Abraham Lincoln feared the rise of 'corporatism' in America

[indigobusiness]

Abraham Lincoln stated, 'I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me, and causes me to tremble for the safety of our country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people, until wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the republic is destroyed.'

http://www.surfaceonline.org/essayamerica.htm?


Mussolini defined fascism as 'corporatism'.

[dave123williams]

1. Well, that's one definition of Fascism, isn't it...

"A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism."

How many of these things can you say of the GOP? Quite a few, I think.

[indigobusiness]

2. The GOP, as represented by BushCo, fits the bill nicely...

but, who would argue with Il Duce'?

[THUNDER HANDS]

3. wealth in the hands of just a few will always lead to...

**PPPPFFFTTTTTTTTTFFFFFFFFFF**

[Journeyman]

4. Bogus quote. . .

See Snopes: http://www.snopes.com/quotes/lincoln.htm

[w4rma]

6. If it was a forgery it's been around for a long time: Since 1896.

I'm not so sure that it as clear cut a forgery as some would like us to believe. Apparantly the basis for the forgery claim is Lincoln's old secretary.

[InvisibleBallots]

38. I'd be happier with a reputable source, as opposed to Snopes

Snopes is fine for debunking silly urban legends, but he is a right-winger and when it comes to anything political, he always puts his ideology over the truth.

[indigobusiness]

7. Snopes has shot itself in the foot so much lately

it's a marvel to be still standing.

[Boosterman]

12. What did snopes get wrong? n/t

[indigobusiness]

13. Many. many things.

I wonder if Snopes debunks itself?

[Boosterman]

14. Hmm never heard of any incorrect stories on their sites. Any links?

[Bucky]

18. hmmm, deathly silence

It's an old, bogus quote. Someone said it, and it's mostly true. But it ain't Lincoln. Lincoln did favor the common man more that your typical corporate lawyer would. But he'd probably want more John McCain levels of reform than something I'd like to see.

[indigobusiness]

20. See #19

[indigobusiness]

19. Many links

Previous Entry | Main | Next Entry

September 05, 2003

Debunking The Debunkers

Debunking The Debunkers?

This is very strange. Yes, the cache has been deleted.

Tom Tomorrow has been all over this story and you can read about it here. It seems he's caught Snopes changing some things around on their site. And then the cache disappears. Hmmmm. . .

In the meantime The Agonist has sent this email to Google:

Dear Google,

Why did the cache of this page mysteriously disappear?

I am currently researching this whole episode of the bin Ladens dissappearance in the aftermath of 9/11. Snopes.com has changed their story and I would like to know where the previous cached version is. Did they request it be taken down? Can cached items be requested to be brought down?

snip

http://scoop.agonist.org/archives/007922.html

---
For Snopes.com, Debunking the Bambi Hoax Was All in a Day's Work


Site is a labor of love for husband-and-wife team who stayed skeptical about media reports that hunters could pay up to $10,000 for chance to shoot paintballs at naked women.

There are a lot of reporters who live by the maxim: If it sounds like it's too good to be true, it probably is. Meaning, it's not true. In the case of the "Hunting for Bambi" whopper, Las Vegas CBS affiliate KLAS was ready to shoot video first, ask questions later. Despite the fact that the station's LuAnne Sorrell did a four-part report on the scheme -- supposedly giving men the chance to hunt naked women with paintball guns for up to $10,000 -- it failed to do the heavy lifting needed to unmask the hoax. Instead, urban legends site Snopes.com led the way within days with a detailed explanation of why it was a hoax.

In fact, KLAS ended up crediting Snopes, though the station still sticks by claims that two hunts took place, with a paintball actually hitting someone. And that's after Las Vegas Mayor Oscar B. Goodman went public to debunk the alleged hunt. "It all was staged," Goodman told the press. "They were actors and actresses, and there wasn't even the real shooting of paintballs." KLAS' latest report yesterday noted that Goodman is now calling the scam a front for an unlicensed escort service.

While the Internet has taken its share of knocks for helping scammers perpetrate e-mail and Web hoaxes (the Bambi hunt reportedly was staged to sell videos on the proprietor's Web site), not enough credit is given to the folks who are using the Internet to debunk them. Snopes.com is the work of the husband-and-wife team of David and Barbara Mikkelson, who have taken their passion for urban myths to the Web since 1995. The site is an encyclopedia of past hoaxes and myths, from classic e-mails purportedly from Bill Gates offering money for forwarding e-mail to friends, to recent reports of terrorists buying up UPS uniforms.

