by Gary Farber
Who is "Wisconsin's most dangerous professor"? He's William Cronon. Who he? He's this incredibly threatening man:
[...] In 1991, Cronon completed a book entitled Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, which examines Chicago 's relationship to its rural hinterland during the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1991, it was awarded the Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prize for the best literary work of non-fiction published during the preceding year; in 1992, it won the Bancroft Prize for the best work of American history published during the previous year, and was also one of three nominees for the Pulitzer Prize in History; and in 1993, it received the George Perkins Marsh Prize from the American Society for Environmental History and the Charles A. Weyerhaeuser Award from the Forest History Society for the best book of environmental and conservation history published during the preceding two years.
[...]
In July 1992, Cronon became the Frederick Jackson Turner Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin Madison after having served for more than a decade as a member of the Yale History Department. In 2003, he was also named Vilas [pronounced "Vy-lus"] Research Professor at UW-Madison, the university’s most distinguished chaired professorship.
Cronon has been President of the American Society for Environmental History, and serves as general editor of the Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books Series for the University of Washington Press. [...] He has served on the Governing Council of The Wilderness Society since 1995, and on the National Board of the Trust for Public Land since 2003. He has been elected President of the American Historical Association for 2011-12.Born September 11, 1954, in New Haven , Connecticut, Cronon received his B.A. (1976) from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He holds an M.A. (1979), M.Phil. (1980), and Ph.D. (1990) from Yale, and a D.Phil. (1981) from Oxford University. Cronon has been a Rhodes Scholar, Danforth Fellow, Guggenheim Fellow, and MacArthur Fellow; has won prizes for his teaching at both Yale and Wisconsin; in 1999 was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society' and in 2006 was elected a Fellow of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters as well as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He is obviously a Maoist of the worst Marxist-Leninist sort!
How do we know? Because the Republican Party of Wisconsin wants him investigated.
The Republican Party of Wisconsin has made an open records request for the e-mails of a University of Wisconsin professor of history, geography and environmental studies in an apparent response to a blog post the professor wrote about a group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
Professor William J. Cronon, who is the president-elect of the American Historical Association, said in an interview Friday that the party asked for e-mails starting Jan. 1.
The request was made by Stephan Thompson of the Republican Party of Wisconsin. In his request, Thompson asked for e-mails of Cronon's state e-mail account that "reference any of the following terms: Republican, Scott Walker, recall, collective bargaining, AFSCME, WEAC, rally, union, Alberta Darling, Randy Hopper, Dan Kapanke, Rob Cowles, Scott Fitzgerald, Sheila Harsdorf, Luther Olsen, Glenn Grothman, Mary Lazich, Jeff Fitzgerald, Marty Beil, or Mary Bell."
Most of the names are Republican legislators. Marty Beil is the head of the Wisconsin State Employees Union and Mary Bell is the head of the Wisconsin Education Association Council.
Cronon said the university had not yet complied with the open records request. The e-mails would be subject to the state's open records law because they were written on an university e-mail account.
The university has an e-mail policy that states, "University employees may not use these resources to support the nomination of any person for political office or to influence a vote in any election or referendum.”
Cronon said he did not violate the policy in any way. "I really object in principle to this inquiry," Cronon said of the party's open records request.
Thompson was not available for comment. But in an statement, Mark Jefferson, the party's executive director, said, "Like anyone else who makes an open records request in Wisconsin, the Republican Party of Wisconsin does not have to give a reason for doing so. [...]"
What was Cronon's offense? He wrote an Op-Ed piece for the terrorist-loving New York Times.
Entitled "Wisconsin’s Radical Break," Cronan wrote:
NOW that a Wisconsin judge has temporarily blocked a state law that would strip public employee unions of most collective bargaining rights, it’s worth stepping back to place these events in larger historical context.
Republicans in Wisconsin are seeking to reverse civic traditions that for more than a century have been among the most celebrated achievements not just of their state, but of their own party as well.
You've heard of the states as laboratories of democracy. Cronon:
[...]
Wisconsin was at the forefront of the progressive reform movement in the early 20th century, when the policies of Gov. Robert M. La Follette prompted a fellow Republican, Theodore Roosevelt, to call the state a “laboratory of democracy.” The state pioneered many social reforms: It was the first to introduce workers’ compensation, in 1911; unemployment insurance, in 1932; and public employee bargaining, in 1959.
University of Wisconsin professors helped design Social Security and were responsible for founding the union that eventually became the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Wisconsin reformers were equally active in promoting workplace safety, and often led the nation in natural resource conservation and environmental protection.
But while Americans are aware of this progressive tradition, they probably don’t know that many of the innovations on behalf of working people were at least as much the work of Republicans as of Democrats.
Although Wisconsin has a Democratic reputation these days — it backed the party’s presidential candidates in 2000, 2004 and 2008 — the state was dominated by Republicans for a full century after the Civil War. The Democratic Party was so ineffective that Wisconsin politics were largely conducted as debates between the progressive and conservative wings of the Republican Party.
