Chase Koch (left) performing in his band 2LOT alongside Rudy Love Jr. (right).

I. SOMEWHERE FEST

This weekend Wichita is having a music festival[1] put on by Chase Koch and his band 2LOT [2] (with members Omar M. Jahwar II [3], Robert Trusko [4], Rudy Love, Jr [5] [quoted below], and Sage Judd), sold as “ a place to step away from the noise of the world and gain clarity within a community of deep thinkers and creative explorers[6].” Chase is the heir apparent of Koch Industries, a company long run by his father, Charles Koch, a monster of a man that has used his vast fortune to relentlessly champion the libertarian free-market nonsense he holds as sacred truths.

This comes at a time when people are being forced to finally face the costs of remaining “impartial” in the face of the ever more obvious impacts capitalism is having on the world, such as the recent truths surrounding Ed Sheeran. We aren’t going to focus on any international artist in this article, as we don’t need to venture that far.

Instead, we will take a look at the startling number of local musicians and other artists that have been making excuses for their participation in, or support of, the local festival, which has in turn caused us to reflect on the nature of the relationship between art and capitalism, and how sacrosanct people hold the idea that art is a universal and complete good in the world. This belief has allowed an excuse for uncountable evils to be committed in our world, especially when the source of the art directly links to things like genocide.

II. THE KOCH’S & WICHITA

A. Local History

Anyone from the Wichita area has heard the stories about the Koch’s, which possibly due to their influence remain local, rather than more widely known. Outside of Wichita, you won’t find much word of the time Liz Koch (Charles’s wife) demanded an immigrant seamstress be fired for a mistake on a dress she had modified or of how Charles Koch, while in college, made anyone who wanted to date him read Ayn Rand. If you dug deep enough, you might be able to read about the time in 1993 that Chase Koch, the founder of Somewhere Fest, then 16 years old, ran a red light and struck 12‑year‑old Zachary Seibert, who was crossing the street, resulting in the child’s death. You might find out that Chase was given 100 hours of community service and nothing else[7]. The Koch’s have recently pledged to fund a pedestrian bridge over the same road that Chase killed the child on, which if one is cynical might be seen as a way to further bury the event deeper in the internet (especially after the search terms “Chase Koch Rock Road” started trending locally).

Beyond their personal lives, the Koch’s have used their power to push their brand of libertarianism on to the world’s political and educational layout, funding candidates on both sides of the spectrum (such as the libertarian Wichita mayor Lily Wu) and even internationally. They personally choose who gets hired to teach at the Wichita State University School of Business (and many other schools), and even made the largest single contribution in WSU’s history at $11.25 million. But none of their contributions come without a cost.

B. Downtown Wichita

The Koch’s have recently purchased many of the empty buildings in downtown Wichita, an area rife with struggle and homelessness. They have claimed this is in order to reinvigorate the area and create a music scene comparable to that of Austin Texas or Nashville.

Many in town celebrated the purchase, as the area could use some investment. But unlike public investment that creates real opportunity by providing housing, schools, or better infrastructure, his investment only provides for more policing and “opportunity” in the form of more “entrepreneurs” (read: “swindlers”) of the kind already infesting Wichita being able to open more useless startups in order to get a chance at aligning themselves with a rich benefactor. But such scenes are not made so artificially. But a good music scene cannot be made artificially by a rich guy taking over an area and pumping money into it. Culture is not made by wealthy individuals or groups, even if they too often control what “culture” means. Culture is created by the poor and consumed by the rich (“Consumed” here meaning both like a mouse inside a snake and the old term for Tuberculosis).

C. Koch Money & Philanthropy

“The cry of the oppressed is the only music that truly wakes the soul.”
– Frida Kahlo

Wichita has always been a town of hustlers and schemers doing all they can to get their way to the top, and making any excuse for the things they did to get there. I often wonder if that attitude is the result of our most wealthy residents, or if they learned it from the town where they grew up. Probably a little of both, as they have made efforts to infect the city and state[8] with their politics going back to the original family patriarch, Fred Koch [9], a man who built his fortune working for the Soviet Union and the Nazi regime, and who only had anything bad to say about the Soviets, later founding the John Birch Society [10] and raising his sons to hate Communism as he did. While their father sought to fight against Communism, his sons seemed to have realized that words alone[11] would not hold back its inevitable tide. They started using their fortune to sway the public towards their own ends.

