Midterm elections that Democrats lost in November of 2010 and lost control over the House of Representatives (lower chamber of the U.S. Congress) were caused by emergence of a rising power at the American political scene and this power is the Tea Party. This Party, which borrowed its name from the history of American independence movement, has united the very same “One-storeyed America” that Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov used to describe 75 years ago.
Large business versus the government
Relation of the state and large corporations have always been in the spotlight of Soviet and then Russian media. Since the Soviet era, there were no such newspapers or TV-shows subjected to the foreign affairs, which would have failed to vividly describe dependence of the Western governments on the “Wall Street financiers” or financial tycoons from the City of London. Years went by but the topic remained urgent for Russian media. “Kingdom of seven banks” in the 90s and the war against oligarchs in the 2000s have been the objects of increased public attention in our country. In that regard, episode from American political life that this article describes can be not only of educational, but rather of practical value for Russian political establishment. It demonstrates the acute struggle of oligarchic structures against the legitimately elected representatives of executive and legislative branches of America — mind that its democratic traditions are several centuries older than the ones of our own country. Information referred in this article derives from such American and British media sources — the most prominent, respectable, objective and intellectual of them — like New Yorker and Guardian.
Who are the Koch Brothers?
David G. Koch (New Yorker magazine, 1996)
David and Charles Koch hold the third place in the list of the wealthiest Americans. Their combined fortune of thirty-five billion dollars is exceeded only by those of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. And while two latter last names are well-known around the world and in Russia as well, brothers are much less popular. Americans know them for generosity in the charity and art patronage matters. Their impressive donations for scientific and art purposes have made them heroes of the society columns and allowed them to approach the most prominent political and cultural figures.
On May 17th, a black-tie audience at the Metropolitan Opera House applauded as a tall, jovial-looking billionaire took the stage. It was the seventieth annual spring gala of American Ballet Theatre, and David H. Koch was being celebrated for his generosity; he had recently donated $2.5 million toward the company’s upcoming season. Koch received an award while flanked by two of the gala’s co-chairs, Blaine Trump and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg
Blaine Trump — wife of Robert Trump, Donald Trump’s younger brother
Caroline Kennedy
Daughter of John and Jacqueline Kennedy
Beautiful ladies have decorated the event not only with their splendid dresses but also with high social status. Its reflections have lightened generous philanthropist as well, contributing to the public image David Koch desperately needed for his political activity. In 2008, he donated a hundred million dollars to modernize Lincoln Center’s New York State Theatre building, which now bears his name. He has given twenty million to the American Museum of Natural History, whose dinosaur wing is named for him. This spring, after noticing the decrepit state of the fountains outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Koch pledged at least ten million dollars for their renovation. He is a trustee of the museum, perhaps the most coveted social prize in the city, and serves on the board of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where, after he donated more than forty million dollars, an endowed chair and a research center were named for him.
The gala was somewhat overshadowed with the absence of the event’s third honorary co-chair, Michelle Obama. Her office said that a scheduling conflict had prevented her from attending. Yet had the First Lady shared the stage with Koch it might have created an awkward tableau. In Washington, Koch is best known as part of a family that has repeatedly funded stealth attacks on the federal government, and on the Obama Administration in particular.
With his brother Charles, who is seventy-four, David Koch owns virtually all of Koch Industries, a conglomerate, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, whose annual revenues are estimated to be a hundred billion dollars. The company has grown spectacularly since their father, Fred, died, in 1967, and the brothers took charge. The Kochs operate oil refineries in Alaska, Texas, and Minnesota, and control some four thousand miles of pipeline. Koch Industries owns Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra, among other products. Forbes ranks it as the second-largest private company in the country, after Cargill, and its consistent profitability has made David and Charles Koch—who, years ago, bought out two other brothers—among the richest men in America. Their combined fortune of thirty-five billion dollars is exceeded only by those of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.
The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation. These views dovetail with the brothers’ corporate interests. In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a “kingpin of climate science denial.” The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies—from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program—that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus.
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