At Least, I Can Boycott Koch Brothers’ Products

If there were any justice, the Koch brothers would be arrested as terrorists. After all, there is more than one way to destroy innocent lives in order to intimidate the masses and bend politicians to your will. Bombs and grenades are one way. Funding extremist politicians who introduce oppressive policies is another.

Guns don’t kill people, the gun nuts say, people do.

And following that line of reasoning, economic and social devastation don’t kill people; the politicians who cause the devastation do.

Which brings us to the Koch brothers.

The New Yorker Magazine recently exposed the machinations of these diabolical villains. The story (click here to read it) could have come from a James Bond screenplay, for Charles and David Koch are bent on destroying the world as we know it.

And the billionaire coal barons have the money to do so.

You see they have amassed billions by exploiting and endangering coal miners and poisoning the air we breathe. And they are dedicated to preserving their right to keep on doing so.

One way, of course, is to emasculate the federal government, leaving it powerless to protect the public good.

With this agenda, it is not surprising that the Koch brothers are leaders of America’s far-right political fringe. Their father, Fred C. Koch, was a co-founder of the John Birch Society. And they are maintaining the family tradition – with a vengeance.

During the 2008 elections, Koch Industries contributed billions (directly and indirectly) to Tea Party candidates. One of these candidates was Scott Walker, the Republican governor engaged in a brutal attempt to break the unions representing public employees in Wisconsin.

Naturally, the Kochs are now shelling out more funds to drum up support for the union-busting governor as public resentment boils over against him.

Faced with this kind of concentrated evil and this kind of overwhelming power, what can an old codger like me do?

Unfortunately, I am not James Bond, and I have no MI 5 or clever gadgets with which to fight the dastardly duo.

But I can refuse to buy Brawny paper towels. I can also bypass such items as Dixie Cups, Angel Soft and Quilted Northern toilet paper, Stainmaster carpets, Vanity Fair and Mardis Gras napkins, and all Georgia Pacific products.

(Click here for an overview of the Koch empire.)

I know… It sounds so puny. But an ant can move a rubber tree plant – with help from enough other ants.

Won’t you join me? And you? And you? And you?