Dan Weiss reports at Climate Progress that the attempt to kill energy conservation standards failed tonight. It required a two-thirds vote from the House to suspend the rules to consider it (the bill did not go through normal legislative channels) — the bill failed.
You may want to read Steve Lacey’s earlier explanation of the bill there, too.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Tony Sidaway and his tweets.
19 Comments | 
Conservation, Cost of Green, Green Politics, Politics, Rampant stupidity | Tagged: Conservation, Energy, Green Politics, Politics, Rampant stupidity | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
. . . Groucho Marxism.
(From Horsefeathers; longer version of entire scene, here.)
The U.S. House of Representatives scheduled a vote today to force light bulb manufacturers to keep manufacturing bulbs the market has rejected — Marxist socialism at its apex! — in order to overturn energy conservation standards signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2007.
Lately it seems that the House Republican leadership is against everything that isn’t pre-approved by Big Oil or the Tea Party. Perhaps the most outlandish example of this Groucho Marx approach to public policy is today’s vote on the BULB Act, H.R. 2417. It would repeal the energy efficiency standards for light bulbs established in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, or EISA, P.L. 110-140. It would also prevent California from setting its own light bulb efficiency standards. The original author of the provision is House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Fred Upton (R-MI), who is now supporting the repeal of his own idea after conservatives attacked it along with other clean energy programs.
EISA, with Rep. Upton’s efficiency measure, passed the House in 2007 by a bipartisan vote of 319-100, with support from 49.7 percent of Republicans who voted and 98 percent of Democratic votes. President George W. Bush signed it into law.
Afterwards, Rep. Upton bragged in a press release, “Upton Measure to Upgrade Energy Efficiency Standards for all Light Bulbs Now Law” . . .
Mark Twain observed that it takes just one man of conscience to stand up to a mob and frustrate stupid mob action. Fred Upton is not that man of conscience, alas.
Meanwhile, PopVox has a poll on the bill. Go on over there and vote “no,” meaning you wish to keep the conservation standards.
Tip of the old scrub brush to ThinkProgress via Jennsmom.
33 Comments | Cost of Green, Environment, Environmental protection, Green Politics, Political Smear, Politics, Rampant stupidity | Tagged: Cost of Green, Energy Conservation, environment, Environmental protection, Groucho Marx, Light Bulbs, Marxism, Political Smear, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Rep. Fred Upton | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Why not? These guys argue that the most rational solution is to get ready to deal with the problems, and stop worrying about the science behind “whether.”
If a global warming debate about certainty and cause only deepens doubt and defensiveness, what kind of debate would create support for action? We saw Hurricane Katrina as an opportunity to shift from the tired debate over cause and prevention to a new discussion about preparedness, thus reframing global warming from certainty to uncertainty and from limits on human activity to greater activity. Regardless of the cause, global warming is here and we need to prepare for it in the same way we prepare for any other imaginable natural disaster, not knowing exactly when or where it will strike. Global Warming Preparedness was created to test the possibility that action on global warming could be taken, not in spite of uncertainty, but because of it. (Breakthrough Institute, Plan for Global Warming Preparedness)
Are they right?
(Reminds me of the old wisdom from the Starbucks coffee cup.)
1 Comment | Climate change, climate_change, Disasters, Environment, Environmental protection, Global warming, Politics, Science | Tagged: Breakthrough Institute, Climate change, Disasters, environment, Global warming, Politics, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Ben Stein is too easy to kick around anymore. His views on politics, science, and general public policy have inflated so much above the troposphere that he really cannot speak about life on the ground at all. The movie mockumentary “Expelled!” provided the early signs of pundit dementia.
Graphic for Ben Stein's American Spectator column: Even in the art, Stein's out of it; his column is titled, "Nation's Pulse," but the graphic shows Uncle Sam hooked up to a machine measuring everything but his pulse. Even Sam's genitals get wired, but the nurse isn't counting heartbeats, nor does it appear any other monitor is.
At the same time, he’s a friend of dogs. One of his tributes to his old dog literally brought tears to my eyes, and reminded me much of the old saying that heaven has no room for those who don’t like dogs. That also raised the horrible vision of spending eternity in a heaven with dog-lovers who also happen to be political idiots.
Stein won’t kick dogs, but he’ll kick scientists, and poor people, and anyone in the middle class. Maybe heavens don’t take people solely on the basis of their affection for dogs.
I digress.
