It seems like no matter how poorly casinos are doing throughout the country, no matter how many times they rewrite the rules and laws in their favor, no matter what kind of damage they wreak, how many thousands of small business they gut, millions of people they legally steal from in every community they enter, we only hear about how great and wonderful they’d be here in Massachusetts.
I’m sorry, but it doesn’t pass the sniff test, though a careful PR movement and lots and lots of dough spent on ads and lobbyists, the House — and I do not mean the legislature — has convinced too many people that it’s just a matter of harmless entertainment. Well, that’s started to change — people are finally noticing that both Connecticut casinos, as well as Rhode Island, are near bankruptcy, and Foxwoods has already defaulted. The idea that we could even build these things here, in this market, has been called into question. None of the promises will ever materialize — and people are starting to get a clue.
It’s important that we have these kinds of events to spread the truth. The legislative leadership is going to dump this issue on our many good state legislators who have voted against this issue time and time again, just before they write their new budget, claiming it’ll be the only thing that saves us. They’re going to do exactly the same thing they criticized Patrick for contemplating just a year ago, but make it sound even more desperate. We have to be ready for them, we have to make sure we aren’t giving into something that will make us nothing in the medium run, almost certainly losing us money in the long run (costing California nearly a billion dollars annually). We have to make sure that if we ever decide to enforce such a major and likely irreversible change to our state, it’s based on cold, hard policy analsys — not worthless promises, cheerleading ‘reports’ by paid industry hacks and the typical lies and deceptions this industry has used to sell themselves to dozens of states across the country.
Come whether you’re with me in full or skeptical. Come if you know almost nothing about this issue, but want to become informed. Heck, come if you just want an opportunity to meet the Duke and hear why he’s opposed to casinos. This issue is so important — we can’t allow the slot industry in without the facts. We can’t allow it to be thrown on us based on deception. And we certainly shouldn’t get into it when the industry’s in a downward spiral, with all the problems incurred, but none of the promises kept. Since allowing slots and casinos is a downward spiral, it’s time to come and learn about this issue now, so you can have your full say before this issue is voted on. Otherwise, should the bill pass, you may come to regret it, asking yourself why you didn’t get involved when you could.
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Note: I’m writing this of my own accord, but if anyone has any questions, this is probably a great thread for that. This is also a good opportunity to scope out opportunities to carpool or otherwise travel together — it’s always fun for BMGers to meet up. Finally, if anyone wants to make an event out of it and go get a slice or beer after, I’m open to it… especially if it’ll get you there. Just let me know in the comments.
seriously, nice to see some citizen advocacy on this issue.
I’ll definitely be there.
…this is an anti-casino rally as opposed to a fair-and-balanced forum, right?
The flyer is clear. The post is clear.
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p>This is a “forum” and not a rally. The topic is “The Case for the Commonwealth Against Slots and Casinos.”
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p>But wait, I’m for casinos or don’t really know where I should stand on the issue, you say? The poster invites you to “Come whether you’re with me in full or skeptical.” and to “Come if you know almost nothing about this issue, but want to become informed.”
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p>I think he was pretty clear. Right?
However, I can’t “Come if you know almost nothing about this issue, but want to become informed.” knowing that I’m only going to hear one side. That’s NOT becoming informed.
to hear the other side of the issue is read the Globe. Trust me, there are plenty of forums and opportunities for the proponents to make their case (often, with facts be damned).
…but a forum about the topic that’s trying to reach out to those without opinion should include both sides simultaneously, if that is how they’re billing themselves. I realize the title says it’s anti-casino, but then saying you’ll come away with information to make up your own mind strikes me as disingenuous.
I participated in one – the League of Women Voters held a forum in I think Andover and I had the privilege of being on the panel (me the little blogger, and three experts LOL).
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p>The panel presented a very compelling practical, factual, and moral case against casinos, particularly on the studies and numbers around this position. Trust me when I say that no one who attended felt preached to or that it was propaganda.
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p>The LoWV BTW is very much against casinos. They hardly ever take a stand for or against any one issue, preferring to be nonpartisan and retain their neutrality. However, they found the facts around casinos to be so egregious, they came out (I believe it was a decade or more ago) against casinos and have been fighting them ever since.
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p>But anyway, this is one of those cases where the sides of the argument are not equal. Like global warming disbelievers, who want equal time in the debate but do not deserve it, what you find out in studying this issue is that the only people who want this badly are the big money casino pushers themselves, and the politicians who believe their state revenue promises.