Let's remember who led the "conservative wing" of the Wisconsin Republican Party in the Fifties: Senator Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957.
You may have heard of him.
Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity.
When the Wisconsin Democratic Party finally revived itself in the 1950s, it did so in a context where members of both parties were unusually open to bipartisan policy approaches. Many of the new Democrats had in fact been progressive Republicans just a few years earlier, having left the party in revulsion against the reactionary politics of their own senator, Joseph R. McCarthy, and in sympathy with postwar liberalizing forces like the growing civil rights movement.
The demonizing of government at all levels that has become such a reflexive impulse for conservatives in the early 21st century would have mystified most elected officials in Wisconsin just a few decades ago.
When Gov. Gaylord A. Nelson, a Democrat, sought to extend collective bargaining rights to municipal workers in 1959, he did so in partnership with a Legislature in which one house was controlled by the Republicans. Both sides believed the normalization of labor-management relations would increase efficiency and avoid crippling strikes like those of the Milwaukee garbage collectors during the 1950s. Later, in 1967, when collective bargaining was extended to state workers for the same reasons, the reform was promoted by a Republican governor, Warren P. Knowles, with a Republican Legislature.
The policies that the current governor, Scott Walker, has sought to overturn, in other words, are legacies of his own party.
But Mr. Walker’s assault on collective bargaining rights breaks with Wisconsin history in two much deeper ways as well. Among the state’s proudest traditions is a passion for transparent government that often strikes outsiders as extreme. Its open meetings law, open records law and public comment procedures are among the strongest in the nation. Indeed, the basis for the restraining order blocking the collective bargaining law is that Republicans may have violated open meetings rules in passing it. The legislation they have enacted turns out to be radical not just in its content, but in its blunt ends-justify-the-means disregard for openness and transparency.
This in turn points to what is perhaps Mr. Walker’s greatest break from the political traditions of his state. Wisconsinites have long believed that common problems deserve common solutions, and that when something needs fixing, we should roll up our sleeves and work together — no matter what our politics — to achieve the common good.
[...] Perhaps that is why — as a centrist and a lifelong independent — I have found myself returning over the past few weeks to the question posed by the lawyer Joseph N. Welch during the hearings that finally helped bring down another Wisconsin Republican, Joe McCarthy, in 1954: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
The Republican Party leaders of Wisconsin have no such sense of decency:
[
Cronon concluded his Leninist diatribe:
Scott Walker is not Joe McCarthy. Their political convictions and the two moments in history are quite different. But there is something about the style of the two men — their aggressiveness, their self-certainty, their seeming indifference to contrary views — that may help explain the extreme partisan reactions they triggered. McCarthy helped create the modern Democratic Party in Wisconsin by infuriating progressive Republicans, imagining that he could build a national platform by cultivating an image as a sternly uncompromising leader willing to attack anyone who stood in his way. Mr. Walker appears to be provoking some of the same ire from adversaries and from advocates of good government by acting with a similar contempt for those who disagree with him.The turmoil in Wisconsin is not only about bargaining rights or the pension payments of public employees. It is about transparency and openness. It is about neighborliness, decency and mutual respect. Joe McCarthy forgot these lessons of good government, and so, I fear, has Mr. Walker. Wisconsin’s citizens have not.
Executive Director of Wisconsin's Republican Party Mark Jefferson responded as I've written above, with a press release decrying:
“I have never seen such a concerted effort to intimidate someone from lawfully seeking information about their government.
“Further, it is chilling to see that so many members of the media would take up the cause of a professor who seeks to quash a lawful open records request. Taxpayers have a right to accountable government and a right to know if public officials are conducting themselves in an ethical manner. The Left is far more aggressive in this state than the Right in its use of open records requests, yet these rights do extend beyond the liberal left and members of the media.
“Finally, I find it appalling that Professor Cronin seems to have plenty of time to round up reporters from around the nation to push the Republican Party of Wisconsin into explaining its motives behind a lawful open records request, but has apparently not found time to provide any of the requested information.
“We look forward to the University’s prompt response to our request and hope those who seek to intimidate us from making such requests will reconsider their actions.”
Republican Party of Wisconsin | 148 East Johnson St. | Madison, Wisconsin 53703 p: 608.257.4765 | f: 608.257.4141| e: [email protected]
What's going on here? Andrew Leonard of Salon explains:
[...] The obvious goal is to find something damaging or embarrassing to Cronon -- although judging by Cronon's account, smoking guns seem unlikely to be lying around in plain sight. (Eight of the names referenced in the request belong to the eight Republican state senators targeted by Democrats for recall.)
I can't do a better, more eloquent or more profound job of summarizing the issues at stake than Cronon himself does in a lengthy blog post that the professor posted Thursday night. Everyone should read it.
I agree. And read about ALEC.
Who’s Really Behind Recent Republican Legislation in Wisconsin and Elsewhere? (Hint: It Didn’t Start Here)
[...]