At the remains of the American Spectator — a once-great, nearly revolutionary and smart journal of conservatism slipped on the slime to twitchy, bumper-sticker politics — Stein’s every-issue column turned to his vacation in an exclusive and expensive home in Sandpoint, Idaho, his distaste for undeveloped land and and outright fear of wilderness, friends, and the birth of his granddaughter, nicknamed Coco:
I feel so worried about Coco, She is only a tiny infant with eyes barely open. What do I want Coco to know? To do her best. To love her parents. To forgive. To be a lot more prudent about money than I am. To be grateful for this, our America, the best place in the universe. To turn her will and her life over to God and turn to Him for help in every situation.
But I wish my parents and Alex’s parents were here to help. And I wish my sister lived closer so she could help. And that Mr Nixon were still alive to give the leaders of this nation some clue about how to lead a nation. I am excited about Coco, but I am scared.
Right emotions, wrong thoughts. We need Lyndon Johnson, with a concern for eliminating poverty among the aged (something he did!), not Richard Nixon. With the possible exception of his trip to China, nothing Nixon did couldn’t have been done better by Johnson with another four years, or Humphrey, had we had the sense.
But that’s Stein. He’s human on the family front, full of emotion, loving dogs, getting a cold treat for his ill wife, worrying about the future his granddaughter faces, especially from his privileged palace in Sandpoint, a nice nearly-wild area unfortunately become home of right-wing militias, Aryan-loving neo-Nazis and Keystone Kops-style militias — then switching to his brain-driven mode from emotion-driven, and doing everything he can to make sure anyone who lacks a few million dollars in the bank courtesy of the Old Man will be unable to rise above the fears. Stein luckily led a charmed life, dependent on the kindness of family, friends and strangers, and he cannot understand why others don’t do the same. Stein’s solutions stand magnificently out of reason: Out of work? Take a tax cut. Need money to go to college? Your father needs a tax cut, if he’s rich. Health care tough to find because you can’t pay for it? Tax cuts for the owner of the company you wish to work for. And stop your arguing for more practical or workable solutions whining.
Stein stands in such sharp contrast to the Nepali prince Siddhartha, whose views of real life led him to forsake his princely heritage and seek spiritual enlightenment. One hopes for a Stein-like character with the conscience of Siddhartha, but the practicality of Ross Perot who once noted that what America really needs is a political leader who will fill some potholes, and then, instead of holding a press conference about it, fill some more potholes.
Ben Stein’s road of life has been stripped of most potholes. It’s so smooth, he can’t understand why everyone doesn’t drive that way, going to fancy school’s on Dad’s big money, hobnobbing with Republicans at the country club and occasionally taking the opportunities they toss your way. Wouldn’t such a life be divine?
8 Comments | History, Journalism, Politics, Republican Party | Tagged: American Spectator, Ben Stein, History, Journalism, Politics, Republicans, Siddhartha | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
In a letter to the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate, the President wrote:
This letter is to ask for your help and support, and that of your colleagues, in the passage of an increase in the limit on the public debt.
As [the Treasury Secretary] has told you, the Treasury’s cash balances have reached a dangerously low point. Henceforth the Treasury Department cannot guarantee that the Federal Government will have sufficient cash on any one day to meet all of its mandated expenses, and thus the United States could be forced to default on its obligations for the first time in history.
This country now possesses the strongest credit in the world. The full consequences of a default — or even the serious prospect of default — by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and on the value of the dollar in exchange markets. The Nation can ill afford to allow such a result. The risks, the costs, the disruptions, and the incalculable damage lead me to but one conclusion: the Senate must pass this legislation before the Congress adjourns.
I want to thank you for your immediate attention to this urgent problem, and for your assistance in passing an extenstion of the debt ceiling.
Sincerely,
Ronald Reagan
True then. Still true now.
Letter from President Ronald Reagan to Senate Majority Leader Sen. Howard Baker, R-Tennessee, November 16, 1983. The Treasury Secretary at the time was Donald Regan.
Tip of the old scrub brush to mainstream media pillar, The Washington Post, where a .pdf of the letter is available.
Leave a Comment » | DBQ sources, Economics, Famous quotes, History, Politics, Public Debt, Quotes, U.S. Congress | Tagged: DBQ sources, Debt Ceiling, Economics, Famous quotes, History, Howard Baker, Politics, Ronald Reagan, U.S. Congress | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
49 years ago, on June 26, 1962, in Berlin:
President John F. Kennedy addressing a crowd in Berlin, Germany, June 26, 1962 - image from NARA and/or Kennedy Library
From the Smithsonian Magazine site:
June 26, 1963: “Ich bin ein Berliner”
In West Berlin, President John F. Kennedy delivers the famous speech in which he declares, “Ich bin ein Berliner.” Meaning literally “I am a citizen of Berlin,” the statement shows U.S. solidarity with democratic West Berlin, surrounded by communist territory.
