Supporters of coal-fired power plants justifiably complained about how an Oklahoma natural gas company secretly funded anti-coal TV and newspaper advertisements. But then what did they do? Secretly fund anti-natural gas ads, of course. Their full-page newspaper advertisement, which appeared today in The Eagle, the Kansas City Star and the Hutchinson News, makes the crazy suggestion that Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is serving the interests of Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by making the state more dependent on natural gas as a fuel source.
The Kansas City Star’s Prime Buzz blog reports that the ad’s sponsor, Kansans for Affordable Energy, is headquartered in Garden City but has a Topeka mailing address, and is funded by coal company Peabody Energy and by Sunflower Electric Power Corp., the company denied air permits by the Sebelius administration to build two more coal-fired power plants in western Kansas. The group’s chairman, Bob Kreutzer, said the ad was intended to provide the “complete story” about the issue. That is, without disclosing who paid for it.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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111 Comments
Which makes them no different than the “knowyourpower” ads. So what? Both sides play the game.
How about, instead of attacking the messenger based on his/her perceived interest/bias, that the media actually do its job and analyze the message, pointing out the accuracy or lack thereof? Lazy jouralism, I suspect, is the cause. It’s easier - and more fun - to play the “gotcha” game.
We could say the same for many on this blog, of course. We’ve gotten so used to attacking the poster for their perceived interests/biases, that we forget to challenge the message. Even a “biased” messenger can bring a truthful message, and a message we agree with is no less deceptive if it comes from a source we think is “unbiased.”
GMC - I think the point is that Sunflower cried foul about tactics that they themselevs use.
Ben:
Yup. My point: 1) So why don’t the “journalists” quit writing about the carping, the charges and countercharges, and investigate the facts behind each side’s claims, regardless of who made them or why they’re made?
and
2) Sound like anyone we know here? Perhaps like lots of folks we know here?
GMC - agreed.
I guess the old adage is still true - “Follow the money.”
COAL, ….FOR THE GOOD TIMES.
The coal versus natural gas theme is flawed.
The real “complete story” is that higher energy efficiency is the best solution, powered as much as possible by renewables.
The goal is to quickly reduce CO2 and other GHG emissions — nat gas use should also be minimized.
Future carbon taxes will impact nat gas use, but not as much as coal, which emits more carbon than nat gas.
Nat gas is also more versatile than coal. It can be brought online quickly, and is ideal for handling occasional peak loads. It can be used in small plants, with co- or tri-generation to increase efficiency.
Daddy, won’t you take me back to Mulenberg County
Down by the Green River, where Paradise lay?
I’m sorry, my son, but you’re too late in asking.
Mr. Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away.
“Paradise” John Prine
Future carbon taxes will impact nat gas use, but not as much as coal, which emits more carbon than nat gas.
How exactly will the future carbon taxes solve the fuel problem and our dependence on fossil fuels?
What cosmos said.
Efficiency with what we already have is our greatest untapped energy source. This has the side benefit of making infighting between greedy energy companies irrelevant if not entertaining.
Ketchup, ….FOR THE GOOD TIMES.
If our State Legislatures really had any vision they’d formulate a plan for some type alternative energy instead of kowtowing to special interest and lining their pockets.
Q:Do you know how to confuse a coal miner?
A:Show him two shovels and then ask him to take his pick.
One fateful day the seven dwarfs left to go work at the local coal mine (hey, even little people have to make a dollar) while Snow White stayed home to prepare lunch. When she arrived at the mine around noon with their food she saw that there had been a terrible cave in.
Tearfully, and fearing the worst, Snow White began calling out for them. She prayed her dwarfs had survived. “Hello, hello,” she cried out… “Can anyone hear me? Hello…” For quite some time, without hearing a word.
Just as she was about to lose hope, Snow White called out one last time… “Hello. Is anyone down there? Please, can anyone here me?”
She then heard a faint voice, deep from within the mine.
The voice said, “Vote for Thompson!”
Snow White, relieved that at least one dwarf had survived, gasped “Oh, thank God Dopey is still alive.”
So what happens when Colorado(whom we were going to sell power to) goes ahead and builds the very coal using power plant right on the other side of the state line? We are now looking at receiving the pollution without seeing any of the revenue. Please tell me how this makes sense.
Dave?
I Colorado REALLY needed the plant they would not be trying to get it built somewhere else. Do try and keep up.
Colorado grows more progressive everyday. They won’t build the plant either.
Dave–
What happens is that is never going to happen.
Colorado is the one who wants it downwind from them.
They’re not stupid like . . . uh . . . we are.
I’m all for all sides having a dog in the fight, but is anybody else bothered by the three pictures and the nasty undertone of the ad?
In other words, if you are against the coal-burner, you are a traitor who is lining the pockets of people we are supposed to hate.
Bit of a crock, I think. And if not hitting below the belt, at least pretty close.
Dennis - disturbing, yes. Surprising, NO. This is very similar to the tactics the coal, oil and related industries have used funding the so-called ’skeptic’ sites on climate change.
Too bad for coal supporters that the U.S. doesn’t actually import any of its natural gas from Russia, Venezuela or Iran.
Though we must be wary of the intentions of our top two sources: Canada and Trinidad. They’re clearly up to something.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/ng/ng_move_impc_s1_a.htm
But I thought Putin was our pal?
Didn’t Bush look into Putin’s eyes and see his soul-mate?
The U.S. does not import natural gas from any of these 3 countries, according to official U.S. reports (http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/ng/ng_move_impc_s1_m.htm),. Canada is our number one source, accounting for more than 75% of imports, followed by Trinidad with >10%.
