Sure, but now that you’re in a fundraising mood, maybe there could be a new PayPal link on the right column…

As for the funding of political debate, the liberals themselves count on a steady flow of money from like-minded sugar daddies. Jack Shafer handled this question pretty nicely in Slate last month:

“Stein and Lapham would have you believe that conservative foundations both outweigh liberal foundations and suppress the liberal message with their big spending. But that’s not the case. Stein estimates assets of $2 billion for the eight major conservative family foundations in 2001, which sounds gargantuan. But that’s chump change compared to the holdings of liberal foundations. Writing in the American Prospect in 1998, Karen Paget notes that none of these conservative foundations rank in the top 10 American foundations measured by assets, and most don’t even break into the top 50.

The Schumann Center for Media and Democracy (assets of $60 million in 2002) gave money to liberal media organizations in 2003 at rates that would make a Scaife faint. The group’s federal Form 990 records it giving $4.3 million away to TomPaine.com/the Florence Fund ($2 million), Sojourners magazine ($500,000), an investigative fund for Salon.com ($277,785), the Nation Institute ($115,000), and various radio, film, and magazine projects (the Washington Monthly and the American Prospect got piddly amounts). It also paid Bill Moyers, host of PBS’s Now, $200,000 to serve as its president. “

Regardless of politics, the Coulter’s and Alterman’s of this world aren’t in Murray’s league. What amused me a while back was the reaction of many on the left to the plan by David Horowitz et al to play similar games, often from folk happy to go along with this stuff when it’s aimed at the ‘other side’.

conservatives handicap by identifying themselves as outsiders. “we do all this and we’re outsiders, imagine what we could do if the world weren’t against us.” alterman is afraid this creates a strategy that is too agressive by virtue of overstating its underdog status. the overstatement (or overestimation if it is a more honest mistake) could lead to demands for something further than a fair airing of ideas because it must achieve dominance (as seen by the liberal) in order to achieve balance (as seen by the conservative). this is saying nothing about the truth or falsity of either side’s claims, only something like predictions about where the argument could lead by virtue of the conservative self-image. alterman points out these things to destroy that self-image and hence derail the train to liberal oblivion.

the other thing i think is going on here is an attempt at guilt by association. “these people have loony ideas. they support these other people who don’t look like they have loony ideas, but if they’re being support by the loonies then their ideas must serve the loony interest. so, even if they’re not exactly loony you have to be suspicious.” alterman doesn’t do this so much as ‘outfoxed’ or that dutch documentary on the carlyle group (can’t remember the name), but it’s sort of in there underneath. tracing everything back to goldwater is my favorite example of this. “barry goldwater was considered a nut. now all his ideas are being practiced by bush. ergo bush and friends are also nuts.”

i would also like to say more broadly that liberals (and i would identify myself as one) ought to reconcile themselves once and for all to the fact that conservatives are bringing no knives to the gunfight. politics has always been a gunfight. get over it. deepen your ideas and defend them.

all that said, i find it fair and appropriate to know the funding sources of influential people, not in order to dismiss peoples’ arguments, but in order to have some kind of perspective about possible non-intellectual motivations. very few people in the hackery business on either side are motivated by pure intellectual honesty (not knowing his writing, i’ll accept your charles murray as one of the exceptions until i can make my own judgment). monetary motivation is fair game.

conservatives handicap by identifying themselves as outsiders. “we do all this and we’re outsiders, imagine what we could do if the world weren’t against us.” alterman is afraid this creates a strategy that is too agressive by virtue of overstating its underdog status. the overstatement (or overestimation if it is a more honest mistake) could lead to demands for something further than a fair airing of ideas because it must achieve dominance (as seen by the liberal) in order to achieve balance (as seen by the conservative). this is saying nothing about the truth or falsity of either side’s claims, only something like predictions about where the argument could lead by virtue of the conservative self-image. alterman points out these things to destroy that self-image and hence derail the train to liberal oblivion.

the other thing i think is going on here is an attempt at guilt by association. “these people have loony ideas. they support these other people who don’t look like they have loony ideas, but if they’re being support by the loonies then their ideas must serve the loony interest. so, even if they’re not exactly loony you have to be suspicious.” alterman doesn’t do this so much as ‘outfoxed’ or that dutch documentary on the carlyle group (can’t remember the name), but it’s sort of in there underneath. tracing everything back to goldwater is my favorite example of this. “barry goldwater was considered a nut. now all his ideas are being practiced by bush. ergo bush and friends are also nuts.”

i would also like to say more broadly that liberals (and i would identify myself as one) ought to reconcile themselves once and for all to the fact that conservatives are bringing no knives to the gunfight. politics has always been a gunfight. get over it. deepen your ideas and defend them.

all that said, i find it fair and appropriate to know the funding sources of influential people, not in order to dismiss peoples’ arguments, but in order to have some kind of perspective about possible non-intellectual motivations. very few people in the hackery business on either side are motivated by pure intellectual honesty (not knowing his writing, i’ll accept your charles murray as one of the exceptions until i can make my own judgment). monetary motivation is fair game.

Regardless of politics, the Coulter’s and Alterman’s of this world aren’t in Murray’s league. What amused me a while back was the reaction of many on the left to the plan by David Horowitz et al to play similar games, often from folk happy to go along with this stuff when it’s aimed at the ‘other side’.

Sure, but now that you’re in a fundraising mood, maybe there could be a new PayPal link on the right column…

As for the funding of political debate, the liberals themselves count on a steady flow of money from like-minded sugar daddies. Jack Shafer handled this question pretty nicely in Slate last month:

“Stein and Lapham would have you believe that conservative foundations both outweigh liberal foundations and suppress the liberal message with their big spending. But that’s not the case. Stein estimates assets of $2 billion for the eight major conservative family foundations in 2001, which sounds gargantuan. But that’s chump change compared to the holdings of liberal foundations. Writing in the American Prospect in 1998, Karen Paget notes that none of these conservative foundations rank in the top 10 American foundations measured by assets, and most don’t even break into the top 50.

The Schumann Center for Media and Democracy (assets of $60 million in 2002) gave money to liberal media organizations in 2003 at rates that would make a Scaife faint. The group’s federal Form 990 records it giving $4.3 million away to TomPaine.com/the Florence Fund ($2 million), Sojourners magazine ($500,000), an investigative fund for Salon.com ($277,785), the Nation Institute ($115,000), and various radio, film, and magazine projects (the Washington Monthly and the American Prospect got piddly amounts). It also paid Bill Moyers, host of PBS’s Now, $200,000 to serve as its president. “