View a video of President Kennedy’s speech at American Rhetoric, Top 100 Speeches.
Audio of the famous line, from the National Archives:
Photos and complete audio, at The Sounds of History.com:
Text and transcript, and other materials, from the Kennedy Library and Museum:
Kennedy’s entire speech was good. It was well drafted and well delivered, taking advantage of the dramatic setting and the dramatic moment. John Kennedy well understood how to give a speech, too.
Below is most of the speech, nearly five minutes’ worth, from a YouTube file — another indication that schools need to open up their filters to allow at least some of the best YouTube material through:
Transcript, from the JFK Library:
I am proud to come to this city as the guest of your distinguished Mayor, who has symbolized throughout the world the fighting spirit of West Berlin. And I am proud to visit the Federal Republic with your distinguished Chancellor who for so many years has committed Germany to democracy and freedom and progress, and to come here in the company of my fellow American, General Clay, who has been in this city during its great moments of crisis and will come again if ever needed.
Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was “civis Romanus sum.” Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
I appreciate my interpreter translating my German!
There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass’ sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin.
Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us. I want to say, on behalf of my countrymen, who live many miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, who are far distant from you, that they take the greatest pride that they have been able to share with you, even from a distance, the story of the last 18 years. I know of no town, no city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality and the force, and the hope and the determination of the city of West Berlin. While the wall is the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of the Communist system, for all the world to see, we take no satisfaction in it, for it is, as your Mayor has said, an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together.
What is true of this city is true of Germany–real, lasting peace in Europe can never be assured as long as one German out of four is denied the elementary right of free men, and that is to make a free choice. In 18 years of peace and good faith, this generation of Germans has earned the right to be free, including the right to unite their families and their nation in lasting peace, with good will to all people. You live in a defended island of freedom, but your life is part of the main. So let me ask you as I close, to lift your eyes beyond the dangers of today, to the hopes of tomorrow, beyond the freedom merely of this city of Berlin, or your country of Germany, to the advance of freedom everywhere, beyond the wall to the day of peace with justice, beyond yourselves and ourselves to all mankind.
Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free. When all are free, then we can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great Continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe. When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades.
All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
You may also want to note these posts:
11 Comments | Berlin Wall, Cold War, Communism, Democracy, Famous quotes, Freedom - Economic, Freedom - Political, Geography - Political, Germany, History, Politics, Presidents, Quotes | Tagged: Berlin, Berlin Wall, Cold War, Communism, Famous quotes, famous speeches, foreign affairs, geography, History, Ich bin ein Berliner, John F. Kennedy, June 26 1962, Politics, Presidents | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
From the website of PBS’s American Experience:
Acceptance of the New York Liberal Party Nomination
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
September 14, 1960What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label “Liberal?” If by “Liberal” they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer’s dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of “Liberal.” But if by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.”
But first, I would like to say what I understand the word “Liberal” to mean and explain in the process why I consider myself to be a “Liberal,” and what it means in the presidential election of 1960.
John F. Kennedy during the 1960 campaign - Kennedy accepted the nomination of the New York Liberal Party on September 14, 1960; this photo may be from that event
In short, having set forth my view — I hope for all time — two nights ago in Houston, on the proper relationship between church and state, I want to take the opportunity to set forth my views on the proper relationship between the state and the citizen. This is my political credo:
I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man’s ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves.
I believe also in the United States of America, in the promise that it contains and has contained throughout our history of producing a society so abundant and creative and so free and responsible that it cannot only fulfill the aspirations of its citizens, but serve equally well as a beacon for all mankind. I do not believe in a superstate. I see no magic in tax dollars which are sent to Washington and then returned. I abhor the waste and incompetence of large-scale federal bureaucracies in this administration as well as in others. I do not favor state compulsion when voluntary individual effort can do the job and do it well. But I believe in a government which acts, which exercises its full powers and full responsibilities. Government is an art and a precious obligation; and when it has a job to do, I believe it should do it. And this requires not only great ends but that we propose concrete means of achieving them.
Our responsibility is not discharged by announcement of virtuous ends. Our responsibility is to achieve these objectives with social invention, with political skill, and executive vigor. I believe for these reasons that liberalism is our best and only hope in the world today. For the liberal society is a free society, and it is at the same time and for that reason a strong society. Its strength is drawn from the will of free people committed to great ends and peacefully striving to meet them. Only liberalism, in short, can repair our national power, restore our national purpose, and liberate our national energies. And the only basic issue in the 1960 campaign is whether our government will fall in a conservative rut and die there, or whether we will move ahead in the liberal spirit of daring, of breaking new ground, of doing in our generation what Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and Adlai Stevenson did in their time of influence and responsibility.
