KOCH KILLS: Billionaire bashing in Rancho Mirage, California
By Mike Roddy
14 February 2011 We came dressed for battle at Rancho Las Palmas Hotel. Gail Zawacki and I had matching tuxedo shirts, top hats, ghoul masks, and the best sign ever: KOCH KILLS, on an eight by two foot banner, painted in dripping red by Gail. We’d been planning it for weeks, and came from New Jersey and Seattle, respectively, for this important event. And we’re not talking about whatever the gathering inside the hotel met for—no mystery there: “How can we evade paying taxes? When can we destroy Social Security? Those pesky pollution and climate change rules are cutting into our bottom lines; who should we bribe?” Still smarting from Jane Mayer’s exposé in The New Yorker and increased scrutiny from Web sites like Think Progress, Alternet and the eXiled, the Koch brothers—organizers of the billionaire gathering—made sure that the guest list was private. Regular tourists at Rancho De Las Palmas were kicked out to make room for the really giant bankrolls from the Far Right, and their hate-mongering water-carriers like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. Gail had been talking with the local government for weeks, and we knew that they couldn’t get the cops to drag us off the sidewalk without violating the First Amendment. …
