The Heartland Institute clearly thought it had come up with a clever idea. The right-wing group, which is fiercely opposed to combating the climate crisis, thought it'd be clever to put up billboards showing "some of the world's most notorious killers," including "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski, who accept climate science.
The idea, apparently, was to push a child-like logical fallacy: if a killer believes in scientific evidence, you shouldn't. Of course, by that logic, if a killer believes 2 + 2 = 4, the conservative organization would presumably encourage you to reconsider arithmetic.
The Heartland Institute's stunt certainly generated attention, but nearly all of it was from those marveling at how ridiculous the group has become. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), a conservative climate-change denier, said he no longer wanted to participate in the group's upcoming conference.
It wasn't long before the humiliated Heartland Institute decided to reverse course.
It seems that the ad campaign, sponsored by the conservative Heartland Institute, had bombed.
"We know that our billboard angered and disappointed many of Heartland's friends and supporters, but we hope they understand what we were trying to do with this experiment," the institute said late Friday afternoon said in a statement. "We do not apologize for running the ad, and we will continue to experiment with ways to communicate the 'realist' message on the climate."
The group added that the billboards were "intended to be an experiment."
The Heartland Institute considers it a successful experiment, because it got people talking, but since most of the talk was from those pointing and laughing at the strange organization, I'm hard pressed to see this fiasco as an triumph.
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" We know that our billboard angered and disappointed many of Heartland's friends and supporters, but we hope they understand what we were trying to do with this experiment,"
They went on to say , "We have been watching Fox news , especially Fox and Friends and Hannity and assumed that people were so gullible and stupid that they would believe anything. In fact fox News has made us so dumb we actually thought this would work.
I think you hit the nail on he head, sick. The so-called "experiment" was to test if people had dumbed down enough for the next step in the neoFascist takeover...probably inciting armed insurrection. I am SO tired of the massive stupidity of all these blatherers!
I would actually love to see this turn into a parody meme, where History's Greatest Monsters endorse other indisputable facts, like plate tectonics, or arithmatic.
They can start with one showing Hitler saying "I believe in god and crushing gays. Do you?"
>> The group added that the billboards were "intended to be an experiment."
Oh, now I get it. They're opposed to the scientific consensus on climate change because they don't understand what "experiment" means. If you don't understand what an experiment is, you'll naturally have doubts about the scientific method.
Oh, and sorry to double-post, but it also struck me that your headline is inaccurate, Steve. They most certainly have not had a "change of heart". They're just changing tactics because this one held them up to ridicule. A change of heart would mean that they stopped denying climate change -- or at the very least, that they recognized that the billboards were fallacious. But in fact, "the institute said late Friday afternoon said in a statement, 'We do not apologize for running the ad'". So they still believe they are correct and they're just annoyed the rest of us don't see it.
Following up with Joe's comment, maybe "Jesus" should next refute science in general as it appears that his power brokers do all the time!
Is mother's milk a Nazi plot?
Is, "It's just an experiement" the new, "It was only a joke"?
Jenny42 - I hope not because it sure wasn't funny... The party of hate at it again..
"It wasn't meant to be a factual statement"
To put this into the context in which it was supposed to be taken:
If an Obama believes in scientific evidence, you shouldn't.
Facism should rightly be called corporatism, as it is the merger of state and corporate powers. Benito Mussolini
I know there are laws against criminals making money off their crimes, but couldn't Kaczynski have sued the bejeezus out of these people? Perhaps with any award being slated toward families of his victims or something?
So basically it was "Propaganda Experimentation"? Where have I head that before......
Oh right.... from the exact same people claiming that of "any dirty, ignorant liberal" side..
To the... BECK BOARD! DUN DUN DUUUUUUNNNN!!!!!
I can see that this has potential for other organizations and topics
Nice picture of a WWII Nazi belt buckle proclaiming
GOTT MIT UNS
"Nice" picture of Hitler proclaiming
"But" you say "Hitler did terrible things- he hated the Jews - he wasn't a Christian - he just said he was."
Yeah - I tend to agree - still a lot of that still going around today though.
(The atheists are sick and tired of people claiming that Hitler was an atheist.)
Nice pen and ink of Martin Luther perhaps pointing to a Star of David -
"But you've taken Martin Luther out of context." Oh - feel free to read all of Luther's The Jews and Their Lies - get back with me on that.
"But that won't work on a billboard" - Do it Burma Shave style.
Reminds me of something I saw on FB. Obama should tell people eating yellow snow is bad and watch Fox freak out telling them they should eat yellow snow.
heartland was successful in one regard--anyone with an i.q. exceeding that of an earthworm could damn sure figure out "what they were trying to do."
Man, this group is on such a slippery slope, I wonder, how long will it be before they decide to dress up like Nazis to prove their point? -Kevo
The version of Martin Luther's book available on Amazon.com has been highly edited and is misleading.
Luther was not critical of Jews as a race but as religious people who could not or would not see that Jesus Christ was in fact their Messiah, too.
Advocating burning buildings is obviously wrong.
http://www.humanitas-international.org/showcase/chronography/documents/luther-jews.htm
Give this version a try - it's really hard to find any warm fuzzies in it other than for converted Jews - In his earlier years Luther apparently was interested in converting Jews to Christianity. So you are correct - he apparently only disliked religious Jews who had not converted to Christianity where as Hitler hated biological Jews and religious Jews.
Luther's suggestion that Jews be subjected to forced slave labor is wrong too.
I bet it took more than just Rep. James Sensenbrenner's statement for them to change course. ALEC probably loves its relation with Heartland right about now. Hopefully the brilliant mind behind this campaign will see his unemployment benefits expire.