Harry Reid on the Koch Brothers' agenda

boing
81

Please. They are not stopping anyone else from speaking in any way, which is the definition of censorship - and, incidentally, what Citizens United was about: real censorship by government threat, not more speech. Whether they are scumbags is irrelevant - their speech is just as protected as everyone elses. There is also a plethora of daily examples showing that they are not, in fact, drowning out anyone - the very video we’re discussing is part of that, and was clearly not “drowned out”. In this day and age, you cannot plausibly claim that someone is “drowning out” anyone else - there are millions of websites will all sorts of points of view expressed in every way imaginable, not to mention all the other methods of communication. You cannot claim they are drowning people out simply because lots of people listen to them and don’t listen to you.

[quote=“Cowicide, post:79, topic:24888, full:true”]
First of all, I addressed your question with my post and you’re ignoring it. Don’t think for a second that your going to slither out of that with me in hopes I’ll forget that. You asked about indoctrination and I addressed it. Acknowledge it, please.[/quote]

So you believe that propaganda, and what you view as indoctrination, should be censored? How exactly are you going to define that? What are the attributes of said speech that makes it “control the sheeple”, since you seem to believe that people are too stupid to determine the truth for themselves?

82

Ah yes, when in doubt deny all the terms. I can’t talk about whether one thing or another is best for the country, because the moment I say I think we should emulate the model of countries with happy, healthy, educated people instead of working toward a corrupt corporate oligarchy, I’m trying to privilege my opinion which means I am asking for fascism.

Or maybe you could cut out the sophism, and recognize that I probably accept that we should all work together for the public interest in a democratic fashion, and I’m simply suggesting what seems to be the best way for us to do that. Namely we should encourage the freedom of people to express themselves and dissent, and discourage the freedom to more or less buy legislation, which is what’s worked the best every other place and time.

They’re not the same, and only recently has anyone though to pretend they are the same. And now you are not just refusing to consider they might not be the same, but pretending that anyone who tries to keep them straight is asking to be set up as censor. How amazingly risible.

At any rate my point on this remains: whether you want to redefine this as “censorship” or not wouldn’t change my opinion on it. Because whatever the syllables, what counts is that there are all sorts of reasons why censoring people is typically bad, ways it harms both individuals and the public, and none apply to limiting the volume of money you can use to sway government.

4 Likes
83

Cheap nihilism. Destroy anything that does not help you, because internet. Destroy FCC because internet. Destroy libraries because internet. etc etc

2 Likes
84

It’s although worth noting that the Koch’s fortune comes from Daddy Fred Koch who helped found The John Birch Society, which helped drive the Red Scare and the blacklisting of thousands of writers, academics, and entertainers.

I just thought I’d put that out there as long as we’re wailing about the poor poor Kochs. They’ve spent decades censoring Americans.

11 Likes
86

In this day and age, you cannot plausibly claim that someone is “drowning out” anyone else - there are millions of websites will all sorts of points of view expressed in every way imaginable,

That only speaks to your ignorance on the topic. They don’t simply post a couple of websites and leave it at that. They use thier wealth to guarantee that thier libertarian “think tank” drivel gets top search results for topics that the general public attempts to research. You need to educate yourself on SEO, etc. - They inundate search results which is the true gateway to the Internet for most people.

You also need to educate yourself on the widespread impact of right wing radio that corporatists will even run at a loss because of the net gains of indoctrinating a listening public into supporting corporate agendas and prodding them to unwittingly vote against their very own interests.

And, this just scratches the surface, if you’d bother to look… that is, instead of wallowing in willful ignorance.

I’m very familiar with the mechanics of propaganda

You’re obviously not if you don’t even understand the impacts of media saturation and SEO.

when you try to use the government to stop people from speaking, that’s a problem.

No one is proposing to have the government stop people from speaking. Are false arguments all you got or what?

Please. They are not stopping anyone else from speaking in any way, which is the definition of censorship

That’s delusional, apologist drivel. Drowning out the speech of others by using vast wealth to flood the airwaves, the Internet and the coffers of corrupt politicians (and thier support systems) is not only just censorship of the public sphere, it’s also an outright subversion of our democratic process.

