A 16-year veteran professor at the CUNY subsidiary [Brooklyn College], Mr. [Mitchell] Langbert claims he was denied the opportunity to propose a multimillion-dollar grant to the Charles G. Koch Foundation because of the organization’s Republican roots. Mr. Langbert had been working with the Koch foundation on the proposal since mid-2013...
“Given the shocking suppression—the almost total absence—of anyone who does not agree with far-left ideology at Brooklyn College, saying that there might be controversy because there’s a Koch grant is like saying that you will not tolerate any conservative viewpoint to be expressed here,” Mr. Langbert responded.Seethes Ian Tuttle at National Review:
N.B. to prospective collegians: If you’re looking for a genuinely open-minded academic experience, Brooklyn College may not be the place for you.There's something perfect about conservatives flipping out because someone refused to take their money. We always knew they believe money is speech, but it's getting easier to see that they also think money is the pre-eminent form of expression -- the one all others exist to serve. That's why they're so pissed that someone won't accept theirs -- because it's money censorship! (In the conservative world, as we see again and again and again, censorship is when their point of view doesn't get ahead of anyone else's.) Libtards have refused to listen to their money!
Money talks and bullshit walks -- and to them, bullshit is anything that's not money.
From the Observer: Upon sending the dean information on United Negro College Fund’s acceptance of a large Koch brothers grant, Mr. Langbert was met with resistance and was sent an attachment citing the deal’s fallout.
ReplyDeleteTen million bitcoins to any scholar who can decipher this sentence. It seems to be in a language not covered by the Rosetta Stone.
George Mason University's economics department, the most famous econ department that's basically owned by the Kochs, allows nothing but libertarian Friedmanite doctrine. Conservatives have a proven history of wiping out other opinions once they get control of an institution, and I assume Brooklyn College has noticed that and is saying no thank you.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, it's even more hilarious than the idea that they're angry that we refuse to accept their money. They're mad that we won't let ourselves be tricked or swindled, that we won't deliberately ignore the evidence and let the Kochs in with open arms. I think it's a similar issue: being duped and scammed is a major facet of the conservative lifestyle, and they're outraged that everyone else doesn't do it too.
Yes, reading the article, it seems pretty obvious the school is simply opting not to be beholden to a strings-attached grant. Entirely reasonable. And surely the Observer is aware that they could fill an entire issue with the he-said/she-said rashomon, overrreacted-to personal slights, and appallingly illogical, self-serving displays that comprise any single university faculty meeting. This is hardly a man-bites-dog news report.
ReplyDelete(It is also a largely incoherent and fact-free news report. I gather the writer got an email from the angry prof and followed up with exactly one phone call, to the angry prof. Then spent 4 minutes writing this.)
Without researching . . . let me guess, there were strings attached to the money.
ReplyDelete“Let me tell you a little story. I had a painting hanging in a gallery once and it was viciously censored.”
ReplyDelete“Nobody bought it, not even when I slashed the price!”
“I was so disgusted I pulled it from the gallery and donated it to the Crab Shanty restaurant and you know something, they censored me as well!”
“When I went there for a bucket of hush puppies, it wasn't hung prominently.”
“No Jerri, if this was an isolated incident I would say maybe. But they did they same thing to my novel, my collection of poetry and my sportswear line.”
--Geoffrey Jellineck
being duped and scammed is a major facet of the conservative lifestyle, and they're outraged that everyone else doesn't do it too.
ReplyDeleteIt's in every aspect of them. Their rat lipped Presbyterianism is a good example. Following the beatitudes is satanic pride. Better to relax and be a good Roman asswipe.
Upon sending the dean information on United Negro College Fund’s acceptance of a large Koch brothers grant,
ReplyDeleteBut Mom, everybody's doing it. Why can't I????
Translation: "Liberals are the real racists."
ReplyDeleteI read that as "Langbert was sent information about the pile of shit UNCF has gotten since they accepted Koch money"
ReplyDeleteHoly fuck. A believer in the Goldbergian thesis.
