Forbes Magazine is a Case Study on How Conservatives Lose Institutions
by William A. Jacobson Wednesday, January 23, 2013
The minnow eats the whale, again
I’ve noticed, but not commented on, how the only time I go to Forbes.com anymore is to read a liberal attack on conservatives.
I’ve wondered, has Forbes changed? Yes it has.
We lose institutions by allowing the minnows to eat the whale.
It happened to my alma mater, Hamilton College, which acquired the liberal Kirkland College across the street in the late 1970s, and then allowed the leftist Kirkland faculty to take over the school. Hamilton now is so unhinged that it would not allow The Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization to locate on campus. It’s a story told at campuses across the country.
The same thing apparently has happened at Forbes, once a bastion of free market capitalism. It acquired the far left True/Slant, and then appointed the founder of True/Slant to a key position which has resulted in Forbes — at least on its highly trafficked website – becoming a vehicle to attack the right.
Robert Stacy McCain, writing at The American Spectator, has the details:
Over the weekend, professional golfer Phil Mickelson complained about tax increases (including state income taxes in California) that he said had pushed his marginal rate to 63 percent: “I’ve got to make some decisions on what to do.” That incited a scolding from Syracuse Universtiy professor Len Burman, who said Mickelson should “stop whining” because he was so “lucky” to be one of the world’s highest-earning athletes.
Well, just another cranky liberal academic, eh? We are not surprised to learn that Burman served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration, nor are we surprised that Burman founded the Tax Policy Center at the Brookings Institution, a liberal think-tank. What is perhaps surprising is that Burman published his attack on Mickelson’s “whining” at Forbes.
Forbes was once a leading advocate of free-market economic policy and has published such famed conservative writers as P.J. O’Rourke and Peter Brimelow. The magazine’s publisher Steve Forbes sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1996 and 2000 on a platform advocating a flat tax. His father, the late Malcolm Forbes, proudly named his private jet the “Capitalist Tool.”
Yet in recent years, the online version of Forbes has become increasingly notorious as a hive of strident left-wing opinion. Forbes publishes environmentalist blogger Steve Zwick, who has waged a one-man jihad against the free-market Heartland Institute for its criticism of climate policy. Last February, Zwick used his Forbes blog to promote a hoax in which a fake document purported to show Heartland’s “secret strategy.” Forbes also publishes Rick Ungar, who became notorious in 2009 for a column with the headline “Send the Body to Glenn Beck,” blaming the talk-radio host for the alleged lynching of a Census worker (who, as it turned out, had committed suicide).
What happened to Forbes?
Two words: Lewis Dvorkin.
A former AOL executive, Dvorkin got funding from Forbes in 2009 to start a Web site, True/Slant, that lasted a little more than a year before it was taken over by Forbes in a deal that brought Dvorkin into the company with the title of Chief Product Officer. (Dvorkin’s “Copy Box” column is a lot of jargon-crowded hype about the awesomeness of the “product”; he recently defended the concept of “sponsored content” in the wake of last week’s debacle in which the Atlantic published an “advertorial” for Scientology.) Dvorkin’s July 2010 deal also brought under the Forbes online umbrella several of True/Slant’s left-wing staff and contributors, including Zwick, Ungar and, apparently, Professor Len Burman.
Can anyone cite an example of where a prominent liberal publication has brought in a conservative in a leadership position and allowed the conservative to turn the publication on its political head? I can’t think of an example.
This is one of the reasons we lose.
See more at: http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/01/forbes-is-a-case-study-on-how-conservatives-lose-institutions/#sthash.330Lp4CG.dpuf
WE lose?
ReplyDelete"We" lose nothing. Establishment Republicans, on the other hand...
The POINT of the article is not concerned with either the rightness or wrongness of the case in questiin, but rather with the WAY -- the METHODS -- the MEANS -- and the TACTICAL ERRORS on the part of targeted Establishments -- by which insidious, corrosive forces TAKE OVER and TRANSFORM Establishments.
DeleteIn other words it reveals at least one of the ways in which Leftist Insurgencies gains Power and Control.
If you wish to descry Entryism, simply do so, and cite Forbes as a most recent example. I simply wished to describe its' overall "effect".... no big loss.
DeleteEntryism at Forbes is not nearly as concerning as this.
DeleteIt's all part of the same ball of wax, FJ.
DeleteThe answer is people just dont care. Or they don’t even understand who the Koch Bros really are. Some of these dumb-ass lefties think that it’s Mayor Ed Koch’s brother. The Leftist only wants to think that the Koch Bros are some evil Brothers who are sitting behind a curtain pulling strings. OK, well maybe it’s only maybe Harry Reid who thinks that, along with some of the dimmer posters on these boards.
ReplyDeleteBut most Dems simply looked at where they are after 6years of Democrats and concluded that while they would never vote GOP they didn’t have to vote at all. And that's what happened.
