DARK MONEY The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer, 2016. The book is an eye opener, and per William S. Burroughs, "Sometimes paranoia's just having the facts," may leave you feeling queasy and uneasy.

Fred Chase Koch, father of the Koch brothers about whom we hear so much, got his fortune in oil rolling by building oil refineries first for the Soviets, and a bit later for the Nazis. Hitler personally approved the contract for Fred Koch's very large refinery in Hamburg which would deliver high octane fuel for the Luftwaffe. He admired the vigor of the Axis powers as they tooled up for war, and lamented about his own country, "...perhaps this course of idleness, feeding at the public trough, dependence on government, etc. with which we are afflicted is not permanent and can be overcome."

Fred had 4 sons - Freddie, Charles, and a pair of twins David and William (born 1940). He also had a daughter, Mary. Fred Chase Koch was a authoritarian and brutal disciplinarian and visited both his own harsh childhood and his diseased politics upon his children. Freddie, who was early on an outlier escaped much of this. Freddie turned out to be gay and kept his distance from this family once he was in a position to do so.

The Koch family were aggressive capitalists and right wing zealots, all. Charles Koch dominated his brothers from the beginning and dominated the company. They actively sought methods of influencing American politics, and tried various approaches -- all of them involving big money, and covert action. They seem to have perceived that a straight-forward assault would not go over well. Better to obscure what it was they were doing, and intended to do, behind a screen of meaningless names and titles.

The Koch brothers spent big in political philanthropy, partly as a tax maneuver. The Koch children's trusts required philanthropy to avoid taxation -- so they planted a lot of right-wing gardens. They funded think tanks like the Cato Institute, organizations such as the John Birch Society and the Libertarian Party.

Their view of government was simple: protect private property. The rest of it -- medicare, medicaid, social security, the CIA, FBI, SEC, FDA, public education, child labor laws, minimum wage -- just about everything passed since the late 19th century could be flushed down the drain.

So far, great book.