A review by nitin_kishore
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer

5.0

Holy Crapbaskets! If you did not know about the Kochs, Soros, Devos, Rockefellers etc being the lowest scum of the earth, you will. This book is a fantastic read and beautifully written to explain the time line of events and how the Kochs have been manipulating the government over the past 3-4 decades with their Dark money donation trusts and weaponized philanthropy. The books goes into decent amount of details about how they started the whole climate change denier movements to save their own interests and all the whistle blowing over their environmental damages and how it's easier and cheaper to settle and sign NDAs rather than fix the problem. The book goes into establishment of fake think tanks under the guise of providing courses or incentives to students with alternative ideas while it was a cleverly planned ruse to indoctrinate them at a grass root level and organize student protests. Slowly the whole concept shifts from wealthy trust fund families, forming secret unaccountable coalitions, to fund non profits that interfere with the government to spreading propaganda with fear mongering and diversionary tactics and manipulating the elections. It's all very systematic, methodical, planned and funded with pools of billionaires evading taxes under the guise of donating to non political non profit charities or organizations like Americans for freedom etc. This is legal as long as they only use 49% of their fund for political interference and its not their primary cause. This book shows how most people behind the shadows have made their wealth not by providing useful services but by protecting their inheritance from taxes and breaking or skirting the rules at every turn and lobbying against regulations that affect their bottomline without any regard for the amount of irreparable damage they wrought on this world. If you've ever followed politics and haven't been able to observe this pattern then this book will open your eyes and show you everything that transpired from 2009 till the 2016 election and why politics has been reduced to damaging or reversing each party's work into a static defense rather than moving towards any semblance of progress.

Jane Meyer does a fantastic job, and also reveals personal attacks to discredit journalists and scientists, by the Kochs, against everyone who stood in their way using shady private investigations, phone trappings and blatant break ins. It's very interesting to learn at thr start of this book, how their family history began with serving both Hitler and Stalin and their disciplinary father instilling hatred of the government into them. It also goes into the personal feuds between the brothers over ownership of the companies and paints a clear picture of Charles Koch

Wonderful and a necessary read. Will recommend 10/10 and ask you to stop following anything in the political scenario because all sides are poisoned now and it's all controlled propaganda. Cut it out of your life for the sake of your inner mental peace.

Also loved the fun fact about maptitude, a software made for the exclusive purpose of gerrymandering every ten years to ensure that votes have zero meaning in any election. America has moved from democracy to plutocracy and cronyism ages ago