…at least one forum where BOTH sides were presented and given equal time. BTW, your last paragraph is EXACTLY the problem I have with many of the anti-casino crowd. They take on this attitude that reasonable people cannot disagree on this issue and come across as arrogant. Despite how I might sound on this blog, I’m not all that gung-ho for casinos and have proposed several regulations and restrictions to ameliorate their worst effects. It’s more the aforementioned attitude that I push back against. This is NOT a hard science similar to global warming. People are not lab rats and anything involving human institutions and behavior has variables too numerous to control for. I have no ties to the industry and nothing but the conclusions I have reached on my own following review of both sides to go on.
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p>I am pro-casino. While you may think there are very few of us, the truth is there are many. Not sure why you feel those of us who support one or two resort casinos in Massachusetts don’t deserve equal time in the debate. The only way you will ever accept a pro-casino citizen is when they finally buckle under your demands and cave in to your sentiment. For some people, ridicule works. Love how you compare pro-casino people to anti-global warming people. This is where the anti casino arguments always end up, in ridicule. In reality, this is called bullying. I’m sure you’ve gathered many a supporter from people who buckle to bullying.
Your side has so much more than “equal time.” It’s spent literally MILLIONS OF DOLLARS in the past few years lobbying and PRing in Massachusetts, trying to push these things through by any cost. And we’re the bullies? Don’t be ridiculous.
“My side” is the people of the state who want growth and jobs. A group of people who want limits on what the “corporate side” can do, and responsibility in legislation in the effort to allow the industry into the state. To be sure, those of us who want to allow a casino in with the condition of responsible casino leglislation are not a side at all. We are the compromise worth having a voice in the debate.
and if ever someone were to come up with it, there’s never been a deal with the state that the casinos haven’t later gone back and changed. The deal always changes.
The job growth is minimized or reversed with the number of local businesses (such as restaurants) which close. It’s a false number.
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p>Ask Atlantic City some time how many jobs were lost in the area of the casinos.
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p>This sort of thing is exactly what I mean about equal time for unequal arguments. The facts, when laid out, just weigh on one side (against casinos) heavily.
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p>Trust me, I worked very hard to decide how I felt about this. When I started out, I was agnostic, particularly in light of the fact I’m a pretty strong Patrick supporter and gave his arguments for casinos a lot of thought. But after studying the issue hard for months, I realized what a house of cards, so to speak, all the “facts” on the proponents’ side really was.
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p>It’s smoke and mirrors, it really is.
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p>And most people who poll positive on casinos are not pro-casino, by the way. They too are agnostic and haven’t really thought much about it – they just don’t see it as affecting their lives. When you ask them, however, if they want one in their town, they say something very different.
so many times, it has become really tiresome. I’m not even sure why I’m commenting on this post.
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p>Enjoy your fight.
It’s possible to learn something at an event with a viewpoint.
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p>I watch Rachel Maddow 2-3 times a week and almost always learn at least one thing on her show — the only news show that I feel that way. She has a viewpoint. You know her viewpoint. You can hear what she has to say with that viewpoint in mind.
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p>The same goes with a forum of this nature. There’s an obvious viewpoint. The pro-casino side has had so much more than equal opportunity in this debate. We’re having one major event where we talk about things from our viewpoint. People are free to come and hear. I believe there will also be some opportunity for Q&As, too, though I will say that I am NOT organizing this, so I don’t have all the details in that regard.
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p>Christopher, the pro-casino lobby has spent about a million dollars each of the past two years. They’re getting their word out. If there’s anything you don’t have to worry about, it’s that.
If I’m going to make a conscious decision for myself though, I prefer to hear both sides at the same forum so there can be give-and-take and direct responses to concerns raised. Maybe that’s just me, but I also don’t want to compare this to the casino lobby. They obviously have their viewpoint too, but those of us who question the anti-casino orthodoxy are thought to be dupes of the lobby. In other words, the attitude seems to be that only those working for the industry or under its influence could possibly favor them. I must be looking in the wrong places (maybe because I don’t read the Globe), but I for one feel like I’ve heard nothing but the anti side where I engage and when I or anybody else suggests that casinos aren’t evil we get attacked from all sides for bucking the orthodoxy. I don’t know if you are on the MaDemsForum yahoogroup, but it gets pretty suffocating there too. Consider this a reply to your reply to “liveandletlive” above as well.
for forums where both pro and anti sides are represented. I think that such forums are very valuable, but they’re not the be-all-end-all in the spectrum of learning about an issue. I think going to hear one side of a debate, often among many, can be a very valuable learning experience, even if that’s a side you don’t agree with. So long as you know the side’s viewpoint, it will probably be a good experience.
