The
introductory chapter of Dark
Money tells of a January 2009 pledging
meeting of right-wing billionaires organized
by the Koch brothers. Obama’s election and
popularity and the winning of the US
House and Senate was “a galling setback.” The
meeting included discussion of the
response: compromise or principles. They
chose: “Republicans waging a campaign of
massive resistance and obstruction” knowing
“they would need to resort to
extraordinary political measures to reach
their objectives.” I note this was an
attack on the wishes of the voters, an attack
on democracy. Dark Money is
written in three sections. The first tells of
the growth of the range of influences
of Dark Money and the big players behind it.
The second tells of the expansion into
political movements like the Tea Party, and
finally into the courts in the early
Obama years 2009-2010. The third tells of the
politics 2011-2014: the failure on
the one hand to prevent Obama’s re-election
but the success on the other of Republicans
gaining control of the Senate and House, and
very many state legislatures, in
the 2014 mid-terms. The 2017
Anchor Books paperback edition
of Dark Money has a Preface evaluating
the extraordinary political measures
taken after 2009 by the Kochs, and the Dark
Money generated. This edition appeared
shortly after Trump’s election. Trump’s
campaign promised to fight big money
and corruption in government, but most of his
post-election team were tied to Dark
Money support - like Vice-President Pence, for
example. The vicious angry style
attributed to Trump was used by the Kochs and
their organization Americans for
Prosperity[1]
during Obama’s first month in office against
his very first bill, the Recovery
Act. This style was developed further later in
2009 by these donors via the “Centre
to Protect Patient Rights,” created to fight
Obama’s Affordable Care Act. That fight
used vicious language, angry rants, open lies
and false claims. Anti-Obamacare
rallies were organized across the country.
Banners were unfurled depicting corpses
from Dachau – implying Obama policies would
result in mass murder. Operatives of
these big donors sabotaged town hall meetings
held by Congress members and their
constituents about healthcare that year by
planting screaming protesters for
disruption. To return to
the Paperback edition
and its Preface, the book notes that,
paradoxically, by too thoroughly
controlling the Republican Party with their
cash, the Kochs and their allies laid
the groundwork for Trump, whom they did not
want elected, but who did not need
their money. Their policy priorities that
every other Republican presidential
candidate signed onto in return for financial
support were at odds with the priorities
of the majority of voters. Trump could claim
he would drain the swamp; he was
not beholden to big money because he had his
own money. But once elected, Trump
faced a Republican party shaped “by the
billionaires of the Radical Right.” Although
he had gathered support promising “to stick it
to the elites,” Trump had little
choice but to work with Republicans who were
financed by Dark Money. This is a
good point at which to leave the Dark
Money Introduction and enter the
informative
and well-written story of a presidency by
Obama. I found this
first book about Obama’s
presidency, A Promised Land, a
fascinating informative story of history
in the making that at times became gripping,
especially in the tensions of Obama
and his team struggling to deal with his
hoped-for agenda, with international
meetings, with crisis issues of war and peace,
and this book’s finale – the
killing of Bin Ladin in his compound in
Pakistan. Good background is provided,
but not too much. After a short
preface the Obama book
falls into seven parts. Each part contains
three or four chapters and those chapters
fall into groups of paragraphs around an event
or theme. The theme idea helps
us follow through with an issue. However, the
themes are not necessarily ordered
chronologically and I found myself wondering
whether things were happening in
2009 or 2010 or 2011. Much happened in 2009
and into 2010. The opening
part, “The Bet,” begins
with Obama’s thoughts as a new resident of the
White House complex, but swiftly
flashes back to his origins, grandparents,
parents, high school. A chapter introduces
Michelle, now his wife, his law school and
adult work as a community activist.
There is the story of his marriage and of his
entry into state politics. Then he
gets elected to the US Senate, where he is
good and noticed, and then very
noticed after he speaks at the Democratic
Convention. The second section “Yes We
Can” is devoted to his campaign to become the
Democratic Presidential Candidate,
then moves into his campaign to be President.
