Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Split thread: The shift of Tenn. voters toward Republican candidates

host · 10-08-2006, 01:18 AM

Intense1: Wow...thanks for the detailed reply. I'm only going to address three areas that you responded to, in this post. I'll try to get to more, tomorrow.

Al Gore is a visionary, he did not claim that he "invented the internet:

Quote:

http://www.mediaresearch.org/BozellC...ol20001010.asp
Gore Lies Prove Media Power Shift
by L. Brent Bozell III
October 10, 2000

......Nearly every Gore gaffe that's become part of the campaign talking points was originally ignored by the major media, which attempted to strangle the mistakes and embarrassments in the crib. Now that they're resonating, liberals are huffing and puffing about how Gore's gaffes aren't really gaffes. He didn't really say he "invented the Internet," they complain, he "took the initiative in creating it." The real point here isn't the complete lack of distinction between "inventing" and "creating" the Internet. It's that Gore said this on March 9, 1999, to CNN's Wolf Blitzer, and Blitzer didn't even blink. He didn't follow up. His eyebrows didn't even move. He just asked another question. The statement went completely unreported on television for ten days.

That same pattern of media apathy and omission has followed almost every other Gore boast and flub. .....

Intense1, I've recently posted much about L. Brent Bozell III's 19 year disinformation campaign to control the news media by branding much of it as having a "liberal bias", for the purpose of convincing people to read "news" filtered by sites similar to his CNSnwes.com, newsbusters.org , MRC.org , and townhall.com . He tries to intimidate the actual US working press, with his false and misleading accusations of their "liberal bias", and by "selling" MRC's "research. In 1992, Bozell claimed that "90 percent" of articles about "liberal media bias" were based on MRC "reasearch.
Here is the actual background of the myth that Al Gore said, "I invented the internet.":
Al Gore had more influence over the rapid development of the internet, than any other federal legislator:
(Take note of the dates of the articles that I've cited, and that 1994 was considered the year of "early" adapters.)

Quote:

http://www.sethf.com/gore/
Al Gore "invented the Internet" - resources
by <a href="http://sethf.com/">Seth Finkelstein</a>


<a href="http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/03/09/president.2000/transcript.gore/" target="62d019beaeaf6dca44b7aceb6e823279">Transcript: Vice President Gore on CNN's 'Late Edition'</a>


<blockquote>
BLITZER: I want to get to some of the substance of domestic and
international issues in a minute, but let's just wrap up a little bit
of the politics right now....

....GORE: Well, I will be offering -- I'll be offering my vision when my
campaign begins. And it will be comprehensive and sweeping. And I hope
that it will be compelling enough to draw people toward it. I feel
that it will be.

But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American
people. I've traveled to every part of this country during
the last six years. During my service in the United States
Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I
took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of
initiatives that have proven to be important...
</blockquote>


The origins of the story:

<dl>
<dt><a href="http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,18390,00.html" target="e14996b366604267d354b74ba9c09d22">No Credit Where It's Due</a>

</dt>
<dd>
The original Wired News article by Declan McCullagh, Mar. 11, 1999,
which started the claim: 
"It's a time-honored tradition for presidential hopefuls to claim
credit for other people's successes. ... After Gore took credit for
the Internet, ... 
(note - first use found so far of "invent" wording is in a mailing-list message headline composed by Declan McCullagh, publicizing a Republican press release from the story: 
<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20010531124315/http://www.politechbot.com/p-00285.html" target="0a1ac4c44826104216d0cbd9f0a8a90c">House Majority Leader Armey on Gore "inventing the Internet"</a>
)
</dd>
<dt><a href="http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,18655,00.html" target="32067309c5f08c7cb2df3ad827addccb">The Laugh Is on Gore</a>

</dt>
<dd>
One follow-up Wired News article by Declan McCullagh, Mar. 23, 1999,
pressing the claim: 
"Al Gore's timing was as unfortunate as his boast. Just as Republicans
were beginning to eye the 2000 presidential race in earnest, the vice
president offered up a whopper of a tall tale in which he claimed to
have invented the Internet."
</dd>
<dt><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20001027190912/http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,39301,00.html" target="3e2c48059737d08ba99d40c49cda40f5">The Mother of Gore's Invention</a>
</dt>
<dd>
A much later Wired News article by Declan McCullagh, Oct. 17, 2000,
stating:

Quote:

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,39301,00.html
The Mother of Gore's Invention
By Declan McCullagh| Also by this reporter
03:00 AM Oct, 17, 2000

WASHINGTON -- If it's true that Al Gore created the Internet, then I created the "Al Gore created the Internet" story.

I was the first reporter to question the vice president's improvident boast, way back when he made it in early 1999.

Since then, the story's become far more than just a staple of late-night Letterman jokes: It's now as much a part of the American political firmament as the incident involving that other vice president, a schoolchild, and a very unfortunate spelling of potato.

Poor Al. For a presidential wannabe who prides himself on a sober command of the brow-furrowing nuances of technology policy, being the butt of all these jokes has proven something of a setback.