The Mikkelsons, who live in the Southern California suburb of Thousand Oaks, support themselves via David's full-time programming job, and use ad money from the site to pay for bandwidth and related costs. They received an inundation of traffic right after 9/11 due to a plethora of terror-related hoaxes and misinformation. They've appeared on CNN and various TV shows, but remain relatively low key and out of the spotlight, despite pop culture interest in their subject matter (there have been two "Urban Legends" movies and a TV show; none affiliated with them).

I spoke to David Mikkelson recently by phone, after elbowing my way through his e-mail pile to get his attention. The pair depend on e-mail to find out about new hoaxes from their legions of followers.

Mark Glaser: Tell me about the genesis of your site.

David Mikkelson: Originally, Barbara and I participated in various online discussion groups before the development of the Web. It wasn't convenient to post individual answers to newsgroups every time someone asked about an urban legend, which suggested a Web site repository of such articles, which prompted the creation of Snopes.com. I just started adding more and more sections to our Web site, then Barbara started pitching in and writing things as well. We quickly became the place where people mailed anything that was questionable. If they needed verification, they'd ask us.

MG: Do you have any kids?

DM: No kids. Just cats and rats. I have my hands full taking care of three cats. I don't know how anyone manages with children, too.

MG: Do you really have pet rats? Or is that a legend?

DM: Yeah, we have pet rats.

MG: What are the myths over the years that have brought you wider attention online and in the media?

DM: The biggest one, that gave us the biggest boost to the site -- I hate to say it because it sounds like we're capitalizing on a tragedy -- was after September 11. It was the bogus Nostradamus prophecy that was going around that same day . Barbara had the foresight to get that up by the end of the day. The next day this thing was going crazy on the Internet and we had a page up on our site debunking it. Our site became the place to go, especially because a lot of the news sites were so swamped with traffic. It took a while before they caught on and started covering a lot of the hoaxes.

MG: That's pretty quick to get it out that fast.

DM: Well, it was a pretty easy one to debunk. Because it was a student who had been showing how vague prophecies can be applied to anything. Lacking that source, it would have been difficult to figure out, we would have had to go through the entire writings of Nostradamus. He had basically invented a Nostradamus prophecy that could be applied to anything. Someone had stumbled across that and didn't read the context.

MG: Have the terror-related hoaxes calmed down over the past couple years?

DM: Certainly they've tailed off because they were flooding the Internet right after September 11. But you still see them popping up, like the item about the UPS uniforms. At the end of last year, there was outrageous prices being bid for UPS uniforms on eBay -- several hundred dollars. Then eBay clamped down on sale of these items.

MG: People thought terrorists were trying to buy UPS uniforms?

DM: The rumor du jour was that terrorists were going around buying UPS uniforms and trying to impersonate them and hide bombs and things like that.

MG: When did you first hear about the "Hunting for Bambi" story?

DM: It was within a day or two after the woman from KLAS in Las Vegas did her report and it went on their Web site. We got enough inquiries that we had to write something about it. I heard that Fark.com picked it up but didn't see it there. We do get a lot of inquiries from people saying they saw something at Fark.com, asking, "Is this true?"

MG: So what made you think "Hunting for Bambi" was a hoax?

DM: Part of it is that we start off with the thought that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Our approach is going to be that something outrageous is going to be a hoax. But that's unfortunately not what a lot of people in the media do. They say, "This is real, and we'll see if there's proof it isn't."

MG: So you start off with the assumption that everything's a hoax until proven real?

snip

http://www.ojr.org/ojr/glaser/1059692646.php


For Snopes.com, Debunking The Bambi Hoax Was All In A Day's Work

Contributed by Mike on Thursday, July 31st, 2003 @ 06:03PM
from the suspending-disbelief dept.
Mark Glaser's latest piece is a good interview with one half of the couple who runs Snopes.com, the ever-popular site for debunking urban legends and various hoaxes, talking about how they debunked the "Bambi Hoax" that everyone was talking about earlier this month. If you happened to miss it, there was a story (covered widely by the press) that someone in Nevada had set up a "game" where men could pay $10,000 and then shoot paintballs at naked women out in the desert. The press bought it, completely, but the husband and wife team at Snopes realized that it was improbable, at best, and worked out that the whole thing was a scam to sell videos off of someone's website. The interview also talks about how, in some areas, people are now more skeptical of things online (especially images), but if they want to believe something, they ignore all the signs that it's a hoax. The best line is that the way most reporters check to see if something is a hoax is to simply call up the person involved and ask them if they're being honest or not - which isn't likely to reveal very much.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20030731/183210.shtml

Grinding the Debunking Axe

Update (9/8/03): Barbara Mikkelson of Snopes graciously admitted to her error and apologized to Michael Moore. I continue to hope that Snopes will adopt a more transparent editorial approach, though. Transparency because it builds trust trumps confession because you've been caught.


http://www.puddingbowl.org/archive/2003/09/grinding_the_de.php

[Boosterman]

22. Many links that lead to broken links

Read most of it. The only thing I saw on there was they changed their opinion on the Bin Laden family. Even the guy who started the claim that they were hiding evidence kinda admitted he messed up in update 3 I believe it was. That was the best thing you have? Out of all the rumors they debunked?

