Monday, January 11, 2016

GOSH, I WAS WONDERING WHY CHARLES KOCH HAD BECOME SO CHATTY LATELY (updated)

This doesn't look good for America's favorite wingnut billionaire brothers:
The father of the billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch helped construct a major oil refinery in Nazi Germany that was personally approved by Adolf Hitler, according to a new history of the Kochs and other wealthy families.

The book, “Dark Money,” by Jane Mayer, traces the rise of the modern conservative movement through the activism and money of a handful of rich donors....

But the book is largely focused on the Koch family, stretching back to its involvement in the far-right John Birch Society and the political and business activities of their father, Fred C. Koch, who found some of his earliest business success overseas in the years leading up to World War II. One venture was a partnership with the American Nazi sympathizer William Rhodes Davis, who, according to Ms. Mayer, hired Mr. Koch to help build the third-largest oil refinery in the Third Reich, a critical industrial cog in Hitler’s war machine.
For years the Koch brothers have been referred to as "reclusive," but all of sudden brother Charles was everywhere starting last fall -- Fox News, CBS Sunday Morning, public radio's Marketplace, Morning Joe, Forbes -- all in an effort to promote a book he'd written with the virtuous-sounding title Good Profit: How Creating Value for Others Built One of the World's Most Successful Companies. And then there was Charles again last week, sitting down in the Koch Industries cafeteria with a pulled-pork sandwich for a lengthy chat with a Financial Times interviewer, to whom he complained about the fact that his influence on American politics is slightly less than absolute.

Mayer has been writing about the Kochs since 2010, and they clearly knew this book was coming, even though it wasn't officially announced until November of last year. So I guess that's why they've become a wee bit less publicity-shy. On the one hand, it's probably not helping them much (the complaints about lack of influence in that Financial Times interview came off as embarrassing). On the other hand, books like this rarely do serious damage to their subjects.

But who knows? This is the first news story about the book, which doesn't go on sale until a week from tomorrow, and there could be more juicy material to come. Let's hope so.

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UPDATE: Oh my.

6 comments:

Victor said...

"YES!!!!!", he said, rubbing his hands with glee!!!!!!!!!!

As Balzac supposedy said/wrote, "Behind every great fortune there is a great crime."

And now, we can add a Koch to the list that already has a Bush, of American conservatives who helped Hitler and the Nazi war/death machine!

Ah, now in the coming weeks, I'm lookin' forward to more revelations about the Koch family. I doubt that any of the revelations will be noble in nature. Just plain greed and the search for ever more profits.

Feud Turgidson said...

It'd interesting to organize a PUBLIC conference of people and businesses and their attorneys who've had direct experience tussling with the various Koch Industries companies over the decades. I know there've been a lot of non-public in-house groups who've hosted seminars on dealing with them, and that there's lots of ways in which Jane Mayer could have received material that traces back to those.

Ten Bears said...

Old news, been writing about it for years. Nobody listens. THE bottomline, nuts and bolts ones and zeros reason I refuse to hold my nose and vote a dynasty. History only repeats to those paying attention.

The New York Crank said...

It surprises you that the Koch brothers were toilet trained by a Nazi? What! Have you never heard about the connection between anal retentiveness and greed?

The Nazis chased out Freud and stole everything from their victims they could, to keep for themselves. And I cannot doubt for a minute that Hitler, and Himmler, and Heyderich, and Hetcetera, were chronically constipated. And that the Koch brothers are too.

The groaning you hear coming from hell comes not from tortured souls burning in the fiery pits, but from ruthlessly greedy men straining at stool. And you may quote me.

Yours very crankily,
The New York Crank

Feud Turgidson said...

Granted:
"The groaning you hear coming from hell comes not from tortured souls burning in the fiery pits, but from ruthlessly greedy men straining at stool. And you may quote me."
- the Unknown Toothless Fairy

Unknown said...

> ...the experience of being toilet trained by a Nazi [governess]...

David Vitter sees little starbursts...