I mean, who can hear the veep talk up the future of the Internet nowadays without feeling an urge to stifle some disrespectful giggles? It would be like listening to Dan Quayle doing a please-take-me-seriously stump speech at an Idaho potato farm......

....Which brings us to an important question: Are the countless jibes at Al's expense truly justified? Did he really play a key part in the development of the Net?

The short answer is that while even his supporters admit the vice president has an unfortunate tendency to exaggerate, <h3>the truth is that Gore never did claim to have "invented" the Internet.</h3>

During a March 1999 CNN interview, while trying to differentiate himself from rival Bill Bradley, Gore boasted: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

That statement was enough to convince me, with the encouragement of my then-editor James Glave, to write a brief article that questioned the vice president's claim. Republicans on Capitol Hill noticed the Wired News writeup and started faxing around tongue-in-cheek press releases --and other journalists picked up the story too.

My article never used the word "invented," but it didn't take long for Gore's claim to morph into something he never intended.

The terrible irony in this exchange is that while Gore certainly didn't create the Internet, he was one of the first politicians to realize that those bearded, bespectacled researchers were busy crafting something that could, just maybe, become pretty important.

In January 1994, Gore gave a landmark speech at UCLA about the "information superhighway.">/b>

Many portions -- discussions of universal service, wiring classrooms to the Net, and antitrust actions -- are surprisingly relevant even today. (That's an impressive enough feat that we might even forgive Gore his tortured metaphors such as "road kill on the information superhighway" and "parked at the curb" on the information superhighway.).....

The basic debunking of the story:

<dl>
<dt><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20040104090503/http://commons.somewhere.com/rre/2000/RRE.Al.Gore.and.the.Inte.html" target="3c28c921bb5f1bbd7776691d87cf7ad1">Al Gore and The Internet</a>
</dt>
<dd>
Red Rock Eater News Service, Phil Agre, Mar. 28 2000 
"That Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet has got to be the
most successful flat-out lie since, well, the last one."
</dd>
<dt><a href="http://dir.salon.com/tech/col/rose/2000/10/05/gore_internet/index.html" target="046a3b7b59ebc53f9a105bea32d8ba37">Did Gore invent the Internet?</a>

</dt>
<dd>
Salon, Scott Rosenberg, Oct. 5, 2000 
"Actually, the vice president never claimed to have done so -- but he did help the Net along. Some people would rather forget that."
</dd>

<h3>Three internet founders, Kahm, Cerf, and Farber, vouch for Al Gore:</h3>
<dt><a href="http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200009/msg00052.html" target="9c036d9a9a6c58ec87af8ad7dbc5fb75">Al Gore's support of the Internet, by V.Cerf and B.Kahn [ I second this djf]</a>
</dt>
<dd>
Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf, seconded by Dave Farber, Sep 28 2000 
"Bob and I believe that the vice president deserves significant
credit for his early recognition of the importance of what has
become the Internet."
</dd>
</dl>

Quote:

http://www.computerhistory.org/exhib...tory_70s.shtml
1973

....Bob Kahn moves from BBN to DARPA to work for Larry Roberts, and his first self-assigned task is the interconnection of the ARPANET with other networks. He enlists Vint Cerf, who has been teaching at Stanford. The problem is that ARPANET, radio-based PRnet, and SATNET all have different interfaces, packet sizes, labeling, conventions and transmission rates. Linking them together is very difficult.

Kahn and Cerf set about designing a net-to-net connection protocol. Cerf leads the newly formed International Network Working Group. In September 1973, the two give their first paper on the new Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) ......

1979

.....Larry Landweber at Wisconsin holds a meeting with six other universities to discuss the possibility of building a Computer Science Research Network to be called CSNET. Bob Kahn attends as an advisor from DARPA, and Kent Curtis attends from NSF’s computer research programs. The idea evolves over the summer between Landweber, Peter Denning (Purdue), Dave Farber (Delaware), and Tony Hearn (Utah).

In November, the group submits a proposal to NSF to fund a consortium of eleven universities at an estimated cost of $3 million over five years. This is viewed as too costly by the NSF......

More debunking of the story:

<dl>
<dt><a href="http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue5_10/wiggins/" target="f1127dfe2e13b74be30bfda834313487">Al Gore and the Creation of the Internet</a>
</dt>
<dd>
First Monday, Richard Wiggins, October 2000 

"This article explores how the perception arose that Gore in essence
padded his resume by claiming to have invented the Internet. We will
then explore Gore's actual record, in particular as a U.S. Senator in
the late 1980s, as an advocate for high-speed national
networking. Finally we will examine this case as an example of the
trivialization of discourse and debate in American politics."
</dd>

<dt><a href="http://www.dailyhowler.com/h032699_1.shtml" target="2dcf118b56cae86eaf1b70e6e70e1069">Dick Armey faxed out some Internet spin. The press corps typed it up.</a>
</dt>
<dd>

Daily Howler March 26 1999 
"Did Vice President Gore "invent the Internet?" Better yet: Did he say
that he did?"
</dd>

