Dr. Koch’s Monsters

I read in Politico the other day that the Koch Network is not supporting the anti-quarantine protests which “spontaneously” appeared across the nation. Spontaneously, if, of course, you mean by that word carefully orchestrated by astroturfing Right-Wing organizations associated with (among other things) the Trump White House.

But, for once, according to Politico, the Koch folks aren’t involved. Which is good.

What isn’t so good is why. According to the article, “The Koch network, avatar of the tea party, rejects shutdown protests,” by Maggie Severns, is the Kochsters feel that they didn’t get enough bang for their buck back when they backed the Tea Party and other groups which practiced the tactics of direct confrontation. The Koch folks, are advocates of extreme libertarianism -- i.e., they object to the existence of the government except in so far as it provides for an army, a police force, and, sometimes, for courts. Meaning, those aspects of government that protect their position and property.

And, well, the Tea Party didn’t do much to advance those ends. Oh, yes, it helped shrink the government to a size small enough to “drown in a bathtub” (and so which could not and did not react to the Covid-19 crisis) but it also helped bring about the Trump administration, which does not fit the Kochsters vision of what a real American presidency should be about. It, well, spends money, you see, and still acts (sometimes, sort of, in a weird kind of way) like a government.

Okay, so now they’re going for a quieter approach, working “behind the scenes.”

I find all this rather fascinating. Let’s face it. If it hadn’t been for the Koch Brothers (now down to one and change), then there wouldn’t have been a Tea Party. If there hadn’t been a Tea Party, there wouldn’t have been a Trump.

In other words,  the Kochsters created the monster...but it isn’t enough of a monster for them. It has only almost killed off the United States of America. It hasn’t gone all the way.

So, Frankenstein’s Monster not being enough, they’ve decided to go for their own Godzilla, something that will actually stomp us into ruins.

Lovely. Just lovely. I can hardly wait to see what comes after that. Maybe the return of Cthulhu, all singing, all dancing, in fabulous technicolor, and with almost as many tentacles reaching into almost as many places and with almost as toxic an effect...

As the Koch organization itself.