I don’t want this to become an endless professorial lecture on the general outlines of American conservatism today, so let me turn to the question at hand: who’s really behind recent Republican legislation in Wisconsin and elsewhere? I’m professionally interested in this question as a historian, and since I can’t bring myself to believe that the Koch brothers single-handedly masterminded all this, I’ve been trying to discover the deeper networks from which this legislation emerged.
Here’s my preliminary answer.
Telling Your State Legislators What to Do:
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)The most important group, I’m pretty sure, is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which was founded in 1973 by Henry Hyde, Lou Barnett, and (surprise, surprise) Paul Weyrich. Its goal for the past forty years has been to draft “model bills” that conservative legislators can introduce in the 50 states. Its website claims that in each legislative cycle, its members introduce 1000 pieces of legislation based on its work, and claims that roughly 18% of these bills are enacted into law. (Among them was the controversial 2010 anti-immigrant law in Arizona.)
If you’re as impressed by these numbers as I am, I’m hoping you’ll agree with me that it may be time to start paying more attention to ALEC and the bills its seeks to promote.
You can start by studying ALEC’s own website. Begin with its home page at http://www.alec.org
First visit the “About” menu to get a sense of the organization’s history and its current members and funders. But the meat of the site is the “model legislation” page, which is the gateway to the hundreds of bills that ALEC has drafted for the benefit of its conservative members.
http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Model_Legislation1You’ll of course be eager to look these over…but you won’t be able to, because you’re not a member.
Becoming a Member of ALEC: Not So Easy to Do
How do you become a member? Simple. Two ways. You can be an elected Republican legislator who, after being individually vetted, pays a token fee of roughly $100 per biennium to join. Here’s the membership brochure to use if you meet this criterion:
http://www.alec.org/AM/pdf/2011_legislative_brochure.pdf
What if you’re not a Republican elected official? Not to worry. You can apply to join ALEC as a “private sector” member by paying at least a few thousand dollars depending on which legislative domains most interest you. Here’s the membership brochure if you meet this criterion:
http://www.alec.org/am/pdf/Corporate_Brochure.pdfThen again, even if most of us had this kind of money to contribute to ALEC, I have a feeling that membership might not necessarily be open to just anyone who is willing to pay the fee. But maybe I’m being cynical here.
Which Wisconsin Republican politicians are members of ALEC? Good question. How would we know? ALEC doesn’t provide this information on its website unless you’re able to log in as a member. Maybe we need to ask our representatives. One might think that Republican legislators gathered at a national ALEC meeting could be sufficiently numerous to trigger the “walking quorum rule” that makes it illegal for public officials in Wisconsin to meet unannounced without public notice of their meeting. But they’re able to avoid this rule (which applies to every other public body in Wisconsin) because they’re protected by a loophole in what is otherwise one of the strictest open meetings laws in the nation. The Wisconsin legislature carved out a unique exemption from that law for its own party caucuses, Democrats and Republicans alike. So Wisconsin Republicans are able to hold secret meetings with ALEC to plan their legislative strategies whenever they want, safe in the knowledge that no one will be able to watch while they do so.
(See http://www.doj.state.wi.us/dls/OMPR/2010OMCG-PRO/2010_OML_Compliance_Guide.pdf for a full discussion of Wisconsin’s otherwise very strict Open Meetings Law.)
If it has seemed to you while watching recent debates in the legislature that many Republican members of the Senate and Assembly have already made up their minds about the bills on which they’re voting, and don’t have much interest in listening to arguments being made by anyone else in the room, it’s probably because they did in fact make up their minds about these bills long before they entered the Capitol chambers. You can decide for yourself whether that’s a good expression of the “sifting and winnowing” for which this state long ago became famous.
Partners in Wisconsin and Other States: SPN, MacIver Institute, WPRI
An important partner of ALEC’s, by the way, is the State Policy Network (SPN), which helps coordinate the activities of a wide variety of conservative think tanks operating at the state level throughout the country. See its home page at http://www.spn.org/
Many of the publications of these think tanks are accessible and downloadable from links on the SPN website, which are well worth taking the time to peruse and read. A good starting place is:
http://www.spn.org/members/Two important SPN members in Wisconsin are the MacIver Institute for Public Policy:
and the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI):
http://www.wpri.orgIf you want to be a well-informed Wisconsin citizen and don’t know about their work, you’ll probably want to start visiting these sites more regularly. You’ll gain a much better understanding of the underlying ideas that inform recent Republican legislation by doing so.
Understanding What These Groups Do
As I said earlier, it’s not easy to find exact details about the model legislation that ALEC has sought to introduce all over the country in Republican-dominated statehouses. But you’ll get suggestive glimpses of it from the occasional reporting that has been done about ALEC over the past decade. Almost all of this emanates from the left wing of the political spectrum, so needs to be read with that bias always in mind.
