Koch Addiction

Over time, we've heard people across the ideological spectrum take note of the far-right Koch brothers' "philanthropy," from cultural centers to hospitals.  Of course, these oil and coal industry multi-billionaires can easily afford dropping millions to rub the tarnish off of their names, and the even the gullible shouldn't view it otherwise.  When they drop millions on an institution, it's always with strings attached (e.g., plastering their name on buildings or centers so everyone knows how "generous" the mega-polluters are with their dirty money).

Reading this article about how the Koch brothers are giving millions to universities in exchange for control over the curriculum and who the university hires is far more than troubling.  It represents a danger to academic freedom, speech and thought, not to mention the continued peril of allowing selfish interests with enormous wealth to dictate the direction of our lives.  When the Koch brothers spend nearly $14 million in 2012 alone on 163 universities, there will be strings attached whether the universities want to acknowledge it or not.  Those "strings" endanger them as institutions of learning, and us as a democratic society.