Our liberalism has its roots in our diverse origins. Most of us are descended from that segment of the American population which was once called an immigrant minority. Today, along with our children and grandchildren, we do not feel minor. We feel proud of our origins and we are not second to any group in our sense of national purpose. For many years New York represented the new frontier to all those who came from the ends of the earth to find new opportunity and new freedom, generations of men and women who fled from the despotism of the czars, the horrors of the Nazis, the tyranny of hunger, who came here to the new frontier in the State of New York. These men and women, a living cross section of American history, indeed, a cross section of the entire world’s history of pain and hope, made of this city not only a new world of opportunity, but a new world of the spirit as well.
Tonight we salute Governor and Senator Herbert Lehman as a symbol of that spirit, and as a reminder that the fight for full constitutional rights for all Americans is a fight that must be carried on in 1961.
Many of these same immigrant families produced the pioneers and builders of the American labor movement. They are the men who sweated in our shops, who struggled to create a union, and who were driven by longing for education for their children and for the children’s development. They went to night schools; they built their own future, their union’s future, and their country’s future, brick by brick, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, and now in their children’s time, suburb by suburb.
Tonight we salute George Meany as a symbol of that struggle and as a reminder that the fight to eliminate poverty and human exploitation is a fight that goes on in our day. But in 1960 the cause of liberalism cannot content itself with carrying on the fight for human justice and economic liberalism here at home. For here and around the world the fear of war hangs over us every morning and every night. It lies, expressed or silent, in the minds of every American. We cannot banish it by repeating that we are economically first or that we are militarily first, for saying so doesn’t make it so. More will be needed than goodwill missions or talking back to Soviet politicians or increasing the tempo of the arms race. More will be needed than good intentions, for we know where that paving leads.
In Winston Churchill’s words, “We cannot escape our dangers by recoiling from them. We dare not pretend such dangers do not exist.”
And tonight we salute Adlai Stevenson as an eloquent spokesman for the effort to achieve an intelligent foreign policy. Our opponents would like the people to believe that in a time of danger it would be hazardous to change the administration that has brought us to this time of danger. I think it would be hazardous not to change. I think it would be hazardous to continue four more years of stagnation and indifference here at home and abroad, of starving the underpinnings of our national power, including not only our defense but our image abroad as a friend.
This is an important election — in many ways as important as any this century — and I think that the Democratic Party and the Liberal Party here in New York, and those who believe in progress all over the United States, should be associated with us in this great effort. The reason that Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and Adlai Stevenson had influence abroad, and the United States in their time had it, was because they moved this country here at home, because they stood for something here in the United States, for expanding the benefits of our society to our own people, and the people around the world looked to us as a symbol of hope.
I think it is our task to re-create the same atmosphere in our own time. Our national elections have often proved to be the turning point in the course of our country. I am proposing that 1960 be another turning point in the history of the great Republic.
Some pundits are saying it’s 1928 all over again. I say it’s 1932 all over again. I say this is the great opportunity that we will have in our time to move our people and this country and the people of the free world beyond the new frontiers of the 1960s.
9 Comments | Famous quotes, John F. Kennedy, Leadership, Politics | Tagged: Famous quotes, famous speeches, History, John F. Kennedy, Leadership, Politics, Quotes | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Britain’s Independent reported on June 21 that the London version of the International Policy Network closed its doors. The group was known for its anti-environmental protection, anti-science, pro-rapacious development stands.
Alas, the U.S. version clings on.
The International Policy Network, once the most persuasive and active think tanks campaigning against climate change science, has disbanded in the UK after what appears to be a spilt between its leading members.
A document released following a Freedom of Information request shows that the charity’ s chairwoman Linda Whetstone and her brother Michael Fisher held a private meeting in which they agreed to abandon the name of IPN UK after more than a decade. The meeting, held by telephone in November 2010, was perfectly within the charity’s rules.
The minutes of the meeting, which cover a single side of an A4 sheet of paper, were obtained by The Independent this week and reveal that Whetstone also resigned from the board of the International Policy Network in the United States, despite being a leading member of the organisation.
This newspaper has also confirmed that Professor Julian Morris, the founding director of the IPN in the UK and then president, is no longer working for the sister organisation in the US where he was earning $137,000. He is now vice president for research at a rival think tank, the Reason Foundation.
Professor Morris, after speaking at a meeting on Wednesday, June 15 being held by a new think tank called the Legatum Institute, said: “The IPN is scaling down. There were two organisations, the IPN US Inc and IPN UK and now the two organisations are pursuing independent paths.”