Just as ancient leaders used circuses and bread for the populous to make themselves seem like benevolent rulers and to distract the commoners from the injustice of their rule, todays version of the emperors use their power to the same ends and using the same tools, if more refined. They use their control over mass media and deep pockets to fund the arts and other cultural movements like Somewhere Fest. It not only allows them to appear to care about such things, it gives them control over what is centered in the public perspective. Nobody famous got there without the assistance of people like the Koch’s, despite the stories they often tell of their own rise to fame.

This also barely touches on the other benefits the rich receive, such as generous tax breaks and their names on scores of buildings across the country. They launder their image and maintain control by stealing from the public coffers. By ensuring that their taxes remain low, and by keeping their checkbooks open to those willing to ignore where that money comes from, they have the city long eating from their hands, no matter how ridiculous their ideas are (another story: when I was a child Bill Koch [Charles’s twin] came to my inner city Kansas middle school to sell us on the idea of taking up sailing as a hobby, for which his foundation received another nice tax break).

III. ART AS A WEAPON

“Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.”
– Pablo Picasso

“Lenin with Villagers” by Evdokiya Usikova. The type of Soviet Realism that the C.I.A. & Western powers attempted to suppress.

Art is often times accounted as a universal and unimpeachable good in the world, and considered the great standard of culture or what-this-whole-thing-of-life-is-all-about. Stemming from that claim is the idea that art can bridge any divide between people, and that being a universal good, cannot by its very core nature cause and harm.

This has never been true.

Art is also a tool. A tool to express meaning or ideas in a way that words cannot. It can reach people deeply and sincerely to convey emotions such as longing or rage, or provide a calm and reassuring backdrop to life. But as a tool like money or power or a wrench, art can be used as a weapon. It matters what the weapon is being used for and who is using it. It matters where that weapon is being aimed. When the weapon is in the hands of those whose fortune depends on a submissive and distracted population, it will be used to those ends.

This is something long known by the powerful. It is not for nothing that the CIA and other groups funded so many modern artists in the 60’s and 70’s as a counter to the realism popular in the U.S.S.R.[12], or that artists like Ai Weiwei[13] are given such a platform in the West. These things are not innocent acts of rich Westerners. They are deliberate schemes of capitalists protecting their power. Art is therefore another battlefield on which the war for the future is fought.

“Chinese dissident” conceptual artist Ai Weiwei dipping a 2,000 year old Chinese vase in acrylic paint.

A. Art Shaping Society

“Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer in which to shape it”
– Leon Trotsky

Without a doubt culture is shaped by the arts, which is too often in turn shaped by those who control that art. In a just Communist society, those that create would control that creation, and the capitalists would have no input in the matter. The rich do not build. They do not create. They only control what is built or created by their access to the resources needed for such things. Without them, there would still be work that needed done and the creative drives of the people would not be stifled. Art would still be made, even if the suffering that fuels so much artistic expression would not be so widespread. Instead of glorifying individuals, we would glorify an entire people free from the shackles the rich have imposed on us.

In past Communist projects, art was used for exactly that purpose. It celebrated the power of the worker and the farmer, rather than invited one to force meaning into meaningless things. As such, it shaped the worldviews of those that experienced it in the way only art seems to accomplish. Who can look on those works and not feel inspired by them but those whose life is without suffering? We can also look at how artists have taken back their culture from Western or bourgeoisie influence, such as the use Frida Kahlo made of historic Mexican art forms to confront European colonialist influences on Mexican culture, or the effectiveness of the Cultural Revolution on reaffirming China’s own values (despite the excesses, it did accomplish the goal of re-centering Chinese culture in to the Chinese mind).

In the West, the rich fund art because being unable to create it, their money is the only means of controlling it. They fund art that glorifies them, and allows them to better experience their own sense of intellectual and moral superiority. They have been using to convince the public of that superiority, and they have very often been successful in doing so. We must resist with our own artistic force.

