The upcoming movie The Campaign is a big-budget, all-star, mass-release comedy starring Zach Galifianakis and Will Ferrell. Its villains are the Motch brothers, played by John Lithgow and Dan Ackroyd, who physically sort of resemble the Kochs (minus 10 or so years).And here is what HBO has been doing to the Koch brothers, in the new HBO series Newsroom:
Neither Ferrell nor Galifianakis has ever covered up their liberalism. Ferrell played a dopey George W. Bush on Saturday Night Live, and resurrected the caricature up through the staging a sarcastic 2009 one-man-show. Galifianakis is the nephew of a former congressman who lost a 1972 U.S. Senate race to Jesse Helms, an era-defining election, where Richard Nixon's CREEP and Helms's own in-state conservative fund spent big. On Monday, Galifianakis gave an interview to the N.Y. Daily News about the movie, and used it to deride the Kochs. "They are creepy and there is no way around that. It's not freedom what they are doing."
The Koch organizations have responded to CNN, via a quote from spokesman Phil Ellender.
Last we checked, the movie is a comedy. Maybe more to the point is that it's laughable to take political guidance or moral instruction from a guy who makes obscene gestures with a monkey on a bus in Bangkok. We disagree with his uninformed characterization of Koch and our beliefs. His comments, which appear to be based on false attacks made by our political opponents, demonstrate a lack of understanding of our longstanding support of individual freedom, freedom of expression, and constitutional rights.
My favorite is below. It is very instructive on how power centers once created can keep mainstream players in line:
If Galifianakis thinks the Koch brothers are creepy, wait until he hears about what outgoing Cato president Ed Crane has been up to at Cato.
Eventually, one of the lefty media organizations, most likely HBO, is going to get wind of the long partnership between the Koch brothers and Ed Crane and just how creepy Crane is and the dollars it cost to keep things on the down low.
And lefty Hollywood media is not going to fear to tread where DC MSM has feared to go. The only questions then remaning will be who will be cast as Crane and what young women will be cast as Cato employees that end up looking up sexual harassment lawyers.
Just out of curiosity, are you ever planning on providing any evidence for these allegations you've been making for so many months? I mean, this is a hell of a rumor to keep spreading, but you have not provided a single shred of evidence to back it up--aside from snide comments about Ed Crane. I admire Cato, but I don't expect that anyone there is a saint. Maybe everything you've been saying is true, but do you feel any responsibility to provide evidence instead of merely innuendo?
ReplyDeleteIt is pretty irresponsible. Of course the only answer you are likely to get is some vague assertion that he, or someone he knows, has "evidence." It's amazing how often intelligent, otherwise reasonable people go completely off the rails when they sense some slight against something they love. Like the Rothbardians with Cato or the Paulites with anyone who does not agree with them (meanwhile they fail to see the irony of libertarians/AnCaps fawning over some politician/messiah).
DeleteThat's the game, they can call the bluff anytime the want but if it's true they won't do it. When Peter Schiff was calling out National Inflation Association as a stock pump-and-dump scam, he said he would be glad to be sued for defamation because truth is an absolute defense, so if NIA sued Schiff then he would have his lawyer request all the documents needed to prove it was a scam. He would prove he was right, win the lawsuit, and maybe even get attorney's fees from NIA. Unsurprisingly NIA hasn't sued.
DeleteYou do realize that the statist morons in hollywood feel the same way about you, too, Bob? Correct? I understand your glee (well, actually I don't) about these statist morons bagging on people you don't like, but they feel the same way about you (and me for that matter) too. If they knew about you, or Murray Rothbard for that matter, they would be making fun of the both of you, also.
ReplyDeleteYeah, they would be attacking Rothbard, just like Koch-funded organizations attack Rothbard.
DeleteI think you have the picture.
So... let me see if I understand the logic of the film clip correctly.
ReplyDeleteBear with me here...
They're saying the Tea Party has no central organization, but are little autonomous groups that each do what they please, but are conceptually grouped by their self-identification as 'Tea Party'? And that presumably, therefore, it would be more accurate to call them 'The Tea Parties'(plural)? And they are saying that each of these autonomous groups bears culpability because some accepted Koch money? And they imply that all the 'Tea Parties' should not be trusted to have an honestly held 'grass roots' agenda because *SOME* of the autonomous Tea Parties received Koch money?
Hmmmm... I see.
So, Michigan - apart from the civil government - is in fact a collection of little autonomous groups - towns - but were originally conceptually grouped by their self-identification as part of 'Michigan'? And so, presumably, unless we're talking about the Michigan government or popularly approved actions that government took, it would be more accurate to call them Michiganites (plural)? And they are saying that each of these autonomous groupings bears culpability because some accepted Stalinist money and direction (Stalin being known as directly culpable in the MURDER of AT LEAST 60 MILLON PEOPLE)? And they imply that all the 'Michiganites' should not be trusted to have an honestly held 'grass roots' agenda because *SOME* of the autonomous Tea Parties received Stalin's money and accepted Stalin's directions?
Interesting that Jeff Daniels would go along with this kind of assignment of guilt based upon purely nominative conceptual grouping.
Jeff Daniels is from Michigan - the home of the American Communist Part which was funded by Stalinist Russia and actually led by an imported Soviet agent after it went underground in the Truman era.
By the logic of his character depicted in the film...he would also have to admit he was culpable in Stalin's murders. Curious that he would fail to see how the same logic his character uses would also implicate him...and for much worse!
Of course this also applies to the same logic when applied to 'The Libertarian Movement', which really lacks centralized structure. Who'd have thought that Individualists don't want to Collectivize?
The inescapable conclusion is that whatever the collective grouping one uses, it would only be proper to assign guilt to the creepy creeps who did creepy stuff at the direction of creeps.
Guilt can't be assigned by conceptual grouping, only by individual actions.
The Koch brothers have been destroying America and the planet for their own greed, plain and simple. You can argue the minute details, but the situation still remains. This article spells it all out complete with mountains of evidence: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer
ReplyDeleteThe puzzling part is how much money do they need? They each already have over $20 billion and they couldn't possible spend that in their days they have left... "Hey Kochs, its time to retire! You've done enough damage for an entire generation!"