TED talk: It's the middle class consumers, not the rich who create jobs

[Autumnlicious]

This TED talk is controversial for being too partisan.

Bullshit. If partisan was a qualifier, then many of TED's other videos, up to and including Climate Change, is partisan.

Call it as it is -- he made the audience and the TED upper echelons uncomfortable. They decided to hide it and tell the speaker about it (their first mistake as an organization).

The speaker did not like that.

Notice how TED does not cite sections and specify WHERE and WHAT is partisan and "unacceptable."

We discussed internally and ultimately told the speaker we did not plan to post. He did not react well. He had hired a PR firm to promote the talk to MoveOn and others, and the PR firm warned us that unless we posted he would go to the press and accuse us of censoring him. We again declined and this time I wrote him and tried gently to explain in detail why I thought his talk was flawed.

Really? Your first action is to "hire a PR firm"? What are you? British Petroleum?

"Gently"? This is complete and utter shite designed to frame the speaker in the worst possible light. A speaker, might I add, whom is trying to work with them.

So he forwarded portions of the private emails to a reporter and the National Journal duly bit on the story. And it was picked up by various other outlets.
[Note -- now the author of this TED response is making the speaker look like he's indulging in a conspiracy to frenzy the press]
And a non-story about a talk not being chosen, because we believed we had better ones, somehow got turned into a scandal about censorship. Which is like saying that if I call the New York Times and they turn down my request to publish an op-ed by me, they're censoring me.
[Note -- now we've gone into belittling the issue and assassinating the speaker's 'cause' to feel upset]

....

One takeaway for us is that we're considering at some point posting the full archive from future conferences (somewhere away from the home page). Perhaps this would draw the sting from the accusations of censorship. Here, for starters, is the talk concerned. You can judge for yourself...
[Note -- this is a "shut up and take it". Judge for yourself my ass. The talk was on youtube well before TED decided to waffle about. The act of "judging" was already possible and in action. This is a non-statement]

This is my favorite part:

No doubt it will now, ironically, get stupendous viewing numbers and spark a magnificent debate, and then the conspiracy theorists will say the whole thing was a set-up!

Isn't that what TED is all about? Sparking a debate? My gods, it is like you're TRYING to avoid talking about this.

Yeah, I'd expect such from an organization whose first act is to hire PR when something doesn't go your way.