B. Art as a Universal Good

“The soil of Mexico belongs to those who sweat upon it, not to those who buy it from afar.”
– Frida Kahlo

The locally infamous multi-million dollar “Squiggle Line” outside of the Wichita Water Treatment Plant.

Artists would have you believe that there is inherent value to all of their work, and it is tempting for anyone to assign some important deeper meaning to whatever they do, it very often the case that the “meaning” described is no more than fluff generated by the artist or art consumer to increase the price or make it seem significant. This is not to say that public art cannot be meaningful, but that it cannot have inherent inviolate meaning.

Armed with the concept of all art as a universal good, governments often uncritically invest a great deal in it, and local governments like Wichita’s are certainly no exception. In fact, Wichita has historically placed great value in public art displays[14], and some of them are truly incredible, even if so much of it is hollow. One local example is the controversial sculpture in front of Wichita’s new water treatment plant. Called “Source” by creator Jill Anholt, who stated that it was meant to describe the “balance and harmony of the facility’s two main water-supply sources in mind” and that it “also speaks to her love of exploring both the general, universal relationship between nature and infrastructure, body and place, and the specific, distinctive stories, systems, and conditions of a particular place[15].”

Those familiar with the location will recall that it sits a little off a highway far from any trail or likely visitors and celebrates what is basically a concrete building and a few large water tanks. Important and wondrous as the water treatment plant is, it is not something any regular person would even think about, much less visit. It makes one wonder who exactly art projects like this are for, considering the three pieces of public art created for the venture and the $1.25 million they cost the tax payers (ignoring for a moment the fact that the $550 million project has a whole slew of other problems involving obvious corruption). Art can simply be something that looks cool (and “Source” could be claimed by some as neat looking at least), but even if we are creatures that seek deep meaning in everything, it is hard to attribute anything but fluff to Anholt’s description of her brightly lit squiggle line.

Sometimes an artistic piece is not an inherent benefit to the public, even when it is freely displayed to the public. Too often the value is held solely in the dollar amount rather than the meaning, and the meaning is artificially generated to increase the dollar amount. Counter to this are the public art projects that do provide value to the public, and even simply looking interesting or in some way inspiring new art is of great value to all. Yet we must be critical of the scams and mindful of the costs, as well as be cognizant of the fact that there is some art that can be detrimental to the public good.

The travelling exhibit “New American Painting” was put on by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a C.I.A. cutout.

C. Art Without Principles

“Art is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen.”
– Leo Tolstoy

The power of art lays in its meaning. But that meaning can be changed with each new viewer or perspective. When a group has the power to control the perspective, like the power created with the kinds of money and influence of people like the Koch’s, the art can take on a meaning not intended by the artist. It can even be stripped of any philosophical or moral value it once held and become something completely new. Similarly, much of the art we see selling for millions[16] (such as those in the minimalist school[17]) acts as a reflection of the viewers or artists thoughts. When those viewers or that artist lack any moral principles or any philosophical understanding of the world, or has an understanding developed from a privileged capitalist perspective, the art will reflect that. The art becomes just more trite drivel artificially propped up by those with the means to do so.

An artist without principles cannot create meaningful art, even if they can create valuable art.

A banana taped to a wall that sold for $5.2 million to a cryto-bro.

IV. EXCUSES

Many of the artists and concert goers that have contributed to Somewhere Fest, as with other such events, have declared how well-intentioned they are in their participation. We find their excuses hollow when considered critically. It is yet another example of why we must apply careful dialectics to claims like those being made.

B. “Art as Liberation”

“The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.”
– Orson Welles

The old “no ethical consumption in capitalism” statement only goes so far. At some point, we have to put a line down for what is acceptable and what it not. Each of us has a personal idea of where that line should be, and who it should apply to, and there will never have a universal agreement on it. Nonetheless, it should be obvious when the line is being used as an excuse, such as when a person is using it to defend their overt unwillingness to make the most basic sacrifices based on such universal principles as “genocide is bad”.

