I cannot imagine how much time it would take to explain to you how apples are not oranges. I suspect a great deal of time, and I would never get it back.
I will just say that apples are apples, and oranges are oranges.
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I hate to reply to my own post, but this is interesting⌠For the top contributors to the political process (OpenSecrets.org link), you do not see a single source that is most Republican until you get to #8 on the list. The next ones are #9, and then #13. The biggest sources are Democratic.
It is all well and good to decry big money in elections, but you need to do it fairly. To say that big money to Republicans is evil, but big money to Democrats is just fine is extremely hypocritical.
Itâs funny, I was sort of expecting a call for legislation to revoke corporate person-hood that would actually do something to stem the tide of $ into politics.
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The older I get, whenever I observe politics, the word that keeps coming to mind with increasing regularity is âkayfabe.â I suspect itâs cynicism on my part; itâs easier to be cynical than to give a shit (much less do something).
The Kochs launder their contributions through dozens of organizations.
They have spent something on the order of $400,000,000 just to roll back the Affordable Care Act.
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Soros fill the role of conspiracy theorists for the International Jew Puppetmaster. i donât see Soros having a legal staff preparing state legislation on abortion and pollution deregulation and school privatization and homosexuals and then having hand picked legislators suspending the rules so the bills can be whisked through in special midnight sessions.
Where the Kochs have installed their puppets, the state constitutions get tossed right out the window because the Koch organizations recognized that there is no âstate constitution policeâ who would enforce those rules and no penalties for ignoring them.
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By unlimited campaign contributions.
(Also, by âtalking to their friendsâ, you mean: having flocks of lawyers in numerous, astroturfed thinktanks formulate custom-made legislation which is then proffered by their flocks of lobbyists to obedient congressional followers and, often, inserted as-is into proposed legislation.)
No. Simply, limited campaign contributions.
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You know there was this other dude with a German name (not Koch) who wanted to smash the trade unions because they supported the Social Democrats? What was his name? Arnold? Aaron? Alonzo? Addison? Ainsley? Adam?
In a few decades the weapon for defending the social rights of man had, (trade unions) become an instrument for the destruction of the national economyâŚBy the turn of the century, the trade-union movement had ceased to serve its former function. From year to year it had entered more and more into the sphere of Social Democratic politics and finally had no use except as a battering-ram in the class struggleâŚBy screwing the demands higher and higherâŚLike a menacing storm-cloud, the â free trade union â hung, even then, over the political horizon and the existence of the individual. It was one of the most frightful instruments of terror against the security and independence of the national economy, the solidity of the state, and personal freedom. (Mein Kampf)
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Gee, I guess in the time before Citizens United v. FEC, with its limitations on campaign contributions, we were, as you suggest, all living under the reign of Hitler. And you know, the air did smell that much fresher shortly after the ruling came down.
And interesting irony that you seem to dislike fascism for its destroying unions, but destroying unions is what Koch does for breakfast.
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What I want is representative democracy, And as plain and simple as possible.
All monetary contributions to political campaigns should be limited, and also be openly and proudly admitted to.
There is a reason John Hancock is known by everyone, every dollar sent should be as proudly proclaimed. Why not?
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I donât have any problem with that, as long as we can somehow compensate for the built in advantages of incumbency.
The question is whether publications/broadcasts by unaffiliated outsiders should be considered âcontributions to political campaignsâ. Thatâs what the Citizens United decision was about.
If I as an independent citizen spend $200,000 to create a documentary film portraying Chris Christie as a belligerent thug, should Christieâs opponent be required to count that against the limits to his/her contributions?
If your funding is limited to people who openly like you, I would assume that the greater number of 100 dollar donations would do a lot of that compensation, and then there is the voting booth as well.
But how to compensate for the built in advantages of media ownership in any case?
If I as an independent citizen spend $200,000 to create a documentary film portraying Chris Christie as a belligerent thug,
I, as an independent citizen, would choose to attend a screening of that movie. If it turned out that monies sourced from a Christie opponent came to you through channels, and that fact was ever significantly obscured or misrepresented to me, then only my opinion of you would change.
If money is spent with the intent of changing political opinion, I believe whomever spent that money should gladly proclaim that fact and spend it directly. Should it be accounted for as a contribution relative to contribution limits? no, but it should be accounted for openly, so that we have an idea that a couple people are spending hundreds of millions to defeat the will of hundreds of millions.
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And the politicians that the Koch brothers helped get elected have a seat at the table as well. Are you prepared to argue that the voters didnât do that, that somehow the Koch brothers are brainwashing people or forcing them to vote a certain way? If not, then how are they somehow more culpable or evil than Reidâs supporters? Do you think that Reid is immune to influence from his donors?