Koch and Kraken

~~~

About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Speaking In Tongues

This is going to be difficult to write. I may, indeed, fail at the effort...for which I will ask your forgiveness in advance.

But, here is the thing. I am about to attempt an essay in which I will combine two men...two radically different, indeed, antithetical men. So different that, to use a metaphor from science, one might be matter and the other antimatter. And should these two ever meet...annihilation is all too possible.

To explain:

We went to visit our son and his wife in San Antonio last week. We returned on Tuesday, exhausted from the confusions and discomforts of travel in the modern age. But, once home, we rushed back out again, this time to the Central United Methodist Church and the second meeting of the Poor People's Campaign, “a national call for moral revival,” hosted by the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis.

It was, needless to say, amazing. Reverend Barber was, well, astonishing. I wrote later he may be the single greatest public speaker I’ve heard in decades. And, he was surrounded by a great many other individuals, including Rev. Theoharis and a great many local clergy and of various faith (or no faith) communities in the state.

The church was packed...people filled the place beyond the bursting point, every pew was occupied, every spot of habitable floor was filled, scores of people waited in the parking lot outside, listening to the proceedings on loudspeakers.

We got lucky. We were able to get in to the vestibule and could actually see the proceedings...if not exactly closely. I was even able to take a few photos with my phone, albeit not very good ones. More importantly we were able to hear the speakers. Commentary ranged from the demonstrations and later murders in Charlottesville to the generally depressing moral standards of our benighted times. Barber and others also discussed the Poor People’s Campaign and its general aims and goals—which, the speakers implied, was not so much to be a new resistance group as to assist and co-ordinate the efforts of the many, many already existing resistance groups around the country.

As to that, as to the Campaign, well, I’ll say little about it other than that it seems to me a remarkable effort. I intend to get involved with it in some fashion, and if you have any interest in doing something similar, here’s the website: https://poorpeoplescampaign.org/

But, mostly, at least in this piece, I am going to focus on Barber...partly because he was such an impressive speaker, but also because he is a perfect symbol for our situation. Here is a man who is genuinely charismatic, who genuinely represents what is best about political Christianity, and who (with others) has begun a movement that could really and truly bring moral focus, and vast energies, to the struggle against the Trump Administration and the insidious forces behind it.

Frankly, I found him...and his proposed movement...quite fascinating. And that’s not easy for me to say. I don’t come from a Christian background. My parents were agnostics, rationalism and materialism have always been key components of my personal belief system, and when I finally did get involved in a church some years ago, it was because of those vague and flabby reasons that cause most of us to drift into organized religion at some point in middle age—“We are going for the kids,” etc.

Yet, in Barber, I discovered an individual who could make me...well, not exactly believe, but, shall we say? take the church’s role in progressive politics very seriously, indeed. Even before I heard him speak, I’d begun to wonder if churches and synagogues and mosques and humanist secular assemblies, somehow working together, won’t be the backbone of the anti-Trump movement. (Even the tiny, little resistance group I helped to organize here in town, all twelve or so of us, calls itself “not faith-based, but faith-informed.”) Now, with Barber, and the people I saw around him that night, I have become almost certain of that supposition.

Which is an interesting thing, don’t you think? A curious possibility. That religion in general and Christianity in particular, which in their Right-Wing forms have done so much damage to our nation, and to our democracy, might become as well (forgive the liturgic image) our salvation?

But...

I said that this piece was an attempt to bring two opposites into the same text. I shall attempt that now.

Not long ago, I wrote another little essay about another man, Charles Koch, half the Koch brothers and a dedicated enemy of all we hold dear. According to several sources (I am, myself, using Rebecca Onion’s article in Slate, “What Is the Far Right’s Endgame? A Society That Suppresses the Majority”), Koch sees himself as something of a religious figure as well. Not in the sense of a man of God or anything like that. Rather, he sees himself as a champion of “economic liberty,” which, in practice, means he opposes any attempt to impose limits and boundaries on the behavior of the very wealthy, i.e., himself.

I suppose a theologian would argue that Koch is thus guilty of the sin of self-worship. He has defined himself as God, and anyone who opposes the will of God is to be sent straight away to hell.

For the moment, I’m going to take a pass on the theological aspects of Koch’s mentality and look instead at his self-perception. Again, according to several sources, Koch has compared himself to Martin Luther, as a man at the heart of a moral revolution, unleashing powers of unimaginable fury, capable of remaking the world...

Curiously enough, I think Koch may be quite right.

Only, not as Martin Luther. Not in the sense that he defines the principles, for good or bad, which will transform the world...

But rather, as the man...or something in the shape of a man...who so offends the world that all good men and women unite against him...and find, in the process, strength they had never once imagined they possessed. And, then, in their union and with new found powers...they remake the world.

Rather dramatic, wouldn’t you say?

Almost, indeed, Biblical.


***

Addendum

At one point during the meeting (and how much like a gospel meeting it was!) the Reverend Barber mentioned that he is of the Pentecostal tradition. I must confess that I didn’t know there was a liberal, progressive Pentecostal tradition. I always thought of Pentecostalism as, well, you know, hand in glove with the reactionary right...denying evolution and insisting that homosexuality is a mortal sin.

