The master Koch-heads boast: "Everything we do is within the law"

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[duly copied-and-pasted by me]

by Ken

The quote I put in the head of this post, "Everything we do is within the law," is "the favorite Koch claim" of Brave New Foundation Executive Director Jim Miller in an e-mail sent out to BNF's e-mail list. I too love that delicious formulation -- with its suggestion that a task force of scientists with state-of-the-art measuring instruments were gathered for the purpose and, sure enough, found everything the Kochs do measurably "within the law" -- and we'll come back to it, but first let's see what exactly Jim Miller has to say, in case you didn't get his e-mail or whizzed past it.

Dear Friend,

After the March 29th premiere of our Koch Brothers Exposed documentary, they wasted no time and immediately started to attack our investigative work. Although the attack has spawned angry, defamatory and downright scary emails/calls/letters, my favorite Koch claim is that "Everything we do is within the law."

Unfortunately, for the most part, that statement is true which is exactly why we need to fight against the money they are pouring into our society to change laws, attitudes and opinions. Please get the Koch Brothers Exposed DVD now, watch it with friends, and download our Action Guide to see what you can do to make a difference.

Since the release of the film, the founder of our company, Robert Greenwald, has been hit particularly hard by the Kochs and their cohorts. The Kochs have bought Google ads that link to slanderous (in my humble opinion) misinformation about Robert when people search for our company or films. Their lawyers have threatened reporters who want to do articles about our work. We have obviously hit close to home and we need to keep the pressure on.

Please get the DVD today and let your friends see what these brothers our doing to our country. Or you can donate here and we will send a free copy to a school or library.

As always, thanks for your support. We couldn’t do this work without you.

Note that all BNF is asking as a contribution for a single copy of the DVD is $20. (For $30 you can get two copies, and for $300, 30 copies.) Seems like a good deal to me, which is why I pulled the trigger on it.)

NOW, ABOUT THAT CLAIM THAT EVERYTHING
THE KOCHS DO IS "WITHIN THE LAW"

I think Jim Miller covers this pretty well when he writes, "Unfortunately, for the most part, that statement is true which is exactly why we need to fight against the money they are pouring into our society to change laws, attitudes and opinions." I would just make, or perhaps emphasize, a few points.

(1) That "for the most part" qualification is important, and perhaps overly generous. A team of investigators with a mandate to investigate fully and fairly wherever the evidence leads them would, I suspect, come up with a much wider range of outside-the-law activity than "for the most part" suggests. I think what the Kochs mean is something like: "Most of the stuff we do that people know about is, well, maybe not legal exactly, but not exactly illegal either -- and therefore qualifies, technically speaking, as "within the law." I think too that that imaginary team of investigators would quickly develop leads to all manner of outside-the-law activity perpetrated by recipients of large globs of Koch cash.

(2) As Jim Miller suggests, those vast reservoirs of Koch cash that we know about are paying, not just for masssive propaganda aimed at overwhelming the free speech that's so crucial to our democratic framework (this would be the assault on "attitudes and opinions" Jim refers to), but more importantly, for taking indirect and even direct control over our organs of government -- as with the case of the puppet governor established -- and perpetuated -- in Wisconsin, to institutionalize the Kochs' mega-corporate, energy-industry-driven vision of government and not incidentally work toward the extinction of one of the few segments of society standing in the way of oligarchical supremacy, the labor unions.

(3) All that, and they're still able to make the ringing claim that their activities are by golly "within the law." What sweethearts!

Now, I don't mean to entirely dismiss the potential value of a declaration of strict within-the-law behavior. Considering the habitual law-breaking of recent presidents of the U.S. (I mention no names, but I think we all know who I have in mind; their initials are G.W.B. and B.H.O.), an iron-clad pledge from all 2012 presidential candidates to resign immediately in the event that any significant presidential activity of theirs should be shown to be illegal -- well, that would interest me.

Still, for the Kochs to be bragging about acting "within the law," well, it's not what I was led to hope for in my high school American-government class. But then, not much about what actually goes on in American government was discussed (or anticipated) there.

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