If you tell a lie big enough and long enough, eventually your audience (and you) start believing it.
I believe Colorado is very environment conscious, isn’t tourism a big business for them? Who’d want to go skiing down black snow?
You all can worry about that coal and natural gas, if you want to.Myself, I will just continue to pursue self-efficiency and getting off the grid.
Ben:
Yup. My point: 1) So why don’t the “journalists” quit writing about the carping, the charges and countercharges, and investigate the facts behind each side’s claims, regardless of who made them or why they’re made?
and
2) Sound like anyone we know here? Perhaps like lots of folks we know here?
Posted by: GMC70 | November 05, 2007 at 01:29 PM
Novel idea here, that the media actually investigate AND report the TRUTH!!!
Does dave work for Sunflower or what?
Colorado is not going to build a coal-fired plant. How do we know? Because the potential market for the electricity lies along the foothills of the Rockies. Long-distance transmission loses energy, which means it diminishes profit.
So any smart company would build a coal-fired plant much closer to its Colorado customers than Holcomb, Kansas–if it could get approval from Colorado regulators. But it can’t, because Coloradans view their own environment as a highly valuable resource, and because water shortages are Coloradans’ most pressing concern.
Sunflower’s directors were counting on Kansans to be passive sheep. They miscalculated. The state is changing.
When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Sunflower’s expertise is in coal-fired electrical generation. What they need to do is go into a learning mode, and figure out how to do wind and solar generation. This will cost money, require hard brainwork and the recruitment of new people who understand 21st century renewable-resource science and technology.
Common sense?
Hard work?
Study??
What are you, some kinda dreamer or something?
With all this astroturf flyin’ around, where’s a feller supposed to find a patch of real grass?
I must say, it’s particularly amusing to see the coal folks come out swinging that the natural gas terrorist folks are coming to kill us in our beds.
The stink of desperation clings to Sunflower Electric like, well, like coal smoke.
Still, gotta give ‘em credit for knowing that dewy images of Green Mother Earth don’t go too well with the whole “smokestacks belching black soot and mercury” thing.
Natural gas loves Mother Earth; Coal hates Commies. Too funny. The real enviro folks appear to be caught in a Clash of the Titans between Mothra and Gojira–if y’all will pardon the mixed metaphor.
Still, as I posted last week, the Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend. And at the moment, Chesapeake is, if not a Knight in Shining Armor, at least an ally of convenience with deep, deep pockets.
The stink of desperation clings to Sunflower Electric like, well, like coal smoke.
caught in a Clash of the Titans between Mothra and Gojira
*****
You’re giving the RudeOne a run for his money, Ah tell you what!
Funny stuff.
My point: 1) So why don’t the “journalists” quit writing about the carping, the charges and countercharges, and investigate the facts behind each side’s claims, regardless of who made them or why they’re made?
*****
Why? Because much as I’d like it to not be so, that’s not really the journalists’ job.
They REPORT what people in positions of power and influence and authority do and say.
They often don’t know anymore than you or I do whether what those people say is true or not.
That’s why concepts like “the fairness doctrine” are so important. People without the money for publicists, spokespersons, PR, and lobbyists deserve to be heard too.
Otherwise, freedom of the press belongs to the man who OWNS one . . . or has the money to buy access to one.
“Why? Because much as I’d like it to not be so, that’s not really the journalists’ job.”
Of course it is; or at least it used to be. Before the media became lapdogs, trading everything away for ‘access’ to those in power.
And I hate to rain on your parade, but freedom of the press ALWAYS belonged to the one who owned one. What else is new? That makes no difference if the one who owns (or dictates control of it) one is the State; it’s just that now you’ve turned freedom of the press over to the State. Is that really what you want - the State to decide what points of view are worthy of being heard?
Be careful what you wish for, JM. You just might get it.
Give me choice of a state run press or a biz run one GMC I choose state.
I’d prefer neither. YOU seem to prefer he with the most bucks has the loudest voice.
I can’t vote such folks out.
Though I admit the lines are being blurred between biz and government.
“Neither” is not an option. You have to deal with the world as it is, not as we wish it might be. That “press” takes resources, which much be organized and directed to operate, whether by the state or by private individuals.
You do “vote” for or against business, JR; you do it every time you choose to buy, or not buy, a product, or a paper, or a TV or radio show. The business responds to profit, just as the State (hopefully) responds to votes. But the State has a power no business has - the power to compel; the ability and the ‘right’ to use the law, backed up with force of arms, if need be.
Who shall decide which points of view are worthy of “equal time?” Who will pay for that time? Moreover, as a practical matter, when owners are forced to provide endless “equal time” every time they broadcast something that someone disagrees with, we both know what the result will be: controversy will go off the air. It’s easier - and more profitable - to say nothing of substance than to be controversial and have the state hijack your station.
So just as I said to JM: be careful what you wish for; you just might get it.
“GMC70″ –
Back when I was in broadcasting we were fully aware that the license to broacast was considered by the FCC Act of 1937 to be a public service.
How do you deal with “equal time?” The same way we dealt with it before the Republic Party took over and removed all requirements for broadcasters to operate in the public interest. We’d give anyone equal time.
It wasn’t all that hard to do. Most stations encouraged dissenting opinions to editorial content. Hell, Johnny Carson had a recurring bit about the guy who presented opinions against television editorials.
Okay, most of those television editorials were reduced to “Isn’t it Wonderful it’s Spring Again” level. But the Fairness Doctrine did recognize the power of the medium, and gave even those people who didn’t like Spring an opportunity to respond.