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p>Not at all. There are certainly social darwinists out there who don’t care about how predatory an industry is when people become addicted. It’s, to them, always the victim’s fault. There are plenty of these kinds of people in the world, but thankfully in Massachusetts they’re in the extreme minority.
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p>The state’s newspaper system has essentially been printing the industry’s press carte blanche. That’s the way it’s been both at the Globe and in most local papers for years. Only lately has there been any MSM coverage remotely close to fair — and it’s still in the minority of all coverage.
I hope you weren’t looking at me when you say this. I have tried to propose things that would ameliorate the worst effects.
So, the theme here is to go to Faneuil Hall and listen to two multi-millionaire ex-pols lecture us on why casinos are bad for Massachusetts?
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p>Just so I’m sure I understand, this former governor and former attorney general, who have never, ever, in their elected positions, filed or supported any legislation to disband the state lottery, will tell us why casinos are bad?
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p>Having supported MSD in four gubernatorial campaigns, I expect him to be anti-casino. After all, this is a man who, on his way to the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Las Angeles, stopped in Las Vegas with his good friend Paul Brountas and did not put a single quarter in a slot machine or approach a table game. So, I’ll give the former governor a pass on his inconsistency with regard to the lottery.
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p>I can’t help but like the governor because the positives so outweigh his negatives, even though I think his “politically correct” demeanor in lecturing others, and the absolute adherence to ideology of BMG is indicative of why our MA Democratic party may be looking at state election results similar to 1990
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p>But Luther Scott Harshbarger is not MSD. Like MSD, he is a politically-correct former pol, but one who is a hypocrite. And anyone who knows about Luther’s “personal indiscretions” at the state Ethics Commission and as Middlesex County DA knows the former attorney general is an absolute fraud when it comes to “walking the walk.”
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p>Of course, you can continue to pretend that Harshbarger and his ilk represent the true feelings of Massachusetts citizens. But for those of us who are progressive Democrats who understand life is never just “black and white,” this incessant carping, insults and diatribes by Ryepower and others at the honesty and decency of people who support casinos is manna from heaven for the Republican Party.
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p>P.S. So, if I attend the Faneuil Hall forum and speak in favor of casinos, will Ryepower and his “gang that can’t shoot straight” attack my genealogy, ancestry, ethics, intelligence, honesty, deceny and Democratic credentials?
“the absolute adherence to ideology of BMG is indicative of why our MA Democratic party may be looking at state election results similar to 1990”
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p>I beg to differ. The reason we’re looking at tough times for the state party is because they are in charge during a downturn. I’m pretty convinced a lot of the “negatives” for the Gov for reelection are because of the sour economy – if things were prosperous, you would see those negatives drop like a stone.
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p>Not to mention, if casino lectures by progressives were soooo bad, Patrick ought to have benefited from supporting them so vociferously right?
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p>All I see in the legislature is more good progressives getting elected – the more progressive the more support (gay marriage proponents have gained in number in the last 5 years).
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p>So I just don’t see your premise being remotely useful, here, for understanding the issue.
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p>The fact is, that the public opinion shifts towards casinos the more money that is spent promoting them and the more leaders spend time telling us it’s a panacea for our budget woes, and public opinion slips precipitously the instant you ask them if they want one in their town. Wonder why that is?
Apparently you weren’t around in ’90, or else you’d know that the party’s ideological rigidity, compounded by a declining economy, brought about a Republican governor and several new Republican state senators and house members.
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p>For the state Dem party to have recently approved that ridiculous anti-casino plank only further tends to divide working-class Dems and the politically and ideologically-correct Dems.
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p>We have a Dem governor whose only path to re-election is to ensure a three-way race for the Corner Office. Passing ideology-pruning campaign planks that encourage moderate Democrats to migrate toward a conservative Democrat (Tim Cahill) or socially-liberal and fiscally-conservative Republican is not just asinine, but bleeds the governor of support from moderate Dems. He doesn’t have the points to waste.
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p>But that’s the theme that’s continually espoused in too many BMG posts. Sort of a reverse of what the national Repubs are doing within their party — questioning and attacking the credentials of anyone who doesn’t agree with the alleged party base’s ideological purity and policies.
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p>Let the Repubs have a wing nut base within their party, one that will, in 2012, wrench apart the national Repubs. But let’s not do the same thing within our state Dem party. We have far too much at stake in this state to waste our time policing the morals of our fellow citizens. If the majority of Bay State residents want to gamble at one, two or three Bay State casinos — and it appears from polls that anywhere from 57-61% want to — what’s it to you or me?
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p>Live your lives and let other people live theirs.