ReplyDeleteQuoth The Langbert:
In popular American parlance, followers of Hegel and the German historical school of economics had been called "liberals" and now call themselves "progressives." Neither term is accurate. They are national socialists, with the same intellectual heritage that Hitler's Nazi Party had.
Based on this article money doesn't talk, it alleges. And gibbers. This was my favorite part:
ReplyDeleteMr. Langbert says that this isn’t the only time he or his few
conservative colleagues have felt the pressure. After a proposal to
change the hiring policy at Brooklyn College, Mr. Langbert said the
university “wrote a vicious letter about me.” In another instance, one
history professor was allegedly denied a promotion because of “a
disagreement in ideology,” he said.
It was just a simple change in hiring policy, that he can't discuss in detail. But the university wrote a nasty letter, that he doesn't have. And then some other mean liberal thing happened to someone else over an ideological disagreement, that he can't remember! How can you doubt this man, or the reporter? Especially in light of this incriminating comment from the college:
A spokesperson from the school told the Observer that they have not received or requested grant money for the business school from the Koch foundation.
Meanwhile, these are the same goat pokers who didn't need George Will to tell them women who claim they were raped while in college are total lying sluts.
Ah, yes, possibly. Also: "Look! Negroes are moochers!"
ReplyDeleteI remain genuinely confused by the writing though. Does the writer mean "Hoping to indicate that Koch grants do not come with ideological requirements, Langbert informed the dean that the UNCF accepted a Koch grant. The dean informed Langbert that accepting that grant had in fact complicated the UNCF's mission"? Is that he means? What attachment? What fallout? Who resisted? Who sent? What information on the UNCF? How large a grant? So much is so unclear. This article is terrible.
Of course, that won't stop it from being a rallying point for angry morons.
...
ReplyDeleteThat short article had quite a load of bullshit. "Claims", "allegedly", "He feels", etc. Then there's this:
ReplyDelete"...potential project was cut short when the school took the billionaire Koch brothers’ conservative politics into play."
Incoherent writing is apparently a feature over a the Observer.
"shocking suppression—the almost total absence [of conservatives]" says conservative professor who's been there 16 years of the treatment he and his conservative colleagues receive...
ReplyDeleteI think he means "into account."
ReplyDeleteAlleges, gibbers, and whines.
ReplyDeleteUsed correct verb tenses be for liberal oppressing!!
ReplyDeleteShocking suppression = People don't leap to obey the whims of any conservative in the vicinity
ReplyDeleteAlmost total absence = Less than 99% of the faculty is conservative and some of the students look like they voted for Obama, if you know what I mean.
Yes, I started a comment that featured the article's many blunders but gave up when I realized I was copying most of the damn thing.
ReplyDeleteThe stumbling block was the Koch money would only be given if every future BC business student was forced to read Ayn Rand and then write an essay on one of two topics: 1) Ayn Rand is absolutely correct, or 2) Ayn Rand is so absolutely correct it’s almost scary how right she is.
ReplyDeleteEveryone knows you have to be a congressman or higher to demand this sort of obeisance.
Anyone else here old enough to remember the EF Hutton ads? "When EF Hutton speaks, everyone listens?" These guys are simply aghast that Money doesn't always set the agenda and silence everyone else.
ReplyDeleteShe,
ReplyDeleteMeredith (the name credited on the piece, and possibly the author) is from Texas, and really cranks these stories out fast. Or should I say, posts press releases as stories.
I often change wording & fail to clean up the original. Don't think I've ever managed 3 words in one sentence as strangely inappropriate as establishing, alleged & play.
Perhaps he should choose a different place of employment; it is difficult to encourage an open mind when one does not have one.
ReplyDeleteoh my!
ReplyDelete“It’s an Alice in Wonderland type of logic,” Mr. Langbert concluded. “My voice should not be silenced at the college.”
ReplyDeleteThe voices of all those lieberals should be silenced, instead!
~
"My voice to offer the college up, lock, stock and barrel, to the KochBorg was unacceptably silenced!"
ReplyDeleteHuh, he doesn't SOUND silenced.