Rush Limbaugh now gets 15 hours a week of nationwide radio to spew his stuff in a fixed forum. You’ve got to get past the screener to even show up on the air. He had no reason to accept any caller who might have the audacity to mention Al Gore did *not* claim to “invent” the Internet, for example. No one who objects to, say, Limbaugh’s ridicule of Michael J. Fox, has a chance of getting on the air. He can contrive lies about the 12-year-old whose very survival demends on the S-CHIP program because there is nothing that requires the Limbaugh-tomized Masses to be exposed to reality.
It astounds me that “conservatives” think they have a viable issue when they oppose the *Fairness* Doctrine. Just what is it about *fairness* that you guys object to?
How does *fairness* hurt your cause?
According to the ad coal is a clean source of energy that is developed here in Kansas. Unlike natural gas which has to be imported from Iran.
Yeah, the problem is that Kansas produces enough natural gas to meet it’s needs. A lot of the gas comes from the methane from coal beds. So if we increased our coal production then we reduce our natural gas production.
Contrary to what the ad claims coal has not become a clean source of energy.
Another false claim by the ad is that we import anything from Iran. America has had an embargo on Iran and we only get things from that country through corrupt corporations like Halliburton. Venezuela and Russia (as well as Iran) aren’t our enemies so why should we be concerned about getting more natural resources from those countries?
The fact that the coal industry has to rely on pathetic lies and senseless appeals to emotion it’s quite evident that they can’t be trusted. They lie in ads so why should we believe them that their plants won’t pollute or be harmful to our health?
Wow! Such a lot of posts haven’t had time to read them all. Just want to make a couple points.1) Colorado probably won’t build plant because their energy policy requires energy producers to provide a percentage of product via renewables; new law and they have not caught up as yet.2) There are now about a dozen “cap and trade” bills on the books in Congress. I’m no expert on exactly how these would work, but it sure appears that a successful one would make the expanded coal-fired plants a liability for the state.3) And this is the tough one. No matter which way we go, we are likely in for increased energy costs. That is because at present we are not paying anywhere near the ACTUAL cost of the energy we are consuming. What cap and trade and other concepts would do is to begin to factor in the “externalities” of our profligate energy consumption.
Monkey:
Don’t like Rush? (neither do I, BTW) Turn him off. Simple enough. Go further; don’t buy from his sponsors. Encourage your friends to do the same.
Hell, go further still; start your own radio show.
Oh, ya tried that; no one listened. So when the left failed in the marketplace, it’s now the goal to impose through state authority the point of view that people wouldn’t dial up to listen to.
And why do yo want same? For “fairness?” NO. For electoral advantage.
Pravda would be proud. But Madison is spinning in his grave. You HAVE heard of the 1st amendment, haven’t you?
Be VERY careful what you wish for.
Just another thought:
Monkey - it’s not about my “cause.” It’s about limiting the power of the State to impose or expound what they believe to be acceptable opinion, or punish what they believe to be unacceptable opinion. I oppose the “fairness doctrine” because I take the 1st amendment seriously. The 1st Am. is not a tool of political power, which is exactly what those who seek to impose their view of “fairness” want to use it as. It is the right to speak as I choose, to use my resources to advance the cause I choose, and to be free from being coerced into supporting any other. It’s the same reason I believe McCain-Feingold (the infamous encumbant protection act) is seriously flawed and unconstitutional.
The fact that you apparantly believe that opponents do so because of fear of their “cause” being hurt tells me what your motivations are - and it isn’t freedom of thought or speech. It’s the “cause;” i.e. political advantage.
“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.” - Justice Robert Jackson
GMC70,
“Pravda would be proud.”
Indeed, they are; they’re proud of the manner in which this Administration has turned the corporate media into its personal mouthpiece, bullying into submission anyone who dares to present an alternate view.
Quite amazing, really, the complete disconnect between the manufactured spectacle in the American media and reality.
In advance of the Iraq war, millions and millions of people protested around the world and in the United States; hardly a mention of it, anywhere.
At Bush’s inaugural, thousands and thousands protested; hardly a mention in the corporate media.
And then there’s the complete media indifference regarding the amazing, overwhelming litany of lies and weirdness swirling around the Bush Administration in which the media simply can’t get interested. But John Edwards’ hair–now THERE’S a story!
We’re IN Pravda–Bush’s Pravda, where only the trivial matters and the momentous passes without notice.
You should be very careful what YOU wish for, GMC70.
As for the canard that those supporting the Fairness Doctrine have merely ‘partisan’ advantage as their aim, well, get real, GMC70. We live in a corporate environment in which big capital hoovers up every available bit of media space. Alternative views that lack money simply aren’t heard. Period. Big money rules. The Fairness Doctrine encloses a section of media space–space that’s held in COMMON, by the way, by the PUBLIC–and reserves it for the airing of views that are outside of the mainstream, and that the mainstream would rather you not hear.
Frankly, it’s sort of twisted, GMC70, that you see the effort at opening a First Amendment space as the closing off of a First Amendment space. Should only people with money, GMC70, get to use the public airwaves?
Your reasons for advancing this pernicious idea says it all, CF.
You don’t like what is being said by the media. And you intend to use the power of the State to force the media to conform to views more in line with your thinking.
And you don’t see a problem with that?
There are few people in the world more dangerous than true believers. And you’re a true believer, CF.
GMC70,
Opening up a media space in which people are allowed to express their views is tantamount to my “forcing the media to conform to views more in line with my thinking?”
More to the point, GMC70, the media uses OUR space; the airwaves. Why shouldn’t it have to meet minimum standards for airing the views of those of whom it is the de facto representative?
Ever heard of the Fourth Estate? It’s supposed to work in the PUBLIC interest. Instead, we have a media which increasingly privatizes public goods that are to be held IN COMMON.
