After decades of refining his extreme, right-wing, ideas on control by the wealthy, James McGill Buchanan, professor at the University of Virginia and head of his very own Thomas Jefferson Center for Political Economy and Social Philosophy department, joined forces with the Koch Brothers, other Libertarians, and vast amounts of KochKash (funds from excessively wealthy, right-wing extremists from around the world) to stealthily and nonviolently:
- Minimize the freedoms of America’s majority through collective endeavors or federal government intervention, and
- Maximize the “economic liberties” of their Libertarian minority through suppression.
We all know from reading about The Powell Memo, the Kochs were, and still are, key to funding ALEC, The Cato Institute, The Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity and other extreme right-wing organizations since the early 70s. What this books adds is how they developed all their extreme ideas in the late 50s before promulgation by all these right-wing propaganda outlets.
Part of this coup has been the takeover of the Republican party through the primary process. Two members of their minority cadre are Mike Pence and Ted Cruz. So, these Libertarian billionaires now own the GOP, and coincidentally are corporate leaders. Their corporations are just a tool for funding their stealth, non-violent, Libertarian coup.
Watch as Amy Goodman interviews Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy In Chains. This new book details this coup of America by a minority of Libertarians who know their ways will never be accepted by a majority of Americans, and is based on a recently discovered, long forgotten, and extensive archive at the University of Virginia and other historical records as annotated in its 60 pages of notes and 19 page bibliography.
Read a review of MacLean’s book at Slate.com.
At the birth of our nation, we rebelled against an external, wealthy, oligarchy that blatantly and violently minimized our freedoms. Now a new, well-organized, internal oligarchy, led by a minority of extremist Libertarians with fine tuned ideas and hordes of KochKash, are stealthily minimizing our freedoms and neutering our federal government.