Interestingly, one of the most critical accounts of ALEC’s activities was issued by Defenders of Wildlife and the Natural Resources Defense Council in a 2002 report entitled Corporate America’s Trojan Horse in the States. Although NRDC and Defenders may seem like odd organizations to issue such a report, some of ALEC’s most concentrated efforts have been directed at rolling back environmental protections, so their authorship of the report isn’t so surprising. The report and its associated press release are here:
http://alecwatch.org/11223344.pdf
http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/020228.aspThere’s also an old, very stale website associated with this effort at
http://alecwatch.org/A more recent analysis of ALEC’s activities was put together by the Progressive States Network in February 2006 under the title Governing the Nation from the Statehouses, available here:
http://www.progressivestates.org/content/57/governing-the-nation-from-the-statehousesThere’s an In These Times story summarizing the report at
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2509/More recent stories can be found at
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/alec-states-unions_b_832428.htmlview=print
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/6084/corporate_con_game (about the Arizona immigration law) and there’s very interesting coverage of ALEC’s efforts to disenfranchise student voters at http://campusprogress.org/articles/conservative_corporate_advocacy_group_alec_behind_voter_disenfranchise/
and
http://www.progressivestates.org/node/26400For just one example of how below-the-radar the activities of ALEC typically are, look for where the name of the organization appears in this recent story from the New York Times about current efforts in state legislatures to roll back the bargaining rights of public employee unions:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/business/04labor.htmlHint: ALEC is way below the fold!
A Cautionary Note
What you’ll quickly learn even from reading these few documents is that ALEC is an organization that has been doing very important political work in the United States for the past forty years with remarkably little public or journalistic scrutiny. I’m posting this long note in the conviction that it’s time to start paying more attention. History is being made here, and future historians need people today to assemble the documents they’ll eventually need to write this story. Much more important, citizens today may wish to access these same documents to be well informed about important political decisions being made in our own time during the frequent meetings that ALEC organizes between Republican legislators and representatives of many of the wealthiest corporations in the United States.
Go access. Knowledge is our weapon in the fight to defend ourselves from what radical Teddy Roosevelt knew:
I am well aware that every upholder of privilege, every hired agent or beneficiary of the special interests, including many well-meaning parlor reformers, will denounce all this as "Socialism" or "anarchy"--the same terms they used in the past in denouncing the movements to control the railways and to control public utilities. As a matter of fact, the propositions I make constitute neither anarchy nor Socialism, but, on the contrary, a corrective to Socialism and an antidote to anarchy.
That was the progressive Republican Teddy Roosevelt who inspired George W. Bush, who John McCain so admires:
[...] the Times has the entire transcript. It’s worth quoting at length:Q: How do you think of your self as a conservative? Do you think of yourself more as a Goldwater conservative or Reagan conservative or George W. Bush conservative?
Senator John McCain: A Teddy Roosevelt conservative, I think. He’s probably my major role model…. I think Teddy Roosevelt he had a great vision of America’s role in the 20th Century. He was a great environmentalist. He loved the country. He is the person who brought the government into a more modern – into the 20th century as well. He was probably engaged more in national security slash international affairs that any president [had] ever been. I understand that TR had failings. I understand that every one of my role models had failings…..
[snip]
Q: Roosevelt wasn’t really a small government person. He saw an active role for government what thing in your record in your record would you say are in a similar vein of using government to do things that…
Mr. McCain: Campaign Finance reform – obviously he was a great reformer — is one of them. Climate change is another. He was a great environmentalist
Q: You don’t believe in small government, the sort of classic conservative view of minimal government is not one you would necessarily share.
Mr. McCain: …I also believe there is a role for government. If there is abuses, TR was the first guy to enforce the Sherman anti-trust act against the quote trusts that were controlling the economy of America. Because I believe his quote was unfettered capitalism leads to corruption. So there certainly is a role for government but I want to keep that role minimal. And I want to keep it in the areas where only governments can perform those functions.
Government should take care of those in America who can’t care for themselves. That’s a role of government. It’s not that I’m for no government. It’s that I’m for government carrying out those responsibilities that otherwise can’t be exercised by individuals and the states — that’s the founding principles of our country — and at the same time recognizing there’s a role for our government and society to care for those who can’t care for themselves, to make sure there are not abuses of individual rights as well as the rights of groups of people and to defend our nation. And National Security is obviously No. 1.
So I count myself as a conservative Republican, yet I view it to a large degree in the Theodore Roosevelt mold.
The GOP now wants to break doyen professor of history William Cronon. They're attacking in full.
Read how and why. And study up on American conservatism:
[...]
An Introductory Bibliography on the Recent History of American Conservatism
John Micklethwait & Adrian Wooldridge, The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America, 2004 (lively, readable overview by sympathetic British journalists).
David Farber, The Rise and Fall of Modern American Conservatism: A Brief History, 2010.
George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945, 1976(one of the earliest academic studies of the movement, and still important to read).
Lee Edwards, The Conservative Revolution, 2002 (written from a conservative perspective by a longstanding fellow of the Heritage Foundation).
Bruce Frohnen, et al, American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia, 2006 (a comprehensive and indispensable reference work).
Jerry Z. Muller, Conservatism, 1997 (extensive anthology of classic texts of the movement).