You are quite sanguine, GMC70, at the encroachments of capital into every aspect of public life, and with its expropriation of our personal freedoms at every term. I am not.
Your eighteenth-century model of political practice, GMC70, doesn’t take account of the nineteenth century, much less the twentieth or twenty-first. I suggest you start by reading “On Liberty” by John Stuart Mill, particulalry the sections regarding the Tyranny of the Majority.
Opening up a media space in which people are allowed to express their views is tantamount to my “forcing the media to conform to views more in line with my thinking?”Posted by: CF2K | November 06, 2007 at 10:03 AM
Ok, I want to express my views through the mass media. Who decides if and when I get to do this? How much air time do I get?
I want radio time, 1 hour at noon next Monday, on a nationwide broadcast on AM talk radio.
I want TV time, 1 hour in prime time, 8 pm next Monday. What channel do I get?
Who decides?
Oh, and will there be multiple channels allowed to be broadcast or just one?
I’ve read Mill, CF. I’m not impressed.
And it doesn’t matter whether we’re in the 10th, or 18th, or 21st, or 25th century. People never change. We are driven by the same drives we’ve been driven by for 10,000 years. Those drives will never change.
And you are quite sanguine, CF, in the encroachments of the State and enforcing the injection of what the State considers to be acceptable opinion into the nations’s media. Because when you say “the people,” as if “the people” were a single entity, you mean, in actual practice, the State.
I find that advocacy especially pernicious given a media environment that is more rich with diverse opinion than ever before, with the explosion of cable news and the internet.
You fear the boogyman of the “corporate.” But the corporate world’s goal is simple; it’s profit, and you can choose to buy or not, listen, or not, as you choose. Don’t like Rush? Turn him off. Simple. Ultimately, the business world responds to the marketplace. You’ve tried to compete in that marketplace with ideas, and it failed. Air America is a flop.
So you turn to the coercive power of the State.
I fear the power of the State, which has powers far past that of the world of “capital.” It has the power to coerce, and to use lawful force to enforce its coercive power. You advocate using that coercive power to articulate a particular point of view, and you do so in the name of “the people.” You will next advocate using that same coercive power to eliminate other points of view (hell, McCain/Feingold’s already gone there!), and you will do so in the name of the “people.” Tyrants always claim to operate in the name of the “people.”
I find that frightening.
As a friend once put it: Scratch a leftist, find a totalitarian.
You gotta believe in the 1st amendment all the time, CF, not just when your “side” is getting the airplay.
Max,
CF2K is old enough to remember those boring-ass public service announcements of his youth. He’s also old to remember boring-ass public affairs programming, and to look back on it fondly.
Reactionaries always toss out ‘who decides,’ as if the fact that some entity will have to make a collective decision that balances contradictory needs is an insurmountable obstacle–as if decisions are inherently arbitrary and a perilous slippery slope.
Those decisions, Max, are about what are called DETAILS. They’re what people, working from a general set of principles, have to decide upon. It’s what adults do.
Why is it so hard, Max, for you to take seriously the idea of rational decisions that are reached by consensus?
I can summarize your view GMC.
“He who has the gold makes the rules.”
I think we have had enough of that.
JR
It has always been so. It will ALWAYS be so. You can’t change human nature. A free press has always belonged to those who own the press. It’s called private property, and upon it is based all other freedoms. If my property is not free from arbitrary taking, I can never be free. Ever.
If your “side” gets into power, it will still be so. Your side will simply work to change the rules to accumulate the gold.
The new boss is always the same as the old boss. Pete Townsend was right.
And CF, those decisions ARE arbitrary; or worse, they will favor those who make them. Twas always so, will always be so.
Well he who has the gold don’t work for me GMC.
Alternatives to it are looking pretty fetching.
JR,
It is never as simple as: “he who has the gold makes the rules.”
Rush Limbaugh didn’t start off with 20 million listeners and being on nearly every radio station across America.
He started from the bottom. His popularity made him who he is today.
And it just drives you liberals crazy.
So, you sit around and think of ways to have the government take away his success or arbitrarily give the same to a liberal who didn’t earn it in the guise of being fair.
The simple truth is that the left has dominated almost every media market place except the radio.
You liberals won’t be happy till you are able to force your views on everyone.
Your attitude with running off Kansas is a perfect example of this.
Damn Kansas free speech or his offering opposing views on this blog, you guys were going to harrass him until you ran him off.
Liberals are the biggest hypocrites around with all their talk of tolerance. You only tolerate those who agree with you.
Why is it so hard, Max, for you to take seriously the idea of rational decisions that are reached by consensus?
Posted by: CF2K | November 06, 2007 at 10:37 AM
When does that happen CF?
That’s just the problem, JR.
There IS no alternative to it. Never has been. This side of heaven, never will be. Those with resources will always have more power. They will always use that power to benefit themselves.
Human beings are what they are. Which is why the power of the State should never be used to advocate for any particular point of view. Which is why power is so carefully divided up in our system.
Justice Jackson was right.
GMC70,
It is like talking to a brick wall.
I just don’t think some liberals will ever understand the concept of someone earning what they have or getting the success they have from hard work.
They look at Rush Limbaugh as the conservative dominated radio and want to force the radio to give equal time to some liberal who didn’t earn any of it.
I should also add,
a liberal who won’t earn any of it, won’t make any money, won’t attract listeners…etc…
But by goodness, they get their “fairness” even if JR has to send in the government jack boots to do it!
I was only half-kidding Nathan when I asked if there would be more then one station allowed.
