Buying right wing extremism via misplaced philanthropy

Echo opinion letter published in Pennsylvania, in TribLive.com: 

Charles Koch of the Koch brothers is part of the uber-wealthy with a net worth of over $63 billion. 

Koch spends millions to influence our government, and they gave $20 million to get #TFG Trump’s tax cuts (for the rich) passed. The money was well invested, for in 2018 alone, the brothers saved over $1 billion in taxes.

Their Americans For Prosperity, Freedom Partners and dark money PACs all try to shape policy toward their agenda of minimal taxes for the wealthy, minimal regulations for business (Maine Writer - think Abbott Labs and baby formula fiasco! Revealed by a whistle blower)... and privatization of everything. They are for unfettered, law of the jungle free markets, while seemingly forgetting the many times in the last 30 years that the American taxpayer has had to rescue bad-acting, too-big-to-fail companies.

They want to privatize our public schools. Make no mistake, their funding of school board candidates in Pennsylvania, accompanied by their cry of freedom and liberty from vaccination and mask mandates is just a cover, a smokescreen.

They are weaponizing book-banning and critical race theory to hype participation by the GOP base. Few people realize their ultimate aim is to privatize schools for profit.

Public education is part of what makes America great. We should support and strengthen our pubic schools, our teachers and guard against this (dangerous!) political theater.

From Gloria Gralewski, Manor, Pennsylvania

* Right wing extremists have no interest in protecting children from harm.  Their pro-life radicalism is a hypocritical rallying cry but their purpose is to promote ignorance for the purpose of exerting mind control.  "1984"? George Orwell happening in real time!  

"When Inner Party member O’Brien tortures “1984’s” protagonist, Winston Smith, he holds up his hand with four fingers extended and asks Smith how many fingers he sees. When Smith replies, “Four! Four! What else can I say? Four!” O’Brien inflicts excruciating pain on him.  After Smith finally claims to see five fingers, O’Brien emphasizes that saying “five” is not enough. “ No, Winston, that is no use. You are lying. You still think there are four.”

Listen up Koch Brothers~ there is *no* voter fraud!

Letters to the editor on the fraud of the Koch myth, but guess what? There is *no* voter fraud

Koch brothers are disconnected from working class

The Wichita Eagle

Workers try to keep roofs over their heads& and food on their tables

Most people understand that Charles Koch took the company his father founded to levels his dad could only have dreamed of, benefiting not only the Koch family but also this community. 

Like most reasonable people, I don’t begrudge him his success and I wish him many more years of the same.

But, where people like me, just punch-a-clock working stiffs trying to keep a roof over our heads, part company with guys like Koch is when they say they want to do a better job of raising up the disadvantaged and poorest in this country while in the same breath railing against the minimum wage because it “reduces the mobility of labor” (“Charles Koch to launch Wichita ad campaign,” July 10 Eagle). This is where the disconnect on Koch’s part starts and the working class’ resentment of him begins.

Surely Koch realizes that, out of desperation, a man will work for little or nothing, dragging his standard of living down and taking every workingman or woman with him. The minimum wage was created to put a “floor” under which wages could not go, so one could keep life and limb alive. One only need look around the world to see how big business exploits that desperation every day.

And you’ll have to forgive the few of us who still have a job who are confused at the Koch’s assertion that U.S. economic freedom is in decline and an avalanche of regulation is bad, while his company and many like them, keep getting richer, and we keep getting poorer.  From Kathleen Butler, Wichita