Anatomy of the War on Women: How the Koch Brothers are Funding the Anti-Choice Agenda

[Triana]

Anatomy of the War on Women: How the Koch Brothers are Funding the Anti-Choice Agenda

. . .To the untrained eye, it seemed that a sudden wildfire of anti-choice bills had engulfed the legislative agenda, but in truth the assault had been years, even decades, in the making. It wasn’t until three years ago, however, that conditions became so hospitable for the arsonists who trained their flame-throwers on these fundamental freedoms.

In 2010, three key events created the incendiary political landscape that fueled this summer’s inferno: the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down campaign finance restrictions in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, elections at the state and federal levels that rode the winds of backlash against the 2008 election of Barack Obama and the subsequent census-year victories of right-wing Republicans whose gains in state legislatures and governors’ mansions gave them control of the process for drawing legislative and congressional districts.

There is little doubt that the rash of anti-choice measures that flooded the legislative dockets in state capitols in 2013 was a coordinated effort by anti-choice groups and major right-wing donors lurking anonymously behind the facades of the non-profit “social welfare” organizations unleashed to tear up the political landscape, thanks to the high court’s decision in Citizens United.

While similarly classified groups exist in progressive circles, they have nowhere near the funding provided to right-wing groups by wealthy, business-focused donors. Of the top-ten outside spending “social welfare” groups engaged in the 2012 elections, all but one were either right-wing or conservative.

Helping to drive the right-wing offensive in the states and in Congress is a network of deep-pocketed business titans convened by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, principals in Koch Industries, the second-largest privately held corporation in the United States. Like the Kochs themselves, many of the donors in the brothers’ networks signal disinterest in fighting against women’s rights or LGBTQ rights, yet anti-choice groups have seen their coffers swell with millions of the network’s dollars.

THE REST:

http://billmoyers.com/2013/11/10/anatomy-of-the-war-on-women-how-the-koch-brothers-are-funding-the-anti-choice-agenda/#.UrXO7DBSd7c.twitter

[Cha]

1. I don't get why

the war against women.. what's in for them? Except the biggest backlash they've ever seen from Women across America?

[Triana]

2. I'm not sure.

I suspect it has to do with control and is related to why women are always used as 'bait', 'bargaining chips', and 'property' in war, as well as related to pro-rape and rape apologist culture. I just figure it's all tied together. I figure that because these American Taliban contingents aren't interested in preventing or stopping abortion - if they were, they'd be all out in favor of birth control, condoms, morning-after pills, sex education. But they're not. They're against all of that, too. So they're not really trying to prevent abortion or unwanted pregnancies or to save "innocent" lives. They just want to OPPOSE abortion and birth control and sex education. They're not trying to prevent it. Not really.

What do they get out of OPPOSING reproductive rights for women? Control. They also get to punish women for being "sluts" - for having sex. And that shizz is all rooted in theology and Dominionist attitudes.

Other than that, I don't know.

[Cha]

4. That's my feeling, too.. they don't really

give a shit about the fetuses and they sure as hell don't give a shit about babies, children, and poor people.

"They just want to OPPOSE abortion and birth control and sex education"..

[Jerry442]

8. I don't think the Koch's really give a rat's ass about any of this stuff.

Not abortion, not women's rights, not gun rights, not school prayer, not any of it. It's all "wedge issues" for the purpose of dividing and conquering the middle class (what's left of it, anyway).

This is not to say that these circuses don't inflict real hardships on real people. They do. But that's not why they exist.

[Cha]

9. Yep.. the ol wedge issues.. I don't

why I thinking to give it any human reasoning.

[LeftyMom]

3. Because access to birth control threatens the maintainance of an underclass.

Women who have small, planned families get better educations, better jobs, demand better wages. Their children have better educational attainment as well.

[Cha]

5. Ah ha.. that sounds like

the exact answer!

thanks LeftyMom

[LeftyMom]

6. There are electoral advantages in using religion against the working class,

but they're good enough at getting people to vote against their own interests that they could convince them that rat poison was a healthy breakfast snack. If they're putting that much effort into fighting something it's a safe bet they see dollar signs.

[Cha]

7. Precisely. :(

[snot]

10. Because it divides the 99%?