[indigobusiness]

23. The links were yahoo links that I tried to fix. Can't you google?

The stories are legion. Believe what you want. Snopes is a joke.

OJR article: For Snopes.com, Debunking the Bambi Hoax Was All in a Day's Work
... Snopes is guilty of concealing the truth in regard to the 9/11 rumor about Israelis having advance ... For Snopes.com, Debunking the Bambi Hoax Was All in a Day's ...
www.ojr.org/ojr/glaser/1059692646.php - More from this site
Debunking The Debunkers? | Metafilter
Sunday, December 19, 2004. 2:41 AM PST. September 6, 2003 ... 03 AM PST on September 6. http://www.snopes.com/rumors/flight.htm ... doesn't happen often: Snopes.Com, the Internet's most-trusted source for rumor debunking, made a big ...
www.metafilter.com/mefi/28100 - 44k - Cached - More from this site
The Agonist: Debunking The Debunkers
... September 05, 2003. Debunking The Debunkers. Debunking The Debunkers? ... It seems he's caught Snopes changing some things around on their site ...
scoop.agonist.org/archives/007922.html - 12k - Cached - More from this site
Techdirt:For Snopes.com, Debunking The Bambi Hoax Was All In A Day's Work
Search Techdirt. Try the Advanced Search. For Snopes.com, Debunking The Bambi Hoax Was All In A Day's Work. Contributed by Mike on Thursday, July 31st, 2003 @ 06:03PM ... of the couple who runs Snopes.com, the ever-popular site for debunking urban legends and ...
www.techdirt.com/articles/20030731/183210.shtml - 7k - Cached - More from this site
Debunking fun | Metafilter
Tuesday, November 23, 2004. 6:52 AM PST. September 26, 2003. I attacked and took over two countries... Friday Debunking Fun! It's been popping up all over in the past month. The problem is, none of its claims are referenced. ... Someone needs to do a researched, annotated, snopes-style True-False tag for each claim ... Maybe it's the skeptic in me.. but debunking things is fun ...
www.metafilter.com/mefi/28579 - 52k - Cached - More from this site
Martini Republic - Lead, follow, or have a drink.
liquorblog. about. home. September 02, 2004 Zell Miller's speech based on Email hoax. Someone ought to tell Zell that not everything he receives in his inbox is the gospel truth. ... As Snopes goes on to explain, "all the citations stem from votes on three Congressional ... use of a webpage for extended debunking? No one says all the debunking has to ...
martinirepublic.com/item/zell-miller-s-speech-based-on-email-hoax - 120k - Cached - More from this site
PuddingTime!: Grinding the Debunking Axe
all pudding, all the time from mph & pk. September 06, 2003. Grinding the Debunking Axe. Update (9/8/03): Barbara Mikkelson of Snopes graciously admitted to her error and apologized to Michael Moore. ... I continue to hope that Snopes will adopt a more transparent editorial ...
www.puddingbowl.org/archive/2003/09/grinding_the_de.php - 10k - Cached - More from this site

September 06, 2003
Grinding the Debunking Axe
Update (9/8/03): Barbara Mikkelson of Snopes graciously admitted to her error and apologized to Michael Moore. I continue to hope that Snopes will adopt a more transparent editorial approach, though. Transparency because it builds trust trumps confession because you've been caught.

For a site that prides itself on scolding people with axes to grind and how they sully a world of pure, useful information, Snopes seems to have been caught trying to redact its own axe-grinding in a less than honorable fashion. Lots of links abound, but just start with Ed and work your way from there, hopefully getting to where it all started on Tom Tomorrow's blog.

It would have been nice if Snopes' editors had just decided to make their editorial process more transparent instead of spading dirt over what they got wrong and resorting to hair-splitting to get more right than they initially did. It's the web, y'all: paper and ink are unlimited enough to make all the corrections you need.