ReplyDeleteMr. Langbert was met with resistanceArguments can meet with resistance. But Langbert himself? In passive mood? I imagine his colleagues all equipping themselves with 1000 Ohms, in case Langbert comes over to their table in the cafetaria.
ReplyDeleteA spokesperson from the school told the Observer that they have not received or requested grant money for the business school from the Koch foundation.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, the New York Post article says, Spokesman Jason Carey said a business faculty member got a $5,000 Koch
grant in 2013 — but in regard to any more funding, “We have neither
received an offer from, nor submitted a proposal to the Koch Foundation
at this time for the business school.”
If Langbert is claiming the Koch Foundation has repeatedly called the school and offered money, well, somebody's lying. Wouldn't a real journalist try to figure out who before just taking one of the potential liars on faith?
To adapt a John Cleese joke, I am going to start calling my parrot "The German historical school of economics", because it is neither German, nor historical, nor a school.
ReplyDeleteI think Langbert is saying the school won't allow him to *request* money from Koch by submitting a proposal to Koch.
ReplyDeleteUpvoted for 'rat-lipped Presbyterianism.'
ReplyDeleteSorry, I'm mixing it up talking about the two articles; according to the NYP article "The CUNY college has turned down a $10 million grant offer from the Koch
ReplyDeletebrothers, said business professor Mitchell Langbert — who called the
decision by School of Business Dean William Hopkins a knee-jerk reaction
to the mega-rich industrialists’ support of Republican causes."
Oh, so you're saying that this is a serious and sober-minded fellow who made a request in good faith and the spirit of compromise?
ReplyDeleteHe used to be a contributor to Front Page Ragazine, and also hosted a David Horowitz public tirade at Brooklyn College, so he might just be a teensy bit more "conservative" than usual.
ReplyDeleteFunny how we always learn about the people being silenced when their stories and published in the enws.
ReplyDeleteI like to think they tossed dinner rolls to repel Mr Langbert's advance on their table, until he was forced to retire to the lounge.
ReplyDeleteIf all the other colleges threw their credibility off a cliff, would you do it too?
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of word salad, "he was denied the opportunity to propose a multi-million dollar grant TO the Charles Koch Foundation"? Don't they have enough money as it is?
ReplyDeleteMy acquaintance with academics has shown me that viciousness, backbiting, retaliation, turf-protecting, and accusations are equally represented on both the right and the left wing.
ReplyDeleteYou know the old saying about academia, "The disputes are so vicious because the stakes are so low."
Those invading armies of Guatemalan children have to work somewhere.
ReplyDeleteThey're not strings, they're Rope Ladders to Freedom!
ReplyDeleteThe words of the profit were written on the subway wall.
ReplyDeleteI bet he and the Donalde are kindred spirits. Did you read his post? His counsel, to a man who used to build pianos at Steinway, was "go drive a truck in the North Dakota oil fields."
ReplyDeleteWish he'd take his own advice, if he doesn't like academic, I'd say head to Williston, ND, professor.
Yesterday upon the stair,
ReplyDeleteI met a conservative colleague who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today
I do wish he'd stop scratching his ear with his pen in faculty meetings.
Are you suggesting that the Koch Brothers aren't giving money to colleges out of the goodness of their hearts?
ReplyDelete...
ReplyDeleteThanks for saying "incoherent," because I read it twice and still didn't understand who did (or didn't do) what to whom, and why. "...Mr. Langbert was met with resistance and was sent an attachment citing the deal’s fallout." Huh? And what was the deal's fallout? What does "an attachment" have to do with anything?
ReplyDeleteThis doesn't even rise to the level of he-said/she-said. It's more he-said-they-said-and-now-he's-mad.
Hell, he told that truck driver he should move to North Dakota. Maybe he should take his own advice.
ReplyDeletebeing duped and scammed is a major facet of the conservative lifestyle
ReplyDeleteSay what you like about it, at least it's an ethos.
