BAC - The way I am understanding your post is that you are taking Turner and labeling him a self-declared liberal. I think that's accurate. But in doing so I think you're moving the discussion to liberals in general rather than Turner specifically. It's Turner specifically I have the problem with, not liberals, or moderates, or conservatives, as a whole.
I don't care if a significant donor is liberal, moderate or conservative, generally speaking. I'm not saying I have to agree with them across the board in order for them to be acceptable as a significant donor. What I do care about is that Turner is extreme, polarizing, and as a result, very controversial. And he has been for many years. As a result, I think MSU would be not only taking Turner's money, for say the completion of construction of the football stadium, but they would be taking all of his years of accumulated baggage as well. It's a package deal and not one that would put MSU in a favorable light.
His public comments on a variety of subjects has touched on a number of social, political and religious issues over the years. Like them or not, he's entitled to them as are all the rest of us. But in doing so, he is polarizing and controversial and I do not think it would at all be in the best interests of MSU to take his money in return for naming a stadium or a building after him. The negative fallout from that association would far outweigh the financial benefits as far as I'm concerned and because of his comments and actions he's not someone I'd like to see affiliated with MSU.
As for your questions about what MSU or anyone affiliated with MSU would complain about or fear in regard to Turner, I have compiled a list of quotes made by Turner over the years, at the "request" of couloir41. Take them individually or take them as a body of work, but there's a lot there that is polarizing, and I don't think MSU needs to wade into the middle of those things by association just for a check from Turner because once they're in, they're in permanently. After reviewing the list below, will you still be proud to sit in a Turner wing at Bobcat Stadium?
mr. couloir41 -
punt return...bac alludes to a good point...why don't you...since you are so good with lists...list the things turner has done that are so objectionable to you...particularly if they had a direct effect on you...blanket statements like the ones you made in your post are statements only someone who might not know what they are talking about would make...step up mr. punt return...maybe you can enlighten me...
I guess you didn't like the list of your quotes, huh? They look pretty elitist when listed one right after the other, don't they?
At your request, below is a list of some of Turner's actions and quotes over the years. If you want more, they're out there and readily accessible, because he has produced so many of them over the years.
So, here's my attempt to enlighten you, as requested, at least as much as possible from "someone who might not know what they are talking about".
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2/12/02 -- "The reason that the World Trade Center got hit is because there are a lot of people living in abject poverty out there who don’t have any hope for a better life....I think they [the 19 hijackers] were brave at the very least." AOL Time Warner Vice Chairman and CNN founder Ted Turner in February 11 remarks at Brown University, as reported by Gerald Carbone in the February 12 Providence Journal.
2/12/02 -- The Providence Journal reporting on a talk by Ted Turner called "Our Common Future," at Brown University: When asked if he’d provide public access to the vast land he owns in Montana, Turner, who advocates liberal environmental policies which dictate what landowners can do with their own land -- such as strict land use rules imposed if a species on it is declared "endangered" -- replied: "Can I live in your home with you? We believe in private property in this country."
11/30/01 -- CNSNews.com Ted Turner, founder of Cable News Network, said it was Cuban "commie dictator" Fidel Castro who inspired him to broadcast CNN into other countries around the world... Castro invited Turner to visit Cuba in 1982 after a CNN news team visited the communist nation... "We spent all night drinking and smoking cigars," Turner told a convention of cable television operators meeting in Los Angeles. ...After his 1982 meeting with Castro, Turner commented: "Fidel ain't a communist. He's a dictator just like me." Turner was criticized earlier this year for calling Fidel Castro "one hell of a guy." "Have you ever met him?" Turner asked a class at Harvard Law School. "You'd like him. He has been the leader of Cuba for 40 years. He's the most senior leader in the world, and most of the people that are still in Cuba like him."
3/7/01 -- Fox News Channel reported by Brit Hume "CNN founder Ted Turner, in town last week for a retirement party for anchor Bernard Shaw, left the staff stunned after meeting with them at the network’s Washington bureau. It was Ash Wednesday and a number of those present still had a smudge on their forehead. ‘What are you?’ asked Turner, ‘a bunch of Jesus freaks? You ought to be working for Fox.’ Turner, it may be remembered, stirred controversy a decade ago when he said Christianity is, quote, ‘for losers.’ He apologized for that, but as recently as last August criticized Christianity for being, quote, ‘very intolerant.’"
9/99 -- "I'd rather use it for the benefit of mankind rather than spend it selfishly. I'm a socialist at heart." -- CNN founder Ted Turner on what he does with his money, as quoted an a September 29 Reuters story on Turner’s speech to a Time-Warner media forum in Shanghai.
2/99 -- Washington Times, exerpts from February 16, 1999 speech in Washington, DC to the 27th annual meeting of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association. Mr. Turner said the Ten Commandments are "a little out of date," and suggested, "If you're only going to have 10 rules, I don't know if [prohibiting] adultery should be one of them." Asked what he would say to Pope John Paul II, who opposes abortion and artificial contraception, Mr. Turner responded with an ethnic joke -- "Ever seen a Polish mine detector?" -- and then suggested the Pope should "get with it. Welcome to the 20th century."
2/90 -- "Marx and Lenin are still revered heroes. Never mind that communism as they conceived it didn't work. Most Soviets don't want to dump it, just improve on it." -- USA Today founder Al Neuharth in Feb. 9 column.
7/89 -- "We'll give the other bozos a chance to talk back. They look like idiots anyway." -- Ted Turner on providing pro-lifers with an opportunity to respond to his July 20 TBS documentary, Abortion for Survival. Quoted by the Associated Press, July 14.
5/89 -- in an April interview with The Washington Post's Tom Shales, corporate network chief Ted Turner admitted he influences the program content of his Cable News Network, Turner Network Television and "Superstation" WTBS. What kind of influence does he exert? On the Soviet Union, Turner told Shales, "I absolutely trust them with my life. They're not even an enemy anymore."
6/88 -- While Turner has defended his series "Portrait of the Soviet Union" as accurate, Soviet higher-ups felt that it would be too much for even the Soviet people to stomach. According to a June 1 Financial Times article, when the Soviets aired "Portrait" it was introduced with the disclaimer "that the film gave an excessively glamorous portrait of the country and failed to reflect the ferocious self-criticism currently underway."
5/88 -- MediaWatch Turner founded Better World Society in 1985 and serves as Chairman. The Board of Directors boasts several communist officials, including Georgi Arbatov, Director of the Soviet Foreign Ministry's U.S.-Canada Institute. A recent addition is Communist China's Zhou Boping, Vice Chairman of the State Family Planning Association.
3/88--From Ted Turner's "Portrait of the Soviet Union" 3 part series aired on WTBS--"The Soviet Union, draped in history, born in a bloody revolution, bound together by a dream that is still being dreamt. The dream of a socialist nation marching toward the world's first communist state." In a Washington Post TV Week article on the show, he said: "It's exactly what I hoped it would be. We're friends with them. I've been hunting and fishing with their leaders and had dinner with them in Moscow. They are very nice people. You know, if I go looking for a friend, that's what I find. You smile and they smile back. You find what you go looking for."
And then there's the whole Hanoi Jane thing...