<dt><a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2000/0004.parry.html" target="6ffe2deee0dbbe08036a65ce1cade418">He's No Pinocchio - How the press has exaggerated Al Gore's exaggerations</a>
</dt>
<dd>
Washington Monthly, Robert Parry, Apr. 2000 
"But an examination of dozens of these articles, which purport to
detail the chief cases of Gore's exaggerations and lies, finds
journalists often engaging in their own exaggerations or
even publishing outright falsehoods about Gore."
</dd>

</dl>

Yet more debunking of the story:

<dl>
<dt><a href="http://www.dailyhowler.com/h032999_1.shtml" target="fe8be7f17450aa86f7377700df197caa">What Gore had said wasn't silly enough. So Dick Armey--and the press corps--reinvented it.</a>
</dt>
<dd>
Daily Howler, Mar. 29 1999 
"Why didn't Blitzer challenge Gore's remark? Why didn't journalists
comment originally? Easy. They didn't do so because what Gore had said
wasn't that far off--until, with the help of credulous scribes, Dick
Armey reinvented the story."
</dd>
<dt><a href="http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh120302.shtml" target="811d69073e35efa90cf8c81680fa7acc">Inventing Invented The Internet!</a>
</dt>
<dd>

Daily Howler, Dec. 3, 2002 
"No one said Boo about Gore's remark. Then, the RNC spin-points arrived"
</dd>
</dl>

Detailed Internet-history debunking of the story:

<dl>
<dt><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20030815205809/http://swexpert.com/C7/SE.C7.MAY.99.pdf" target="fc7ed6d1c56a338337ef1da9814c55eb">Revisionist Internet History</a>
</dt>
<dd>
Matrix News, John S. Quarterman, April 1999 

"Almost all of the complaints I've seen about Gore's statement do not
come from the people who should have the most to say about it. The one
who should know as well as anybody, Vint Cerf, had quite a different
opinion, ..."
</dd>
</dl>

Study of the story:

<dl>
<dt><a href="http://www.igs.berkeley.edu/research_programs/ppt/papers/Gore412.pdf" target="5eb3e3dc7ecfa5d1f532855c650608ce">When Truth Doesn't Win in the Marketplace of Ideas: Entrapping Schemas, Gore, and the Internet</a>
</dt>
<dd>
Chip Heath & Jonathan Bendor,
Stanford University,
March 10, 2003 
"... we study an example where Al Gore was falsely attributed with saying
that he "invented the internet." We show that the false version of
Gore's statement dominated the true one in mainstream political
discourse by a wide margin. This is a clear failure in the marketplace
of ideas, which we document in detail."
</dd>
</dl>

Last updated: Fri Apr 28 09:14:05 EDT 2006

Quote:

THE BILL GATES BET FUSING TVS, PCS, PHONES A SURE THING; [NORTH SPORTS FINAL Edition]
James Coates, Tribune Staff Writer.. Chicago Tribune (pre-1997 Fulltext). Chicago, Ill.: Oct 21, 1993. pg. 1

.....Considered a visionary since he formed Microsoft before he was old enough to vote, Gates said the coming web of cable-telephone-computer links isn't exactly an electronic or information "superhighway," a name frequently used by Vice President Al Gore, who heads the president's technology task force.

"It's not a highway, because governments build highways, and I certainly don't want the government to build this," said Gates.

He added, "It's not a highway, because on a highway everybody goes down the same road. This is more like a lot of country lanes."

But while he dislikes the name, Gates is enraptured by the idea....

Quote:

The Internet-This Year's Virtual Favorite for `Man of the Year'; [Home Edition]
MICHAEL SCHRAGE. Los Angeles Times (pre-1997 Fulltext). Los Angeles, Calif.: Dec 23, 1993. pg. 1

With holiday hindsight, Time magazine's decision a decade ago to name the computer as its "Man of the Year" doesn't look half bad. This year, Time's Zeitgeist award should go to a technology that's got more character, influence and complexity than any purely human contender.

It's a uniquely American medium that's grown more rapidly than John Malone's TCI ever did; that's even more global than Ted (1991 Man of the Year) Turner's CNN, and is light-years more interactive than Barry Diller's QVC Network, with or without Paramount.

It's called the Internet and there has never been a mass medium quite like it.

No one really "owns" the Internet, and no one really "manages" it. But over the past year, it has exploded into public consciousness as the multimedia phenomenon that merits serious attention from anyone who wants to understand what the future will look like.

In barely 12 months, the Internet has gone from a technovelty to a chic media cliche. The Net became a front-page story in every major newspaper in America (including this one); cover story for magazines such as the New Republic; a standing reference on CNN, and, inevitably, the inspiration for a New Yorker cartoon-two canines at a keyboard, with one pooch saying to the other, "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."

When Al Gore speechifies about-all together now!-"The Information Superhighway," when Bell Atlantic Chairman Ray Smith waxes lyrical about his company's proposed $30-billion-plus acquisition of TCI, and when Barry Diller preaches the gospel of multimedia interactivity, their visions are based less on pie-in-the-sky promises than the Internet's astonishing growth and evolution. Media convergence? Internet defines the state of the art. Book publishers, magazine publishers and cable companies who hadn't even heard of the Internet two years ago now pump their media content into the Net. Can Sega and Nintendo be far behind?