There are many other important studies, but these are reasonable starting points.
And, of course, Rick Perlstein. Knowledge is power. Knowledge is our weapon. Use it. Fight back. Defend William Cronon.
Cross-posted at Amygdala. Cross-posted at Dirty Hippies.
ADDENDUM, March 26th, 8:58 a.m., PST: Everyone and their dog has been blogging and tweeting about this, so a bazillion links, so I'll give few or none, but here is the NY Times editorial: "A Shabby Crusade in Wisconsin."
Fitzgerald, Barca disagree on whether law goes into effect Saturday:
Madison — In a stunning twist, Gov. Scott Walker's legislation limiting collective bargaining for public workers was published Friday despite a judge's hold on the measure, prompting a dispute over whether it takes effect Saturday.
The measure was published to the Legislature's website with a footnote that acknowledges the restraining order by a Dane County judge. But the posting says state law "requires the Legislative Reference Bureau to publish every act within 10 working days after its date of enactment."
The measure sparked protests at the Capitol and lawsuits by opponents because it would eliminate the ability of most public workers to bargain over anything but wages.
The restraining order was issued against Democratic Secretary of State Doug La Follette. But the bill was published by the reference bureau, which was not named in the restraining order.
Laws normally take effect a day after they are published, and a top GOP lawmaker said that meant it will become law Saturday. But nonpartisan legislative officials from two agencies, including the one who published the bill, disagreed. [....]
As well, I'll stress:
In response, Cronon has posted a lengthy rebuttal on his own web site. In the post, Cronon states that he has committed no wrongdoing in terms of the use of his state e-mail account -- and also saying that it would violate federal law to reveal e-mail conversations with students that have touched upon these subjects.
Collective bargaining law published despite court order blocking it.
This is quite the intriguing development. How lawless will the Wisconsin Republican Party become?
UPDATE, 3/26/11, 6:23 p.m. PST: Zeno is more than halfway to some interesting background.
BTW--I was comparing dropping irrelevant outdated information at a time intending to affect a national election with using FOIA to access emails of a public employee.
Yeah. I still don't see the moral comparison- on the one hand, a politician who basically volunteers to put his public life on display has a piece of publicly-available info (aka "public record") that he hoped would remain unknown revealed at an inconvenient moment. On the other hand, we have a private individual who offered up some political opinions having his emails searched for any tidbits that might discredit him or merely punish him pour encourager les autres.
That we have an election process that probes personal matters is bad enough; having a political process where merely commenting or having a political opinion opens one up to "oppo research" is another IMO.
You think those are similar, I don't. But Im not sure that any more analysis would change anyone's mind on that point.
Posted by: Carleton Wu | March 28, 2011 at 07:16 PM
However, I don't recall you being upset when Scott Walker got scammed in a similar way. So, again, I think you're making my point.
Unless I missed something, Scott Walker is still the governor of Wisconsin, no? So who, exactly, was harmed there?
Posted by: Phil | March 28, 2011 at 07:59 PM
McT
O'Keefe and NPR. I think scamming people is slimy and I don't care for it. However, I don't recall you being upset when Scott Walker got scammed in a similar way. So, again, I think you're making my point.
They got scammed in similar way, you are right, but implications and facts presented are tottaly different.
NPR's sale agent is not voice of the NPR, and he never talks on the radio, while Walker scam was Walker's voice and thoughts. NPR video was falsely presented as it was NPR's voice and more importantly, their message. It 's like presenting a FoxNews janitor's point of view as Fox's.
Also, Walker's phone talk was not edited in any way, while Sherod's video was edited to misrepresent opposite of what she was trying to convey. Also Acorn videos were heavily edited in order to misrepresent multiple facts presented by O'Keffe.
Posted by: crithical tinkerer | March 28, 2011 at 08:43 PM
I've been thikig about the former Marty's assertio that there is nothing wrong with an ivestigation as a respose to a publically stated opinion that one disagrees with.
I thik that it is a very dagerous thig to chage the basic rules of civil discourse. I believe that most of us assume that if oe disagrees with an opinio the proper coures is to addreess the content of the opinion, to disagree with the ideas by assertig differet ideas. That's good manners. It's also the atural respose if oe has a good sound basis for disagreemet.
Oe the other hand if the ew ormal is to respod to disagreemet by lauchig a ivestigatio of the other perso i order to fid some way to attack that perso persoally...not only is it bad maners, but it is also a de facto admissio that oe is ot able to respod with reasoed argumet.
So I believe it is very dagerous ad distructive to democracy to redefie the basic terms of political discoiurse so that ivestigatios become the acceptable way to express disagreement.
Posted by: wonkie | March 28, 2011 at 08:59 PM
Also, Walker's phone talk was not edited in any way, while Sherod's video was edited to misrepresent opposite of what she was trying to convey.
We have a winner.
Posted by: russell | March 28, 2011 at 09:01 PM
Preferably of people who would actually be interested, rather than fantasies, though.