There are insights into Obama’s
team and his grass roots mobilizing and his
visits across the country. This part
ends when his election as President is
announced. It is full of insights into
the experience of a Presidential run, the
staff, the meetings, the ups the
downs and the day-by-day blows. The part “Renegade”, about the
transition to President and the early days,
begins with a chapter devoted to details about
the members of his team and how
he chose them. There are kind words for
President Bush who introduced the
Obamas to the White House and was helpful
during transition. That chapter closes
with his insider account of his popular
inauguration. His approval was 70%. After telling
us of a few simple actions
he took as a new President, the next chapter
turns to the fact that he had
arrived after the worst financial collapse on
Wall Street since the Great
Depression and just after an initial response,
“TARP,” by the Bush administration.
However, that situation was moving into the
broader economy - retailers had
gone belly up and GM and Chrysler were going
the same way. His staff told him
he must consider a stimulus package and told
him the best they could do that,, politically.
Stimulus packages are messy. The Senate
requires a majority of 60% to avoid a
filibuster
that can kill legislation. Politics was more
polarized as Republicans had elected
“Sarah Palins”, i.e., members of the radical
right. Obama’s $800 billion Recovery
Act aimed to stimulate the economy to prevent
the continuing fall in economic
activity into a great depression. We are
introduced to the leaders of the party
groups in the House and Senate. We get
insights into the goings on in the White
House. The Recovery
Act cleared the House
after Obama’s first week in office! There was
no support from any Republican.
There had been an effort to get it that had
failed. Obama says that was the
story of his Presidency. He says news
reporting became problematic. GOP responses
to government announcements were “the more
insulting the better”. The
GOP was willing “to peddle half-truths and
down-right lies” and the media was willing to
“… publish these whoppers as
straight news.” Big conservative donors
weighed in as well. But traditional
business organizations like the Chamber of
Commerce all came out in favour of
the Recovery Act. Traditional influences had
been replaced by “billionaire idealogues”
like the Kochs who had spent decades building
networks and an infrastructure aimed
at rolling back every last vestige of a
welfare state. That is described in Dark
Money. Nonetheless, the Recovery Act
cleared the Senate. Within a month of Obama’s
taking office, the Recovery Act was law. Chapter 12
tells of letters from people
who lost homes. That was tackled by a program
that limited mortgage payments to
no more than 31% of income. This program
attracted violent attacks in the media.
Adverse publicity was produced by a rant that
went viral, also reported in Dark
Money. Then there was an uproar when
bank executives got the bonuses in
their contracts. Deals were made with auto
makers, and that was “messy.” A program
of stress-testing of banks was introduced and
that had a steadying effect. When
the results of stress-testing came in
after Obama’s third month in office the
economic downfall seemed to be stabilizing.
US bank stabilizing is compared favourably
with European bank counterparts, and
all the TARP funds were paid back to the
government. The last
chapter of this part begins
with national security, his staff and the
situation. Keeping US troops in Iraq to
preserve stability was a difficult decision.
More difficult was the decision on
Afghanistan. His path to increase troops
there, his change in the command and his
review process for that situation was painful.
The chapter ends with his departure
for the G20 in London and his worry about US
stature after the Louisiana flooding
debacle and the financial crash. This is a good
point at which turn
to the beginning, Part I, of Dark Money,
Weaponizing Philanthropy: The
War of Ideas 1970-2008. The Koch family
story began with a refinery near
Minneapolis and a father/owner who was a
founding member of the Libertarian
Party. Sons Charles and David ended up running
the family company now called
Koch Industries. They massively supported the
Libertarian run against Reagan in
1980 and David ran for Vice President. But
Libertarians polled 1%. That began a
move towards the Tea Party approach. In Dark Money a chapter about
Scaife follows. He founded the Carthage
Foundation with other conservatives inspired
by Barry Goldwater. Scaife like
the Kochs gave his money to his own private
philanthropic foundation for control
of its use. US private foundations have few
legal restrictions. Five per cent
of annual assets go to non-profit
organizations. Donors get deductions that
reduce income taxes dramatically. Initially
opposed in the gilded age, foundations
are now broadly accepted. Eventually Scaife
inherited direction of the huge foundation
of his family. The result was grant-making
power to advance ideas he thought good
for America. Scaife saw himself as “the dark
spirit behind right-wing causes.” The
chapter also gives insight into Scaife as
a person in and out of rehab and with a
terrible family life. The book reports Scaife
had his foundation finance an “obsessive
investigation” of Present Clinton’s
extra-marital
affairs, and fund law suits against Clinton. Dark
Money says this was a
foretaste of the vicious actions against
Obama. It shows the impact one wealthy
person could have on national affairs. In the mid 70s
Scaife and other wealthy
families became disillusioned with
conventional political spending. They began
funding
conservative institutions and ideas. Scaife
became the new Heritage Foundation’s
biggest backer. There was a shift from “think
tanks” supporting scholarly
research to “think tanks” selling
predetermined ideology. The Kochs established
their think tank – the Cato Institute. Money
that is not traceable poured into such
right wing think tanks. In this period, public
trust in governments continually
sank, a Republican wave swept the 1978
mid-terms, the Moral Majority was founded
with Jerry Falwell, and Regan made tax cuts
and abolished Nixon’s controls on oil
and gas. University and
College campuses
were associated with liberalism and
environmental concerns. The Olin Corporation
had problems because of its manufacture of DDT
and its polluting practices.
