One email response to my recent column lamenting our democracy morphing into oligarchy (plutocracy, corporatocracy, what have you) went, more or less: Hey Mr. leftwing columnist, how come you’re complaining about Koch brothers money playing a role in government? There are plenty of rich progressives throwing their money’s weight around. What about them, hunh?
And it’s perfectly true. While billionaire conservatives are trying to make the rich richer, and defeat the green energy movement, billionaire democrats are pushing the other way.
It’s my impression that most gain at that level is ill-(or at least dubiously) gotten, yet some of our billionaires—Gates, Buffett, Bloomberg—when they’ve made their pile, decide that there are more interesting things to do with their money than just pile up more of it. Like make the world a better place for most of the people. Call them class traitors.
But that email got me thinking. I hate the idea of big money basically running things, but if that’s the way it is, why are we hearing so much about the effectiveness of Koch money in buying the Senate for the Republicans? Why aren’t we hearing more about our progressive billionaires buying it back?
The Kochs are rich, but the billionaire team of Gates and Buffet, both of whom have declared their interest in creating a better, fairer world, are even richer (although its close).
When the Kochs announced their determination to eliminate government incentives for solar and wind energy, clearly not in the interest of their oil-rich buddies, where was the progressive, pro-green billionaire calling out the Kochs: “Oh yeah, not if my billions have anything to say about it”?
The battle of billionaire titans duking it out to run the country. Will it be televised? It might be diverting enough to make us forget that we the people used to be more than mere spectators. (Or so we used to think.)
No Comments