NetNewsWire showing revisions in a Yahoo! News item
And while we're on that, I have to make yet another pro-NetNewsWire post. Its latest version includes tracking differences to RSS items and presenting them. (Click the illustration above to see it full-sized.) This particular feature gives the reader an opportunity to experience the editorial process at outlets like Yahoo! News in all its glory. The example I caught today, for instance, is a fine example of the sort of softening that goes on with a lot of leads and summaries over a story's life cycle.

It's reminiscent of WinerWatch, a fun little hack Mark Pilgrim inflicted on Dave Winer, who's apparently unable to take ten deep breaths before posting and who, subsequently, ends up revising a lot of his more inflammatory copy into oblivion, where he can't be held responsible for it.

[Boosterman]

24. Sure can :)

I read all your links. One is an interview that you posted twice thats an interview with one of the people who run Snopes and it essentially praises their work...oopsie. The other is how they were wrong and changed their story and apologized. The Bin Laden on a plane story. Theres even a nice letter of apology to MM on it. So once again I ask you...is that all you got? Your the one who claimed they arent reliable. Standard posting etiquette is the willingness to back up any unsubstantiated claims.

Happy Holidays :)

[indigobusiness]

25. Those were cursory examples.

Have a deeper look, or not, as you wish.

Snope's methodology stinks, it is a slim cut above Drudge's. Errors are exposed regularly.

[Boosterman]

26. Ah I see

Well I will take it as you cant find any other examples. Much less the many, many you alleged. I have to say that I find it somewhat amusing that you posted two articles praising snopes and then dogged their methodology. Hey youcould be right but one of your "sources" listed one of his updates as a post on a message board. How reliable is that may I ask?

[indigobusiness]

27. I have no desire to prove anything.

It wouldn't matter anyway, to a true-believer.

[Boosterman]

28. I agree with you in a way

Its the fanatics that you have to watch out for.

Edited to add: that Google thing is handy. Thanks for the tip ;)http://archive.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=285

[indigobusiness]

30. I'm not saying that Snope's doesn't often get it right.

But, that it often gets it wrong, also. It is not scrupulous and definitive...therefore not trustworthy. I wish that it were. But it's not.

[Boosterman]

31. Just started a thread on the objectivity of media

feel free to join me there.

[indigobusiness]

32. Reference sources are different than "media".

But thanks for the invitation.

[Boosterman]

33. yeah I wasnt being real picky with you

please feel free to return the favor :)

[indigobusiness]

34. Striving for clarity

isn't being picky.

I expect it from all sides.

[Boosterman]

35. OK game on

You want clarity after you said many many times Snopes was inaccurate. Then you nitpick my one comment in which I said "the objectivity of the media". I was trying to be polite. Pity you couldnt do the same.

[indigobusiness]

36. No, you misrepresent my intention

and motive.
I was not being picky. And I meant nothing impolite or personal. It seemed an important distinction in regard to the dialog. I don't play the sort of games you suggest. I'm sorry you see it that way.

[Boosterman]

37. Well thats fine then

To me this is a very important topic. I dont trust very many people in the media/entertainment/resource venue. I realize that sounds odd but to me the line and distinction betweeen the different types of info out there is very blurred atm. Snopes I trust. Even if they did make one mistake. :)

[indigobusiness]

39. I won't compromise trust. I expect more from reference sources

than what Snopes delivers. They have made many misrepresentations, but their big mistake is their method.

I don't form attachments to sources of information. They should be impeccable.

[Boosterman]

40. So what sources do you trust? eom

[indigobusiness]

41. These are good places to start:

The Antipope, December 1941–March 1942. Oil on canvas, 160.8 x 127.1 cm. Peggy Guggenheim Collection. 76.2553 PG 80. Max Ernst © 2003 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris.
http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_work_md_45_1.html
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/e/ethics.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.bartleby.com/100/
http://www.sparknotes.com/
http://www.occultopedia.com/index1.htm
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/help/librarylist.html
http://www.hyperdictionary.com/medical

[InvisibleBallots]

43. the "Clinton Death List" for one

Back in the Bush Sr term, there was a list of people killed under mysterious circumstances after researching him (like Danny Casalora, for instance). Snopes called it "fiction" and came up with a passionate denunciation.

When the Freepers came up with a "Clinton death list" - that was demostrably fake - Snopes listed it as "true". He was later forced to admit it wasn't.

He's good for debunking silly urban legends - but he puts his right wing politics over the truth consistently.

[cliss]

5. There was some dispute about the

authenticity of this letter that Lincoln wrote to Col. William Elkins in 1864. There was a dispute about Lincoln's handwriting, whether it really was his.

I think the matter was finally settled. I have no doubt it was Lincoln himself who wrote that. After all, that letter must have been controversial! No wonder they hid that one away for a while.

