM “consensus”) so that they will have that mob-rule majority that will push through their agenda, and they will use it.

    And so one can expect effective, violent, ugly, derisory, false flag, contemptuous, black propaganda attacks on all that stands for liberty as a matter of course.

    What’s not to expect?
    Garet Garrett was writing 70 years ago!:
    (Link)

    Is that what is going on, and can we survive it?

  • Laird

    The Koch family has been a major (and very public) financial supporter of libertarian causes since the early 1970’s, so it’s hardly “covert”. (Before them the principal supporters were a number of foundations, notably the Volker Foundation.) Anyone interested in the history of the movement (in the US) would do well to read Brian Doherty’s “Radicals for Capitalism“.

    Personally, I agree with Brian that this new-found notoriety is a good thing for libertarians generally. It sounds like we’re somewhere between stages 2 and 3 (closer to 3) of Ghandi’s famous dictum: “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.”

  • rather

    rather than a sign of desparation at the last resort…i think it just indicates how long the media and the left has been lost in its echo chamber. i really think they just did not realize their was a whole ideological movement(s) that existed completely outside the realm of their incestuous little dinner parties.

    its also hilarious for the lefties to attack the insidious covert presence of the kochs while soros runs about the world doing his thing.

  • This is a non-story. Just about anyone who’s had anything to do with libertarianism in the US in the past 30 years knows about the Kochs, and all the organizations funded by the brothers have always been open about it. Hell, the influence of the “evil Kochtopus” has been a discussion point/in-joke among libertarians for donkey’s…

  • The Koch brothers have been one of the Republican Party’s largest funders for years. It is hard to believe that these rent-seeking billionaires are friends of liberty.

    If vouchers, privatized mandatory social security accounts, tax cuts with no spending cuts, a well-managed Fed, “realist” foreign policy, Bob Barr, Wayne Root, Neal Boortz, Glenn Beck, and Tea Party nationalism are the things that define libertarianism, then I suppose the Koch brothers fit right in.