If you don’t get that by now, then we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on the matter.

So you believe that propaganda, and what you view as indoctrination, should be censored?

Corruption and lies that harm Americans and the world should be exposed. That’s not censorship, that’s fighting destructive, corporatist agendas and lies with transparency.

attributes of said speech that makes it “control the sheeple”, since you seem to believe that people are too stupid to determine the truth for themselves?

How about you speak for yourself instead of for me? I don’t think that people that are tricked by the Koch brothers via their propaganda are “sheeple”, nor do I think they are stupid. They are misinformed and purposefully misinformed by scumbags that put thier profits above humanity.

Like I said, these scumbags use thier vast wealth to drown out the speech of others. If you are so legitimately concerned with censorship, then why aren’t you focused on one of the most prolific examples of it? Take off your apologist blinders, please.

4 Likes
87

7 Likes
88

“Remember back when National Lampoon had its heyday and I was briefly funny rather than just a libertarian, below low budget brand, Mencken wannabe”
-PJ O’Rourke

1 Like
89

Seriously. Amazing trolling.

90

The closest the system came to a (minor) disruption in recent memory was the candidacy of Ron Paul and that got nowhere.

Ron Paul vanished from public life when Anonymous hacked his email servers and showed that he had been joined at the hip with several white supremacist organizations, which had been pretty obvious for nearly 20 years.

3 Likes
91

that would be The Public, Jim.

6 Likes
92

That’s nothing. Kathleen Sebelius spent $600M destroying Obamacare.

93

[quote=“Cowicide, post:86, topic:24888, full:true”]
You also need to educate yourself on the widespread impact of right wing radio that corporatists will even run at a loss because of the net gains of indoctrinating a listening public into supporting corporate agendas and prodding them to unwittingly vote against their very own interests.[/quote]

So … should this speech be banned? You’re not answering the question.

Actually, that is exactly what happened in Citizens United - an advocacy group was barred from distributing a video critical of Hillary Clinton due to campaign finance laws. And when the Supremes asked the government’s lawyer whether a book could be banned in similar circumstances, he said yes. And such censorship is exactly what you are calling for.

How? Who are they stopping from speaking? Are they shutting down NPR, MSNBC, or the New York Times? How is the “democratic process” being subverted by speech? You’re long on accusations, and short on specifics. Are people so stupid that they uncritically listen to propaganda and follow its directions blindly? If so, how did you escape from their control? How could anyone? Or are you arguing that only a certain class of people are too stupid to see through their lies and join you in enlightenment?

Absolutely. So … how are you going to do that? Not by reversing Citizens United, which was outright government censorship. In fact, I would argue that the best way to do that is more speech, not less. People can judge anonymous speech for themselves, as well as public speech.

94

At least you are living your dream.

4 Likes
95

And who is the public, and what do they believe their interest is? The public is made up of many millions of individuals, all of whom have different opinions about what the public interest is. Do we decide by voting, where the 51% is permitted to bully the 49% into accepting their version of the “public interest”? If, say, the majority decides that beating and shooting a minority (say, Euromaidan supporters in Crimea) is in the “public interest”, is that ok because a majority is behind it?

96

Not at all, clearly those with the most money should get their way.

“prêcher le faux pour savoir le vrai”

6 Likes
97

If you aren’t just feigning ignorance, but honestly saying you don’t know how the happiest, healthiest, best educated countries all use democracy to promote the interest of their citizens - to the point where you can’t understand how voting can help that better than unregulated spending to sway government - it would mean you need to learn a ton more about what has been tried and accomplished in the world.

6 Likes
98

To paraphase Anatole France:

The law, in its majestic equality, allows the poor as well as the rich to fund private lobbyist groups, dine with Senators, exert personal control over media empires, and spend untold billions of dollars in anonymous political campaigns.

12 Likes
99

So … should this speech be banned? You’re not answering the question

I’ve repeatedly answered that question while you continue to dodge many of my own. I think corporatist propaganda should be exposed for what it is with transparency. When large entities pay to promote thier destructive agendas with lies and half-truths, they need to be exposed.