How very wrong I was! For, here, in Barber, was a completely different Pentecostalism, one I could admire.

And it just so happened that I the week before I’d finished reading a book which mentioned Pentecostalism—specifically, Philip Jenkins’ *The Next Christendom*. In it, Jenkins writes about the emergence of a southern Christianity, focused in Africa, Asia, and South America, and very different from the Christianities of Europe and Euro-America (which, he suspects, may be dying out).

In the book, Jenkins also makes the fascinating observation that Pentecostalism, which is one of the fastest growing Christian communities in the world, is actually not really a part of the Reformation tradition. It is, in some ways, actually a completely new branch of Christianity, different from Catholicism, Protestantism, and Orthodoxy. Why? Because it completely democratizes the faith. It says that anyone...anyone at all!...can have direct contact with the divine. There are no uniquely blessed apostles superior to the rest of us, no saints who are uniquely touched by God, no Popes or Bishops who are uniquely empowered to speak for the Greater Glory, no ...well, no seal of the prophets.

Whether that democratization is a good thing or a bad is an open question. After all, a good many lives have been lost after some undiagnosed schizophrenic has decided he’d been having regular tête-à-têtes with the All Mighty and then led his followers into battle. (Think the Lord’s Resistance Army and The Taiping Rebellion.)

Still, once again, as a metaphor for our own situation, I wonder if it doesn’t work quite well. The myth of Pentecost is that, of course, the apostles were wrestling with the fact that Jesus was no longer among them. And then, behold! The Holy Spirit descended upon them and they found themselves filled with fire and prophecy, and they went forth to teach all nations.

Well, I don’t know about the Holy Spirt part. But fire and prophecy? And the going forth to save our (secular) nation?

Those, I think, are very much on hand.

***

Until next time...

Onward and upward.

Solar Power: Of Koch and Coal and (Pseudo)-Capitalism

So before I get started, I need to mention the Tea Party.

I need to, because I need to explain that what I'm about to talk about — solar power —isn't a Liberal vs. Conservative issue. It isn't a socialists vs. capitalists issue. It isn't even a Democrats vs. Republicans issue.

It's a people issue.

And to prove that, allow me to present Exhibit A: the Tea Party.

Yes, folks, the Tea Party, that bastion of traditionalism and conservatism, wants you to go sunny. Solar Power, it turns out, is a very big deal with the Tea Partiers. They think it is just terrific.

No. Really. They do. Go read this if you don't believe me: The Tea Party Wants to Help You Go Solar (http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/04/tea-party-wants-help-you-go-solar).

The Tea Partiers see it, you see, as a way for Americans to be even more independent that they are now.

So, if that's the case…if the Tea Party and the Green Party and the Tree Huggers and the Strip Miners and everyone in between is united on this…. who could be anti-solar?

Funny you should ask.


*

Suppose every home had solar panels on the roof.

It is really quite an attractive idea. If they invest in a few solar cells, homeowners not only don't have to pay …or at least not as much…for electricity but they even stand a chance of making a buck or two. The system as it stands requires that the utilities buy your unused power. You may not make a bunch, but a penny here and a penny there and eventually it adds up.

Truth be told, it's even a pretty good deal for the utility. The company isn't paying a huge sum for your spare watts. And since you're the one who shelled out for the solar cells in the first place, it doesn't have to pay for the infrastructure. And, again, while it may not be much, every erg it gets from its customers is energy it didn't have to pay for in terms of coal, gas, or whatever.

Still, even every roof had a solar panel, eventually…eventually!...this sort of thing would make the utilities far less important than they are now. And, hence, less profitable. Which was my father's point (see the previous posting).

I suppose, then, I could understand why utilities, oil companies, and so on would therefore oppose solar power. I could see why they would try to have laws passed making it difficult or expensive for someone to use their competitors' products. (Though, there is some irony in the fact that the same people and companies who are the first to preach the virtues of "free enterprise" when they're winning are the first to practice restraint of trade when they're not.)

What is a complete mystery to me is why companies and people who seem to have little or nothing to lose from solar power are, for some reason, dead-set against it.

Case in point: the Koch Brothers.


*


You know the Koch Brothers, of course. Specifically, you know of Charles G. and David H. Koch, rich and powerful 1%ers, terror of liberals everywhere (and a few conservatives, actually), sugar daddies to reactionary causes of every stripe, and sons of Fred C. Koch (who, in turn, was the builder of a vast fortune, briefly an admirer of the USSR, later a devoted anti-Communist and a founder of the John Birch Society. Fred C. was also didn't much care for folks of dusky hue. Or to put it another way, he was certain that African-Americans were just this side of being zoo-material.)

Okay, Charles and David between them control the vast Koch Industries. They also bankroll an enormous number of conservative and libertarian organizations. That, of course, is entirely within their rights. They are as free as anyone else to support candidates and express opinions…even though they do so with do with far greater force than normal people can.

But, in any case, they support or at least claim to support free enterprise. Unfettered, rough and tumble, no holds barred capitalism like mother used to make. Which is fine and dandy if you like that sort of thing.

Except…except…

