Koch Brothers and Cults

I lost sleep last night wondering how the Koch brothers sleep at night.

Surely, I wonder, they must have sleepless nights over their overt influence supporting the devastation caused by exponentially rising carbon levels; they must be, at least to some degree, affected by news of villages destroyed by rising waters and humans killed in natural disasters. Are they so deeply brainwashed by their own insular money-god that they experience no remorse? Are they sociopathic and immune to empathy? How could they not only encourage such massive destruction, but continue to promote and profit off of such irreversibly deadly initiatives? To care so little about local communities and, on a far larger scale, the macro level impacts of carbon on the earth, requires a degree of bigotry that is unfathomable to me.

As questioned by Chase Twichell of animal abusers:

What kind of consciousness accommodates their existence?

This question of consciousness has similarly circulated in my mind in reference to the documentary, Prophet’s Prey, which explores Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints and their (now imprisoned) totalitarian leader Warren Jeffs. The film follows the amplified indoctrination techniques and radicalized foundational church practices under Jeffs’ reign. The religion posits their leading prophet as possessing the ability to speak directly with god, granting Jeffs a voice of unique irrefutable authority. Polygamy is foundational to the fundamentalist sect, with some men having as many as 50 wives; women are valued only for their obedience and ability to procreate, married off as early as 12, and, as asserted by the film, often drugged into passivity. All members are isolated from the outside world not only geographically, but through prohibited access to television, books, and all exterior forms of education. 

            What makes Prophets Prey so disconcerting is the awareness within the religious group that Jeffs was raping and sexually assaulting children – many of whom he 'took' as his own wives. This complicates this question of what sort of consciousness accommodates the existence of both the members of the church and Warren Jeffs. Jeffs lead his congregation into a brainwashed state of complicit and mindless consciousness, creating an environment where his word was law, as his status as a representative of God allowed him to act as he did. Perhaps this is too crude a comparison, but just as the Koch Brother’s are ventriloquists dictating a Republican puppet show spouting climate change denial, Jeffs, even while imprisoned, wields an authority over the deceived members of the FLDS church, his voice from jail continuing to indoctrinate the members of his cult.