Asked whether the IPN had split over climate change, he added: “It is a long and complex story. It is what it is. I can see where you’re going with this.”
I wish I were so omniscient. I wonder where Morris thought that line of questioning was going?
The Independent summarized some of the less savory parts of the funding issues for the organization (John Mashey surely knows all this):
The closure of the free market IPN follows years of controversy about Exxon funding, alleged links to the tobacco industry and contested claims about AIDs and the pesticide DDT.
It is possible, however, that the closure may be linked to family connections involving David Cameron that meant IPN could no longer exist as a major force of climate denial.
Whetstone is the mother-in-law of Steve Hilton, who is the director of strategy for the prime minister and was godfather to his son Ivan. Hilton is the man who persuaded the Conservative leader to adopt a robust stance on climate change and hug Huskies on the Norwegian glacier to illustrate his commitment.
Hilton’s wife, Rachel Whetstone, is a vice president at Google for communications, which has donated millions to climate change causes, including creating 21 Google Science Communication Fellows.
Linda Whetstone and her brother Michael, the trustees present at the private meeting, are the children of Sir Anthony Fisher who was an ideological disciple and former student of the father of neoliberalism, Friedrich Hayek. Fisher senior masterminded the global network of neoliberal think tanks, including setting up more than 150 organisations himself.
IPN was home to unlikely and highly-questionable science claims, and a refuge for cranks like Roger Bate, whom readers of this blog will recognize from the DDT and Rachel Carson hoax propaganda.
The launch of the International Policy Network’s first publication Adapt or Die was reported in November 2004. The charity claimed climate change was a myth, that sea levels were not rising and that global warming would benefit humans by increasing fish stocks.
At that time Dr Roger Bate was also a director of the IPN. Morris and Bate were both named in a letter asking the tobacco company RJ Reynolds for £50,000 in funding for a book about the “myth of scientific risk assessment” which would deny the effects of passive smoking.
Morris denied involvement, but a book titled What Risk? edited by Bate was later produced in which Bate acknowledged Morris for his support.
The IPN name soon became associated with ExxonMobil after the American oil giant revealed in its own publications that it granted almost £250,000 ($400,000) to the IPN in the US between 2003 and 2006. An examination of IPN UK accounts registered at Companies House revealed that from 2003 to 2005 the US think tank in turn granted £204,379 to the IPN in London.
Exxon stopped funding the IPN following a letter in 2006 from Bob Ward who was then at the Royal Society calling on the world’ s largest seller of fossil fuel to stop funding organisations that were actively spreading misinformation about the science of human forced climate change. Ward is now at the Grantham Institute at the LSE in London.
An IPN statement at the time said: “The implication that IPN is somehow being funded by Exxon to promote ‘climate change denial’ (per the Guardian’s salacious headline) is preposterous nonsense. IPN’s founder and executive director, Julian Morris, has personally been involved in the climate change debate since writing his undergraduate thesis on the subject in 1992 and neither his views nor those of IPN have ever been influenced by any financial contributor.”
It is nothing but good news when such a cloud over the bright sunshine of good science, good information, and good policy, goes out of business. One may wish there were more good news in store, or that more of the denialist groups would follow the example.
The good a non-profit may do oft dies with its disincorporation papers and is buried in some musty, dusty archive. The evil such groups do lives on long after — sometimes propogated, zombie-like, in other organizations.
Until its dissolution the IPN has been central to the climate change denial machine. While receiving funding from Exxon, the organisation launched Adapt or Die in Washington in 2004 and published two further climate change books in time for the COP-10 meeting held that year in Argentina.
The IPN also attended the inquiry into the economics of climate change held by the House of Lords economic affairs committee, which was attended by Lord Lawson. Lawson claims in his book, Memoirs of a Tory Radical, that he began to question the science of climate change during the hearings. He would then go on to form the sceptic Global Warming Policy Foundation.
The think tank also established and launched the Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change which, it claims, included 40 other organisations around the world. The IPN then “ coordinated participation of CSCCC members” at the UN climate meeting in Bali in 2008, distributing hundreds of copies of its report to delegates, participants and journalists for free.
The IPN was launched when the UK charity Atlas Economic Research Foundation, which was founded in July 1971, became part of the international network. During its existence the London office of the think tank raised more than £2.5million from donors. The organisation will continue in some form under the name Network for a Free Society.
Despite repeated attempts to contact her Linda Whetstone was unavailable for comment.
