Democracy in Chains

An awful book, but a must read ...

I don’t recall precisely where I saw Democracy in Chains, but I’m going to guess that the author was on a news clip I saw on YouTube. This is an absolutely awful book, in the same sense as How Civil Wars Start. If you want to know the causes and conditions that led to the radical right’s campaign against democracy, this is THE place to get started.

Like all actual conspiracies, the core of this one wasn’t exposed, but all along the way it’s leaked, but those leaks came in the form of effective maneuvers everyone could see. But then author Nancy MacLean found James McGill Buchanan’s office, and no one had thought to secure it …

I’m only about 25% done with it and I’m cringing as I turn each page, because I can see the here and now that has resulted from each scheme. But one thing really strikes me here … the Koch network exists because the father of the two brothers got started in oil working with Stalin. And their underlying ideology is that of Ayn Rand, a Soviet refugee who grew up during the Russian Revolution, fleeing the Soviet Union three years after it ended.

Kinda makes you wonder if the entire neo-Confederate resurgence is just one extraordinarily long, extraordinarily successful active measures campaign, doesn’t it?