Originally designed 25 years ago to be the computer network for the Pentagon's research community, Internet has evolved into the most important computer network in the world...... It is often cheaper to log on to Internet than to subscribe to cable TV.

But far more important than any information it carries are the communities that Internet creates. The Internet is more about relationships between people than data bursts between machines. .....De Tocqueville would marvel-but perhaps not be surprised-at the Internet as the natural technological extension of those dual American ideals, democracy and the frontier.

In fact, the Internet embodies just the kind of paradoxes that Americans are so good at and the rest of the world finds so irresistible. .... It's a network for the elite, yet it's very egalitarian.

There's no real government, yet no real anarchy. It's a creature of government planners that's also the soul of new enterprise and entrepreneurship. It's a product of Cold War funding that has become a virtual playground for children of all ages. The brightest scientists in the world use it as a medium for collaboration. Businesses want to turn it into a marketplace. There's pornography, and there's the Bible. People have best friends there that they've never met in person. Even the French, despite their fears of American technological imperialism, want to post imagery of their art treasures on the Net.

The Internet has been relentlessly growing and succeeding because it represents everything that's best about America.....

Of course, the Internet now faces precisely the same kinds of questions and doubts that inevitably confront any growing community:

* Just how commercial will the Internet become when the Barry Dillers and Raymond Smiths decide to take a byte?...

....In many respects, making the Internet "Man of the Year" would be less a recapitulation of Time's 1982 award to the computer than a reminder of Time's first "Man of the Year" in 1927-Charles Lindbergh. Then, an adventurous American and a new technology captured the imagination of the world. Today, it's only appropriate that we have an adventurous community and a new technology that's doing the same thing.

Quote:

U.S. Calls for Creation of Global Computing Network Communications: Gore urges nations to work together to link homes, schools and offices around the world.; [Home Edition]
Los Angeles Times (pre-1997 Fulltext). Los Angeles, Calif.: Mar 22, 1994. pg. 3

The United States urged all nations Monday to help build a "network of networks" that could pump billions of dollars into the world's economy by linking computers in homes, schools and offices around the globe.

Vice President Al Gore told a U.N.-sponsored conference on telecommunications development that the world has the financial and technical resources to spin such a web, which he called a "global information infrastructure."

"We now can at last create a planetary information network that transmits messages and images with the speed of light from the largest city to the smallest village on every continent," Gore said.

According to the United States, a world computing network could be built and run by the private sector.

Gore noted in his speech that the network is already being built in bits and pieces as fiber-optic cable is laid under seas and across continents.

His announcement coincided with the creation of a joint venture between Microsoft and McCaw Cellular that appears to share the global network philosophy.

Bill Gates, founder and chairman of Microsoft, the world's biggest software company, and Craig McCaw, who built McCaw Cellular Communications into the largest cellular telephone company in the country, formed Teledesic Corp.

The new company, to be based in Kirkland, Wash., is proposing to build a $9-billion system of 840 small satellites that would circle the globe to form a communications network.

*

In his speech to an audience including some of the world's top policy-makers and the biggest names in the communications industry, Gore said the United States will throw its weight behind the global network project.

He described a vision of an intelligent web capable of improving international communications, of raising businesses' productivity, taking education to the farthest corners of the world and even promoting representative democracy.

"The global economy will also be be driven by the growth of the Information Age. Hundreds of billions of dollars can be added to world growth if we commit to the" network, Gore said.

The nine-day conference was organized by the International Telecommunications Union, a U.N. body with 182 members. It will also work on an action plan to extend modern communications to the least-developed countries.

According to the ITU, despite numerous technological breakthroughs and the fact that telecommunications have proved to be a profitable venture around the world, there is a huge gap between rich and poor nations.

While the 24 high-income developed countries have 70% of the world's telephone lines and only 15% of its population, ITU Secretary General Pekka Tarjanne said that two-thirds of the world's homes still have no phones.

The ITU estimates the world must invest about $530 billion by the year 2000 to boost "tele-density"-a measure of main telephone lines per 100 inhabitants-to 14.5 from 10.

However, Tarjanne noted recent success stories among developing countries that have managed to build up their telecommunications, singling out Botswana, Turkey, South Korea and Chile.

"There is no blueprint for success, although there are common points that can be adopted by developing countries," he said.

*

Gore and Argentine President Carlos Saul Menem, who in 1990 opened his country's ailing telephone system to private-sector operators, spoke in favor of privatization and competition in telecommunications.

Gore noted that privatization has spurred development of telecommunications in dozens of countries, and he urged others to follow the lead of Argentina, Chile and Mexico.

"But privatization is not enough. Competition is needed as well," Gore said. "Today, there are many more technology options than in the past, and it is not only possible but desirable to have different companies running competing but interconnected networks."