Among the groups they support is something called Americans for Prosperity. They also fund something else called the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec). Both organizations are dead-set against solar and doing their level best to keep homeowners from putting solar cells on their roofs. They are lobbying for laws and regulations to make certain it just doesn't happen.

Why? Well, now, that's a good question.

In theory, the objection is that homeowners who go solar are "freeloading." The solar power users are not, you see, contributing their fair share to the cost of the generators, transmission lines, etc.  Other customers, non-solar customers, have to pick up the slack.

Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. You dirty solar moochers, you.


*

The reality, of course, is that this is all ridiculous. Solar power users aren't mooching. They are electing to purchase smaller amounts of a particular commodity. If they decided not to water their lawns, they'd being doing exactly the same thing but with water.

If you believe in Libertarianism, and free enterprise, and say your prayers to Ayn Rand, and all that …then you have to say that a customer has every right to decide what and how much there are going to buy, and from whom they are going to buy it. If you don’t want to purchase power from your local utility, then by George, you shouldn't have too.

And, oh, by the way, in perfectly good capitalist logic, if that means one supplier or another has to figure out how to make its product more attractive or otherwise win back customers, that's their job. It's not up to the customers (or the tax payers, or state governments) to make life easier for private companies or privately owned utilities.

So logically, the Kochs, as defenders of all that free market stuff, ought to be keeping their grubby little hands off solar. They ought to be letting the Market Take Its Course.

But they're not. They're in there with everything short of flame throwers to try to take down solar wherever it rears its shinning little head.


*

So what's the real motivation for the Koch Bro's crusade against solar?

At first I thought it was that Koch Industries had a lot from solar. I thought maybe they own lots of utility stock and oil, gas, and coal companies.

And that may be true. Among Koch properties are Koch Carbon (coal) and Koch Exploration (oil). But, a little research reveals fairly quickly that the energy companies that Koch owns are often into things like gasoline and diesel (the brothers own Chevron, instance). Which means home heating and local electricity aren't as big in the Koch portfolio as you might think.

Besides, the Koch boys own a whole lot of stuff…as you know if you're a good left-winger and try to boycott Koch products. Pretty soon you find out that you can't even buy toilet paper without giving Koch industries its cut. Even if, somehow, solar power started to really eat into the Brothers' holdings, they could always simply rely on other parts of the empire to compensate. In other words, they'd still be rich as freaking Croesus no matter what the average homeowner does with his/her roof.

Besides #2, the Kochs are supposed to be capitalists. They are supposed to being looking ahead in time and dodging bullets. So solar is going to nibble a bit into their oil and gas holdings? Okay, now is the time to get into solar cell manufacturing. That's the sort of thing that capitalists do.

What they don't do is hire tame congressmen to pass laws against competition.


*

Well, then…


How do I answer my own query? How do I explain why a few really powerful people working so hard against solar power? If, that is, it really isn't that big threat to them?


Just a guess...

Could it be…could it just possible be…because they simply don't like it?

Because they don't like the idea that serfs and peasants can get uppity and unplug form the big, powerful, hierarchical, fossil fuel companies.

They want you to know your place…you pathetic little man who doesn't own a yacht, didn't go to expensive schools, and dare to think that your absurd little existence is as important as that of theirs.


*

I am not entirely certain that the above is the real answer to my questions. I hope it isn't.

But…

If it is anywhere near the truth, then we have all of us got a much bigger riddle to solve.


To wit: what the hell are we going to do about it?


*

My Sources

"The Koch Attack on Solar Energy," Sunday Review, New York Times, April 26, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/27/opinion/sunday/the-koch-attack-on-solar-energy.html?_r=1

Suzanne Goldenberg and Ed Pilkington, "ALEC calls for penalties on 'freerider' homeowners in assault on clean energy," The Guardian, December 4 2013 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/04/alec-freerider-homeowners-assault-clean-energy

Lindsay Abrams, "The Koch brothers are going after solar panels," Salon, April 21, 2014. http://www.salon.com/2014/04/21/the_koch_brothers_are_going_after_solar_panels/

George ("Fish Out of Water") Birchard, "Now That Solar Capacity Is Soaring—Koch Brothers Demand Tax on the Sun," Daily Kaos, Alter Net, April 28, 2014, http://www.alternet.org/environment/now-solar-capacity-soaring-koch-brothers-demand-tax-sun

Evan Halper, "Koch brothers, big utilities attack solar, green energy policies," Los Angeles Times, April 19, 2014, http://articles.latimes.com/2014/apr/19/nation/la-na-solar-kochs-20140420.

Solar Power #2: The Myth Of Subsidy, or, Where Are The Libertarians Hiding?

You remember I said that solar power was going to be a disruptive technology? Well, here's a little more background. And it's where my own father comes into the picture.

It's like this. I have heard for years…and you probably have too…that solar power would not be economical if it weren't for the fact that the government is subsidizing it. It gets special tax breaks and, in some cases, outright grants from Washington.

So, goes the logic, solar power doesn't really pay for itself. It is, in fact, a parasite. You hear it on talk shows. You see it in financial publications. If it weren't for your taxes going to those people (long haired hippie freaks and greenie weenies) then solar wouldn't exist.

Not like oil. Which is based on sound principles. And stands on its own two feet. Like a man. You betcha.

Except …except….


*

My father.

My father is an 85-year-old man. He's getting quite frail, now. He has trouble seeing. He no longer drives (thank God). He has trouble walking.

