Dark Money

 Margan and I took up the Current Events Group here at MonteCedro over a year ago. It was and is one of the most popular activities here. We meet every two weeks with a topic; Margan and I alternate preparing a short presentation to set the stage and then the group gets into the discussion. We routinely have 30 to 40 participants.


My turn is next. The group wanted to discuss dark money in politics. When the topic was broached the first thing that came up was the Citizens United vs FEC  decision in 2010 in which the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision opened the floodgates for dark money coming into political campaigns. But the backstory is much darker and several books have been written regarding how billionaire plutocrats have been trying for years to subvert democracy. The two most notable are Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer and Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America by Nancy MacLean. MacLean’s book especially resonates with me because I lived in Virginia for 19 years and already knew some of the backstory. Suffice it to say Charles Koch and his ilk are no friends of democracy and are spending enormous sums of money to create an oligarchy with themselves at the top. Preparing for this Current Events session will be interesting. I do suggest you read these two books and learn about the other James Buchanan. Nobel Prizes are often deceiving.

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