To ensure ‘fairness’, to actually mandate it, the State may very well declare that One Station only is allowed, and the State will mandate what is broadcast on that one station.
And maybe the only way we can ensure that Everyone hears the Fair message, the State mandates that Everyone Must listen to the message.
Mandated Talk TV/Radio!
I would not shut Rush up if I could.
He has a right to lie.
Nathan:
Whether someone ‘earns’ the time on the media is of little concern to me. Most of us benefit from things we didn’t earn.
It’s the idea of the State coercing teh advocacy of particular points of view that I find so troubling. Governments have always wanted to control the press; that’s nothing new, and it’s why the 1st amendment is in many ways the foundation of this country. This erodes that freedom of the press, and does so by mandating a particular point of view required by the State. If there’s anything the 1st amendment means, it is that the State may not advocate, or mandate the advocacy of, any particular point of view.
But that’s exactly what they seek.
It’s a dangerous slippery slope. And those who advocate going down that slope will use the “people’s interest” (as they define it, of course) as justification to go there. They won’t stop there.
We’ve already started down that road, with McCain/Feingold’s banning of certain advocacy within 90 days of elections. That is patently unconstitutional, and quite dangerous.
And now some want to go further down the road to State advocacy of particular political positions. Once we go there, it will never stop.
And that’s frightening.
“I would not shut Rush up if I could.”
Yes, you would, JR. I don’t doubt it for a second.
And what shows need balance?
Does 24 need balance? Does Medium need balance? Does Supernatural need balance? Do reruns of Leave it to Beaver need balance? (Gilligan’s Island is already balanced by Lost)
How about music programing on MTV or radio? Does every Rap song need a Rock n Roll song to balance the programming?
So, the State needs to decide What needs to be balanced, as well as How to balance everything.
Give me ONE example of any media that APPROACHES the bias of talk radio.
And no I would not shut Rush up. I just want truth to shine on his lies.
Put me in a room alone with him might be a different matter. He is probably the most destructive force in America. I don’t know if I could restrain myself.
And that will have to be my take for now.
JR, CBS news.
And you vs Rush? You couldn’t win in the arena of ideas, and I doubt if you could fight your way from the inside of a paper bag either.
But give it your best shot.
“Put me in a room alone with him might be a different matter. He is probably the most destructive force in America. I don’t know if I could restrain myself.”
I actually laughed out loud at that one!! Big Bad JR, champion of the People, putting on the gloves!! That’s rich.
Yea. We’re all about free speech, unless we get to beat up the guy we don’t like. If the image of JR duking it out with Rush wasn’t so comical, it’d be sad.
JR, JM, KFG, Cosmos, Steven D you have succeeded in what you set out to do. Where is the elation you were expecting? This is a time waster.
Max, Hank, Nathan and others on the right maybe we will meet on another board.
RIP WEblog.
I hear you Ksgrm…
Actually, GMC, I’ve met JR on more than one occasion.
He could mop the floor with old lard butt with one hand tied behind his back.
I heartily agree that Rush is the most public voice of the forces that are harming our country the most:
Socializing costs for us taxpayers and privatizing profits for the ultra-rich.
So have I, JM. I doubt that, very much. However, the idea that he wants to speaks volumes.
“I would not shut Rush up if I could.”
Yes, you would, JR. I don’t doubt it for a second.
Posted by: GMC70
*****
I TOLD you he could read minds!
Damn, GMC, where’s Osama?
Put that force to use for GOOD instead of evil . . .
JM -
It’s just that liberal minds are just so easy to read . . .
and so predictable.
GMC–
Your ability to believe illusion never fails to surprise me.
JR is over 20 years younger, and he’s in good shape.
Rush on the other hand went deaf from addiction to narcotics.
It’s no contest.
JM -
JR didn’t impress me as a likely to be a devastating puncher, to say the least. Hell, I could take him (no, that’s not a challenge!!). But who’d win is kind of a pointless exercise, though, isn’t it?
It’s the wanting to that’s so revealing.
GMC70,
“And it doesn’t matter whether we’re in the 10th, or 18th, or 21st, or 25th century. People never change. We are driven by the same drives we’ve been driven by for 10,000 years. Those drives will never change.”
For me, GMC70, appeals to an ahistorical, essential “human nature” are every bit the argument stopper that comparisons to fascism or Hitler are to you.
“Human nature” tends to mean whatever the one deploying it wants it to mean, and is retroactively applied back onto epochs and persons whose mode of living was by all measures quite different from our own.
Therefore, GMC70, I simply don’t acknowledge the basis of your claims. “Human nature” isn’t monolithic or metaphysically decided in advance. What human beings think and feel has PROFOUNDLY changed over the last ten thousand years, particularly in the last five thousand.
I find your conception of the state and of its relation to capital to be antiquated, at best, and to be wedded to a similarly antiquated model which defines subjects as agents who decide according to rational self-interest.
Nobody likes big, oppressive states that tell people what to think. I certainly don’t. But to think that we’re in anything less monolithic and univocal, just because it’s the “market” that dominates rather than government, and that this allows us to be “free”–well, GMC70, I see that as a dangerous delusion.
The state, GMC70, derives its de jure legitimacy from the consent of those who are governed. The corporation does not need to acquire its legitimacy through any such appeal, even though it acts as the de facto mechanism for governing in many, many different sites and venues–not the least of which is in the affects and bodily dispositions that lead consumers to consume.
Capital and media create all sorts of needs that drive people to consume. This is called “marketing,” and “commodity fetishim,” GMC70, and if you think for a second that it operates according to a logic of rational self-interest or rational agency, you’re either dishonest or deluded. I think of it as Skinnerian to the extreme.
