Friday Cat Blogging

If you want to work, you have to join the Kochmunist Party

Mark Ames and Mike Elk, The Nation:

The Nation obtained the Koch Industries election packet for Washington State—which included a cover letter from its president and O, David Robertson; a list of Koch-endorsed state and federal candidates; and an issue of the company newsletter, Discovery, full of alarmist right-wing propaganda.
…
The election packet starts with a letter from Robertson dated October 4, 2010. It read: “As Koch company employees, we have a lot at stake in the upcoming election. Each of us is likely to be affected by the outcome on Nov. 2. That is why, for the first time ever, we are mailing our newest edition of Discovery and several other helpful items to the home address of every U.S. employee” [emphasis added].

For most Koch employees, the “helpful items” included a list of Koch-approved candidates, which was presented on a separate page labeled “Elect to Prosper.” A brief introduction to the list reads: “The following candidates in your state are supported by Koch companies and KOCHPAC, the political action committee for Koch companies. We believe these candidates will best advance policies supporting economic freedom.”

What the Kochs mean by “economic freedom” is explained on the next page. As the mailer makes clear, Koch Industries tailored its election propaganda to the state level, rather than focusing on national elections. Of the nineteen candidates that Koch Industries recommended in its Washington State list, sixteen were Republicans. The three Democratic candidates approved by the Kochs included two members of the “Roadkill Caucus,” Washington’s version of the conservative Blue Dogs.

Only two of the nineteen races on the list were for national office, and in both cases Koch Industries backed Tea Party–friendly Republicans: Dino Rossi, an antilabor candidate, who lost to incumbent Democratic Senator Patty Murray; and Jaime Herrera-Beutler, who ran in the Republican primary as a moderate, but who came out recently as a Tea Party radical, much to her constituency’s surprise.

After guiding employees on how they should vote, the mailer devoted the rest of the material to the sort of indoctrination one would expect from an old John Birch Society pamphlet (the Koch Brothers’ father, Fred Koch, was a founding member of the JBS). [for those who are too young to remember, the John Birch Society told us that the world was being dominated by a Communist conspiracy directed by the Soviets and the Chinese. When the Soviet Union fell and China went to state capitalism, they told us that those two countries were actually puppets in a larger world Communist conspiracy directed by The Cookie Monster. Or something like that].

So, the boss tells you who to vote for. In states with mail-in ballots, the boss can demand to see your ballot before you mail it in. They can do the same thing by making you vote absentee. Or they can just grill you on how you voted. If you answer wrong or don’t vote for the Party, they can fire and blacklist you. And they are trying to spread this to every workplace.

The Kochs are not significantly different from the real, actual Communists that they tell us we should be afraid of.