Instead of bringing about compliance however,
environmental concerns added to
Olin’s fury with government regulations and
fired up efforts to promote
libertarian views – on campuses. Olin
developed a “beachhead” approach by
establishing conservative cells at influential
schools, including in the end,
the 2000 “James Madison Program in American
Ideals and Institutions” at Princeton
University. Through his “beachheads” he
moulded and credentialled a new
generation of conservative graduates and
professors. Without normal peer
review, programs Olin established could inject
works of debatable scholarship
into the mainstream. Perhaps the most
significant beachheads were funded programs
of Law and Economics in Law Schools – paying
students to take the courses and
treating judges to luxurious training sessions
on free- market ideology! The
book also tells of the Bradley Foundation and
its success. By 2012 “assets had ballooned
so that it could give $32 million in grants”
and its annual Bradley Prizes had “become
the glittering Academy Awards ceremony for
conservatives.” A chapter 4 on
the Kochs’ style tells
of employee exposure to dangerous chemicals in
the workplace, of serious environmental
contamination, of pressuring their way out of
a strong Senate committee case
against their theft of oil from Native
Americans’ tribal land. The Kochs claim a
philosophical hatred of regulation, but there
is a strong financial self-interest.
“Koch Industries’ pattern of pollution was
striking not just for its egregiousness,
but for its willfulness.” Chapter 5 gives an
account of the increasing role of Dark
Money in university programs or institutes.
George Mason University, home of
the Mercatus Center, and a controversial
economics department where James Mason
created ‘public choice’ theory, is the largest
research university in Virginia –
one the Kochs largely control. Part II of Dark
Money opens
with a chapter giving a history of fake
populist organizations run by US corporate
sponsors, self-classified as educational
non-profits. This led the way to the
Kochs’ “Americans for Prosperity.” It has a
charitable part – educating the public
about free markets - and it has political
parts. It produced the Tea Party movement
seemingly spontaneously in spring 2009. From
day one Think Tanks funded by the
Kochs produced op-ed columns, press releases
and research papers against Obama’s
stimulus plan. There were full page ads in the
Wall Street Journal. There
was more of the same for Obama’s homeowner
rescue plan. Five years later
leading economists were poled. Almost all
agreed that the Obama stimulus plan had
been needed and that it had been effective in
reducing unemployment. But the Kochs’
free market push in Washington nearly killed
it. Americans for
Prosperity had branches
in most states and so could train locals and
coordinate national Tea Party
protests. A big role was also played by
“Freedom Works” an organization supported
by Scaife and by the Philip Morris Corporation
of the tobacco sector. Within mere
months of the beginning of Obama’s presidency
there were populist rallies against
his stimulus plan. The book notes that attacks
against Obama’s healthcare initiative
in 2009 did not begin with the Kochs. A
wealthy heiress started those. She founded
the Center to Protect Patient Rights (CPPR).