I recall SNL spoofing those back around 1990 -- old grainy footage designed to look like it was of a board meeting and everyone leaning in to hear what the firm's dignified white-haired founder had to say. Then in a sage, transatlantic voice he'd declare, "We shall only ever provide our services to white people."
ReplyDeleteALL YOUR SYNTAX ARE BELONG TO US
ReplyDeleteSee me, above. It didn't occur to me that "fallout" referred to bad results experienced by the UNCF. I thought...Oh never mind what I thought. It doesn't bear thinking about.
ReplyDeleteYes, everyone's favorite chapter in Alice in Wonderland. The bit where the March Hare wants to fund a business school and the Dormouse says let's focus on getting accredited and not end up beholden to the Red Queen in the process. Classic.
ReplyDelete"won't stop it"? It's the only thing that qualifies it for being a rallying point for, etc.
ReplyDeleteWhich they threw with their far-left hands.
ReplyDeleteLet's say you're an obscure wingnut business professor at a CUNY college but you dream of establishing a financial center at the college headed by, well, you. But the Koch brothers don't know you from Adam. What to do? Then you have a brilliant idea:
ReplyDeleteBrooklyn College's "liberal leaders have told two of the country’s top businessmen to take their money and shove it because they don’t like their conservative politics" according to "a veteran faculty member," says the NY Post, "one frustrated CUNY professor" says the Observer.
"The CUNY college has turned down a $10 million grant offer from the Koch brothers said business professor Mitchell Langbert," who "was so upset that he fired off a letter to members of the state Senate Education Committee protesting the school’s refusal to take the donation."
Wow, CUNY says "they have not received or requested grant money for the business school from the Koch foundation," and "the Koch Foundation declined requests for comment." But you've got the NY Post, Observer, National Review, a bunch of State Senators and soon a lot of fellow winguts all riled up about a "donation" which "could have reached $10 million" based on nothing other than the word of you, Mitchell Langbert! The Post headlined College liberals spurn $10M gift from Koch brothers like it was even true!
Congrats, Professor. With this fa-Koch-ta scheme you might get that financial center after all.
You are ON FIRE TODAY, Your Somewhat Holiness.
ReplyDeleteTo..from...a proposal FOR...typical liberal, hairsplitting over prepositions while there's money being unnecessarily left at the table.
ReplyDeleteI figured out the probable meaning only on my third try. The writer of the article (Meredith Carey) has basically told us "The dean's office illustrated with Langbert's own example how Koch deals fall apart," but she has written it so unclearly as to make the facts sound like they are on Langbert's side. All the libtards have is attachments! No facts!
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't see how a real reporter chooses "Langbert was met with resistance" over "Langbert met resistance," so this feels like the work of a propagandist hoping to obscure facts.
Everyone has won and everyone must receive research grants and tenure.
ReplyDeleteThat's not 'resistance', that's a sign of affection.
ReplyDeleteI can even imagine them adopting the full lotus position and swallowing a damp towel to avoid talking to him.
ReplyDeleteBSDI!
ReplyDeleteTo their dismay, the college administration wasn't a bunch of whores.
ReplyDeleteThe time has come, the Langbert said,
ReplyDeleteTo end my silencing.
by libs so glib and argleblarg
Because the Koch is king.
N.B. to prospective collegians: If you’re looking for a genuinely open-minded academic experience, Brooklyn College may not be the place for you.
ReplyDeleteThey wouldn't know an open-minded academic experience if it gave them a blowjob. They don't want inquiry and exploration, they want the sure thing, the easy A, the rote memorization of, not so much the text, but the gist of Hayek and von Mises and all those other frauds. They want the manual which tells idiots to walk in here and exit there, as a cog in this awful, pinched world they want to build.