The groups that most supported Obama, blacks, young brainwashed college grads, all were AWOL on election day. And no wonder. They are doing worse than anyone else.
Maybe you leftist’s should just stick to building Windmills and rescuing Owls.
The article was not about the Koch Brothers. You saw the facsimile of a Forbes cover, apparently never read the article, itself, made erroneous assumptions, and went off half-cocked with a boilerplate diatribe against "the Left."
DeleteWe are not interested in standardized broadsides against -- or FOR -- ANYBODY.
ONCE AGAIN: The POINT of the article is not concerned with either the rightness or wrongness of the case in question, but rather with the WAY -- the METHODS -- the MEANS -- and the TACTICAL ERRORS on the part of targeted Establishments -- by which insidious, corrosive forces TAKE OVER and TRANSFORM Establishments.
In other words it reveals at least one of the ways in which (usually) Leftist Insurgencies gains Power and Control.
Why the Right either can't or won't use similar tactics to get back a bit of its own is a mystery to me. What do YOU think about it?
There is no question that the GOP is worse than useless in defending us against the steady, relentless advance of MARXISM.
The economic policies of both Establishment Republicans and Democrats, as well as those of anti-Establishment Progressives, are not in the best interest of the vast majority of the American people.
ReplyDeleteLaissez-faire would be in out "interests". What they offer is NOT it.
I can't argue against that, but it does not address the main point of the article, which has to do with how and why crafty opposing forces insidiously take control and completely change the identity of established entities.
DeleteFor instance, I realized when a certain nameless blog, long noted for being a Viciously Vindictive Volcano of Vitriol and Venom ;-), started quoting Forbes Magazine -- assuming most readers would still imagine Forbes an advocate of free market Capitalism -- as giving enthusiastic endorsement of Leftist policies that the once-staid bastion of Conservative economic policy had been taken over by the Enemy, as indeed they have.
A YOU rightly indicate, however, "the Enemy" now lurks in both camps and has succeeded in turning democracy into dumb-MOCK-racy.
Where IS "truth," these days? And what IS "honesty?"
The minions of destabilization and destruction have been so successful in wresting control of the language away from whatever earnest, sane and decent elements may be left that virtually NOTHING means what it USED to mean anymore?
So now you can safely state that Plato was right. "The Republic" is doomed until some "murderous autocrats" re-establish it and police the re-founded State with iron fisted tenacity.
DeletePlato, "Republic"
DeleteThere seem to be two causes of the deterioration of the arts.
What are they?
Wealth, I said, and poverty.
How do they act?
The process is as follows: When a potter becomes rich, will he, think you, any longer take the same pains with his art?
Certainly not.
He will grow more and more indolent and careless?
Very true.
And the result will be that he becomes a worse potter?
Yes; he greatly deteriorates.
But, on the other hand, if he has no money, and cannot provide himself with tools or instruments, he will not work equally well himself, nor will he teach his sons or apprentices to work equally well.
Certainly not.
Then, under the influence either of poverty or of wealth, workmen and their work are equally liable to degenerate?
That is evident.
Here, then, is a discovery of new evils, I said, against which the guardians will have to watch, or they will creep into the city unobserved.
What evils?
Wealth, I said, and poverty; the one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.
Centuries before Ugetsu.
DeleteWho knew.
Potters, hirsute and otherwise!
DeleteParaphrasing Adam Smith; the result of a completely free wheeling unregulated capitalism would logically and naturally lead to monopolies.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the Koch Brothers and others realize the truth to this.
Interesting article FreeThinke, thanks for posting.
Decay is a natural process. Pushing back the frontiers of ignorance and societal decay is a never-ending struggle.
ReplyDeleteMan will revert to whatever is natural given the environment.
People living in harsh lands close to nature where we get a good view of how life can be nasty, brutish and short, tend to be conservative in daily practice.
People living in a fantasy bubble built through the sweat, blood and sacrifice of those who came before them tend to believe this is just the natural state of things.
Cushy safety nets, baby bumper guardrails everywhere, and a popular culture that celebrates stupidity and id-driven pursuits uber alles cannot help but end up stupid, liberal, and decadent.
We're there, and swirling downward.
The struggle is indeed eternal.
DeleteLife is like running a farm. Every morning well or ill, rain or shine you must get up at 4:30 AM, get out into the barn and milk the cows, muck out the stables, feed the livestock, gather the eggs from the chickens, then hoe the weeds, get the supplies, keep your records up to date, pay the bills, tend to the wife and kids, etc., etc., etc.
DeleteNo air-headed, Utopian economic theory, no government sponsored legislation, no busybody bent on rescuing the "oppressed," or any amount of prayer, meditation or wishful thinking will ever be able to change that.
SO, it well behooves all of us to put our shoulders to the wheel, our noses to the grindstone, take one day at a time, quit griping, quit preaching, quit agitating and just and SHUT UP.