Yet we are seeing from some of the participants in this event is that exact claim, despite them knowing exactly what the creators of the event are doing. Even worst, we see them couching their excuses in revolutionary language, even citing W. E. B. De Bois[18] and other revolutionary figures in their attempts to assuage their guilt.

If you are going to serve the monster, the least you could do is marginalize that service. It would be far better if they would at least admit that they are doing it for a check, and some of them are. Even if it is clearly not the case that these artists only way to the top is by taking the offerings from such a rotten source (“selling out” isn’t an appropriate term here because none of these artists have reached a point in their careers in which it would apply, with a few notable exceptions such as Deadmau5[19] and Shaq[20]). As stated previously, it is also the case that their willingness to forgo any principles or sacrifice for their art effectively makes that art meaningless.

Art can be a liberating force, but only when used to that end by those interested in the cause of liberation. When the use of the art is based on “liberation” in the sense of being able to do or say whatever a person (or corporation) pleases without consequence, that “art” is mere banality, even if it brings together the different strains of capitalist sympathizers from around the center of the political spectrum, as Chase Koch purports to have as his ambition.

ICE supporting pro-police DJ Diesel AKA Shaq.

C. “Art Bridging the Divide”

“During the Vietnam War… every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

On their own website, Chase Koch’s band 2LOT describes themselves as “a group that doesn’t just focus on music but social change… Overcoming addiction, helping kids overcome barriers and discovering their gifts, and criminal justice are top priorities for us[21].” In this they join any number of other artists who describe their work as a way to overcome the problems with society, if only you would give them more money to do so. It is the same vapidity we hear from those advocating for the massive line-up of do-nothing non-profits constantly arising, or the guy trying to sell you expensive new windows or siding. It’s a pitch, and one that means nothing in the long run. Because what does “criminal justice” mean in this context when we see it being used to fund ICE? What does “kids overcoming barriers” mean when it’s spoken by a free-market fanatic?

Like the meanings found in art itself, there is the meaning such statements have to us, and the meaning that the words have for the artist conveying them. In this case, we can also pretty well tell what the words mean to those saying them. The difference is that we don’t have the power to actualize any meaning like they do, and the “they” in this case have been doing immeasurable harm by replacing public schools with private schools, actively investing in Israeli tech companies facilitating genocide, and exerting disproportionate control over the political process to the point that any semblance of democracy that once might of existed in the U.S. is functionally gone. So when Chase Koch talks about social change through music, we must look at what kind of change he and his family have actually used their vast capital in creating with such groups as Stand Together [22], the Koch Network [23], and Koch Disruptive Technologies [24], which have invested in things such as AI and police surveillance technology (again couching their work in the vapid language of unity).

We must wonder if another techno beat or sick riff made from an artist propped up by a billionaire is really what is going to save the world, since that is what the artists creating them would have you believe. Perhaps they even believe it themselves, but as Vonnegut found, it is just so much egotistical nonsense based on hippie liberal fantasy.

D. “A Bigger Platform”

“When deeds speak, words are nothing”
– Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Ed Sheeran crying on stage after facing the results of his “apolitical” position on genocide.

Many performers are making the claim that the platform they are being given (no doubt along with the check) will enable them as artists to reach more people with their message (whatever that message may be), but the act of going on that stage and taking that check makes any message they might have meaningless and cheap.

Not a single piece of art or music is worth a human life, nor is there a single artist’s life or life’s work that is more important than the lives of anyone else. Yet with their participation, the artists are making the statement that them having a platform is more important than the bodies buried under it. In their arrogance, they believe that the power of their music can wash away the blood spilled to get it out to the world. That the stage is set in a mid-sized city in the Midwest that nobody cares about means nothing, it seems. They will pave the road to their success with any number of bodies if it means they achieve their dreams. In doing so, it just means that they aren’t worth listening to in the first place. They may even yell “Free Palestine” while on stage to a crowd of thousands, but it comes across as cheap and hypocritical when that stage is built in Palestinian bodies.
The same goes with those attending, as not a few on social media pointed out that they were waving a Palestinian flag while in the audience. It brings in to focus the importance of having a solid anti-colonial mindset, as only equipped with such an outlook can one understand how ridiculous such an act is. They are putting joy over conviction and talk over action.