Quote:

GOVERNMENT ON-LINE: NATIONAL PERFORMANCE REVIEW; [FINAL Edition]
Barbara J. Saffir. The Washington Post (pre-1997 Fulltext). Washington, D.C.: Sep 2, 1994. pg. a.21

INFO-GRAPHIC,,Twp CAPTION: When Vice President Gore released his first National Performance Review (NPR) report last September, more than 100,000 copies were downloaded electronically within a week. Gore, who sees widespread access to information technology as crucial to his "reinventing government" initiative, has long boasted an Internet e-mail address (vice.president@whitehouse.gov). He has made NPR information available through the Internet, on government bulletin boards (including FedWorld and Office of Personnel Management) and via commercial computer networks. The following shows how to obtain electronic versions of National Performance Review documents and how to communicate with NetResults, the "electronic arm" of NPR. 1) NETRESULTS NetResults, an organization of government employees and private citizens linked by computer, helps promote NPR's recommendations for improving government. Using computer networks as its primary vehicle, NetResults links government workers and other citizens to each other and to the information they need to achieve the changes recommended by NPR. NetResults also acts as an umbrella network, fostering the creation of subsidiary networks, such as IGNet. Internet path: gopher ace.esusda.gov Menus: go to Americans Communicating Electronically then to National Performance Review Information Note: Beginning Tuesday, NPR and NetResults will begin trials of its World Wide Web access (http://www.npr.gov) What is available: NPR announcements, reports, newsletters (called the "NPR Reinvention Roundtable"), success stories and information on NPR "Reinvention Councils" and working groups, such as the President's Management Council and Community Empowerment Board. Reports include the Executive Summary, "From Red Tape to Results: Creating a Government that Works Better and Costs Less" along with subject- and agency-specific reports as they become available. ....The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory worked with NetResults to create a colorful, point-and-click Internet environment that makes finding NPR information easier and more pleasant. + The Defense Evaluation Support Activity (DESA) group teamed up with NetResults to create a multimedia CD-ROM version of NPR's second annual report, due out Sept. 14. The disk is designed to come alive with videos, sound and words. The report will also be available in a paper version; in electronic text, accessible through the "old-fashioned" Internet; and in images and hypertext in a new hi-tech Windows-like Internet environment. + Vice President Gore and the NPR will host their first "electronic town meeting" this fall. The experimental Internet e-mail-based conference, which will be conducted over approximately two weeks, is designed to engage federal workers nationwide in National Performance Review activities. To obtain more information, send an Internet e-mail message to info@town-hall.ai.mit.edu. - By Barbara J. Saffir (saffirb@twp.com), with research assistance by Roland Matifas

Quote:

Senators Near Compromise on 'Information Highway'
Burgess, John. The Washington Post. Washington, D.C.: Jul 10, 1991. pg. C1

Senators J. Bennett Johnston (D-LA) and Albert Gore Jr (D-TN) have reached a compromise under which the White House would select the federal agencies to lead in the development of high-performance computers and a national network of "information highways."

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/print?id=833922
And at the ninth annual international Webby Awards in New York this week, one particular Net figure finally received his due: Former Vice President Al Gore.

Officials at the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences honored Gore with the Webby Lifetime Achievement award in recognition of his pivotal role in the development of the Internet over the last 30 years.

Gore had been skewered during the 2000 presidential campaign for his remarks that suggested he was the Net's creator. But Vinton Cerf, one of the scientists who helped craft the actual Internet architecture, acknowledged that Gore was responsible for crafting important legislation and lending needed political support for "the information superhighway."

The former vice president accepted the award from Cerf. But like other Webby winners, the usually talkative Gore had to limit his acceptance speech to five words or less.

Thus, remarked Gore, "Please don't recount this vote."

Tiffany Shlain, founder and chairperson of the Webby Award

Quote:

http://pubs.acs.org/hotartcl/cenear/950327/art16.html
Chemical & Engineering News,
March 27, 1995
Policy Issues Permeate Efforts To Create Information Infrastructure
Wil Lepkowski,
C&EN Washington

....Also handy is NII's most recent progress report, which recounts information superhighway projects in the various government agencies. The Tennessee Valley Authority, for example, is linking schools within its region. The Small Business Administration is transferring Ballistic Missile Defense Organization encryption technology to business use....

.....The fascination to much of this is the politics. The new Republican majority in Congress has one vision of the information future; the Clinton-Gore Administration has another. The tension is bound to rise as the goals of NII under a Democratic Administration are played out against the "less-government-is-better" philosophy of Congress' Republican majority.

There already are clues. NTIA's budget for carrying out some of the above goals - its Telecommunications & Information Infrastructure Program - totaled $64 million for fiscal 1995. It includes matching grants for hospitals, schools, libraries, state and local governments, and various nonprofit institutions. In two recently enacted rescission packages, however, all those programs have been eliminated. Similar programs slated to be funded by other agencies face similar threats. President Clinton will probably veto those cuts.

The Gingrich school of information policy may be high on information's potential, but it is low on any federal government involvement in catalyzing its progress. That is consistent with the belief by Gingrich and PFF that the information revolution implies, even mandates, less government. Is that true? No one knows yet, but here is what one expert in the computer field has to say.