The corporation.....a legal entity which is supposed to be a "person". Imagine Enron as a person! I think the battle between the individual vs. the corporation will always be with us.

I've also heard that the corporation is doomed, because legally it is not allowed to have a "conscience". If Louisiana Pacific plans to cut down a forest, but environmental groups oppose it, the corporation MUST cut it down, because it is obligated to make the maximum amount of profit for THE SHAREHOLDERS. It says so right in the corporate charter.

The corporation is considered to be a person, but it is not allowed to think. Nor is it allowed to have a conscience.

Surprisingly enough, there was a caller on the Randi Rhodes show yesterday who said that there was a plot to assassinate Roosevelt over this very issue. Apparently there were corporate interests, who wanted him out of the way. He said that even then, this danger was still looming.

Scary. Thanks for posting, Indigo.

[indigobusiness]

8. Thank you, cliss...

for the insightful overview!

[bigtree]

9. Lincoln was a lobbyist for the railroads

Lincoln served as a lobbyist for the Illinois Central Railroad to assist it in getting a charter from the state, and thereafter he was retained as a regular attorney for that railroad. After successfully defending the company against the efforts of McLean County to tax its property, he received the largest single fee of his legal career--$5,000. (He had to sue the Illinois Central in order to collect the fee.) He also handled cases for other railroads and for banks, insurance companies, mercantile and manufacturing firms. In one of his finest performances before the bar, he saved the Rock Island Bridge, the first to span the Mississippi River, from the threat of the river transportation interests that demanded the bridge's removal. http://pphsp.uis.edu/abraham_lincoln_bio.htm

In the mid to late 1850s Lincoln was a prominent railroad lawyer. His clients included the Illinois Central, which at the time was the largest corporation in the world. In 1857 he represented the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, which was owned by four men who would later become infamous as "robber barons" for receiving – and squandering – millions of dollars in federal subsidies for their transcontinental railroad. Granting these men their subsidies would become one of the first orders of business in the Lincoln administration.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo51.html

[OneBlueSky]

10. he wasn't the only one . . .

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." Thomas Jefferson

"There is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by... corporations. The power of all corporations ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses. It's one of the reasons why the word "corporation" doesn't exist in the constitution - they were to be chartered only by states, so local people could keep a close eye on them." James Madison, Father of the Constitution

"In this point of the case the question is distinctly presented whether the people of the United States are to govern through representatives chosen by their unbiased suffrages or whether the money and power of a great corporation are to be secretly exerted to influence their judgment and control their decisions." Andrew Jackson

"I am more than ever convinced of the dangers to which the free and unbiased exercise of political opinion - the only sure foundation and safeguard of republican government - would be exposed by any further increase of the already overgrown influence of corporate authorities." Martin van Buren

"As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters." Grover Cleveland

"Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day." Theodore Roosevelt

“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, IS Fascism.” Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” Dwight David Eisenhower

[indigobusiness]

11. It would be nice if the political rhetoric

of today refelected that level of eloquence, if not that sort of wisdom. That would be too much to ask today, sadly.

[Karenina]

42. I'm SO happy you posted that OBS!!!

Alles Gutes! :toast: :loveya: :toast:

[kentuck]

15. More of the same quote , real or not...

"The money powers preys upon the nation in times
of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity.
It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than
autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces,
as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw
light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the
Southern Army in front of me & the financial institutions
at the rear, the latter is my greatest foe. Corporations
have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high
places will follow, and the money power of the country
will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the
prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated
in the hands of a few, and the Republic is
destroyed."
-Abraham Lincoln

[kentuck]

16. I don't know if Snopes has shot this one down yet ??

"These capitalists generally act harmoniously, and in concert, to fleece the people." -- Abraham Lincoln

[indigobusiness]

21. Snopes shoots first...

asks questions later.

[Hippo_Tron]

17. The Republican party was based on being pro-business

Even when it first began.

[orpupilofnature57]

29. Thomas Jefferson spoke about it in depth,Du archives Todd smythe

I'm sorry i dont know how to paste (IGNORANT ME) but the article is titled(it's hard to be a democrat) inspiring,it' speaks to problems of corporate take over, starting with Hamilton. september 2004

[IwinULose]

44. Are you kidding me?

Lincoln epitomized the essence of “corporatism.” He was a corporate lawyer for the good old boys of his time (the railroad executives).

[indigobusiness]

45. That's a gross oversimplification

of his attitude toward coporatism.

The railroad was not essentially the evil that the robber barons and corporate interests exploited it to be.