It began attracting its own Dark
Money. Some was passed on to the Kochs’
Americans for Prosperity which then took
the lead in attacking Obamacare with
sophisticated ads developed with careful
market
testing. The Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity
then spun off “Patients United”
that ran rallies across the US. In the Summer
of 2009 Democratic town hall
meetings were disrupted by the introduction of
screaming people. And the visible
public protests and the multiple ads sent to
elected Republicans tempted to
make deals on Obamacare hardened opposition to
Obama. But Obamacare was not a
major concern for the Kochs. Preservation of
the tax breaks for the oil industry
and preventing controls on global gas
emissions were of more concern to them. An alarming
and disquieting chapter
8 tells of the building of a denial of global
warming in the US. The chapter tells
of extraordinary efforts that went into trying
to undermine the science. By ongoing
institutes that they controlled and campus
programs of research, press
releases, op-ed columns, advertisements, the
Kochs and their collaborators followed
a strategy of information for public confusion
to discredit the international
scientific consensus. The autumn
after Obama’s “cap and trade”
bill passed the House, opposition grew. Attack
ads appeared in states with
Senators sympathetic to action against climate
change. Then, as Obama was preparing
to go to Copenhagen for the December 2009
Climate Summit a data breach exposed to
the world private emails of UK scientists at
the renowned Climatic Research
Unit at the University of East Anglia. These
included emails to US
climatologists like Mann, an important
researcher at Penn State University.
Misinterpreting
the emails to their favour, the Koch-funded
organizations pounced: “Dubbing the
alleged scandal Climategate, they went into
overdrive.” Seven independent
enquiries eventually exonerated the climate
scientists, finding nothing to discredit
their work or the global consensus on global
warming. But the rumpus created spread
from Fox News to the New York Times and
Washington Post. Republicans open to a
response
to climate change were attacked. Republicans
funded by the Kochs demanded that Mann
be investigated. Mann’s university faced state
Republican threats to cut its state
funding if it did not remove him. He and his
family faced a storm of personnel insults
and serious threats. They needed protection. A
Republican senator sympathetic to
addressing global warming faced attacks from
Fox News for supporting a “gas tax”
and he faced attacks from Tea Party activists
in his home state. The
cap-and-trade bill never went
before the Senate as 2010 arrived and moved
towards the mid-term elections. Ironically,
2010 was the year of a devastating methane
explosion in a coal mine in West Virginia
and of the environmental disaster from the
huge long-lived oil leak from the
damaged Deepwater Horizon oil rig in
the Gulf of Mexico. There are two more
chapters of Dark Money Part II, but
this is a good time to return to
Obama and part four of his book, called “Fight
the Good Fight”. Obama’s
Chapter 14 begins with the
Spring 2009 G20 Summit in London. Obama gives
a clear explanation of how
international meetings work and tells us his
insights on the players there. I
think he understates his accomplishments at
that meeting. He helped to get a
useful joint outcome in response to the
financial collapse. He had a useful first
meeting with then Russian President Medvedev.
After the G20 he went to the NATO
summit, then to meetings in Germany, France,
the Czech Republic, Turkey and, unannounced,
in Iraq. Obama arrived back home in time to
respond to Somali pirates in the
Gulf holding a US ship’s captain hostage for
ransom. Chapter 15
picks up on the Somali pirates.
Navy seal snipers were able to shoot the
kidnappers from a distance. Obama then
goes on the describe Counter Terrorism
activities, the work of the CIA, and the
use of “lethal drones” on al-Qaeda operatives
in Pakistan. He had monthly White
House meetings on these matters. Then he
travels again. He describes with
delightful details his visits to Saudi Arabia,
to Cairo and a talk at the
university, and a visit to the Pyramids. Then
to a French anniversary of the
Allied landing in Normandy and visits to
Germany. His reflection as he prepares
to give his address on Normandy is a moving
end to the chapter. Obama is back
in Washington for his
first spring as Chapter 16 opens. He is given
the gift of a dog, Bo, from Ted
and Vicki Kennedy. This links readers to Ted
Kennedy’s concern for some form of
universal health care and introduces the
inside story on Obamacare. The book Dark
Money says this was attacked from its
beginnings. LBJ had left a legacy of
Medicare for seniors and a variable mixed
Federal-State Medicaid for the poor.
But most healthcare was via a private
insurance system that left many “an
illness or an accident away from potential
financial ruin.” At the time, Obama’s
advisers warned that a healthcare initiative
was politically risky. Obama thinks
about his mum and people he knew who didn’t
feel they could visit a doctor,
thinks of the usefulness of healthcare and
sticks with his campaign promise.
But he also knows insurance companies and the
existing system give service to
some people and that they are good employers.