Posted by: Gary Farber | March 28, 2011 at 09:28 PM
O'Keefe and NPR. I think scamming people is slimy and I don't care for it. However, I don't recall you being upset when Scott Walker got scammed in a similar way.
Yes, it was just horrible how that scammer took the audio from Scot Walker, hacked it to bits and reconstructed it to mean something completely opposite from what Walker said, added all kinds of deceptive voice-overs, and then released the final product with great fanfare to partisan media.
Oh wait, he didn't. That was O'Keefe that did that. The guy that scammed Walker just released the entire unedited conversation. My bad.
Posted by: Snarki, child of Loki | March 28, 2011 at 09:30 PM
Someone not entirely unknown to regular readers of comments of ObWi.
Details to be arranged, but expect something in the not distant future.
More suggestions solicited.
Posted by: Gary Farber | March 28, 2011 at 09:31 PM
CDCG:
I'd like you to please send me an archive of all of your emails from the last 12 months.Also, how large a hard drive or drives do you have?
Can you zip down your entire hard drive(s)to, oh, under 20 gigs? I'll give you a URL to upload it to, if you have bandwidth, but let's start with the past 12 months of all your emails.
You have no problem with that, right? You express opinions in public, what's anyone going to do to you?
Do you have something to hide?
No? Then I look forward to your forwarding your entire archive of email to me.
Could you get it to me by Friday? I'll see about posting it all (not here on ObWi; I'll just open a free Blogger account and stick it all up there) when I get a chance.
You wouldn't have any problem, right? Any objection? If so, please describe what objection you might have, if you'd be so kind?
Thanks!
Posted by: Gary Farber | March 28, 2011 at 09:48 PM
CDCG:
I'm confused. You're asserting that the Democratic Party, or people in it "made" McCain pick Palin?I must be misunderstanding you. Please clarify?
And what "shaped the reactionary nature of the Republican Party for at least another two election cycles"? People in the Democratic Party? John McCain's pick of Sarah Palin? Did someone mind-control John McCain?
Have supporters of the Republican Party, activists in the Republican Party, elected officials and leaders of the Republican Party, and their elected officials in government no free will or agency?
Again, surely I'm misunderstanding you; please forgive me for asking you to clarify what it is you're asserting. Thanks!
Sapient:
I started out by mentioning Joseph McCarthy, so let me remind all specifically of the Tydings Committee.The China hands:
Let's talk about HUAC and the Hollywood blacklist (Note: Joseph McCarthy was not in the House, and the House Un-American Activities Committee was a separate entity.)
Let's go back to Nixon's campaign against Jerry Voorhis in 1946.
Let's discuss Roy Cohn.
This is not new.
Posted by: Gary Farber | March 28, 2011 at 10:07 PM
Phil:
There was this guy who went by the hand of "Publius" at a blog called "Obsidian Wings" and The New York Times reported on it as did many places. That was a bit under two years ago.Anyone remember that? Funny that John isn't at this blog any more.
How about one Hilzoy, aka Professor Hilary Bok.
Funny, she's not posting here any more, either.
Now, I'm in no way saying that there's a cause and effect here.
Nor am I suggesting everyone now reading ObWi should have been reading it two years ago or more recently or less.
I'm pointing out that this phenomenon is hardly an unknown fact or experience around here.
One thing no one can do to me is "out" me.
It's also one reason I've never used other than my real name. I knew when I was an adolescent and studied certain history that it doesn't work. And had other reasons.
But it's still a way to attack people who have good reasons for not not wanting to post under the name they may be otherwise known as, and it's a way to attack academics.
Perhaps in some cases it's justified. Why a professor's emails should be publically investigated because of an expressed opinion that isn't libelous or in violation of the law, or without some other hitherto unmentioned reason, or why anyone's emails should be publically investigated because of an expressed opinion without some very good reason, I don't think I've seen mentioned on this thread.
But I could easily have missed a good explanation. Does anyone have a pointer or could someone remind me of their comment explaining this? Or offer a pointer to a writer elsewhere with such an explanation?
If so, thanks!
Posted by: Gary Farber | March 28, 2011 at 10:37 PM
Gary Farber: "This is not new."
Yes, of course, you're right. I was commenting carelessly, not forgetting about the portions of your post regarding McCarthy, but putting those times firmly in the past. Just like (as regards a different comment thread) the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. Wrong of anyone to get into a habit of thinking that the past is ever past.
Posted by: sapient | March 28, 2011 at 10:49 PM
How about one Hilzoy, aka Professor Hilary Bok.
From hilzoy's farewell front page post, explaining her reasons for leaving blogging behind:
That said, it seems to me that the madness is over.
Would that it were so.
Posted by: russell | March 28, 2011 at 10:52 PM
This is a "dead link." It's the URL most folks know how to cut and paste. It's not clickble: http://werbach.com/barebones/barebones.html
This is the active link version:
Barebones Guide To HTML and Tags.
How To Link:
http://werbach.com/barebones/barebones.html#links
Link tags.
