I hope I'm not the only one on this site who's sick of seeing the poor man's Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, on the pages of DailyKos.
As a member of this community, I think it's time this issue got dealt with in the open.
Theyrereal pretty much summed up my feelingson this knave a day or so ago, but my view is that this can't be discussed enough. I will say that I'm not interested in threatening to leave, acting childish or to do anything whatever other than continuing to air this issue.
I wonder why his ads keep appearing here. Is it possible that Beck's ads are part of a syndicate, and as such can't be separated out for exclusion from the ad services on the DKos site?
In any case, MissLaura stated in the previous diary (quoting, presumably, Kos):
Running an ad doesn't imply endorsement. But, if I start rejecting ads, THEN every ad that DOES run has an implied endorsement.
And you guys aren't idiots. The advertising purity trolls seem to think that site readers are moron automatons easily manipulated by advertising. I have a higher opinion of you guys. I actually think you're quite intelligent and capable of independent evaluation of the advertising you consume here and elsewhere.
Finally, I'm not afraid of money, and I'm putting it to good use -- the abandonment of Scoop and a massive ground-up redevelopment of Daily Kos to be the ultimate blogging platform in the world, and the establishment of a corps of "fellows" to do great activism.
More details on those projects will emerge in December, but bottom line is that I won't cry if Chevron or anyone else wants to help fund the rise of a professional netroots activist class.
The Nation's guidelines are fair all around and so I'm stealing them for myself.
Not necessarily true.
The Nation would never run a Glenn Beck ad.
One of Beck's big hobbyhorses is global warming. This guy is a typical media-based global warming skeptic whose cherry-picked anecdotal arguments are not scientifically-based, and whose arguments are not shared by more than a sliver of a minority of the climatology scientific community.
The case for global warming is airtight.
I'm fed up with seeing this guy's fat face here. OK, it's not as if I'm going to stop visiting and blogging here. But it is kinda annoying to have someone shoved in my face to whom I am bitterly opposed and who is inimical to our interests as a progressive community. He is a militaristic, scientifically ignorant tinpot Bush-cheerleader who does not fit in here.
I can identify with being centrist or mainstream Democrat (not Lieberman, though :) ). But this guy is mainstream in no sense of the word. He needs to go. His presence is offensive, particularly placed directly underneath an Al Gore ad.
I seriously doubt rejecting Beck's ads would place Kos in financial stress. Since many, many of us put ourselves in some financial stress to help our candidates in the last election cycle, doesn't it make sense for the site that we all adhere to to make some judicious decisions itself in this area to express its own convictions?
It is, after all, Kos's site. But in a very real way, it's all of ours too. Though it's not a democracy, as a group we deserve some say in this matter.
**UPDATE** I will stand corrected without retracting my basic argument. I'll confine myself now to saying that it's too bad progressive media organizations like The Nation have to accept adverts from horrible organizations like Fox News to help keep their doors open. I know The Nation operates on a shoestring. I get it.
I'm pretty sure the reverse isn't true. Right-wing organs probably don't need to run adverts from progressive ones. (Anyone gonna call me on this one? If so, cite examples. I'm genuinely interested.)
Andgarden's correct about the ad policies and the Nation's advert histories too (despite the needless namecalling). So I was mistaken about that point. Frankly, I'm a little surprised.
Which, this being true, illustrates how slanted and skewed our public media has become.
**UPDATE 2**
But I stand by my original premise. Glenn Beck is a scumbag and a racist thug. HE DOES NOT BELONG HERE. Thanks to Theyrereal for the extensive background information. Beck is even worse than I thought! (I plead relative ignorance only because it's hard to find the time to keep track of everything, raising a family and all.)
There is taking money and then there is taking blood money.
If paying a subscription would help get this crud off of here, I'd gladly pay it. In fact, I'm long overdue. I'm off to do just that.
It's better to take constructive action than to stand idly by and whine.
I'm glad I spoke up. I'm too annoyed by this to just let it pass. Beck is a jackbooted protofascist thug. Seeing him here is profoundly wrong.