There are issues around
healthcare for people to worry about. The
filibuster-proof head count of 60 Senators
was tenuous. It included the then terminally
ill Ted Kennedy. Obama chose to
follow a Republican-led
model for healthcare that had worked in
Massachusetts – the “Romney model.” This
turned out to be wise, but work on advancing
the bill was interrupted first by
the need to respond to an H1N1 flu outbreak
and then by the need to appoint a
replacement Supreme Court justice. The march
towards Obamacare took over his summer
2009 with meetings with healthcare bodies and
the politics of the options. The
chapter ends with the Gates incident – the
Black Harvard professor who tried to
enter his own home after a trip who was
investigated by the police. It became a
publicly divisive affair that required a
meeting with the police officer to
smooth things over. By recess at
the end of July 2009,
a version of the healthcare bill had cleared
relevant House Committees and one
of the Senate Committees but the other Senate
Committee had dragged its feet
seeking bi-partisan support. The Obama family
took to the road – to national parks
and meetings in states with flagging support.
And this is where Obama describes
what he calls the “Tea Party summer” – calling
it an attempt by conservatives to
marry people’s natural fears with a right-wing
agenda. Obama gives his own
account of the Koch’s and their ilk at this
point. It coincides with the Dark
Money book’s account. And clearly there
was talk of watering down the bill under
the pressure generated – but Obama held. Then Ted
Kennedy died. Ted had
written a letter to be delivered after his
death that Obama used in a useful address
to Congress on healthcare. That boosted public
support, but prompted a Republican
outburst that built on the Tea Party’s
demonising of the healthcare bill.
Republicans had solidified against it, but the
bill cleared the Senate
committee. The House had passed the bill with
a public option, but that was not
possible in the Senate. And drama loomed. The
election of a replacement for Ted
Kennedy went Republican - torpedoing the
filibuster-proof hold on the Senate. Amid
this storm, came serious tensions in Obama’s
team and “Washington declared the
bill dead.” Obama went on
the offence with major
public sessions about the bill. The first
session with Republicans revealed they
didn’t know what was in the bill. Then he held
a full day meeting with the Leaders
of each party in both the House and Senate,
and a bi-partisan group of
congressional leaders. He describes
endorsements that came from medical
associations, doctors’ and nurses’
associations. The way forward required the
House to adopt the weaker Senate version
verbatim. Nancy Pelosi agreed to lead
the work of passing that bill through the
House. By March 2010 Obama had
determined he could use the Senate
“reconciliation” process to clean up parts
of the Senate bill. There are tales of
adjusting and negotiation to get the
last 10 votes. More than a year after he
began, Obamacare came into being March
21, 2010. Part five,
“The World as it is”,
Chapter 18 takes readers back to military
affairs and fall 2009, when advice from
Generals that the number of troops in
Afghanistan be increased appeared on the
front pages of the Washington Post. As the
military and Obama’s staff struggled
with this, Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize in October 2009, a month that
saw the largest number of US troop deaths in
Afghanistan. Obama speaks with
families as bodies return. By late November,
it was agreed to send more troops with
clarified objectives and a 2-year timeline.
Then, Obama and Michelle head for
Oslo and the Nobel award. Chapter 19
starts by noting how realities
in Iraq and Afghanistan could humble a
President who had made election pledges
about a different foreign policy. However the
chapter moves into that different
foreign policy. Obama’s practice was visits to
the unvisited – like Turkey – visits
that included a corny but effective speech on
arrival, visits to known cultural
spots or restaurants and a town hall meeting
with young people. Meanwhile
Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, “was a
whirlwind” making diplomatic visits
from day one. Obama introduces Iran and its
history leading up to his particular
concern with Iran’s nuclear program and
stopping an Iranian nuclear bomb, preferably
by diplomacy. He had sent a secret letter at
the beginning of his presidency but
got an unhelpful reply. In response to an
outbreak of repression in Iran, he took
the strategic advice his advisers gave him.