Robert E. Kahn, president of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives, Reston, Va., and one of the founders of the Internet, says: "It seems uncontested that governments have a fundamental role to play in the funding of advanced research and development which can push the frontiers of technology and knowledge. It also seems clear that governments must provide the necessary oversight to ensure that the standards process is fair and equitable.

"Governments must also take responsibility for helping to resolve problems that arise where independent decision-making by multiple countries intrudes on further interworking problems. The U.S. government must provide the leadership in many dimensions, including the removal of barriers where they inhibit and can be removed; the insertion of legal, security, or regulatory mechanisms where the national interest so dictates; and the direct stimulation of public-interest sectors that require and merit government assistance," Kahn says.

Right now, the components of that Global Information Infrastructure are plodding toward Gore's goal of seamlessness through NII by its various task forces coordinated in the Commerce Department. All reports on the subject say it won't happen overnight and will cost hundreds of billions of dollars. The goal is to have the television set, for example, give way to computers receiving broadband signals via satellite and onto fiber-optic cable from everywhere in the world. Interactivity, not couch potatoism, it is promised, will be the characteristic of the new age.

Gore's NII lists several categories in which information is part of public policy:

* Telecommunications, broadcasting, and satellite transmission.
* International communications and information policy.
* Library and archives policy....

....The issues are as much social as technical and are only beginning to be fleshed out through the various committees and working groups that make up NII. "While industry is beginning to build the information superhighway," says a January report on NII prepared by the General Accounting Office (GAO), "little is known about how the superhighway will be structured and what services it will provide."

Quote:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.05/gore.html
Issue 14.05 - May 2006

The Resurrection of Al Gore
He invented the Internet (sort of). He became President (almost). Now Al Gore has found his true calling: using the power of technology to save the world.

One evening last December, in front of nearly 2,000 people at Stanford's Memorial Auditorium, Al Gore spoke in uncharacteristically personal and passionate terms about the failed quest that has dominated much of his adult life.......The audience was filled with Silicon Valley luminaries: Apple's Steve Jobs; Google's Larry Page and Eric Schmidt; Internet godfather Vint Cerf; Yahoo!'s Jerry Yang; venture capitalists John Doerr, Bill Draper, and Vinod Khosla; former Clinton administration defense secretary William Perry; and a cross section of CEOs, startup artists, techies, tinkerers, philanthropists, and investors of every political and ethnic stripe.....

Info on the impact to Tennessee of the loss of a Gore presidential librabry, Using GHW Bush and Clinton data

Quote:

http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:...s&ct=clnk&cd=3
Tom Kelly, Ph.D.

Economist & Director of
Baylor Center for Business and Economic Research
Spring 2005
Executive Summary

* The George Walker Bush Presidential Library Center located along Interstate 35 near Baylor University in Waco, Texas will attract between 300 and 500 thousand visitors annually.

* The location of the George W. Bush Library at Baylor University will both enhance and benefit future presidential scholars and visitors because of its regional synergy with the George Bush Library at Texas A&M University and the LBJ Library at the University of Texas at Austin.

* The Central Texas region has a travel for seminar/training index of 1.6, meaning that it has 60 percent more travel for seminars and education than the state average. This is undoubtedly due to its incidence of universities as well as its central location. The George W. Bush Library will add significantly to the index further reflecting the advantages represented by this location quotient.

* The construction phase of the George W. Bush Library will have a total economic impact of $209.7 million on the Central Texas region.

* The staff and operation budget of the library and school of public affairs will have an ongoing annual economic impact of between $12.7 million and $14.1 million on the Central Texas region.

* The impact of visitor spending on the Central Texas region would amount to between $8.6 million and $13.8 million each year, based on between 300 thousand and 500 thousand visitor person-days.

* The George W. Bush Presidential Library Center will add an estimated 72 full-time and 21 part-time employees as library staff. As many as 10 visiting lecturers could be expected to participate with permanent Baylor faculty members.

* The number of additional tourist-related jobs generated in the region will be between 260 and 344, based upon visitor attendance between 300 and 500 thousand person-days.

* ..... the Clinton Library that opened in November has already helped generate $367 million in new development in downtown Little Rock, a city of similar size as the greater Waco area.

Introduction.......

Read the rest of the preceding article for the info on the tourism and revenue that is lost to Tennessee, and consider that all of the job growth in the state, according to the Fed, is concentrated around just three urban areas. The Gore library could have been built in a more rural area of Tennesssee, that could us this kind of permanent economic stimulus.

Quote:

http://stlouisfed.org/publications/r...ankruptcy.html

.....These statistics, however, disguise the fact that personal bankruptcy filings are not equal across the country. For example, at the state level, Tennessee had the highest rate of personal bankruptcy filings in the nation, with over 10 filings per 1,000 persons last year—nearly twice the U.S. rate—whereas Massachusetts ranked last with 2.8 filings per 1,000 people.....
<center>http://stlouisfed.org/publications/re/2005/d/pages/bankruptcy.html</center>
Eighth District States vs. the Nation
The table provides a comparison of personal bankruptcy filings in Eighth District states with average bankruptcy filings in other states. Of the Eighth District states, Tennessee had the greatest number of filings per 1,000 people last year (10.5) and Illinois had the lowest (6.3). On average, Eighth District states had a filing rate of 7.7 per 1,000 people compared to an average filing rate of 5 per 1,000 people in other states. Thus, on average, states located in the Eighth District had roughly 2.7 more individuals per 1,000 filing for personal bankruptcy.

