There's an old saying: "Know your enemy." The problem with the Occupy Movement is that they keep hitting the symptoms, not the root causes, of the problems that they see around them. If they want to occupy anyplace, they should hit the doors of Americans for Tax Reform and occupy the Gatekeeper of the Libertarian Jihad, Grover Norquist, and then encamp around every John Bircher/Libertarian donor that is funding the destruction of the United States government from within.
Over the last several years, including the piece that I finished yesterday "I Pledge Allegiance to Grover Norquist," I've been tracking, and trying to expose for you, the shadow operators of government: ALEC. The Club for Growth. Americans for Tax Reform. Americans for Prosperity, and dozens more.
If you follow the money, it always traces back to a handful of large Libertarian givers who believe firmly in Social Darwinism which Robert Reich wrote about so brilliantly yesterday.
The Koch brothers, the Mellons and the Scaifes, the JM Foundation, the Coors Foundation and a handful of others all have their roots in the thinking that the rich are rich because they're genetically superior survivors, and that the poor are poor because they are inferior, and that whatever happens to the poor is their own fault for being inferior (Social Darwinism).
Norquist has been the mastermind, since the days of Ronald Reagan, of a plot to overthrow the Republican Party from within. Libertarians believe that there should be no federal government, or as little of one as possible. He spent a generation infiltrating, recruiting, and schooling his minions in the theology of Social Darwinism. He took over the College Republicans for a time, and generated political pond scum like felon Jack Abramoff and the wretched Ralph Reed.
Working with Lee Attwater and Karl Rove, he has helped reshape the media into an intimidated and ignorant mass that cannot easily question or expose his activities.
The Tea Party was the latest round in the flying monkey wrenches designed to strip the gears of government. Hundreds of staffers of Right-wing congressmen, lobbyists, and support organizations flock to his weekly Wednesday meetings to be part of the wrecking crew.
How good is Norquist at avoiding accountability? Find a major political scandal and scratch a bit, and his pudgy putrescence oozes out. These days you know him for the "tax pledge" that is hamstringing the Congress. He's been there for:
- Iran Contra - Oliver North went to jail, all others went scot-free
- The K Street influence peddling scandal that brought down his buddy Tom DeLay, who is doing federal time
- The influence peddling scandal that forced Newt Gingrich to step down as Speaker of the House
- The Abramoff scandal where Indian tribes were buying access to the Bush White House from his organization
- The Bush scandal that got lost in the Wall Street melt-down. Norquist was funding GOP actitivites working with Arab-Americans who were actively being watched by the Justice Department for their terrorist activities, one of whom is now serving a long federal sentence for his financing of Hamas and Al Qaeda.
Newt Gingrich is the sock-puppet of Norquist and the guys who fund him. If you find any of his child labor commentary or his other Social Darwinist rants wrong, they're cheering for him in the clubby Club for Growth, and looking forward to a day with no social safety net where they can pay zero tax and bilk the average American for everything that they've got. Rick Santorum is another Norquist errand boy. Herman Cain was their paid distraction.
If the Occupy Movement wants to be effective in taking back their government, they aren't getting it back from the congressmen and senators who are slaves to the almighty dollar of Grover Norquist.
Shut down the gatekeeper to the ultra Right Libertarian cash pool, and expose the Dead Billionaires club for the damage that they have done to this country in the name of ending the New Deal, and then maybe we have a chance to rebuild from the monkey wrenches that Norquist has been throwing into everything from the Post Office to union busting state governments like Scott Walker's.
My shiny two.