Then he turned to international approaches
based on UN resolutions calling on Iran to
stop enrichment activities. The existing
sanctions were too weak. There is
discussion on Russia’s
recent history and the arrival of Putin before
Obama describes his first official
visit to Russia in July 2009. A useful meeting
with President Medvedev delivered
a strategic arms treaty, reduction of warheads
and delivery systems, and reduced
restrictions on US livestock exports. Chapter
20 follows Iran and the UN
General Assembly. Obama shares US intelligence
about an Iranian enrichment
facility near Qom in Iran to a surprised
Medvedev. He later released it to the
New York Times just before the Pittsburgh G20
meeting. Giving background
information along the way, Obama describes a
set of Asian meetings beginning with
Japan, then to a meeting of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, then
to South Korea, other ASEAN members and
finally to China. Results begin in
Spring 2010 with the signing with Medvedev of
the START - cutting nuclear
warheads. In June the UN Security Council
signed Resolution 1929 “… imposing
unprecedented new sanctions on Iran …” with
support from Russia and China. Chapter 21
takes up Obama’s work on
climate change, giving background on
Democratic and Republican takes on the
issue. Parts of the Recovery Act had taken
initiatives towards clean energy,
like fuel and energy efficiency standards.
Then readers learn about Obama’s effort
to pass a cap-and-trade bill that would create
a price on greenhouse gas
emissions despite total Republican opposition.
The House passed a cap-and-trade
bill. Obama hoped to have legislation in place
for the Copenhagen climate summit
in December 2009. The last UN climate
agreement adopted differentiated
responsibilities
and put no obligations on Brazilian or Chinese
emissions. Obama’s team wanted an
alternative that required every nation to
propose reductions open to scrutiny
by the others, with aid for the poorest
nations to mitigate the effects of
climate change. Ban Ki Moon the UN Secretary
General wanted Obama at the meeting
because negotiations were not going well.
Obama was reluctant. But as I read what
happened it is clear that the Obama team
played a disproportionate if highly unorthodox
role in the successful outcome. Obama drew on
his earlier visits with the key international
actors and his team crashed meetings of some
groups. It is an exciting read. Sadly,
by spring 2010 the mood had changed in the US.
The cap-and-trade legislation did
not go before the Senate. Chapter 22
begins “In the
Barrel”. Mid-term elections
were coming. The economy felt bad to
Americans. Small hopeful US signs were
overshadowed
by the collapse of the economy in Greece.
European leaders adopted austerity. US
action was needed to maintain international
stability. The Bush TARP and the Obama
Recovery Act were misunderstood and confused
by the Tea Party summer. Republicans
labelled Obama weak on security. Troop levels
overseas were still high. Obama’s
rating was down. There were morale issues
among the White House team that needed
attention. Yet at this point Obama describes
perks of his job like concerts and
after-hours museum visits for his kids. The
chapter ends with Wall Street reform
legislation that had begun in June 2009 but
finally cleared Congress in July
2010. Chapter 23
tells of the Deepwater
Horizon oil rig explosion in summer 2010. It
is remarkable to read how a president
was involved in the eventual capping of an
off-shore oil well spewing oil under
water into the ocean when company efforts had
failed. Some of that was turned
against Obama. Obama’s aim of closing Guantanamo
and of giving detained terrorists a trial in
the US was principled, but not
particularly popular. When US Muslims wanted
to build a Mosque on their land
near the 9/11 site in New York as was legally
appropriate, this was attacked by
Republicans. The mid-term elections came.