The goal of marketing is to create new needs where none previously existed, in order to create a demand for what capital is able to supply. The fact that capital is SO successful at doing this, time and again, GMC70, ought to make you unsure about claiming that disengaging from capital is every bit as easy as turning off Rush Limbaugh.
When our political efficacy, GMC70, is reduced to the level of deciding what media I will and won’t consume, we’re a long, long way from anything the Founding Fathers envisioned or could have envisioned. Opting out simply isn’t presented as an option; or, if it is, it appears as an option WITHIN capital, and is characterized by what sorts of accoutrements will best help one to ‘opt out.’
To come back, then, to the point: we exist in a completely media-saturated, commodity-defined environment, which paradoxically gives us fewer choices rather than more. Choices of which product to consume, ultimately, aren’t choices at all, because the market wins either way: everthing becomes a commodity. And in such a space, politics frankly becomes impossible.
Many people feel this, but feel helpless to do anything about it. The reopening of public space, then, would amount to a reopening of the possibility of a discourse that isn’t defined in advance by the logic of commodities and brand identification, and that could maintain at least a relative autonomy from the reach of corporate influence.
We may be comparing apples and oranges here, CF.
While human wants and tastes re: products certainly change, and our understanding of what is right or wrong may change (re: changes in civil rights laws), fundamental human nature doesn’t.
It’s universal. People are driven by three things, and it has always been so. Greed, power, sex. The proportions differ, the need for one or the other changes, but the drives are always the same. And we act in our perceived self-interest in pursuing the objects of our drive.
What stuff we have greed for changes, certainly, and advertisers can manipulate that greed, but it never goes away. Sex sells, now, then, and forever, and some will give anything for it. And there are those who seek power for power’s sake (we call them politicians).
Just which of these drive any one of us, and in what proportions, changes from person to person, but the drives are always the same.
And humans are predictable. Individuals are not, but people en masse are quite predictable.
And yes that means that ultimately we all decide in what we perceive to be our self-interest. Whether that self-interest is rational depends entirely on the point of view of the decider; what is a rational choice to one is entirely irrational to another. And certainly advertisers attempt to appeal to that self-interest to sell products.
Whether people buy Right Guard over Old Spice worrys me not in the least. Whether people even think they need deoderant (something we went thousands of years without) isn’t really all that important (unless you’re sharing a room with me!).
And when you advocate the State regulating political speech, you are acting in what you perceive to be in your best interest. I simply disagree that what you believe to be in your best interest is in fact in my best interest, nor the best interests of the Republic. I think it incredibly short-sighted. More important, it is not up to the State to dictate, or even take sides on, what is a rational choice.
Just as the choice of Ford v. Chevy, or butter v. margarine is irrelevent, it matters not to me whether people listen to Rush or Michael Moore. What matters, from the State’s and a freedom perspective, is that the broadcaster, the owner of the press, the person who stands on the soapbox on the streetcorner, whether from the left or right, has the freedom to advocate as he or she chooses without worry that Big Brother is looking over his/her shoulder, noting the minutes he/she has to surrender to his political opponents as punishment for his views.
My suspicion is that, like many on the left, you have a Christ complex. You believe that you are of course smarter than others, and are therefore entitled to decide what is best for others. You determine that the decisions you would make are rational, and others are irrational; thus those others must be protected from themselves and their irrational choices.
But real respect for others demands permitting others to make decisions you consider irrational.
Denying that basic human nature does not change the
perspective from which you operate (whether you recognize it or not). Because you, sir, in varying proportions, are driven by the same drives as all of us: greed, power, sex. The only differences are what we are greedy for, what power (and how much) we seek, and whom we seek sex with.
All the rest is just details. The human animal hasn’t changed a bit.
GMC70,
I agree with you on the underlying idea you are getting at in no government contol of the media.
I don’t agree with your idea about human nature.
I believe that people are prone to sin and that sin is greed, power, and sex. However, people also must fill a void in their life and that should be Christ.
People to me are in a battle between doing what God wants and doing what they want (sin).
See Nathan’s comments on Jesus and waterboarding and torture!
The difference between GMC and CF’s views (length is about the same) is that GMC would never called for the censorship or regulation of CF’s speech, but CF would certainly call for the censorship or regulation of GMC’s speech.
IMHO.
That holier-than-thou elitist view of the Left leads to their view that Government, controlled by themselves only of course, should make decisions that a free man or woman can and should make for themselves.
The biggest difference between Right and Left then, is that Freedom of the Individual is never the top concern for the Lib Left.
Max,
That’s quite an accusation. Prove it. When have I ever called for the censoring of GMC70’s speech? Or, for that matter, of anyone’s?
Oh, and Max? Endorsing the Fairness Doctrine doesn’t count. If you’re going to accuse me, burden of proof is on you.
Prove it. Because that’s a serious charge you’d better be ready to defend.
And saying “IMHO” doesn’t get you out of having to demonstrate your claim. Because if it does, then the following is permissible:
M_x molests little boys.
IMHO.
Is that OK by you, Max? Because it isn’t by me–at all.
If you’re going to accuse me of censoring others’ speech, show me where I’ve advocated for it–or don’t accuse me.
“It’s universal. People are driven by three things, and it has always been so. Greed, power, sex. The proportions differ, the need for one or the other changes, but the drives are always the same. And we act in our perceived self-interest in pursuing the objects of our drive.”
Well, that was interesting. Usually corporatists like GMC argue that because of the unseen hand of the marketplace etc., mankind’s history just keeps getting better and better.
Like how much better America became after we liberated it from the savages . . . Or how much better negroes were after they had been Christianized and not left to die as heathens in Africa.