I think your paraphrasing Karl Marx, not Adam Smith.
ReplyDeleteAdam Smith, "The Wealth of Nations" -T he undertaker of a great manufacture, who, by the home markets being suddenly laid open to the competition of foreigners, should be obliged to abandon his trade, would no doubt suffer very considerably. That part of his capital which had usually been employed in purchasing materials, and in paying his workmen, might, without much difficulty, perhaps, find another employment; but that part of it which was fixed in workhouses, and in the instruments of trade, could scarce be disposed of without considerable loss. The equitable regard, therefore, to his interest, requires that changes of this kind should never be introduced suddenly, but slowly, gradually, and after a very long warning. The legislature, were it possible that its deliberations could be always directed, not by the clamorous importunity of partial interests, but by an extensive view of the general good, ought, upon this very account, perhaps, to be particularly careful, neither to establish any new monopolies of this kind, nor to extend further those which are already established. Every such regulation introduces some degree of real disorder into the constitution of the state, which it will be difficult afterwards to cure without occasioning another disorder.
How far it may beproperto impose taxes upon the importation
of foreign goods, in order not to prevent their importation, but to
raise a revenue for government, I shall consider hereafter when I
come to treat of taxes. Taxes imposed with a view to prevent, or
even to diminish importation, are evidently as destructive of the
revenue of the customs as of the freedom of trade.
...and, according to Marx, government is the CAUSE of this "State monopoly, "NOT laissez-faire policies..
ReplyDeleteIn other words. government regulation is the CAUSE of the "Monopolistic" disease, not the CURE.
DeleteFJ: History backs up what you say. The biggest monopolies in the US all had government sponsorship.
DeleteWhat most fail to comprehend is that GOVERNMENT, itself, IS a MONOPOLY -- the biggest, cruelest, greediest, most brutal and self serving of them all.
DeleteGovernment functions in a way that most closely resembles the old PROTECTION RACKET dreamt up by the MAFIA:
Here's how it works in case you've forgotten: You pay us 25%-50% of every dollar you take in, and we promise not come in and bust up your place, rape your wife, or burn your house to the ground.
That is what Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) must have been implying when he said, "They that can give up essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
It is, indeed, a never ending battle to keep ourselves safe from the would-be tyrants who would "save us from ourselves," by enslaving us to their dictatorial precepts "for our own good."
“The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media.”
ReplyDelete– William Colby, former CIA director
“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
– William Casey, CIA Director (from first staff meeting, 1981)
Any more questions?
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteGET THIS, and GET IT STRAIGHT:
DeleteWe welcome Conversation
But without Vituperation.
If your aim is Vilification ––
Other forms of Denigration ––
Unfounded Accusation --
Determined Obfuscation ––
Alienation with Self-Justification ––
We WILL use COMMENT ERADICATION.
IN ADDITION
Gratuitous Displays of Extraneous Knowledge Offered Not To Shed Light Or Enhance the Discussion, But For The Primary Purpose Of Giving An Impression Of Superiority are obnoxiously SELF-AGGRANDIZING, and therefore, Subject to Removal at the Discretion of the Censor-in-Residence.
That was really classy Mr. or Ms. Anonymous. Happy now?
ReplyDeleteNot to worry, AJ. There will always be sad, sick souls who try to work out their frustrations with their own inadequacy by scribbling obscenities on rest room walls, putting mustaches on posters, and defiling other public places in other ways. their is a case of arrested development.
DeleteSuch people are more to be pitied than despised.
Another revealing insight into the media from someone who should know ,,, from the self-styled "journal of record":
ReplyDelete“There is no such thing, at this date of the world’s history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar weekly salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities, and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
– John Swinton, former New York Times Chief of Staff
That is an astonishing confession, Waylon. I have no doubt it is true, because it seems self-evident. I have seen it for myself and 'felt it in my bones' for several decades.
DeleteEven so, we must ask if you found official verification that Mr. Swinton did in fact write such a statement? We know that Snopes and FactCheck.org are fundamentally supportive of the left, and will twist "facts" to support the Leftist Point of View every chance they get, but whenever sweeping statements are published it's wise to bolster them with verification.
Given the obvious truth of Mr. Swinton's assertions isn't it amazing that his words -- if that's what they are -- are still available to us?
"John Swinton" apparently gave a speech at a dinner given in his honor in 1880. Since he died in 1902 it doesn't seem that this remark led to his immediate demise.
ReplyDeleteWhen I came across the quote I thought it must have been made in reference to the New York Times of later vintage, after being absorbed into the tribe of the chosen people.
I had never heard the quote before and and didn't realize that it was from the gilded age of the supposed Robber Barons who were the object of Mr. Swinton's scorn in this citation and his writing of the time.
Thank you for that clarification. It certainly lends greater credence to the adage that CONTEXT is of the utmost importance in any honest search for truth.
Delete