Aliens among us

I’m a lifelong “Star Trek” fan. Well, since the original series came on in 1966, anyway. I was almost 14, and I was captivated.

In the series’ second incarnation, “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” a race called the Ferengi was introduced. They’re money-grubbing, power-hungry beings, guided by the “Rules of Acquisition,” which glorify greed and cheating.

Rule of Acquisition 1: “Once you have their money, never give it back.”

There are no labor unions among the Ferengi workers; the goal of every Ferengi is to become the exploiter. And women are forced to stay home and wear no clothing. When a Frenegi enters the home of a friend, he offers money for admittance.

When they die, their bodies are descicated and the family sells of pieces of it to raise money and so family and friends can own a piece of their loved one.

The Ferengi religion brings the dead to the Blessed Exchequer, where they can bribe their way into the Divine Treasury.

It was supposed to be fiction, but I saw this “photo” this morning and it dawned on me that these two really would make good Ferengi. Too bad they’re real and they’re ours to deal with.

For 30 years, the Kock Brothers worked behind the scenes, funding right-wing causes, buying influence, corrupting our political system and undermining Democracy. By the time they were outed last year by The New Yorker, their work was pretty much done. They had created the Tea Party astroturf movement and helped set up a system of disinformation that would tilt the landscape far to the right.

To the far-right, the Koch brothers are heroes, doing battle with the great villain George Soros.

Of course, Soros hasn’t poured but of fraction of the money into political movements has the Kochs have, and he’s always been above -board. I don’t think the Kocks and their ilk even begin to understand the difference.