Few wealthy individuals are demonized as much as Charles and David Koch. The brothers, who are worth $31 billion each [1], have been targets of the left and the news media, but in a rare interview in the Dec. 24 edition of Forbes Magazine [2] showed much more about the them than the typical media mention of the Kochs.
The
Kochs are the big funders of conservative and libertarian-leaning
groups and politicians, something liberals can’t stand. But what most
people may not know is that the left despises the brothers so much that
the pair get death threats.
The
Kochs were regular subjects of media discussion and left-wing attacks
in the 2012 election cycle due to their financial support of Republican
candidate Mitt Romney. In March 2012, George Soros-ally Robert Greenwald
and Greenwald’s production company Brave New Films released a supposed
documentary entitled “Koch Brothers Exposed.” The film was no more than left-wing propaganda [3]
which attempted to make the absurd claim that the Kochs were simply
trying to remake America in their own image. The film also ignored its
funding by left-wing billionaire Soros, who has been open about his wish
to change America.
In early 2012, NBC publicized death threats towards sleazy, Palin-bashing author Joe McGinniss. But around that same time [4],
Huffington Post and the Wichita Eagle reported that the Kochs has been
threatened at least a hundred times. Neither NBC, nor the other two
networks reported that fact. In July, The New York Times amplified [5] the protestors outside of a Romney fundraiser in the Hamptons, where they held a sign that stated “Romney has a Koch problem.”
But the Forbes interview painted a very different picture of the Kochs.
“We
get death threats, threats to blow up our facilities, kill our people,“
Charles Koch told Forbes staff writer Daniel Fisher. “This is pushed
out and becomes part of this culture – that we are evil.”
Looking
just at MSNBC, it would be easy to think the Kochs are greedy
capitalists who don’t care about people. In Sept. 2012, Howard Dean went
on “The Ed Show” and claimed the Kochs weren’t “real Americans” [6] and later, in October Chris Matthews called them “pigs” [7]
on his show. But when it comes to business, the Kochs aren’t just in it
for themselves. “We buy something not to milk it but to build it, to
take its capabilities and add to them, and build new businesses,” Koch
stated.
Through
what they call “Market Based Management,” the Koch brothers encouraged
their employees to find what’s most efficient for the company and reward
them for doing so. In the recent buyout of Georgia-Pacific, employees
“were given financial incentives” to find out better ways to do their
job. This had helped a struggling company turnaround for the better
without government bailouts.
In
addition to being political donors and hugely successful businessmen
the Kochs are also philanthropists. They give millions of dollars every
year to cancer research, museums and their communities. David Koch, the
more vocal of the two, gave $1 billion to medical research in 2012. He’s
also given $100 million to the Lincoln Center, the National Museum of
Natural History, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Not to mention that
both brothers give back to their native community of Wichita, Kan. by
funding the local college, Wichita State [8], and the Sedgwick County Zoo [9], among other things.