E. “Necessary Sacrifice”

“My career is bigger than any genocide.”
– Rudy Love Jr.

The full statement made by Chase Koch’s promoter a& bandmate Rudy Love Jr.

Another excuse stated repeatedly is that we need the rich to maintain the arts. This may be in fact true simply due to the fact that the oligarchs have deliberately cultivated such dependence by removing or reducing public income and the ability or willingness of politicians to fund things seen as disposable like the arts.

Once, the arts were funded by tax dollars in order to develop society and provide jobs, such as by the Works Progress Administration [25]. Now more than ever, artists are forced to rely on rich benefactors to reach any audience at all. The same is true for any group or person wishing to open a gallery or other type of exhibit. A situation has been created in which people like the Koch’s control what gets seen, and the message it conveys.

So this situation is certainly not new, or even new to Wichita, where nearly every major art development has Koch funding behind it through their foundations like the Koch Family Foundation [26], such as MarkArts [27] (in the Mary R. Koch Arts Center right down from the Koch family compound) or Harvester Arts or the Wichita Music Theatre [28]. The Koch family and their associates have long controlled the Wichita art community using their deep pockets and the lack of public funding (and in turn getting nice tax deductions from it). John D. Rockefeller was another that paid high amounts for art to decorate his buildings, and even hired Communists to do so (even when one particular Communist, having principles, created a powerful statement celebrating the worker over the objections of his benefactor[29]).

The Mark Arts building funded by the Koch’s for their parties.

But there is a difference between resigning oneself to the present situation and ignoring it for one’s own benefit. The artists going up on the stage to play at a concert put on by someone who actively colludes with a nation like Israel, like Chase Koch and his family, are not passive in their participation in the system. They are knowingly allowing themselves to be used to cleanse the image of their patrons, in turn allowing those patrons to escape accountability. They had a choice, and they chose themselves over the lives being lost.

Diego Rivera’s mural “Man at the Crossroads” funded & destroyed by John D. Rockefeller for the inclusion of Lenin (seen left of center).

V. CONCLUSION

A. Bad Ends from Bad People

“True art must serve the people, or it is merely a toy for the bourgeoisie.”
– Frida Kahlo

While writing this article I spoke to a number of people about the people involved with the organizing of this event, and many of them stated that Chase Koch was a kind or even honorable person with the best of intentions. That may even be true to some extent, if you limit your definition of “kind” to “nice” and leave any moral implications out of term. He may even have good intentions, but internal intentions are not the material issue when we judge a person’s crimes. Instead, being materialists, we consider their actions as a reflection of those intentions.

We know that Chase Koch has deliberately cultivated ties to Israel through his control of Koch Disruptive Technologies[30], which is even chaired by Eli Groner, a former Director-General under Benjamin Netanyahu[31]. We know that many of those investments are directly linked to cybersecurity^[32] and medical device technology[33] used by Israel in its illegal occupation and genocide of the Palestinian people. We also know that he is unashamed of that investment[34].

It’s also worth mentioning that despite the contentions of most liberals to the contrary, the Koch’s are not as conservative as we have all been led to belief. Their nuanced beliefs would more fairly align themselves with the current Democratic Party, even if they spend most of their money supporting GOP candidates. Charles Koch has many times positioned himself as anti-Trump[35]. Before they are anything, the Koch’s are capitalists. Like the Dems, the social issues they often fall on the more liberal side of are secondary to their drive to maintain their wealth. Like the Dems, they seek to maintain capitalism and the status quo. Chase Koch is no exception. It is also the liberals that will be most likely be attending this concert, just as it is mostly liberals who visit the art galleries and other exhibits put on by the rich[36]. A cynical person might even make the claim that the entire thing is meant to sell their brand of libertarianism to a new audience now that their original base has been mostly taken by MAGA.

The fact that the Koch’s think of themselves as pursuing a righteous cause is all the more concerning. They truly believe themselves the heroes, and as such no amount of trying to convince them otherwise will find purchase in their minds. The type of person who makes potential dates read Atlas Shrugged and other such nonsense and whom considers themselves a champion of freedom and supreme knower of economic theory is going to have a paternalistic view of anyone not nodding along to their words. Their “sharing of ideas” means lecturing others. It does not mean listening.