TEXT
< >
<A HREF="URL">TEXT</a>
< A HREF="URL" > TEXT < /A >
OR:
left angle bracket A HREF ="URL"right angle bracket
left angle bracket TEXT /A right angle bracket
[A HREF="URL"]TEXT[/A]
Substitute pointy bracket for rectangular bracket
Special characters = Special Characters, including pointy brackets.
< <
> >
I would like to get the Typepad widget to allow everyone to click and link, as well as bold and underline added as soon as we can. Real Soon Now, I hope.
It's been a project of mine since 2005 to make that happen, but it's not, unfortunately, under my control.
If anyone has the desire to see that happen more quickly, letting Eric Martin know your desire next time you see him comment, or you can otherwise communicate with him, might be helpful, though I certainly don't speak for him, or anyone else associated with this blog about this, and neither do I wish to harass Eric about this.
I'm only saying I'm not sure Eric is aware that anyone might have such a desire or see it as a priority, and only he and one other person have the password that enables making changes to the template, including simple changes that would take a minute, or five minutes, or however long, for some others to make such changes.
My own feeling is that it would be very useful to commenters, and I've said so innumerable times since 2005, in public, on this blog, and since the first time an imminent new template move was announced several years ago, and then on all the subsequent occasions it was announced by Hilzoy and Publius, whose skills, like Eric's, lay in fine writing and thinking, but not in HTML or other software matters. Obviously all of us have limited time to devote to such matters, but I do think it would be very very useful to all for commenters to be able to link.
And personally, it would save me constantly having to explain how to do it manually, or otherwise do people the favor of doing it for them each and every time.
Posted by: Gary Farber | March 28, 2011 at 11:02 PM
Which part of what Media Matters is doing, as cited in your linked story, is irrelevant?
Here's an interesting documentary, by the way. Outfoxed.
Summary.
For those who prefer text on how Fox News deliberately slants news, some links.
Wikipedia.
Posted by: Gary Farber | March 28, 2011 at 11:22 PM
Wonkie: keyboards you can buy for under $12. Or you can go to your local Craigslist, and get them for free under the stuff being given away for free.
You can find plenty at Amazon or anywhere that sells computer hardware for under $10.
If there's anything else I can do to help, please ask. Give me your snail address, and I'll send you a keyboard.
You also shouldn't need an actual key to push down and make an "n," although you may have problems with your fingers that prevent this, or some other problem with your keyboard that interfere, that you haven't mention. Or you could just stick a piece of plastic tape over the missing plastic piece. Or a piece of cotton. There are any number of solutions that might help you quite easily type and make an "n."
(You can also cut and paste, but that's tedious, and I gather that making a macro is out of your technical range. Similarly, you can also use your OS to map any letter to any other key on your board, etc., but I know you're not someone who is comfortable at dealing with computers, so I'm not trying to push you to do anything you're uncomfortable with; I'd simply like to see you back to using 26 letters ASAP, for all our sake's. :-))
Posted by: Gary Farber | March 28, 2011 at 11:34 PM
Thank you for the suggestions, Gary, but, sadly the keyboard is attached to my laptop! I have tried typing without the letter in place but that doesn't work. I glued the letter back in place but I have to really hammer on it to get it to register. I will probably resort to cut ad paste. I am curious about your reference to OS mappig. Do you mean that I could get a little used letter to function like an "N" instead of what the letter acutally is? That's an intriguing thought. In ay case will not inflict N-free typing on everyone! Good night!
Posted by: wonkie | March 29, 2011 at 12:16 AM
wonkie- I had this prob once with a laptop keyboard, couldn't get it to type periods (which given my habit of run-on sentences isn't as much of a handicap as it would be for most people); I just went through most of my day with a period on the clipboard, ready to paste, and ctrl-v got pretty natural to me.
otoh, autohotkey is a pretty easy prog if you're on windows- it can be set to run at startup and uses a really simple text file to tell it what to do (eg "NumpadDiv::Send n" would replace the number pad's division key with n, or "{RShift}::Send n" to use the right shift key). Course some of that can get awkward when you find you need the key that you've borrowed...
It's pretty handy for those who spend a lot of their day on the computer- Ive got little macros that sign emails or other common stuff like that.
Posted by: Carleton Wu | March 29, 2011 at 12:41 AM
My favorite was Michelle Malkin, in her cute little cheerleader outfit, going through somebody's garbage to go after some kid who was in favor of health care reform.
Posted by: bobbyp | March 29, 2011 at 09:25 AM
"I don't recall you being upset when Scott Walker got scammed in a similar way."
Yes, scamming some low level ACORN workers and then heavily editing the tapes is EXACTLY THE SAME as fooling a powerful politician.
But pardon me for not going down Tut-Tut Lane with you. Enjoy your trip.
Posted by: bobbyp | March 29, 2011 at 09:30 AM
Doubling down on the thuggery: (This is cut and pasted from TPM who got it from Rachel maddow)
"A free enterprise think tank in Michigan -- backed by some of the biggest names in national conservative donor circles -- has made a broad public records request to at least three in-state universities with departments that specialize in the study of labor relations, seeking all their emails regarding the union battle in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, TPM has learned.