I think sensible regulation of influence should also be on the table. For example, I think the public has a right to know which large entities are behind influential media campaigns, etc.

More on this later in my post below…

Actually, that is exactly what happened in Citizens United

Nothing “exactly happened”. The Citizens United ruling is a complex issue and common sense goes out of the window once you attempt to over-simplify the issues surrounding it to support your specific point of view.

When you have a divided ACLU conflicted, but eventually agreeing with the ruling (in certain respects) while having many others (including dissenting opinion) saying it helps to drown out (censor) speech, while having both McCain and Obama in agreement against it (in certain respects) … there’s no one, simple way to encapsulate the entire issue without resorting to over-simplistic drivel (as you’re doing).

And such censorship is exactly what you are calling for.

Only if you continue to ignore what I’m actually saying. I’ve repeatedly told you over and over that I want more transparency in politics. I want more influence from a varied group of people instead of the growing poor and dwindling middle class getting flooded and drowned out by the influence of the increasingly wealthy.

You seem perfectly content with the censorship of the voices of the poor and middle class by hiding behind weasel wording and throwing common sense out of the window.

You continually brush aside the facts to support your own apologist agenda despite the facts. The facts are that the speech (and therefore influence) of the many is being drowned out by the speech (and influence) of the few. That is censorship and, once again, a subversion of a representative democracy within our republic.

Your idea of a solution to this serious attack on our representative democracy is to stick your head in the ground, ignore it and wish it away.

How is the “democratic process” being subverted by speech?

Nice weasel wording. Why do you keep resorting to false arguments via weasel wording unless your goal is to mindlessly argue instead of finding a reasonable solution to a complex issue?

I don’t think the democratic process is being subverted by speech itself. Democracy is subverted by a lack of diverse influence on our political process.

I’ve repeatedly addressed that in my posts above. If you still can’t connect the dots on how a small group of wealthy interests drowning out the influence of a vastly larger group hurts the democratic process, then you’re putting your own pride and stubbornness ahead of common sense.

In fact, I would argue that the best way to do that is more speech, not less

More over-simplistic drivel. You’re ignoring the facts of the situation. You’re ignoring the symbiotic relationship between speech and influence. You’re ignoring the part where I educated you above on how the wealthy game systems (SEO, media, politics, etc.) to have thier speech (and influence) drown out the speech of others and, therefore, drastically reduce the influence of speech by the rest of the public.

Speech doesn’t live in a libertarian, pipe dream vacuum. Not all speech in all forms is equal in its influence upon society.

The public and journalists currently create many factual websites that contains more “speech” if one is to over-simplisticly focus on the word count, etc.

The wealthy drown out the influence of those websites by using thier vast money to keep thier lies and half-truths prominently displayed above them in search engine results, etc. - hence, controlling and censoring speech with influence.

Your “solution” is for the public to create more websites to get hidden and ignored. Your “solution” is to ignore the reality of situations which just so happen to benefit the Koch brothers’ successful efforts to flood the public sphere with lies.

You’re offering nothing but the continued protection of an elitist, corrupt status quo.

5 Likes
100

Really? And how did voting do with preventing mass surveillance? Preventing the invasion of Iraq and hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths? Preventing the invasion of Afghanistan? Preventing the attacks on Libya? How about preventing crony banks from being bailed out on the backs of taxpayers?

It’s not that democracy (actually, a republic) isn’t better than a tyrannical dictatorship, but we can certainly improve upon its many flaws, don’t you think? Like the use of government by the rich and powerful to protect their market positions and gather more power to themselves?

101

We’ll definitely have to differ on that, because I’m attacking the protection of an elitist, corrupt status quo. That’s what campaign finance is about - protecting incumbents and ensuring that only rich people can fund campaigns. If it wasn’t, why on earth would it ever have passed in the first place? I mean, seriously, John McCain sponsored the major bill that contained the provisions that Citizens United reversed. Doesn’t that worry you at least a little bit, that maybe what you’re supporting isn’t what you think it is?