They are to free thinking as herpes is to sex, the annoying byproduct of better things. Con artists like Strauss knew that if he made bullshit sound mystical and impenetrable it would fit into academia, precisely because it sounded sooooo esoteric and thoughtful. It's a flaw built into the academic system -- the allowance of gussied up "philosophy" in order to weigh "debate" -- but that's at least part of the larger belief in honest inquiry. If these fucking whiny assholes had any guts at all, they'd go to liberal colleges to fight it out with their perceived Marxist enemies on an intellectual level. But they can't and won't. They want the recipe pre-digested and dumbed-down, then want to be celebrated for their simplicity. Education is difficult. Learning is a lifelong pursuit. At some point, a lot of us who long got past the daring immorality of Hayek and Rand found "conservative thought" to be a wholly empty exercise that demanded pre-conceived solutions. And even still, if there was a conservative who gave a fuck about teaching and exploring the weaknesses of the liberal project, you can bet liberals would take that class.
These boring, witless assholes, begging for another Koch Center for Simple Answers for Stupid People. I can't be more contemptuous.
At least some of this goes back to the successful divestment campaign against South Africa in the 1980s. Huge swaths of the Right have never gotten over 1.) the worldwide nature of the divestment movement, or 2.) how effective it was in bringing down Botha.
ReplyDeleteRefusing the Koch's money (actually, refusing to apply for the Koch's money) is 1985 all over again. Only without Reagan to drool market-based lullabies to make them feel alright.
I must object to the smearing of Presbyterianism. The Presbyterians were among the first to welcome women into the clergy, have been strongly anti-homophobia for at least the past 2 or 3 decades, and just recently voted to divest their holdings in Israeli companies (and companies doing manufacturing in Israel) because of their opposition to continuing settlement of the West Bank by Israelis.
ReplyDelete"Langbert was met with resistance" could just be a reporter who doesn't really know how to write.
ReplyDeleteBased on my own experience, I'll go with that. Applying Hanlon's Razor works well here. (Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.)
Was it YOUR dissertation I just finished editing? 'Cause that's pretty much how 80-odd pages read.
ReplyDeleteHmmmmm... Maybe not dinner rolls but partisan bread?
ReplyDeleteThat is, the five states where fracking has occurred have a combined population of 36.6 million, according to the 2010 census, so there’s a probability of .027% (1,000/36,600,000) of an incident. In contrast, there were 6.4 million car accidents in 2005 compared to 208 million licensed drivers in 2008. The median age was 37.2, and assuming a starting age for driving of 18, Americans experienced about 19.2 x 6.4 million = 125 million car accidents over their 19.2 driving years; 125 million / 208 million is a 60% probability. In other words, car accidents are 2,222% more likely than fracking accidents.
ReplyDelete...and replacing your taillight is just as easy as replacing your drinking water
To the dismay of many on the Right.
ReplyDeleteBigotry takes many forms. One form of bigotry involves intolerance of others' political views or economic behaviors. Such bigotry can be as violent as racial or religious hatred.
ReplyDeleteYour dislike of my yacht is JUST LIKE SLAVERY!
If Mr. Langbert is nearly totally absent from his job at Brooklyn College, he should get fired.
ReplyDeleteIf his voice has been silenced, how come we can still hear him? Moar silencers, liberals!
ReplyDeleteThe silencing continues.
ReplyDeleteOh hear fucking hear.
ReplyDeleteCatalog offering of the ideal wingnut college course:
Pre-Conceived Notions 101
All your own judgements, perceptions, opinions and personal beliefs confirmed with neither evidence nor proof.
Requirements: exaggerated self-regard, over-developed sense of superiority, massive persecution complex, closed mind.
Course Prerequisites: Genetic Composition, Fart Appreciation
All I can say is, oooooooooooooooooooh!
ReplyDeleteOh fer gawds sake!
ReplyDeleteIt's unfortunate that so many people will read that, discern that the entire argument makes no sense whatever, and then conclude that they're too dumb to understand it instead of saying "Hey! That is complete bullshit!"
If racist dictators are not free, then none of us are free!
ReplyDeleteKoch is It.
ReplyDeleteYou're wrong. That is utter bullshit.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me re-started!
ReplyDeleteAs always...
ReplyDelete"HELP! I'm being oppressed!"
ReplyDelete(never gets old)
Textbook: "Liberal Fascism" (what else?)
