by Stephen C. Webster from The Raw Story.
This piece puts together a lot of the reports about Gov. Walker's war on working people previously cited.
I wouldn't accuse the Koch brothers of usurping American democracy, because it has already been usurped. What remains is only a shell of what it was; and what it was, was only a poor imitation to begin with. What the Koch brothers are attempting to do is to remove all the democratic facade and install outright fascism. Some people might argue that this would be a good thing in order to wake up the American "sheeple". But those are people who likely have never experienced fascism's use of brutal police oppression.
Capitalism when threatened has often looked to dispense with their version of democracy as we have seen in Germany, Spain, Japan and in many other countries (aided by the CIA). And we have seen how they have no difficulty in collaborating with, and supporting, many such autocratic regimes like the ones people are fighting against in North Africa and the Middle East.
We've had our own fascist elements among our ruling class. The most notorious were those who surfaced briefly in 1933 when reports leaked out of a coup plot to remove F. D. Roosevelt from office. They tried to recruit the very popular General Smedley Butler to replace Roosevelt after the coup. You simply must listen to a 29 minute BBC radio program covering this incident that is missing from US history books.
Extensive efforts were made to cover up, or to downplay, this plot after Butler's testimony in closed-door hearings in the House of Representatives. It is interesting that the US was also in the midst of a devastating economic collapse as is happening now.