Against damaging climate change, we needed to start major pollution clean-up efforts two or three years ago. IPN’s legacy may yet lie in the destruction yet to be done to to the human race by the harmful effects of uncontrolled, and perhaps, now uncontrollable climate change. IPN shares some of the blame for the lack of anti-pollution action at the Copenhagen conference at the end of 2009, and for the lack of other coordinated international work to control pollution since then.
5 Comments | air pollution, Climate change, climate_change, denialism, History, Politics, Science | Tagged: air pollution, Climate change, denialism, History, International Policy Network, IPN, Politics, Roger Bate, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Management consultants seize on all kinds of ideas in the drive to heal businesses from whatever it is that ails them. This is not criticism delivered lightly, considering the many years I made a living as a management consultant.
At the site for Constitutional Business Consulting, I came across a history of socialism — I think the author’s idea is to convince business managers that they are really using socialism in their management practices, and so the businesses should pay Constitutional Business Consulting to inject some workplace democracy. It doesn’t really matter — what I liked was the history of socialism claimed at the site, and the comparison to the modern, free-enterprise business model.
We could quibble on the history, but why bother: The point is worth discussion:
Socialism literally sprang from observing the success of capitalism, while believing that conditions for workers could be improved if the control of production were moved from capitalists to the state. A top-down control system, such as that used in large business, was the model for socialist society. Yet the true engine of capitalism, the free market, was overlooked and left out of the plan.
Social reformers, from the early Utopian Socialists to the Marxists, were literally awed by the tremendous success of capitalistic industrial production. In The Communist Manifesto Karl Marx stated:
The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalization of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground—what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labor. [1]
The socialists did not want to disrupt this technological miracle, but merely to distribute the profits of it more fairly. They observed the workers earning profits for the wealthy business owners and maintained they were being unfairly exploited. Believing the strength of the system was in its structure, they didn’t want to eliminate businesses, but merely to replace the wealthy business owners with the state.
As early as 1791 Talleyrand, in France, compared the ideal society to a National Workshop. [2] In the 1820s Henri de Saint-Simon envisioned the ideal society as one large factory.[3] After his death, his followers, calling themselves the Saint-Simonians, devised a system in which all of society would be organized like a single factory and socialism was the word they chose to represent it. [4] This was the origin of socialism—the conception of a centrally-planned society run like a business.
Throughout socialist writings the theme is recurring. Thomas More, Etienne Cabet, Louis Blanc, Robert Owen, Wilhelm Weitling, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Sydney Webb, William Clarke, and Nikolai (V.I.) Lenin all relied on a top-down structure, like that used in businesses, as the model for socialist society.[5] While they didn’t all express their philosophies the same way, their line of reasoning was basically this: Capitalism, with its scientific approach, had developed the methods of production to such a degree that they became routine tasks. The wealthy capitalists, desiring to live by the labor of others, had divorced themselves from the day to day duties by training others to perform those tasks. The role of the capitalists had therefore become superfluous, and production could go on without them, thus eliminating the exploitation of the workers.
In his work The State and Revolution, Lenin states:
Capitalism simplifies the functions of ‘state’ administration; it makes it possible to have done with ‘bossing’ and to reduce the whole business to an organization of proletarians (as the ruling class) which will hire ‘workers, foremen and bookkeepers’ in the name of the whole of society. [6]
And The Communist Manifesto proclaims:
The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers…. [7]
And, these views were not just restricted to socialists. Even scholars who were avowedly against socialism, believed the success of businesses, with centralized and top-down controls, proved the viability of socialism. In 1942 Joseph Schumpeter—Chairman of the American Economic Board—saw in large business enterprise all the ear-markings of a socialistic structure, and from this he surmised that capitalism could readily be replaced by socialism. [8]
The passage of time has revealed a conclusion quite different from that of Schumpeter’s. Unfortunately, the naive belief that capitalistic efficiency is due to the top-down structure within businesses is simply grist for the mills of social reformers.
Within a few minutes of finding that site, I found a message at a Facebook site from a guy taking exception to John Kennedy’s famous statement about liberalism. I quoted part of the definition above, noting that socialism was organization “like a business,” and responded:
Perhaps some who claim to see socialism in a health care system where private physicians are chosen by patients to deliver medical care in privately-owned facilities, associating with privately-owned hospitals, using therapeutic devices manufactured by privately-owned businesses and pharmaceuticals developed by privately-owned drug companies, really do mean to rail against such free enterprise. But I’m willing to wager they just don’t know them meaning of the word “socialism” nor would they recognize socialism if it moved into their bedrooms and slept with them every night.
What do we mean when we say, “socialism?”
I wonder what sort of success Constitutional Business Consulting gets?
