Charles and David Koch deigned to grant Joe and Mika a little sit-down interview this morning, which I had resolved to ignore. But I confess, I just cannot, because these guys are Goebbels' creation writ large.
For example, the segment above, where Charles Koch claims Koch Industries is among "the most environmentally protective," and Scarborough allows that to go unchallenged.
Or supposedly "liberal" Mika, forgetting to ask them anything about climate change.
CHARLES KOCH: [A]t MIT, I really found myself, because I wasn't good at much of anything, except I had a gift at math. And then that translated into a gift of science. And I learned at MIT with all the science I studied that it's an ordered universe. And that if you want to do well in the physical world, you needed to understand science and engineering and you needed to be able to practice it. And so I became fascinated with the philosophy of science and the scientific method, and that's a foundation of our company and our success, what we call, as you've seen in the book, "Republic of Science" and the scientific method.
Don't you love the way he comes across as everyone's grandpa? Of course, being the acolyte of math, engineering and most especially science that he is, you might expect him not to be such a climate change denier given how good he thinks science is for the world. You might even expect Mika or Joe to ask him how he can be such a supporter of science while perverting it for his own profits.
But no. Enough about science, let's ask about propaganda!
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Let's talk about the book and start with the title. How do you define Good Profit?
KOCH: Well, Good Profit, I define just that way, is profit -- a good profit is profit that becomes[sic] from contributing to society, from helping other people improve their lives. And for a business, this means producing products and services that your customers value more than the alternatives while more efficiently using resources and being among the safest and environmentally protective producer. And so when you do those, you create good profit. And so this was my philosophy I developed early on. That is, if you want to be successful long term -- and I don't mean make a quick buck or something -- I mean over decades, you need to start with not how do I maximize my profit, but how do I maximize the value I can create for others? And if you do that, then they will want to compensate you. Just like Lebron James when he plays -- they want to see him. So he makes a lot of money because he's creating value for others. How do I know that? Because people pay a lot of money to go see him. So it's win/win.
Isn't that nice? Charles Koch, raping and pillaging the environment while funding outright science deniers like the Heartland Institute sitting there claiming he is "among the safest and most environmentally protective producers."
What a hero, eh? What a standup patriot! We're just supposed to ignore the fact that Koch Industries has paid out a record amount of money in fines for pollution, and even had to pay a wrongful death judgment after one of their pipelines blew up a young lady and her boyfriend.
Evidently Charles Koch has decided that writing a propaganda book is both good for business and his personal pocketbook. This whole PR tour is his way of propagating outright lies while puffing himself up as some kind of really good man doing really good things.
This feels like the end of a plot line, where the villain's diabolical plan comes into view. In this case, I'm pretty sure it's intended to soften up the general electorate and sell a lot of snake oil policy solutions Charles Koch has paid good money for.
Either that, or he's simply introducing himself to the country as our prospective overlord.
Whatever the case, I'd love to disappoint him in 2016 and make him spend even more millions NOT to wreck the country.
