04.07.11
Recommending improved standard of living = bad
Deemed possibly improper political advocacy, therefore out of bounds work at a university supported by state funding.
Steve Aftergood might have something to say about the use of FOIA as a political instrument for intimidation.
From TPM, on the Mackinac Institute’s use of FOIA to damage labor in Michigan:
Ken Braun [of Mackinac] explained why he FOIA’d the labor faculty at Wayne State (as well as Michigan State and the University of Michigan), pointing to portions of the Wayne State site he said were clearly advocating political outcomes rather than education.
From MIRS News:
By the time the Capitol Confidential published its story about WSU’s Labor Studies Center, the university had taken down a link to a free “activists handbook” for those looking for a “nuts and bolts guide” for creating a living wage campaign, a page dedicated to passing the federal “card check” and a specific manual for public employee unions trying to “defeat privatization.”
Mackinac and Wayne State’s labor studies faculty have been at war since at least 2005, when the state Chamber of Commerce called for and got the school to shut down a student-run site advocating for a higher minimum wage.
Mackinac is now in the news regularly for its anti-labor positions and its near constant name-checking on Rachel Maddow, for using “maddow” as a search term linked to its FOIA requests.
Maddow has pointed out, fairly accurately, that the purpose of these requests is not only about securing information that can be used out of context for attack purposes but also for purposes of political intimidation.
The last time Mackinac figured in this blog was for a discussion of Glenn Beck’s novel, ghost written by Jack Henderson, called The Overton Window.
The Overton Window is an invention of Mackinac’s and as part of Beck’s publicity push for the book, he featured a representative of the Michigan institute on his show.
Overton Window is a good versus evil book, the Tea Party kind, where the US government is the evil and patriots battle to thwart its nefarious plans.
Washington Post reviewer Steven Levingston deemed it at risk of falling into the tradition of novels like “The Turner Diaries,” America’s premier piece of violent white bigot fiction, a fever dream about vengeful destruction of the US government.
Beck has always flirted with plots, ideas and scenarios nauseatingly similar to the general arc of “The Turner Diaries.” The main difference has been he’s kept a much tighter lid on his animus toward minorities, academics and others included in his public enemies list said to be bringing the country down.
In “The Turner Diaries,” for instance, author William Pierce hangs and shoots college professors and Jews.
Glenn Beck only tries to make various old professors, like Frances Fox Piven, and the financier George Soros, out to be the highest of scheming menaces to Americans and puppet masters behind everything bad.
Which is an improvement in deportment, one could say.
From July, last year — here — on the Mackinac Institute and Glenn Beck.