Progressive Democrats are not to Democrats as right wing conservatives are to Republicans.
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p>False equivalency.
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p>For one thing, on all of the issues that matter, the public agrees with progressives. 1985 was a long time ago, kid.
proudlib boasts 4 posts on her/his page since 2008. Two are attacks on Rep. Dan Bosley the others are attacks on LoWV and everyone else opposed to corporate casino welfare and long-term economic drain.
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p>Kool-Aid Krap –
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p>All of these figures were bogus and promoted by the leaders of the “working-class” Dems that you talk about. Perhaps it is the disinformation promoted by Senate President ka-ching Murray, Timmy “slotparlor” Cahill and Bobby “30K-jobs” Haynes that you want to fact check.
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p>The disinformation is paramount in this bogus quote:
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p>Mass residents lost approximately $700 mill to corporate casinos in 2008 and that amount has been shrinking every month. Casino corporate welfare giants get to deduct their expenses to the gross gambling revenue. That figure is taxed…at whatever range 25% or less are the current models. So you end up with a net that just about equals the loss to the Lottery which feeds the services that the working class depend upon. That’s before the costs to the host region, infrastructure, public safety, social services, environment, losses of small businesses, etc.
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p>Corporate casinos and slots parlors are net negative economic development.
It’s not fuzzy, it’s deceptive math.
I never said “progressive” Democrats, of which I am one. I alluded to “politically-correct” Dems who are mirror images of their conservative Republican base wing nuts.
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p>And you’re also wrong in assuming that the majority of the public agree with the anti-casino pablum that you spew.
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p>You can be a progressive Democrat and support casinos. Just as you can be a progressive Democrat who is pro-choice and anti-death penalty, but advocate for a lengthy prison sentence for anyone possessing a gun or knife while committing a crime.
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p>But if 57-61% of Massachusetts residents support casinos, that doesn’t mean that they are right or wrong. Just as 37% of MA residents oppose casinos. They, too, have a view and preference that is simply different from the majority. That does not make them ignorant or that does not mean that they are wing nuts.
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p>No, the wing nut politically-correct Dems are the ones who refuse to accept any empirical evidence contrary to their beliefs and ascribe a moral superiority to their beliefs. They then force a state party’s convention delegates to adopt a ridiculous policy against a legitimate economic development initiative because of THEIR moral beliefs.
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p>The irony, of course, is that these MA anti-casino individuals and groups, as they did at the Democratc state convention, constantly cite Earl Grinols, a Baylor University professor — an evangelical, a founder of the Association of Christian Economists, a believer in biblical interpretation as a necessary component of any economic development initiative, and who was one of 150 conservative, evangelical economists who endorsed George W. Bush for president in 2000 and 2004, citing Bush’s fiscal and economic policies — as their academic expert against casinos.
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I’m calling the BS alert on that. You’ve posted only on casino issues. You have a history of jumping on to pretty much jump down the throat of people on this site who want to prevent slots in this state. That’s it.
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p>If you are a progressive, as you claim to be, you’ve certainly never shown it in your history on this website. If you want to be taken seriously, you’ll have to show that you actually care about a single damn thing beyond casinos. I’m more akin to believe you’re a corporate lobbyist hack posing as a “proudlib” than actually a proudlib. Maybe that’s unfair, but you’ve never given any evidence to the contrary.
You’re right. I’ve only posted on casinos. I wouldn’t waste my time posting n some of these other issues because you’re all so politically-correct that you suck the heart and soul out of traditional Democratic values with your moral pablum. Nor do I have to justify my background to post on this casino issue. I’m not a dilettante theorist like you.
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p>And unlike you, Ryepower, I don’t waste my time attending all these ridiculous events like next Thursday’s, or posting every interminable thought and burp.
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p>But it takes all kinds to make a political party, and you’ll always be one of those gadfly irritants who inflict themselves on common discourse because, somehow, some way, you actually believe your inane prattle has substance and validity.
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p>You really should find a hobby where your arguments aren’t always based on attacking the integrity, honest and decency of those with who you disagree.
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p>I disagree with you on more than substance. I disagree with you on the very manner in which you attack and demonize those who have differing opinions. You truly are more like those evangelical conservatives who make up the nut wing base of the Republican Party. You’d fit in quite well with those who condemn to Hell us infidels who dare to asvribe to the basic tenet of “live and let live.”
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p>You must truly be miserable that we live in a democracy and not a theocracy!
We don’t need these kinds of comments.
Whether you’re right or wrong about your pet issue, extended personal attacks like that one are not going to persuade me that I should listen to you.