Populists crash the Koch lobby.

• Author: Hightower, Jim
• Position: VOX POPULIST - Column

An occupying army of Gucci-clad corporate lobbyists has set up camp in Washington, numbering more than 12,000.

I'll do the math for you. Yes, that works out to nearly twenty-two lobbyists for every member of the House and Senate, and they come armed with explosive levels of campaign cash to keep lawmakers toeing the corporate line.

On April 28, a very different army arrived in the nation's capital. This one did not come from the infamous K Street corridor of corporate lobbying firms, but from your town and mine, armed with a decidedly un-corporate, un-robber baron agenda.

The visitors were part of the growing majority of Americans who've been knocked down by the low-wage economy--an intentional inequality being imposed on working (and non-working) families by Wall Street, corporate chieftains, and their Congressional enablers. To the surprise of those clueless elites, however, workaday Americans--even the lowest-paid and supposedly least-powerful--are not going to be passively herded into that plutocratic future.

To the contrary, they've been organizing, strategizing, and mobilizing. The April contingent of 1,500 that went to Congress as the "Populist lobby" are members of three fast-growing, grassroots groups: National People's Action, National Domestic Workers Alliance, and the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United. These groups are made up of a network of farmers, workers, clergy, retirees, environmentalists, students, and just plain folks.

This feisty coalition also paid a visit to "Koch Companies Public Sector," the grandiose name the Koch brothers give to their Washington, D.C., lobbying headquarters strategically located just one block from the White House. From...