Footnotes, as listed by Constitutional Business Consulting [hotlinks in the quoted sections should take you back to CBC’s site]:
3 Comments | Business, Health care, History, Politics, Socialism | Tagged: Business, Health Care Reform, History, Politics, Socialism | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Delightful little feature at Arizona Central (azcentral.com), “AZ Fact Check ’11, Keeping Arizona honest” — Arizona Central is a feature of the Arizona Republic, as I recall (somebody correct me if I err).
I’ve noted before that Abraham Lincoln gets credit for a lot of things he didn’t say. AZ Fact Check ’11 corrected an Arizona State Senator on attributing to Lincoln a quote against helping people do things they should be doing for themselves. It’s another case of Twitter getting an elected official in trouble (not a lot of trouble, though, really).
The issue: Whether senator correctly quoted Lincoln
Who said it: Al Melvin, state senator
Arizona State Sen. Al Melvin, R-District 26
by Alia Beard Rau – June 22, 2011, 11:23 am
What we’re looking at
Sen. Al Melvin, R-Tucson, tweeted a quote that he credited to President Abraham Lincoln.The comment
“Abe Lincoln: ‘You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.’ We need to learn from this.”The forum
Posted on Melvin’s Twitter account June 21.Analysis
Melvin on June 21 posted several quotes to his Twitter account relating to encouraging individuals to help themselves rather than giving them handouts. He attributed the quotes to Abraham Lincoln.And Melvin isn’t alone. Others, including President Ronald Reagan, attributed these same quotes to Lincoln.
But according to several books, articles and the website Snopes that deals with debunking urban legends, Lincoln never said the quote.
Historian Arthur Schlesinger addressed the issue in a Washington Post column that ran Sept. 6, 1992.
“. . . in his Houston speech to the Republican National Convention, Ronald Reagan fell for one of the great hoaxes of American history, surpassed in taking people in only by H.L. Mencken`s enchanting fable about Millard Fillmore’s installing the first bathtub in the White House,” Schlesinger wrote. “The author of the less than immortal words Lincoln never said was an ex-clergyman from Erie, Pa., named William J.H. Boetcker.”
Boetcker in 1916 and 1917 produced two booklets based on lectures he gave. The quotes, including the one Melvin cites, are in those booklets.
According to Schlesinger, a conservative group in 1942 put out a leaflet titled “Lincoln on Limitation.” It listed legitimate Lincoln quotes on one side and legitimate Boetcker quotes on the other. Some versions attributed Boetcker’s quotes to Boetcker while others did not, leaving some readers to assume all were from Lincoln.
During the 1940s and 1950s, the quotes were mentioned or printed by increasingly legitimate sources and credited to Lincoln.
“Ever since, Lincoln scholars have been busy swatting the fake quotes down,” Schlesinger wrote. “In the 1960s, the Republican National Committee even warned its speakers, ‘Do not use them as Lincoln’s words!’ but to no avail.”
Bottom line: Historians appear to agree that Lincoln never said the quote that Melvin attributed to Lincoln. The quote was from William J.H. Boetcker.
Sources
- “Great Hoax Of History: Words Lincoln Never Said,” Washington Post, Sept. 6, 1992
- “Prosperity Disparity,” Snopes.com
- “REPUBLICANS IN HOUSTON: For the Record; Reagan Put Words in Lincoln’s Mouth,” New York Times, Aug. 19, 1992
- “The Right’s Library of Fake Quotes: Putting words in dead people’s mouths,” FAIR, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
- Melvin’s tweet about Abraham Lincoln
They got me at that part where they listed sources with links. What a great little feature!
“We Engrave Herewith The Portrait – From A Photograph By Brady – Of Hon. Abram Lincoln, Of Illinois, The Republican Candidate For President” followed by a sketch of his career. Text below image reads “Hon. Abram Lincoln, Of Illinois, Republican Candidate For President./Photographed By Brady.”
_____________
Nota bene: I failed to see this notice at that site: “Fact Check is a service of The Arizona Republic, 12 News and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. It is not affiliated with www.FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.”
2 Comments | Abraham Lincoln, Bogus history, History, Politics, Quotes | Tagged: Abraham Lincoln, Accuracy. Twitter, Arizona, Arizona Central, bogus quotes, History, Politics, Quotes, Sen. Al Melvin | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
So, why don’t the Republicans do what the people of Wisconsin want, instead? Why are Wisconsin Republicans acting as a special elite, ignoring voters’ wishes?
Forbes columnist Rick Ungar wrote:
A Rasmussen poll out today reveals that almost 60% of likely Wisconsin voters now disapprove of their aggressive governor’s performance, with 48% strongly disapproving.