Although Eighth District states have a relatively higher rate of bankruptcy filing, the annual average growth in bankruptcies in the District since 1980 has been slightly lower than that of other U.S. states—7.2 percent vs. 7.8 percent. Within the District, Arkansas had the highest average annual growth rate (10.8 percent) and Illinois had the lowest (6.1 percent). Although Tennessee had the highest rate of bankruptcy of all District states (and the nation) last year, the average annual growth in bankruptcies in Tennessee was less than that in most other Eighth District states.

The table also shows that Eighth District states had an average per capita income that was nearly $3,000 less than other U.S. states’ last year and an unemployment rate that was 0.6 percentage points higher than other U.S. states’. Comparing these data with the bankruptcy data suggests both per capita income and unemployment have a negative relationship with personal bankruptcy filings.8 Note, however, that while Tennessee had a higher bankruptcy filing rate than other states did, it had per capita income that was higher than that of most other Eighth District states. Although a definitive causal relationship can be determined only by more rigorous statistical methods, the negative correlation is supportive of the finding that, at a given point in time, lower-income individuals may be more likely to file for bankruptcy, given relatively less financial literacy and less diversification of fewer financial assets.

Because a majority the people of Tennessee voted republican, their representatives and president imposed a greater hardship on Tennessee, due to it's highest per household rate of bankruptcies in the nation...IMO, that's "tough love", and another example of voters who vote against their own best interests....you're all just one illness away from needing chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, you file at the highest per capita rate, of any state, and now, that option is gone.

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/09/bu...rint&position=
March 9, 2005
Bankruptcy Bill Set for Passage; Victory for Bush
By STEPHEN LABATON

.....Final passage of the measure is now an inevitable formality.

House leaders have said they will quickly approve the legislation once the Senate completes work on it as early as this week. President Bush has said he intends to sign it. His predecessor, President Bill Clinton, killed the measure in his final days in office in 2000 after it had been passed by Congress by declining to sign it at the end of the legislative session, issuing a so-called pocket veto.

The sponsors of the legislation say that it will have the effect of lowering the costs of goods and services for all consumers by making it easier for companies and issuers of credit to collect unpaid debts rather than passing those costs on to everyone else. In the last 30 years, bankruptcy filings have steadily increased, rising eightfold since Congress last rewrote the bankruptcy laws.

But critics said the measure was a thinly disguised gift to banks and credit card companies.... They said that the measure would impose new obstacles on many middle-income families seeking desperately needed protection from creditors, and that it would take far longer for those families to start over after suffering serious illnesses, unemployment and other calamities.

The votes on Tuesday were the second legislative victory in recent weeks both for Mr. Bush and the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, himself a possible presidential contender in 2008. Mr. Frist nimbly moved both the bankruptcy bill and another bill last month making it more difficult to bring class-action lawsuits through the Senate.

In both cases, he unified the Republicans to beat back every effort by the Democrats to water down or delay the measures. In both cases, he also reached a deal with House leaders in which the Senate blocked any significant changes to the measure in exchange for a commitment from the House that it would adopt unaltered what the Senate approved.

The White House applauded the votes on Tuesday.

"The administration supports the passage of bankruptcy reform because ultimately this will lead to more accessibility to credit for more Americans, particularly lower-income workers," said Trent D. Duffy, a deputy White House spokesman. "The fact that the Senate was able to set aside those issues and move toward passage shows it's another bipartisan accomplishment. Coupled with class actions, it shows we're off to a good start.".......

....In a letter to Congress two weeks ago, 104 bankruptcy law professors predicted that "the deepest hardship" would "be felt in the heartland," where the filing rates are highest - Utah, Tennessee, Georgia, Nevada, Indiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Ohio, Mississippi and Idaho.

More than a year ago, I posted the following article, in this post:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...1&postcount=28
on this thread: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=85081

Quote:

http://www.healthaffairs.org/press/janfeb0505.htm

Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2005

Middle-Class Workers With Health Coverage Represent Most
Medical Bankruptcies In America, Health Affairs Article Says

Authors Say Trend Shows Need For Safety-Net Program For Chronically Ill,
Importance Of Separating Health Coverage From Employment

....Abstract

In 2001, 1.458 million American families filed for bankruptcy. To investigate medical contributors to bankruptcy, we surveyed 1,771 personal bankruptcy filers in five federal courts and subsequently completed in-depth interviews with 931 of them. About half cited medical causes, which indicates that 1.9-2.2 million Americans (filers plus dependents) experienced medical bankruptcy. Among those whose illnesses led to bankruptcy, out-of-pocket costs average $11,854 since the start of illness; 75.7 percent had insurance at the onset of illness. Medical debtors were 42 percent more likely than other debtors to experience lapses in coverage. Even middle-class insured families often fall prey to financial catastrophe when sick

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...081900413.html
Bankruptcy Reform Gave Creditors Too Much

By Michelle J. White
Special to washingtonpost.com's Think Tank Town
Monday, August 21, 2006; 12:00 AM

Last fall, following years of intense lobbying by the credit card companies, Congress passed the "Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005" (BAPCPA). While U.S. bankruptcy law was very debtor-friendly prior to BAPCPA, it has become much more pro-creditor today.

