Inside The Koch Empire: How The Brothers Plan To Reshape America

Forbes ^ | 12-5 | Daniel Fisher

[ExxonPatrolUs]

"We get threats from people in Congress, and this is pushed out and becomes part of the culture: That we are evil so we need to be destroyed." - Charles Koch

A man who, by FORBES’ careful measure, is one of the 50 most powerful people in the world, one of the 20 wealthiest–and one of the dozen most vilified–is perpetually in a position to reflect. But given it’s Charles Koch’s 77th birthday, the calendar demands it. Especially with the presidential election that Charles has called “the mother of all wars” less than a week away, and with Koch Industries, the firm he has built into the second-largest private company in America, considering several more big acquisitions, including an 18,000-employee automotive glassmaker, Guardian Industries.

Yet despite all these momentous events swirling around his wood-paneled Wichita office, decorated with seascapes and looking out on to the prairie to the north, the legacy he wishes to initially address comes via a piece of paper with a color photograph of his first grandson. The baby’s name: Charles. “My proudest accomplishment,” he smiles.

Given that he and his brother have been called “pigs” (by MSNBC host Chris Matthews) and protesters have unfurled “Koch Kills” banners at rallies, Charles clearly wants to use this rare interview to humanize himself, attaching some personal substance to his courtly Midwest manner. Yet this grandfatherly presence, framed by an unbuttoned collared shirt and a toothy grin, is at odds with the business and political juggernaut that he and his younger brother David have built in a systematic process befitting their MIT training.

Charles’ many critics on the left–including the President of the United States–accuse him of accumulating too much power and using it to promote his own economic interests through a network of secretive organizations they call the “Kochtopus.”

[Crooked Constituent]

“We’re going to study what worked,what didn’t work,and improve our efforts in the future. We’re not going to roll over and play dead.”

[muawiyah]

Reading the article you'd think they caved into Romney and the Mittbots.

How utterly stupid of them to have done that ~ now I can have no respect for these bozos. Send them back to the fields to make some money ~ least they know about that part of it.

[cizinec]

I worked at Koch Industries for a while in Wichita, KS. These guys aren’t just talk. They really try to practice what they preach. I learned a lot while there and carry those lessons with me 15 years later.

At lunch, you could go down to the company cafeteria and see the Koch brothers eating. If you had to come in on Saturday, one of the brothers would be there. They didn’t just want you to work, they wanted you to know why and how you worked the way you did.

You could make or break yourself there, it was your choice. Either way, you were going to be better than when you started. The people that demonize the Kochs may as well demonize America and hard work. That’s all they stand for.

[ExxonPatrolUs]

Its really unfair. Think of the people who only need to “attack” the president with words to get locked up. If the Koch brothers are killed by some extreme leftist, will anyone in the media acknowledge that Obama and company continue to “target” them?