The inherent contradiction I see with the “rational self-interest” and “people never change” argument is why do they do so many things inherently ANTI their self-interest and why have we changed so much and so manifestly?
For instance, the founders of America radically changed the government they were handed by England. If people never change, why did our founders reject king and country? If people are inherently self-interested above all, why did they ever support feudalism, which is a kind of voluntary indentured servitude for life?
If I were only self-interested for example, I would fully support privatizing Social Security. I’m heavily invested in stocks. Privatizing SS would surely create demand for stocks and I would reap a windfall.
However, I strongly oppose piratization, because I believe it’s bad for the country.
Where’s my “rational self-interest,” GMC? Where’s my unchanging greed?
I am in favor of using clean coal energy.
Shame on Sibelius for not recognizing the need for the USA to pursue energy independence and current advances in clean coal technology.
JM,
Exactly. What makes us tick is far deeper and weirder than Enlightenment-era artifacts can accommodate.
Dr. James–
“Clean coal” hehehe . . . good one.
Kinda like Bush wisdom or Republican values or the good side of Satan.
Clean coal doesn’t exist, and if it did, Holcomb provided us no assurances it would be used.
JR didn’t impress me as a likely to be a devastating puncher, to say the least. Hell, I could take him (no, that’s not a challenge!!).
If not a challenge? Why assert it?
Oh and the idea that I would have any difficulty kicking Rush Limbaugh’s candy ass is rediculous.
I wouldn’t be asking Rush to box anymore than I would you. Queensbury didn’t live in my neighborhood. And you GMC?
Well without actually settling it…..I think I’ll leave you to …believe …you could “take” me. I suspect it inflates your ego.I will quietly believe otherwise.I aint the one feels like he needs a gun all the time.
The fairness doctrine? I’m prepared for it. But as long as they don’t muck with the freedom of the internet, it isn’t vital.
There are lots of clear voices to unmurk Clear channel, for now.
Lots of links re the Holcomb coal issue, including this thread.
‘Is Burning Coal a Patriotic Duty?’http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/burning-coal–a-patriotic-duty-in-kansas/?hp
“Some useful context is provided in a blog post by the Wichita Eagle’s editorial-page editors.”
JM
Without going into details, all of those can be explained entirely by self-interest. Whether the self-interest is rational or not depends entirely on the point of view of the one making the choice; rarely do people knowingly do things that are clearly irrational or not in their own interest.
Call it enlightened self-interest if you like, but what motivates us is still the same.
What makes us tick can be quite complex, true enough, but it still boils down to what we perceive to be in our interest.
Nathan - call it sin, call it Original Sin, call it human nature, it’s all the same. We don’t disagree at all.
And JR, on that we agree. Given the media environment, at best the “fairness” doctrine is unnecessary.
“Call it enlightened self-interest if you like, but what motivates us is still the same.”
Question begging.
What Mother Theresa did was not enlightened self-interest.
It was self-sacrifice.
Your theory doesn’t explain that.
Calling it “another form of self-interest” is question begging.
If you’re going to accuse me of censoring others’ speech, show me where I’ve advocated for it–or don’t accuse me.
Posted by: CF2K | November 06, 2007 at 03:32 PM
By advocating the Fairness Doctrine CF, you are attacking Free Speech - Period.
Max?
How does CBS even come NEAR talk radio??
It doesn’t.
No one at CBS is running a “Stop Thompson express” similar to Sean Hannity’s “stop Hillary express.”
There is no CBS or any other media equivalent in bias of Rush.
You already know that though.
You are just afraid to lose that one bit of TRULY biased media that happens to lean your way.
And don’t give me Dan Rather.
That was a legitimate news story.
By advocating the Fairness Doctrine CF, you are attacking Free Speech - Period.
Posted by: Max |
Totally false.
What we’re talking about here are PUBLIC airwaves. We’re not talking about print media or street corner screaming.
This is bandwidth that the PUBLIC owns and the government leases companies to use.
The PUBLIC has a right to demand more than a single partisan viewpoint be aired, and their representative government has the duty to give it to them.
The Fairness Doctrine has nothing to do with stopping your right to say whatever you want under the Constitution.
It has everything to do with government’s responsibility to serve the public good, before the good of party or corporate interests.
JM As long as the airwaves are purchased by commercial radio stations they are no longer public airwaves. Take an econ class then you will understand it. Pay close attention to the part on capitalism and private ownership. NPR is paid for by us all and I am still waiting for equal time.
Yeah well maybe mommy and daddy can buy you that too posterwhousedtobegolfnut. Like they bought you everything else.
JM I asked an honest question and you reply in a juvenile way. Aren’t you able to use logic? Was the question over your head? You have no idea who I am. Just know that it is someone who is tired of you and JR running over other posters and whinning to the editors.
JM As long as the airwaves are purchased by commercial radio stations they are no longer public airwaves.
Exactly! Good for you!
It is the publics right to maintain scrutiny over licensing of those radio stations in order to prevent misuse or monopoly of the PUBLIC airwaves.
If ever there were a case for anti trust action, Clear channel is it.
JM
One question:
Who defines the “public good?”
The public, through their elected representatives.
GMC–
Your cynical theory that people are all the same and they never change explains a lot about you and your fellow conservatives–the only way to “control” people is to keep them afraid with superior firepower.
Your simple-minded theory that Charles Manson and BTK are motivated in the same way that Ghandi and Mother Theresa are says volumes about the policies you and your conservative ilk espouse.
JM, your posts confirm GMC’s observations of human nature are correct.
Max,
Just as I thought: by imposing your interpretation on my endorsement of the Fairness Doctrine, you’re lying and saying that I support censorship of GMC70’s views.
