Anyone who has been to Wichita Kansas can quickly see that The Koch brothers, Charles and David, and their Koch Industries have a tight grip on this city. At Wichita State University, there is Koch Arena which used to be Henry Levitt Arena in 1964. In 2002-03 Koch brothers paid $6 million for renovations so they could have it named after them. Koch gives money to just about every major institution in Wichita so now WSU employees have been warned against taking part in any anti-Koch protests.

The Kochs are not into free speech. They are robber barons of the plains and they know it. They buy politicians as if they were hotdogs at a food stand. They make money paying people a little more than minimum wage for dirty, dangerous work. They are $ billionaires who own half of Wichita and other parts of the country. They especially have many of the Kansas State Legislatures in their back pocket and that includes our Governor Sam Brownback.

Now the local newspaper, The Wichita Eagle, has done its share of giving the Koch brothers their share of publicity (whose hands got greased?). They printed page after page of articles glorifying the Koch brothers and their so called “Ideas for the future of Kansas.” They noted that the Koch brothers have been under fire for their support of think tanks (they set them up and hire those who will agree with them and fire those who disagree with them). The Wichita Eagle had at least four articles from the perspective of the Koch Brothers and some of the articles took up entire pages, “Revenue, employment continue to grow at Koch Industries,” “The Kochs’ quest to save America,” and “Koch relentless in pursuing his goals,” to name three.

According to The Wichita Eagle, in “The Kochs’ quest to save America;”

“In January 2009, just days after the inauguration of President Obama, Charles and David Koch met in their company headquarters in Wichita with their longtime political strategist, Rich Fink.

The country was headed toward bankruptcy, they agreed. Fink told them bluntly that Obama’s administration represented the worst of what Charles and David fear most: a bloated, regulation-heavy, free-spending government that could plunge the country into another deep recession. That day, Fink advised two of the richest men in the nation that it would be the fight of their lives to stop the government spending spree and to change the course of the country, starting with the 2012 election.”

According to The Wichita Eagle, these “great humanitarians” were concerned about the direction that nasty old President Barack Obama was leading us in. In reality the Kochs have fought any regulations, allowing them to put their workers under dangerous conditions, and pollute the air, soil and water around them unimpeded by regulations. They wanted to make sure that poor people and especially poor workers are completely dependent on them (and sweatshop owners like them) for their work, so if they quit or get fired, they are “up shit creak.”

Worst of all, the Kochs have spent $ millions to buy candidates and decide elections with all their dirty tricks so that people won’t really have a choice at the polls. They feel they know what is best for the rest of us, so they have decided who will run things in Kansas and other parts of the country.

In The Wichita Eagle the Koch Brothers and their stooges admit;

“We’re going to participate effectively in the election, let’s just put it that way,” David Koch said.

Fink said simply, “We are doing a lot.”

Providing more information, he said, would increase criticism. “Anybody who sticks their head up is going to get shot. We understand that. We’re sticking our head up and getting shot.... Any information you put out there just increases the number of bullets and arrows, so why do that?”

The Koch Industries Political Action Committee has spent $2.3 million in the 2012 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

They’ve spent more than $60 million lobbying Washington in the past decade and $13.6 million backing political candidates, usually Republicans, since 1990.

The total amount being spent isn’t public, thanks to campaign finance laws that allow nonprofit groups to keep the identity of their donors secret.

Americans for Prosperity (one of the phoney think tanks the Kochs own) plans to spend $110 million to defeat Obama, its director, Tim Phillips, told the national media in early August.

There is more to cover for these modern aristocratic hypocrites, so I will continue more on this later. The Wichita Eagle practically gave them the entire front page this Sunday. So they deserve a little more criticism than just this article. -សតិវ អតុ