Democrats were routed. Chapter 24 has
some stock-taking and
gives an account of staff turnover. Then it
turns to a flight to visit India,
Jakarta, a G20 meeting in Seoul and an
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, APEC,
meeting. After good backgrounding, Obama views
India as a success story and is
impressed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
with whom he reached agreements to
cooperate in certain areas. He notes Singh’s
concern about ethnic solidarity in
politics. Back home, he describes a bundle of
unfinished legislation to negotiate
through Congress before the Christmas recess:
a make-work pay tax credit in
return for continuing the payroll tax cut;
Michelle’s child nutrition bill; passing
the new START treaty; allowing any LGBTQ to
serve in the military rather than
the old “Don’t Ask” approach; and a DREAM Act
allowing undocumented immigrants
brought to the US as children to be
regularized. All these passed except the DREAM
Act which failed by 5 votes in the Senate. Obama’s final
part is “On the
High Wire”. Chapter 25 turns
to the Middle East and reflects on the
Israel-Palestine situation, the repeated
efforts towards a peace process, some pushing
but a lack of resonance. There
follows further background on other Middle
East allies and Obama’s link to
Samantha Power and the possibility of a US
strategy of seeking reform in the
region. Then a fruit vendor set himself on
fire before a government building in
Tunisia and protests erupted in early 2011 -
the Arab Spring. The US “stood
with the people” of Tunisia. The most dramatic
events were protests in Tahir
Square, Cairo. The US tried to persuade
Mubarak to accept reforms – end the
emergency law, restore press freedom, and set
a timetable for elections. An
envoy was sent. Obama phoned and offered a
graceful exit. Then Obama called on him
to step down. That happened. Protests moved
elsewhere: to Syria, protégé of
Russia, and to Bahrain, host to the US Navy’s
Fifth Fleet. A week after
Mubarak left, open
rebellion broke out in Libya. The second city
fell to rebels. Gaddafi unleased
a campaign of terror. Deaths mounted. He was
called on to quit. There were
calls for intervention – including by the Arab
League. Obama began thinking of moves
towards an effective UN intervention. Chapter
26 leads up to a successful UN
resolution for a NATO intervention with Arab
participation. Obama authorized this
from Brazil where he was beginning Latin
American visits. His family visited
the sights of Rio. He got reports of a no-fly
zone. He reached Chile with news
of a US plane going down but crew safely
recovered. By his return and address to
the US of March 28 the US role was essentially
advisory. Obama has early thoughts
of re-election. There are Republican calls for
spending cuts and their possible
blocking of the raising of the debt ceiling.
Obama refers to Trump as offering
an elixir to many spooked by a Black man in
the White House with his issue of requiring
Obama to prove he was American. The last
chapter, 27, gives continuing
information from Libya and a note of visits
around a tornado in Alabama, but mainly
tells the story leading up to Obama’s watching
in real time the high-risk Navy
Seal operation. Under cover of night two
silent helicopters flew into the
compound of Bin Laden’s home in Pakistan,
found him, identified him and
disposed of his body at sea. The dramatic end
of volume one of Obama’s autobiography
sends us back to the remainder of the Dark
Money story. The last two
chapters of Part II of
Dark Money cover accounts around the
same story. Chapter 9 gives a significant
US Supreme Court decision Citizens United
v. Federal Election Commission
on January 2010 that overturned a century of
restrictions on the financing of
election campaigns. It was followed by a
less-known appeal court decision, SpeechNow,
that lifted restrictions on money flow to
outside groups advocating policies. The
book notes: “As a result the American
political system became awash in unlimited
untraceable money.” This chapter then shows
how for decades a small group of
ultrarich activists had worked to achieve
these court decisions. It was done in
the principled name of “free speech.” Chapter 10,
the last of Part II, tells
how the 2010 Supreme Court and the appeal
court decisions, plus the accumulated
US-wide presence of activist bodies and agents
funded by Dark Money turned the
2010 mid-term elections into a costly rout of
democrats in the House, Senate
and state legislatures. The story of the Dark
Money activity in North Carolina making
a Republican state out of a mixed state is
shocking. Elected Republicans became
agents tied to a libertarian agenda
coordinated by gatherings of super rich
donors.
They no longer represented or advanced the
real needs of those voting for them. Part III of Dark
Money is
called Privatizing Politics: Total Combat
2011-2014. It describes how bodies
run and financed by a small cohort of
super-rich became a large political
machine in elections. The book takes readers
through Obama’s re-election success,
in 2012. But it also describes the Republican
success in packing Congress in
2014 and thus blocking any progressive
legislation by Obama in his final years.
Obama’s telling of that is part of an awaited
second book. [1]
“Americans for Prosperity,
founded in 2004, is a
libertarian-conservative political advocacy
group in the
United States funded by David Koch and
Charles Koch. As the Koch brothers'
primary political advocacy group, it is one
of the most influential American
conservative organizations.” – Wikipedia
April 2021.
I read the first book of Obama’s
autobiography. By chance I was reading Dark
Money in paperback at the
same time. The content of the two books
overlaps. Obama was elected as the role
of dark money in US politics had been growing.
Jane Mayer’s Dark Money: The
Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind
the Rise of the Radical Right,
Anchor Books, 2017, gives the story of Dark
Money. Huge amounts of tax-exempt money
from hidden sources developed into an
organization that shifted US thinking and
its politics towards the billionaires’ views –
especially once Obama was
elected.