You've heard of the multibillion-dollar political colossus known as the Koch Brothers. No matter where you live in America, their corporate cash has flooded your airwaves, showed up on your doorstep or influenced your life in some fashion. But while their money dominates the American political and legislative spectrum, their values and ideals do not.
We are the "Koch Sisters," two average women speaking out against the greed represented by the Koch Brothers. With the help of the AFL-CIO, we are proud to be part of an all-new campaign starting today that will highlight our values and our shared belief that people should come before profits.
While we share the same last name as the Koch Brothers, we definitely do not share their values. Although we are not sisters by blood, our union backgrounds and commitment to advancing the rights of workers makes us family. Together we are working to bring the issues most Americans care about -- from fair wages to protecting Social Security -- to the forefront of the political debate.
Like most Americans, we have worked hard all of our lives, as a teacher and a now-retired social worker, and we want to ensure that our children and grandchildren have the same opportunities we did. We share a belief that working families of this country should have every opportunity to get ahead. In that regard, we like to think we are on the same page as millions of hardworking Americans. We understand that Social Security is a promise and a safety net America's workers have earned and that promise should not be gambled away in the stock market. We understand that Medicare is a successful earned benefit lifeline. We also understand that the people of this country are hard workers who have labored for too long without receiving a raise while big corporations grow even richer.
Unlike the Koch Brothers, we don't have billions of dollars and we certainly aren't trying to buy democracy. But we do care about our country and what money in politics is doing to it. And we believe our voice, and the voices of countless Americans, is as important as the special interests that use their vast wealth to influence politics and policy. We share the belief that the working class is the backbone of our country and that corporate special interests and billionaires shouldn't be able to pollute our democracy for their personal gain at the expense of others.
While the Koch Brothers wield unprecedented and unrivaled money to pollute America's politics, we have and will always support the strongest political force in America: working people. Together with the AFL-CIO and other allies, we intend to lift up the voices of all the "Koch Sisters" in America and the values they stand for as a major part of grassroots efforts in the 2014 elections and beyond.
Join us and we can all be a nation of Koch Sisters!