According to professors subject to the request, filed under Michigan's version of the Freedom Of Information Act, the request is extremely rare in academic circles. An employee at the think tank requesting the emails tells TPM they're part of an investigation into what labor studies professors at state schools in Michigan are saying about the situation in Madison, Wisc., the epicenter of the clashes between unions and Republican-run state governments across the Midwest"
However the real danger of this is that Marty's definition of the new normal in discourse will take hold and no one will even expect public disagreements on pollitical issues to be decided by discussion of ideas. They will just use the Republica model and expect pulbic discussions of ideas to consist of Republicans saying what they have to say and bullying anyone who disagrees.
Why are so many Republican politicians and their enablers redefining normal public discourse in such a way as to release themselves from any responsiblity for having to defend their ideas with reasoned argument?
Posted by: wonkie | March 29, 2011 at 10:33 AM
The message is clear. If you are a professor, at least one at a public university, any political opinions you may have must be kept private, or you will be subject to harrassment.
This is good for America, of course, since everybody knows that professors don't know anything (or know the wrong things). They should shut up.
Posted by: Rob in CT | March 29, 2011 at 10:53 AM
at least one at a public university
make that at least three public universities.
the ghost of McCarthy's got nothing on today's GOP.
Posted by: cleek | March 29, 2011 at 11:02 AM
Thak you, Cartleton! My husband is going to try o0ut the autofixkey solution you suggested.
Posted by: wonkie | March 29, 2011 at 09:24 PM
Which part of what Media Matters is doing, as cited in your linked story, is irrelevant?
We'll have to wait and see. The announced intent is to "sabotage" Fox News by going after senior and mid level people. David Brock leads MM. He is a snake, always has been, always will be. I expect him to not only meet but exceed my expectations.
Posted by: McKinneyTexas | March 30, 2011 at 08:59 AM
"He is a snake, always has been, always will be."
That is not helpful. If he's still a snake, can you please point to some examples which should make us distrust him? This is not even an adequate ad hominem, lacking the "ad" portion of an attack. Pre MM Brock committed many snakey actions by his own later admission. Post MM, I would like to read specifics.
Posted by: Julian | March 30, 2011 at 10:04 AM
I think the principle here should be "probable cause." Investigations are legitimate if there is probable cause of illegal behavior or violations of professional codes of conduct or behavior that is clearly against the public interest and appropriately belongs as part of political discussion. Investigations are a bully tactic if they are fishing expeditions. And, of course, the investigation should be conducted legally.
I realize that my little rule is ambigous but it does, for me at least, give a guideline. There is no indication that Professor Conin did anything against the codes of his job. There is no indication that the other professors at other uiversities did aything either. Pure bully tactics. Anti-democratic behavior. Not the sort of behavior that people who believe in free speech or civil political discourse would rationalize or justify.
Hacking into Sarah Palin's emails is in the same no-no catagory since her endless displays of narcissism and willful ignorance do not give, to my knowledge anyway, probable cause to think she is engaged in any activity that is illegal. She hasn't got a profession to violate the codes of.
FAUX has been caught lying so many times it isn't necessary to do any sabotaging of its staff. All one has to do is watch the show and compare the content to reality. FAUX is for people who want to be lied to.
Since FAUX lies all the time there's lots of probable cause that the lies are deliberate, cynical, and planned. Perhaps that's a violation of their licensing? If so , that doesn't justify "sabotage" (whatever that means) but it might justify a investigation into how they decide what lies to tell. A legal ivestigation.
Posted by: wonkie | March 30, 2011 at 11:03 AM
I think one thing that's overlooked is what was the original goal of the FOIA.
Government transparency. Sunlight on the decisions of people in power.
How does that apply to a university professor? Even in a state-funded school?
Whether or not FOIA currently applies to his email is immaterial, lay aside the ethics of it -- let's get back to basics.
The whole point of the FOIA, does it really apply to a professor's email account? Should it apply?
Honestly, I think not. A professor at a state-supported school isn't an elected figure. He's not a government bueracrat. He makes no laws, enforces no regulations -- he has no more or less power than a private school professor.
I don't think the "it's my tax dollars!" bit applies either. Students going to private schools cost you tax dollars -- from charitable deductions, to Pell grants, to student loans. Plan to rifle through their emails? You probably cost ME tax-dollars in a similar fashion! Can I use the FOIA to access your tax returns?
FOIA's goals aren't actually served by this. Which says that the FOIA might need a bit of tweaking, if it can be used for purposes outside the "spirit" of the FOIA.
Posted by: Morat20 | March 30, 2011 at 12:31 PM
or, we could just rename it to the Facilitation Of Intimidation Act
Posted by: cleek | March 30, 2011 at 02:05 PM
How about firing Bill Sammon?
Because it's OK If You're An Outright Right-Wing Propaganda Operation.Posted by: Gary Farber | April 01, 2011 at 12:12 PM