ReplyDeleteOrdinarily I'd agree, but my understanding is that careers in journalism are hard to launch. A New York City paper would have a lot of competition for a few spots. Would they really employ the "met with resistance" reporter unless that's what they wanted?
ReplyDelete(Who knows. My paranoia is based on my experience -- I tried to launch a career in journalism in the 90s, and couldn't get hired in New York because the competition was absurd. I was advised to go write for the Asbury Park Press for a couple of years. The gate keepers were mondo strict. I imagine the competition is even absurder now.)
So say Conservatarian Yoda!
ReplyDeleteCan't resist the followup to that clever slogan for a loathesome banking house.
ReplyDeleteNot long after that ad campaign, maybe before it was scheduled to end, E F Hutton was exposed in a giant check-kiting scheme. This was, after all, in the Reagan administration. They constantly moved money from one account (interest-bearing) to another, covering transactions with what were really bad checks, which in turn would get covered in time to avoid being caught with an overdraft. Much trouble ensued when that was blown open.
And someone summed it up in Herb Caen's column: When E F Hutton talks, people lose interest.
Ich bin ein apartheid-ite.
ReplyDeleteI should clarify. I'm not laying it at the feet of the denomination, but the Calvinism of the Southern Baptists.
ReplyDeleteFox News Christians would be an even better term.
This sounds like a rerun of the Pope Foundation's strategy in North Carolina. Offer up grants to establish a new major or department specializing in Angry White Men's bitching.
ReplyDeleteI have just a few words for you, and they rhyme with Moody Jiller Blayson Jair.
ReplyDeleteA single kiloohm is nothing, especially for something that can take as much current as a human body.
ReplyDeleteWow. Freedom School teachers include Milton Friedman and Ludwig von Mises, and notable graduates include Fred and Charles Koch. Amazing how one crackpot can plant so many toxic seeds to poison the lives of millions.
ReplyDeleteMitchell Langbert, your time has come!
I would like to think that the standards for someplace like the NYT are very high--at least for quality of writing (quality of thinking is a whole 'nother ball of wax).
ReplyDeleteWow, the rare fractally-wrong argument (wrong on all length scales). I see about a half a dozen statistical and mathematical fallacies, and I haven't even had one cup of coffee yet this morning.
ReplyDeleteUp voted because "Strangers"
ReplyDeleteBetabeat?
ReplyDeleteHaha.
I'm shocked that you would point this out. Are you trying to spark a conversation about the finer points of electronics?
ReplyDeleteThis is some online product. Based on the About, it is The Patch with delusions of grandeur.
ReplyDeleteHe's a business prof, what does he need to know about figures and risk assessment?
ReplyDeleteOhm-y goodness no! Farad be it from me. What a revolting suggestion. Joule have to go somewhere else. Gauss, look at the time, gotta go!
ReplyDeleteWhere the fuck was his/her editor is becoming a pretty standard question for most things I read these days. From newspapers that ran George Will's "Rape is the Newest Resume Builder" piece to, well, crap like the article under discussion here, it's apparent to me that editors no longer fulfill the traditional role of assigning stories, vetting submitted pieces, or even reading stuff before putting it to bed.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, given the emphasis on "balance" that leads to "Shape of Earth: Views Differ" type articles, maybe editors these days spend all their time two drinks away from a coma.
Indeed. And diode-a-know because I'm pretty wired from my morning coffee.
ReplyDeleteLet him have brioche!
ReplyDeleteWhat a terrible thing to waste a mind, or to never have had a mind at all." V.P. Dan Quayle
ReplyDeleteCommercial Observer
ReplyDelete"I like to watch."
Southern Baptist is perfectly cromulent usage.
ReplyDeleteJudging by the current state of business, his skill level is about average for Corporate North America.
ReplyDeleteArkham's finest civil law firm.
ReplyDeleteAlso known as Shiite Baptist.
ReplyDeleteNo backflow from you, bub...
ReplyDeleteWouldn't Fart App be a course in itself?
ReplyDeleteYeah, but then he'd get the faculty union to file a grievance.
ReplyDelete