Category Archives: #science

Conservative Think Tank Angry About Big Business, Uses Comic Sans to Avoid “Communist” Allegations

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This is a little old by internet standards, but:

Something no one cares about called the “National Center for Public Policy Research” has something called the “Free Enterprise Project,” both of which can be distinguished by the fact that they are run by a handsome man with a mustache and have names that mean nothing at all.  The Free Enterprise Project recently called for the resignation of the CEO of GE, Jeffery Immelt.

Why? Because he is lobbying to get government money.  According to the press release, because “‘We the people’ have had enough of Obama’s government gone wild spending programs and CEOs such as Immelt that are seeking to profit from taxpayers,” said Deneen Borelli, full-time fellow with the National Center’s Project 21.””

Did you get that?  Its “we the people,” because this is a DEMOCRACY and we deserve to have a SAY in how BUSINESS ARE RUN says the “Free Enterprise Project.”  What?

“When you think of it, Immelt poses more risk to liberty than a progressive Senator. Immelt’s ability to affect public policy has no checks and balances and he is using the vast resources of GE to promote Obama’s agenda. It’s time ‘we the people’ hold Immelt accountable for undermining America’s economic sustainability and our free enterprise system,” added Tom Borelli.

Now, I agree 100% with this.  If corporations are allowed unlimited use of their “vast resources” to promote a political agenda, it is “more risk to liberty than a progressive Senator.”  But the problem is that The National Center for Public Policy Research basically signed away any right they had to complain about corporations using these “vast resources” to promote a political agenda when they signed this adorable amicus curiae where they said, basically, it is unconstitutional and discriminatory to tell corporations exactly what they’re asking Immelt to do.

Not only is this contradictory, but frankly, assuming that “we the people” have the right to demand anything of a corporation, even when coming from something called the Free Enterprise Project, sounds just a little socialist.  Just a little.  Which I’m fine with, but I wonder why they chose to take this risk right now?  Maybe the petition will help us understand:

Jeffrey Immelt
Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer
General Electric Company
3135 Easton Turnpike
Fairfield, CT 06828

June 22, 2010

Dear Mr. Immelt,

In the new world order of “too big to fail,” the responsibility for holding corporate leaders accountable now resides with “we the people.”  On that basis, I am urging you to resign as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of General Electric because you have abandoned the tenets of free enterprise to profit from President Obama’s progressive political agenda.

Specifically:

  • You were a leading proponent of President Obama’s $ 787 billion economic stimulus bill, which failed to curb unemployment but added billions of dollars to our crushing national debt.
  • You are a leading advocate of President Obama’s cap-and-trade policy, which will raise the cost of gasoline, electricity, consumer products and export jobs overseas.
  • You allowed the MSNBC cable TV network to repeatedly hurl demeaning insults, often of a racial or sexual nature, at patriotic Americans who are peacefully challenging President Obama’s big-government policies.

Your work is a risk to the founding American values of liberty and free enterprise.  “We the people” urge you to resign.
Sincerely,

The Free Enterprise Project

Oh.  They’re sick of being called white racist teabaggers.  HILARIOUS.

And the grudge against GE is longstanding.  In fact, if you look at the amicus curiae, they inexplicably say

“Contrary to Austin and McConnell, freedom of the press belongs not just to corporations like General
Electric, but rather to “the people.””

And I guess they put “the people” in quotes because they’re actually talking about corporations that are not GE.

If you search the phrase “general electric” on their site you get at least 100 hits going back to 1997.  Most of the ones I read seemed pretty angry with the company, except one from 2001, which, based on their claim that PCBs, some of the most poisonous compounds on earth, are not harmful, and that GE should not be held responsible for dumping them in the Hudson River.  I mean, I guess insisting that poor people get slowly poisoned by denying that the poison exists trumps everything.

You are stupid if you don’t vaccinate your children!

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How do you convince someone with a particular position on an issue that they are just flat out wrong? Like Obama-groomed-for-40-years-to-take-over-the-United-States wrong or Government-is-prepping-us-for-FEMA-camps wrong or even Sarah-Palin-is-a-down-to-Earth-and-reasonable-politician-who-would-make-a-good-president wrong.

Most of the people who hold unreasoned opinions like these are people of faith to begin with (in the sense that the act of steadfast belief is all that’s necessary for something to be “true” in their minds) and due to their lack of open-mindedness and aversion to considering other arguments (especially when those arguments are in the form of a long two to three page article!) it can be quite the feat to get a “believer” to even think about thinking about considering maybe looking at something contrary to what they believe.

Enter the comic book, a publishing format that has probably done more for child literacy than every grammar school in the country combined times a million, that gives readers who might be challenged by blocks of text, known as paragraphs, a simple, easy, and visually interesting way of following along with a story.

While it might not be as useful to Wingnuts as a comic book about how unlikely it is that President Obama is a Communist Muslim Fascist who was born in Kenya and was trained over the course of his entire life to get elected as President of the United States of America only to create attrition in the government so that a Muslims cabal can take over the world, the comic below would be good to send off to your crazy sister or aunt who believes, despite all the evidence (in the form of long wordy article) to the contrary, that the Measles/Mumps/Rubella vaccine causes Autism in young children.

What a silly and dangerous thing to believe! Why is it both a silly and dangerous belief that’s completely unfounded and void of any unbiased expert to argue the position? Maybe you should read this comic by Darryl Cunningham entitled “The Facts in the Case of Dr. Andrew Wakefield” and learn a little more about what would motivate a medical doctor, who has since been discredited and stripped of his medical license, to perpetuate such a myth and why not vaccinating your children against these three deadly diseases, a trend that has caused cases of Mumps and Measels to break out in many communities all over the world, is just flat out stupid.

Medicine, myth, and intrigue. What other comic book packs a punch like that!?