Not saying anything you claim hasnât happenedâand clearly you know of specific casesâso I politely request some specifics strictly for my own edification regarding Koch influence at the state level on any of the listed areas you mentoned. Or reasonable search terms (maybe starting with the name of a state?) on which to begin my journey. My gratitude, in advance, of any help you may offer.
Well that sounds great, but how are you going to do it?
Should you be able to stop me and my friends from making and distributing a movie about a political candidate? What about if I spend money to publish a book, or gather together with others to publish a newspaper? If you do, we have a word that describes that action: censorship.
Of course, thatâs what Citizens United was about, and the Supremes recognized that - they even asked about a book, and the government lawyer said yes, the government could censor a political book. And, last time I checked, the First Amendment doesnât have a clause that says âunless the person happens to be rich, in which case itâs perfectly fine to censor themâ.
And the reason for anonymity should be obvious, especially after recent events in Venezuela and Ukraine and the Manning and Snowden cases. It helps prevent retaliation from the powerful when the speech is not something they approve of.
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Well actually in the states with GOP supermajorities, the GOP lost those elections by several million votes, but swept those statehouses and congressional seats due to gerrymandering. In NC for instance the GOP lost by 100,000 votes and won a supermajority.
Senators are elected statewide because of the 17th Amendment (?), so it drives conservatives nuts that they canât gerrymander those seats.
And in fact it is pretty easy and cheap to saturate rural congressional districts with crazy news stories and attack ads to sway elections. In some races, this has amounted to something like $100 per vote cast.
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The government primarily has the power to adopt universally binding rules and the control over the army and the police to enforce them. That is the entire core function of a state and its government, the reason for their existence and hence not something that can be done away with. All else follows.
Once you allow a group of individuals to attain a disproportionate influence over the system, in the case of the US through economic means, they first bend the system to consolidate their power over it, and subsequently subvert it completely to entrench their position. So in the United States, which used to be fairly close to a functioning democracy once, you are now essentially reduced to picking a dictator every four years.
The president, inter alia unquestionably authorized to indefinitely detain, torture or kill on a whim any person he or she deems a threat, is âelectedâ from a small group of individuals thoroughly vetted by billionaire donors controlling the parties* and billionaire media moguls controlling the national discourse. The same, on a smaller scale, goes for the senate and the house. The closest the system came to a (minor) disruption in recent memory was the candidacy of Ron Paul and that got nowhere. Had there been any serious risk of his success, he would become the target of a massive character-assassination campaign and all the money would unite behind his most promising challenger. (And I am not saying this out of any personal sympathy towards Ron Paul or his politics. I simply believe he got by far the farthest out all anti-systemic candidates. I also highly doubt he would have been actually capable of derailing the machine, if ever elected.)
So you get to choose between the liberal and conservative flavor of rulers whose main purpose is to, in the following order of priority: 1. replicate the system, 2. further consolidate the plutocracy 3. protect the plutocratâs fortunes from taxes and/or by bailouts, where applicable, 4. maintain and enhance favorable conditions for their further enrichment, domestically and abroad. The âchoiceâ in any event has absolutely no bearing on the general direction of the foreign policy or the powers of the security and enforcement apparatus.
The parties themselves are just basically playing a good cop/bad cop routine, where the GOP comes with an outrageous robbery scheme, Democrats counter with a watered-down version of the same and then a âcompromiseâ is reached.
But it would indeed be antithetical to the spirit of freedom to censor the Koch brothers.
*directly through campaign donations and indirectly by maintaining the think-tank infrastructure politicians rely on for the actual policy and bill drafting.
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Yeah, and Republicans are the only ones that engage in gerrymandering (hahahahahaha). Iâm from North Carolina, where the Democrats ruled for 90 years due to gerrymandering. North Carolina has two of the top ten most gerrymandered House districts in the country, both heavily Democratic. Plus, states like North Carolina have a history of voting one way on the federal level, and the opposite at the state level. So that argument simply isnât going to fly.
And, if the Kochs are so influential, why would they need to rely on gerrymandering in the first place? Perhaps their money isnât quite as effective as Reid would have you believe.
I would agree with most of your post, except the first bit about not being able to do away with government. As weâve observed over the last couple of weeks and many times in human history, people can and do âdo awayâ with governments on a regular basis. And your argument is exactly the reason why some people are, today, looking hard into doing away with government and not replacing it with another government.
I am, in principle, with you on that, but the Libertarian (well, itâs up-to-the-minute interpretation of said word) version of that scares the shit out of meâŚ
