The Voluntary Trade Council: tirade counsel?
You may recall our blurb from last June, reporting that the non-profit
Voluntary Trade Council, a free-market and rabidly anti-antitrust group,
had branded the American Antitrust Institute a “criminal organization,”
for taking a cy pres award (to use to make educational materials) as
part of the Vitamin Price Fixing Settlement. Today, a new wrinkle
appeared, caused by the following blurb, which I (being its volunteer
editor), had added two days ago to the AAI’s online Antitrust Guide,
in a section called The Factions (Schools) of Antitrust, under the
heading “Libertarian Approach to Antitrust”:
The Voluntary Trade Council Formerly known as Citizens
for Voluntary Trade, VTC is a nonprofit research and education
organization that opposes “violent state intervention in free
markets,” focusing “on the harm caused to individuals and
businesses by the enforcement of antitrust and other ‘competition’
laws. It claims to apply “the principles of free market economics
and rational ethics to contemporary antitrust policies and cases.”
Today, Oct. 1, 2005, S.M. “Skip” Oliva, President & CEO of VTC,
sent an email to AAI President Bert Foer, asking Bert to remove the link
to VTC’s website. Oliva wrote: “we consider you and your organization to
be criminals, and thus your link to our website is considered an unfriendly
act.”
scolding
vain man…
the autumn moon
Although we believe AAI is under no legal obligation to remove the link, we
have done so, while leaving our description of VTC, and pointing to the prior
f/k/a weblog post for an explanation of the criminal charges and a link back
to the VCT website. You might want to check out this center of “rational
ethics.”
p.s. to Skip: This website will continue to link to your dandy
organization.
By the way, as Walter Olson noted earlier this month,
a VCT weblog now exists. And, today its pledge month begins!!
Update (Oct. 2, 2005): Yesterday evening, Skip Oliva wrote to Bert Foer,
informing Bert that he can “rest assured I have no interest in sharing my
thoughts about you with anyone. To emphasize this point, I have deleted
the few references to AAI and you from VTC’s website, and you have my
assurance that I will never refer to AAI or yourself, for any reason, in the
future on any website under my control.”
Mr. Oliva added “P.S. No need to reply to this e-mail, as my
spam filter has been been programmed to block your address.”
Thanks to the Google cache of the page in question, I have salvaged
the original news release by VTC, which can be seen here.
in the harvest moonlight
unruffled, unaffected
scarecrow
under my bottom
the stone warms up…
moonlit night
translated by David G. Lanoue
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