She's back...she's perky...she's a "senior McCain campaign advisor," a lobbyist for crazed libertarian billionaires, a shill for laissez-faire economics, Babbit with an acid-peel complexion, Elmer Gantry all zazzed up on redbull and tongue-rolling fear clutching a Blackberry like some fascistic phallo-fetish....she's Nancy Pfotenhauer! Nancy has been all over the feral snarling airwaves the last 24 hours mouthing McCain's message of cynical politics, despair and defeat. Despair and defeat? Why yes, for bright eyed and bubbly Nancy brings us the grim message that sits at the heart of McCain's economic program: you're on your own in the ruthless world of all against all.
Although she likes to refer to herself an an economist, Pfotenhauer is simply another hack in the business of political public relations. Indeed, Pfotenhauer is just another dreary conservative lobbyist with a particular "brand" of crazy to peddle, who, like Bush and McCain, seems to believe that economic policy is little more than a marketing strategy driven by a few catchy phrases. So who is she and why should we care? Who is this supplicant at the groaning board of the Power Elite, this soldier in the war against civility and the common good? With your indulgence--I offer a newly amended version of an earlier diary where I took a look at Pfotenhauer.
Pfotenhauer's career serves as a revealing diagram of the interconnected world of private equity, right-wing think tanks, and the Republican power elite. Pfotenhauer first pledged her fealty to our shrouded masters as a student at George Mason University, studying under arch-libertarian Walter Williams. (Williams, by the way, is a favorite substitute host for Rush Limbaugh.) Williams acts as a kind of filter for conservative institutions, seeking out promising acolytes from among his students. At 24, Pftoenhauer leveraged her association with Williams into an appointment to the transition team for then incoming President George H.W. Bush. While on the Bush transition team she advised on appointments to both the Federal Trade Commission and the Interstate Commerce Commission. (Yes, having a libertarian vet possible appointees to regulatory agencies may be a bit cynical, but hey...consider the source.)
Pfotenhauer easily moved from the Bush Administration into the heady worlds of right-wing policy wonkery, conservative lobbying hackery, and corporate funded special interest think tankery. Eventually she emerged as the "Washington Director"--read lobbyist--for Koch Industries. In 2001, she moved over to the conservative think tank Independent Women's Forum, and currently directs the conservative think tank Americans for Prosperity Foundation. (These two foundations/think tanks share office space and staff and are essentially interchangeable.)
Both Americans for Prosperity and the Independent Women's Forum are funded in large part by foundations controlled by Koch Industries, a large conglomerate held by two brothers, Charles and David Koch. Indeed, the Kochs are the patron saints of the netherworld of conservative "intellectuals" generally, and Nancy Pfotenhauer specifically. The Koch brothers are two very edgy, very rich, libertarians. (Depending on the metric used, Koch is the 1st or 2nd largest privately held conglomerate in the United States.)
Originally founded in Texas by Charles and David's father, Fred Koch--a charter member of the John Birch Society--as an oil delivery company, Koch grew into a oil and natural gas delivery, trading and refining business. Eventually, Koch diversified into other extractive and extraction-related industries. Koch owns both Georgia-Pacific, a huge lumber and paper concern, and the chemical-fiber giant, Invista (a company that brought you--among other products--Teflon). That's right, every time you buy Brawny paper towels or Dixie Cups you are contributing directly--directly!--to right-wing causes.
How does Koch see itself? Here's a description from the company--rendered here in appropriate business babble:
Koch Industries is perhaps best viewed as a collection of capabilities continually searching for new ways to create value in society..
Yikes! Talk about your public relations drivel. Never mind the personification of "collection of capabilities continually searching", what are the core principles Koch embraces while it continually searches to make our lives richer, fuller, better, and more value-added? Again, this is from Koch Industries marketing boilerplate:
"Integrity, humility, intellectual honesty, and respect for others..."
Of course, saying something doesn't make it so. In fact, Koch Industries is a nasty bit of business. Environmentally, they are one of the dirtiest corporations in America. In the 1990's alone, they were responsible for over 300 oil pipeline leaks in five states. In Minnesota they were fined 8 million dollars for discharging oil into streams. Separately, they were indicted by the federal government--97 counts--for lying about a large spill--91 metric tons--of benzene in Texas. As the Clinton years waned, Koch faced civil fines in excess of 300 million dollars and 4 Koch employees faced criminal charges.
In all, Koch was--and is--a classic demonstration of the profligate and wasty ways of the market. Their practices hint at the kind of excess and abuse that flourishes when regulation is absent or simply moribund. They harken back to those sweet sweet days of the Gilded Age.
While some of the 97 counts were consolidated by Clinton's Justice Department, after the election of George W. Bush, John Ashcroft's Justice Department agreed to drop the affair after Koch agreed to plead to a lesser charge of falsifying documents and paid a small fine. Pfotenhauer was, at the time, chief lobbyist for Koch Industries.
In 2002, Pfotenhauer--in a demonstration of the common practice among the power elite of interconnectedness--was appointed by John Ashcroft to the National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women. This appointment was in keeping with the perverse cynicism of the Bush Administration. Previously, Pfotenhauer made clear her position on women's rights when she spoke out againt the 1994 Violence Against Women Act. This act, Pfotenhauer declaimed at the time, "will do nothing to protect women from crime. It will, though, perpetuate false information, waste money and urge vulnerable women to mistrust all men". (oh yea, I added the italics.)
The Kochs have dipped into their river of cash and funded a cohort of interlocking foundations,which in turn fund a large array of conservative groups that share the mission of advocating free-market principles. In doing so, they also serve to provide a veneer of respectability and intellectualism to the bucanneer world of "ideologically sanctioned" greed and corporate criminality. For example, Koch has been deeply involved in the funding of think tanks whose mission has been to slow down consensus-building on global climate change. They are the folks who consistently push the position that evidence is scant--or nonexistant--that human activity contributes to the "natural" process of climate fluctuation or change.
There are many of these Koch financed think tanks--perhaps the most celebrated being the Cato Institute--including the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, headed today by Nancy Pfotenhauer. What is the AFPF's mission? Here's how the "non-profit" describes itself:
"[AFPF is] a nationwide organization of citizen leaders committed to advancing every individual's right to economic freedom and opportunity. AFPF believes reducing the size and scope of government is the best safeguard to ensuring individual productivity and prosperity for all Americans. AFPF educates and engages citizens in support of restraining state and federal government growth, and returning government to its constitutional limits."
Boy, couldn't we could spend a long boozy evening unpacking this bit of marketing gibberish? What does it mean? Simply put: We are in the business of advocating market-based solutions. We think shared responsibility and a common vision are a crock. We promote money as an index of rights, citizenship as a commodity. So, why do we care about Nancy Pfotenhauer? So what if she speaks for John McCain? What does McCain advocate when he uses shills like Pfotenhauer?
Simply put, more deregulation and privatization. We certainly see this in McCain's health care plan. Privatization means a renewed push for school vouchers, more private contractors, more outsourcing of governmental functions. What we see is an "ideolgy" that seeks to dissolve shared public responsibility; we see, my friends, an agenda that surrenders the polity to the ruthless discipline of the market.