The Get-Well Card I Sent to a Koch Brother

By Carl Gibson, Reader Supported News

17 May 14

“The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous mini-mall or start a coup or try to become a rockstar and you think, “They'll remember me now,” but (a) they don’t remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your mini-mall becomes a lesion.”

– John Green, “The Fault in Our Stars”

ather than simply being outraged by the greed of the Koch Brothers, we should instead see their greed as a profound sickness and pray fervently for oligarchs like the Kochs to get better, for the sake of our country and the world’s future generations. I'm including this message in a get-well card I'm mailing to David Koch's Manhattan apartment, which is his primary residence. Feel free to write a similar letter and mail it to:

David Koch
740 Park Avenue
Floors 4 and 5
New York, NY 10021

Dear David,

Think back on the spiritual experience you had when surviving an early nineties plane crash that killed 34 people. What purpose were you kept alive to fulfill? I’ve asked myself the same question since last fall, when I somehow escaped a late-night fire that consumed everything I own in under three minutes and displaced 30 other housemates. Did we both miraculously survive these tragedies to work for the benefit of a small handful of tremendously wealthy individuals, or for the lasting good of society?

Your father, as you say, was “paranoid about Communism.” I imagine his vision of Communism was a populace living under the thumb of a corrupt government that took their homes, their rights, and forced them to labor eternally for meager wages with no ability to speak against it. Now compare that nightmare scenario to today’s America.

Millions have been made homeless by fraudulent foreclosure schemes. Globalization has eliminated millions of good-paying jobs. Most of the few job openings left are in part-time, minimum wage labor in the fast-food industry. Politicians are more interested in fundraising for their own re-election than in meeting the needs of their constituents. Americans who nonviolently assembled in public spaces three years ago and spoke against these injustices had their constitutional rights brutally suppressed by the state with tear gas, flash grenades, batons, and pepper spray. Your father’s picture of 20th-century Communism has come to 21st-century America. We both know this isn’t the nation the founding fathers, or your father, envisioned. Ask yourself – are you using your vast wealth to prolong this nightmare, or end it?

Your wealthy father raised you to respect hard work, and had you spend one hot summer driving a spade into Oklahoma ground that didn’t want to crack. That story reminded me of one hot, humid summer on my grandfather’s farm in Bourbon County, Kentucky, when I threw bales of hay into a loft, and knocked down a fence with a sledgehammer and crowbar to make room for a new one. Even though I’m middle-class and you’re the second-wealthiest man in New York City, we share a kinship through our upbringing. We both love this country and want to see it flourish. We’re also both spiritually-inclined people.

In Nichiren Buddhism, in which we chant Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo to manifest a higher life condition and have a human revolution, one of the ten worlds we experience is the world of hunger, where no matter how much we have, it’s never enough to satisfy. The tenth world, Buddhahood, can be achieved by anyone, no matter how much evil they may have done. Imagine if you were no longer hungry, renounced your past causes, changed your karma, and had such a human revolution!

Devote your estate to lifting people out of poverty, and advocate for a government that respects fundamental human rights and basic needs. Honor your father’s anti-dictatorial ideals by demanding an end to the authoritarian policing and intrusive surveillance that’s akin to Czarist Russia, not the United States we were born in. Use your influence on politics to push for an economy that’s powered not by finite resources dug up from underground, but by the wind, the sun, and the water. Your company would be a leading innovator in developing and propagating these technologies and would be profitable beyond measure. Your name would be celebrated worldwide for ages, and you would leave a legendary legacy that would make Americans proud to speak your name long after you’re gone.

I’ll be continuing to pray for your human revolution. Get well soon.

All the best,
Carl

Carl Gibson, 26, is co-founder of US Uncut, a nationwide creative direct-action movement that mobilized tens of thousands of activists against corporate tax avoidance and budget cuts in the months leading up to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Carl and other US Uncut activists are featured in the documentary "We're Not Broke," which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. He currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. You can contact him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , and follow him on twitter at @uncutCG.

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