Bankruptcy law must balance two conflicting objectives: helping debtors who experience adverse shocks by discharging some of their debt, and promoting credit availability by enforcing the obligation to repay.
Discharging some debt when adverse shocks occur is valuable because it reduces the decline in debtors' consumption, thus providing partial consumption insurance and reducing the costs of debt. These costs include debtors' illnesses turning into disabilities because they cannot pay for medical care, debtors' families becoming homeless because they cannot pay rent, and debtors' children dropping out of school in order to work, leading to lower earnings as adults.....

......Under BAPCPA, both bankruptcy procedures have been retained, but debtors' right to choose between them has been abolished......Debtors who file under Chapter 13 must use all of their incomes above a consumption allowance for five years to repay. BAPCPA also instituted new requirements that more than double the costs of filing, from less than $1,000 to around $2,500. It also reduced the amount of debt that is discharged in bankruptcy, lengthened the minimum period that must elapse between filings, and required debtors to undergo credit counseling and take a debt management course.

The main effect of those changes is that non-opportunistic debtors will avoid or delay filing for bankruptcy because they cannot pay the high costs of filing, or their gain from filing is smaller, or they are ineligible to file. Creditors gain because they now have longer to collect penalty interest rates and fees and more opportunity for garnishment of debtors' wages.

For opportunistic debtors, the impact of BAPCPA is mixed. BAPCPA made it more difficult to use some of the most popular bankruptcy planning strategies -- debtors can no longer move to Florida and use its unlimited homestead exemption unless they move more than two years before filing, and debtors can no longer shelter assets by renovating their homes unless they do so more than three years before filing. But opportunistic debtors can still use trusts to shelter assets in bankruptcy and BAPCPA provides a new bankruptcy exemption for up to $1 million of assets in tax-sheltered individual retirement accounts ($2 million for married couples who file). Opportunistic debtors can also pass the means test and qualify for Chapter 7 even if they have high incomes, by spending more on categories that increase their consumption allowances.

Under BAPCPA, fewer non-opportunistic debtors will file for bankruptcy because they cannot afford the high costs of filing. Those debtors will be worse off because they have less consumption insurance. But opportunistic debtors will continue to find bankruptcy worthwhile as long as they plan in advance and have good lawyers.

In the same thread, in this post, I also wrote (excerpt from my post):

Quote:

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...1&postcount=15
I believe that there is an increasing inability of voters to vote in their own best interests. The March 10, U.S. Senate bankruptcy "reform" bill vote seems to reinforce this argument:

1.) The 20 senators from the ten states with the highest numbers of bankruptcy filings per number of total households (!6 Repubs, 4 Dems) all voted to pass the bill which will financially harm their constituents.

2. Utah has the most bankruptcy filings, yet it's households average $12000 more income per year than in Maine, which is 48th on the bankruptcy filing frequency list. As in voting, avoiding bankruptcy seems more related to sound decision making than it does to your income amount.

3.) Seven senators from the ten states with the lowest bankruptcy filings
voted against the bill. All seven are democrats, and include John Kerry.
(9 Repubs, 10 Dems, 1 Ind.)

4.)The nine states with 2003 household income averages above $50,000 are represented in the U.S. Senate by 11 Democrats and 7 Republicans.
Seven of these highest income states voted for Kerry in 2004.

The nine states with 2003 household income averages under $37,200 are represented in the U.S. Senate by 7 Democrats and 11 Republicans.
Eight of these lowest income states voted for Bush in 2004.

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LI...n=1&vote=00044
.....Tennessee: Alexander (R-TN), Yea Frist (R-TN), Yea .....

........2004 Household Bankruptcy Rankings, by State 2003 HH Income
1- Utah: Bennett (R-UT), Yea Hatch (R-UT), Yea $49276
2 -Tennessee: Alexander (R-TN), Yea Frist (R-TN), Yea $37523....

Intense1, the primary reason that this post is so "content rich", is because of the degree of my amazement that there seems, on your part, and I'm guessing, on the part of many others, a tendency to so cavalierly dismiss the decision to vote republican, brush aside Al Gore, and not weigh the impact of those voting decisions. I've shared why I think that your opinions have been manipulated by folks such as Bozell, and that it has cost you much. Until you can recognize that, you cannot assess what you have gotten in exchange for your votes, from your republican politicians. The large credit card issuing banks got much, and Texas will get another presidential library, but I don't see anything for Tennessee voters.