Liar.
After all, nothing I’ve said entails forbidding GMC70’s views from being represented under the Fairness Doctrine.
Ready to take back your claim that I support censorship, and ready to be uncalled a LIAR?
JM
So - these “elected representatives” -i.e. the State - will decide what points of view are required to be broadcast?
You do remember the 1st amendment, don’t you????
“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.” - Justice Robert Jackson
As I said to CF - You have to believe in the 1st amendment all the time, not just when your side is getting airplay.
As to human nature:You miss the point - I suspect intentionally - regarding human nature. And denying it is so does not make it less so.
As I said - individual persons are difficult to predict; while the drives are the same, the intricacies of what we see as our interest are indeed quite complex. Can Mother Teresa and Charlie Manson both act in their perceived self-interest and come to vastly different conclusions as to what that is? OF COURSE!!!
Human beings, as a group however are quite predictable. And it is group behavior, much more than individual behavior, that broad understandings of “human nature” speak to. You know that, of course, you’re just being intentionally obtuse.
Am I cynical? Absolutely. Anyone with a decent understanding of human history who isn’t is fooling themselves. Yet we struggle on, despite ourselves. Amazingly, we often rise to incredible heights, despite our natures.
You noted a bit up thread the founders and the changes they made to government as evidence that people change. On the contrary; it is, indeed, the Founder’s understanding of human nature that led to the very changes you note. People did not change, only the institutions. As Madison put it:
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
Federalist No. 51
I’m with Madison here. Men are not angels, and will never be, this side of heaven. And it has always been so: if you want people to do something, appeal to their self-interest.
“Dave” wants to know what will happen when Colorado builds the plant just across the state line?
hehehehe. FIRST off, they cant get the water permits and SECOND, Colorado doesnt want such a plant, or there would already be one.
And THIRD, this “plant” isnt going to be built anywhere else. The only reason it’s going to Holcomb is that there is already a plant there. This is an expansion, not a “new” entity.
The costs of creating this plant from scratch, with all the associated infrastructure, would make it not viable.
So dont worry. Rocky Ford isnt going to get a coal plant anytime soon.
Red Herring Dave. But we are amused, and we do encourage you to try your hystronics again.
And JR:
“And don’t give me Dan Rather.That was a legitimate news story.”
Legitimate news stories don’t need forged documents.
GMC - agreed. While I do think there was something there the actions of Rather/CBS were reprehensible. And, if there WAS something there they detracted from it by shifting the focus to their idiocy.
I ran across some great background info on the coal thing, including some of the western Kansas political explanations here:
http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2007/10/rodney_and_goliath_environment.html
You guys might want to check it out…
Can Mother Teresa and Charlie Manson both act in their perceived self-interest.
that broad understandings of “human nature” speak to. You know that, of course, you’re just being intentionally obtuse.
******
Really? The other alternative is that you’re being unintentionally stupid.
There’s no rational self interest that explains Mother Theresa spending her whole life caring for lepers.
Also, the founders could not have changed institutions without their motivations — their characters — changing.
The value of loyalty (to the King, to country, to the old culture) was supplanted by the value of equality.
Some historians believe in fact that the seed of American equality was planted by the native American Indian societies that the so-called settlers encountered.
They did not have kings in the European sense. The Iroquois League was a lot like the Continetal Confederation.
Interacting with this egalitarian culture awakened in the founders a new way of organizing society.
In other words, they changed. They changed their world view, and they changed the world.
CapnAmerica, what makes you think the founding fathers wanted an egalitarian society?
As opposed to a king and heredity aristocracy?
Yeah, it was a lot more egalitarian than that.
Correction: hereditary
Seeds of Equality? Where is that written?
Spoken by a true Socialist.
The value of FREEDOM supplanted their Loyalty to the King.
Capn:
“Also, the founders could not have changed institutions without their motivations — their characters — changing.”
That would come as a great shock to the founders!!
On the contrary; they modified European institutions to reflect their view of human nature and account for it.
I strongly suggest you do some research into the philosophical underpinnings of the Revolution and the Constitutional period. It was HEAVILY based on European enlightenment tradition, particularly John Locke and the experience of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. It had NOTHING to do with the native Americans (I particularly love your adoption of the myth of the “noble savage”!). Jefferson’s Declaration was drawn, at times almost verbatim, from Locke’s Two Treatises on Government (Live, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, v. Locke’s Live, Liberty, and Property). Locke justified the removal of James II from power and his replacement with William of Orange and Mary; Jefferson was justifying the separation of the colonies from a King. But the European, and yes enlightenment, underpinnings are there.
It also had little to do with egalitarianism, at least as I suspect you understand it. I’ll let Madison say it:
“Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.”
Federalist No. 10
The Founders very much brought their Europeon traditions with them; we still have them. Our law is based upon the English common law traditions, for example. And it was their jaundiced view of human nature which was the rationale for the system of checks and balances we today enjoy.
Start with the Federalist papers, Capn. I’ve also got a copy of Two Treatises I might loan, as well as Hobbe’s Leviathan. That’s a start. Learn before you speak, Capn.
As to Mother Teresa, it’s not difficult to understand her motivation based upon self-interest, in at least two ways: 1) her service brought her closer to God, and to heaven 2) she loved those she served, and got a pleasure and satisfaction out of the service. Altruism isn’t independent of self-interest; it’s generally tied to it. Call it enlightened self-interest, if you like, but it’s still there. Self-interest is far more complex than simply getting paid. Try not to think so shallow, Capn.
Nice try. You’re 0 for 2. Wanna try for 0 for 3?