Sorry Kos, but this is emphatically not the kind of ad I want to see near the top of Daily Kos, not to mention any other great liberal web site:
Oil, natural gas and coal have been the energy workhorses for the last 100 years. To meet the world's future energy demand, we have to expand these old sources and begin making the new ones viable. By working together, we can prepare for this next era of energy. www.willyoujoinus.com
Please allow me to explain why.
First, there can be no benefit to gain from accepting an ad for one of the world's biggest oil companies other than that it generates money. Of course, the ad in question probably was not purchased by DK directly; it seems to have been served up by some ad aggregating service. Nonetheless, DK was paid.
Second, there are plenty of reasons why accepting such an ad might well harm the mission of DK. Among many other possibilities, in my opinion:
1. It suggests that DK users are at least open to the advertiser's messages. Why else would the advertiser pay to reach our eyeballs? And
2. It creates the impression that DK users are willing to give voice to a company that most of us find very harmful and undemocratic in exchange for money, which undermines our credibility and dilutes our voices of protest against climate change and other issues. How is this different from, say, Tom DeLay giving legislative time to sweat shops in the Mariana Islands in exchange for money flowing to his favored candidates?
Third, in my strong opinion as an environmentalist, doing anything that supports the profit-driven, Earth-ruining and protestor-murdering agenda of Chevron is immoral and not something that my favorite liberal web site should be doing.
I understand all the arguments FOR accepting the advertising. Well there's just one, and I acknowledged it above: money. But in my opinion, that's not good enough.
This terrific site never would accept advertising from Tom DeLay or the KKK, and we shouldn't accept it from Chevron and that company's ilk.
As an alternative, I would strongly suggest that some kind of discussion or even committee be established to discuss advertising guidelines on this website. Obviously, this site is a for-profit business for Kos, and he has the right to do what he wants. But I also have the right to support whatever sites I want, I want to support this one (strongly), and I don't want Daily Kos advertising Chevron. Sorry...