WICHITA, Kansas — For industrial magnates Charles and David Koch, using their wealth to influence public opinion on anthropogenic global warming and the environmental impact of petroleum-based industry is nothing new. But now the Koch brothers are experimenting with a new tactic by collaborating with rapper Cam’ron.
The brothers’ latest scheme involves Cam’ron’s 2004 “Stop Snitchin’” campaign, which urged Baltimore residents to resist cooperation with police during criminal investigations. The Koch brothers have purchased the rights to the slogan, redefining the movement as an opposition to scholarly research that links human industrial activity to environmental devastation.
The Kochs reportedly have invested millions into the production of “Stop Snitchin’” T-shirts and other merchandise, including their own line of graduate-level textbooks. They recently completed a hostile takeover of Wheaton College’s Environmental Studies Department, and plan to release a hip-hop album with Cam’ron, tentatively titled “Crime Pays II.”
When asked whether Cam’ron would abandon his commitment to the campaign if the melting polar ice caps caused sea levels to rise, depositing the corpses of hundreds of dead penguins into his backyard, the rapper replied, “I would probably move.”
Critics of the campaign allege this is just another instance of the Koch brothers’ manipulating public opinion in favor of their own commercial and political interests. These actions include endeavors to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency and recent attempts to replace three Florida Supreme Court justices. But perhaps most dastardly is their latest scandal, in which Koch Industries funded the efforts of supervillain Dr. Destructo, who plans to move Earth so far away from the sun that it freezes over, thereby disproving theories of global warming.