But, all the brains works just fine, thank you very much.

He's also a physicist. And, sometimes, when I take him out for coffee in the afternoons, we'll talk energy. A couple of days ago, while we were at Satellite Coffee down on Montgomery, the subject of solar power came up. He told me some of his thoughts. He mentioned the dropping costs of solar cells, and the rising costs of oil, and all the rest.

I was curious. I had never thought I'd hear such things from him…not the hardened realistist who told me how the solar tower at Sandia was basically useless.  So, as an experiment, I quoted back at him something I'd read in Forbes…about the "false economy" of solar power, and how it didn't work, and how it was only attractive because of government supports.

He gave me that smile of his. The one he reserves for moments when I've revealed a particularly endearing brand of stupidity.

"But," he said, "oil is subsidized, too."

"What? You're kidding."

"Oh, no. It is. Big time."

I whipped out the old smart phone and did a search. He was, of course, absolutely right. Big oil, big fossil fuel companies, consume government money like you would not believe. They get billions …and billions…of dollars. Either directly, or indirectly in the form of tax breaks.

I'm not sure if anyone even really knows how much the oil industry gets. I've seen numbers anywhere from $100 to $400 billion. But, if you're interested, here's some places to look. I found most of them on my cell phone that morning in the coffee shop:

*"America's Most Obvious Tax Reform Idea: Kill the Oil and Gas Subsidies," by Jordan Weissmann, The Atlantic, theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/03/americas-most-obvious-tax-reform-idea-kill-the-oil-and-gas-subsidies/274121/

*"As Oil Industry Fights a Tax, It Reaps Subsidies," by David Kocieniewski, International New York Times, nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/04bptax.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

*"Fossil Fuel Subsidies in the U.S.," Oil Change International, priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/

Yes, folks, your taxes are going to the same vast fuel companies that are already earning jaw-dropping profits…while moving their operations and HQs overseas, the way that Halliburton moved to Dubai. Your money is going to the very same companies that announce sanctimoniously that solar and other renewable energy supplies are viable only because they get government subsidies.

Subsidies which look like peanuts compared to what the oil companies themselves get.


*

"So what I want to know," my father asked, over his triple espresso and cranberry scone, "is where are the Libertarians?"

Where, indeed?  Where are the Libertarians? Where are the Ayn Randers? Where are the defenders of free enterprise? Of less government and more freedom? Why aren't they out protesting? Why aren't they in the streets? 

Could it be they just don't know? Could it be that no one ever explained to them just how much money the fossil fuel companies were taking out of their paychecks and savings? Could none of their leaders have pointed this out to them?

Or, could it be that, in fact, their leaders have lied to them? That their leaders do not care about the free enterprise and the opportunity they claim to treasure? That, in fact, in their heart of hearts they believe that the welfare state is just fine, so long as the recipients of the monthly checks are rich and powerful corporations with many lawyers and more lobbyists? Not just ordinary serfs…like the ones they employ?

Just asking.


*


Does it make you uncomfortable to consider that thought? Perhaps you are a Libertarian and you value the power of capitalism to improve the world. Perhaps it seems to you that I am attacking the very concept of free enterprise.

I am not. I am, rather, defending it.

If it would make easier for you, remember the vast sums of money that the oil companies are getting from the government. With that in mind, it is easier to see them for what they are: not private enterprises but rather state-corporations, what the Europeans and South Americans used to call para-state or "parastatal" corporations. They look like private enterprises. Sometimes they act like private enterprises.

But they're not.

Not really.


*


The point is, if you really believe in free enterprise, in capitalism, and in opportunity for all, then government subsidies have to go…for the enormous oil companies as well as for the little solar power startups.

And if that ever happens (I know it is unlikely, but if) then it will be interesting to see who has the better chances of survival—the solar startups, tiny and new, or the fossil fuel giants, who have done so little and prospered so long.


*

But I have not explained why I said that solar would be disruptive.

For that, I must return to my conversation with my father. I asked him if I thought the oil and other fossil fuel companies would oppose solar, in whatever way they could.

He gave me that smile again. He reminded me of another news story. You probably saw it too. It seems that in Oklahoma there was an attempt by the state legislature, backed by utility and other energy companies to impose a special tax on homeowners who dared to put solar panels on their roofs (1). There were all sorts of glib reasons given for the move…it was unfair for some state residents not to pay as much for electricity as others, etc. …but come right down to it, the real reason for the law was obvious. Solar was a threat to certain special interests, and the measure was meant to punish those of us peasants who got out of line.

Need one add that a later New York Times article revealed the effort to establish such laws is being led by organizations associated with the Koch Brothers? I didn't think so (2).

My father then repeated my question to me. Would they resist? The oil companies? The fossil fuel giants? Using tactics both fair and foul, and often foul?

How could I not see…my father said… that it had already begun?

He brushed away the crumbs of the scone. "But," he added, again with the deadly smile, "that's a problem for your generation, isn't it?"

And then he suggested it might be time to leave.








*



(1) weather.com/news/science/environment/oklahoma-alternative-energy-taxes-20140423

(2) nytimes.com/2014/04/27/opinion/sunday/the-koch-attack-on-solar-energy.html?_r=0