While these numbers are clearly indicators of a strategy gone horribly wrong, there are some additional findings in the poll that I suspect deserve even greater attention.
It turns out that the state’s public school teachers are very popular with their fellow Badgers. With 77% of those polled holding a high opinion of their educators, it is not particularly surprising that only 32% among households with children in the public school system approve of the governor’s performance. Sixty-seven percent (67%) disapprove, including 54% who strongly disapprove.
Can anyone imagine a politician succeeding with numbers like this among people who have kids?
These numbers should be of great concern not only to Governor Walker but to governors everywhere who were planning to follow down the path of war with state employee unions. You can’t take on the state worker unions without taking on the teachers – and the teachers are more popular than Gov. Walker and his cohorts appear to realize.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Wisconsinite Jean Detjen.
14 Comments | Democracy, Education, Elections, Labor and unions, Politics, Polling and Public Opinion, Teachers | Tagged: Democracy, Education, Elections, labor, Politics, Polls, Republican Party, Teachers, unions, Wisconsin | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Anathema to many partisans of the immigration debates: What if we look at the real value of immigration? The U.S. needs more to encourage immigration than to discourage it. God, and devil, in the details.
From the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank:
In advance of an immigration policy conference, Dallas Fed Senior Economist Pia Orrenius discusses how immigration policy can help the U.S. economy and how the global competition for high-skilled immigrants is increasing. The Dallas Fed and the John Goodwin Tower Center for Political Studies at Southern Methodist University are co-sponsoring “Immigration Policy in an Era of Globalization” at the Dallas Fed on May 19-20, 2011.
This piece had only 329 views when I posted it. Shouldn’t carefully studied views of immigration get more circulation on the inter’tubes?
Do you recall seeing any coverage of the May 19-20 conference in your local news outlets, or anywhere else? The conference included high-faluting experts who discussed immigration policies for the U.S., Canada, the EU, Europe, Britain, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain and Germany. One might think to find some value in the information there.
Can we get the immigration we need, legally? Do present proposals in Congress offer to boost our economy, or hurt it?
More:
2 Comments | Demographics, Economics, Education, Geography - Economic, Globalization, History, Human Geography, Immigration, Labor and unions, Politics | Tagged: Economics, economy, Education, geography, Globalization, High-skilled workers, History, Human Geography, Immigration, John Tower Center for Political Studies, Labor and unions, Pia Orrenius, Politics, SMU | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
If Republicans were serious about looking for a candidate for president who could fix some of America’s tougher problems, they’d have an official delegation go see Robert Gates.
Actually, there is a tour underway that highlights the great things about America, but it isn’t Palin’s. It’s the farewell tour of Robert Gates, defense secretary to presidents George W. Bush and Obama, whose work over the past 41 /2 years has dramatically improved the state of the U.S. military. While Palin played cat-and-mouse with the press corps on Interstate 95, Gates set off on a tour of Asia and Europe, where he is receiving the gratitude of soldiers and the acclaim of allies.
Gates, who remained on the job at Obama’s request, took on sacred weapons programs at the Pentagon, fired ineffective generals, won the surge in Iraq, revived a crumbling war effort in Afghanistan and got Osama bin Laden.
During that same time, Palin quit midway through her term as Alaska governor, then went on to a life of $100,000 speaking fees, reality TV shows and incendiary political speech.
There is no such delegation from the Republican Party on the way to Gates’s house, and there probably will not be. We are afflicted with Palin from the Republicans, even while Robert Gates affects us. Why can’t they figure that out?
23 Comments | 2012 Elections, Campaigns, Politics, Republican Party | Tagged: 2012 Elections, Campaigns, Politics, Republican Party, Robert Gates, Sarah Palin | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
The Sarah Palin History Network explains the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Is any comment really necessary?
Tip of the old scrub brush to Joan Samuels Kaiser.
2 Comments | Bogus history, Humor, Politics, Voodoo history | Tagged: Bogus history, Conan O'Brien, Humor, Politics, Sarah Palin, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
I get e-mail, even sometimes from the CATO Institute:
For your interest…
Cato has launched the Department of Labor portion of www.DownsizingGovernment.org
http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/labor
The site includes essays on unemployment insurance, job training programs, labor union laws, and trade adjustment assistance.
Please enjoy,
Chris Edwards
Editor, www.DownsizingGovernment.org
Cato Institute
Doesn’t that sound like a declaration of war on working people, to you? If not, why not?
16 Comments | Government, Labor and unions, Politics | Tagged: CATO Institute, Government, labor, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
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Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