So a “nice” guy Chase Koch may very well be. Maybe even a person one can sit and talk with about music over a beer (I have heard he throws great pool parties at his $3 million compound, and even at times hires acts like Aerosmith to jam with him and his band). But a “good” person he is not, and throwing a concert in downtown Wichita will not change that. Only doing actual good with his money will. Given what has been made apparent in his actions, that is unlikely.

B. The Public Reaction

Any reader may have also noticed that we published this article after the end of Somewhere Fest. This was due not only to necessary edits, but to the desire to see how the festival would be received by the public in attendance and online. I personally admit mixed feelings on both matters. For as we walked around the downtown area of the event distributing pamphlets outlining Koch’s involvement with the genocidal rogue state of Israel, we were struck by how few people we encountered even as the gates began to open (to be forthright this was early on the second day and we boycotted the main events). Sources we spoke to indicated that even the first day concerts did not meet the crowds expected.

Online reviews of the event ranged from glossy to critical, often depending much on the source’s connection to traditional media. In the main they seem to discuss the low turnout and the unavoidable preeminence of Koch influenced projects over anything not in their direct control, including the music. Especially empty were the associated conferences, which were made obvious as mere stages on which the Koch’s and their puppets could spew their bland nonsense, such as when Koch associated artist Aloe Blacc [37] bleeted about how “positivity can change the world, and how music is a “connective tissue” that brings people together.”[38]

That there was a crowd at all is still troubling. We hoped that the blood money spent to create the festival would be enough of a reason to dissuade anyone from attending. The truth is that most folks simply do not know of the links the rich have with the ills of the world, and many who do know simply think themselves too small for their participation or nonparticipation to matter, and finally of course there are also those that know, and do not care, seeing their happiness or success as more important than anything else.

C. Selling and Using Weapons

“I knew that the revolutionary movement needed artistic expression, and that art is a weapon of revolution.”
– Diego Rivera

“Picking up the Banner” by Gely Mikhailovich Korzhev-Chuvelev. An example we must follow.

Despite their own irrelevant feelings on the matter, artists selling their art to people using it against us are culpable in how that art is used, especially when it’s repeatedly obvious how it will be used. They are no better than arms dealers selling rocket launchers they know will be deployed against civilians, and given the ever-lasting power of art to effect the human psyche itself, they may be even worse.

For our own part, we must embrace art as a weapon of revolution in the same way our predecessors did, and resist at all times the impulse to hand that weapon over to our enemies or allow them to dominate the conversation. Those artists that resort to pandering to the oligarchs must be called out at every opportunity and educated whenever possible. After all, in war it is necessary to both limit your enemies resources while simultaneously developing and stockpiling your own[39], and the war we are waging is the most important one in history.

[1] Website: Somewhere Fest & Conference – Wichita KS (accessed 09/24/2026).

[2] Website: https://www.2lot.com/about (accessed 09/24/2026).

[3] Website: Omar Jahwar II | LinkedIn (accessed 09/26/2026).

[4] Website: Truskomusic (accessed 09/26/2026).

[5] Website: ABOUT – Rudy Love & The Encore – Indie Soul – Wichita KS (accessed 09/26/2026).

[6] Announcement: 2026 Somewhere Festival | KMUW (accessed 09/25/2026).

[7] Website: Chase Koch – SourceWatch (accessed 09/24/2026).

[8] Article: Graves, Lisa (July 10, 2014). “The Koch Brothers: The Extremist Roots Run Deep”. Center for Media and Democracy. Retrieved July 25, 2015 (accessed 09/29/2026).

[9] Website: Fred C. Koch – Wikipedia (accessed 09/26/2026).

[10] Website: The John Birch Society (accessed 09/29/2026).

[11] See: Fred Koch. A Business Man Looks at Communism. Univ. of Southern Mississippi (accessed 09/29/2026).

[12] Article: The Modern Art Form That was Secretly Funded by the CIA During the Cold War – HistorySnob (accessed 09/24/2026).