Editor:
Since the Journal’s high-piled righteousness dwarfs mere fairness, I can’t share many of my thoughts on Ryan Burn’s odd article about HumCPR, which implied that fundraising and candidate-recruiting is immoral if done by anyone but Mark Lovelace. (Where did you come from, Clif Clendenen?) Oh well. I’ll use my 300 words to play Marcy Burstiner, explaining one of Ryan’s techniques on frequent display, for the amusement of readers. It’s called the dog whistle.
Dog whistles in politics are manipulative coded messages, perceived by the target market but unnoticed by many others, originally used for race-baiting in the South. Ryan works his whistle hard, delivering his first blow in his headline: HumCPR isn’t a citizen’s group, it’s a corporation. So Lovelace et al’s 501(c)(3) corporations — which secretly (“below the radar”) got paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to inflict policy excesses upon rural Humboldt by other, out-of-state corporations — are transparent corporations now? Pretty subtle stuff, from a paper published by an untransparent corporation. You might think only the most unthinking, blinkered zealots could take such silly labeling seriously. But that’s who Ryan’s high-pitching to.
Speaking of gratuitous insults — not just of Journal readers, using false stereotypes — as Ryan knows but readers wouldn’t, it’s because I’ve worked several jobs for so long that I can advocate for responsible ag practices and watershed protections in our county’s biggest industry. While I don’t expect fairness from a hatchet job, identifying me purely as a HumCPR-supporting pot farmer (in journalistic quotes, as if secondhand stigma’s less cheesy than a direct dog whistle) illustrates fun facts: Karl Rove-style politics of division targeted at conservatives don’t work here — yet Rove’s techniques are recycled by so-called Progressives, befuddling their own supporters. How flattering!
National Republicans proved this drives sensible people away from real concerns, but if you’re out of …
Charley Custer, Redway
This article appears in Re-Imagining CR.
Smoke one for me Charlie
I can see that George Clark misses the Humboldt Herald.
With his usual rants about “corruption” with no specifics and anger directed towards the “development community” with zero facts on exactly what is being developed in Humboldt County being his style of writing.
Much like Judy Hodgson, bottom line is George Clark (and many others) are unhappy about losing almost every local election for the past seven years and they are trying to take their frustration out on HumCPR.
Don’t chicken out when it comes to asking the political big wigs tough questions in person. They’ll play the humble denizen card in person as always, passing the buck one way or another. Ryan should be recognized in award circuits for his HumCPR article already, only the SF bay guardian treads so bold in california. I know very little of him but to be a real guy in a real position to bring the bullshit to proper light…more kudos to him than this blog comment can offer!
“Much like Judy Hodgson, bottom line is George Clark (and many others) are unhappy about losing almost every local election for the past seven years and they are trying to take their frustration out on HumCPR.”
Bottom line, HumCPR’s secretive big wigs outspend their political opponents and have defeated the only candidates that actually created local jobs.
Bullshit 8:40
Patty Clary and Bonnie Neely spent a pretty penny themselves and Clif wasn’t exactly underfunded.
The biggest spender in local elections wins….and that’s the development community that now controls every local city council and appointed office. Even Arcata went development crazy in its flood zones!
Local citizens are paying a hefty price for this unbridled greed that ultimately collapsed the world economy.
Nevertheless, they pull-out the same 2 or 3 exceptions to the rule…(Bonnie and ????) in order to distort the reality.
(Cliff was outspent ).