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Big Money Comes Out for the Inauguration
randall_burns writes "Open Secrets is running an interesting story about major donors to Bush's inauguration. The founder of Dell is one of the high rollers funding Bush's party."
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This is, after all, the same Dell that expects to pay no state tax.
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
idunno, wouldn't it be nice if we had a president that could have an inaguration where of their own desire, fireworks artists would want to donate a performance, the police would want to volunteer extra unpaid time, caterers would donate food, singers would donate performances, etcetcetc.
large corporate monetary donations, fundraiser dinners, et all seem so cold to me.. inagural day comes off more as a stockholder's holiday weekend to me.
> Seriously, could someone please explain to me one more time how it is that this man was even re-elected? Just how stupid is America?
Americans tend to get pretty f'ing stupid when someone promises to make them wealthier or safer. (Or 3" longer, though the politicians haven't caught on to that one yet.)
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Is there something special we're supposed to be inferring? Slow news day?
Such is the corrupt grip that monied interests have on our nations leaders and senators, it seems the only way to solve this problem comes down to two choices. 1)Allow public funding of political parties or 2) make every wannabee politician take a vow of poverty, like church leaders did back in the Dark Ages. Of the two, the latter is the only sensible option.
I don't think so...
The candidates don't just get to keep that money and buy cars and shoes with it. The real reason the money is important is because they can use it to leverage voters votes.
It's like this: Michael Dell wants to change the law or bend it. He gives money to Bush who spends it on ads and spreads it around where it will get him popularity and power. Then we (well, other people besides me) elect him and he let's Dell break the rules.
Get your Unix fortune now!
I guess every nation is irrational in different ways. I understand the dynamics that created Bush, they don't make me proud - but I do understand them. I just don't understand what keeps the British royal family not only supported financially, but popular as well.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
I don't think the average American has much of an idea about what's going on over the Atlantic, less still what those over the Atlantic think of America and the people in charge of America. They really should try listening.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen.
Does it really matter? People act as if there is ever much of a choice in who we elect. The world would not be drastically different if we elected Kerry instead of Bush or Dole instead of Clinton or Dukakis instead of Bush.
They're more or less the same people, same parties, funded by the same corporations, imbued with the same corruption and hell-bent on jamming their ideologies on the entire country.
300,000,000 people and only two viable parties with little difference. But you see, in the same way that the current administration uses perpetual war and terrorism to control and bend the citizens toward their want, so are they distracting you from the real problems of the world/country/government by convincing you that the real difference is in whether you vote for a Republicrat or a Libservative.
In a nutshell, his major opponent was an imbecile who couldn't campaign his way out of a wet paper bag - he lied when he should have told the truth, and told the truth when he should have lied.
Just how stupid is America?
Not quite stupid enough to let the Agriculture and Fishery Meeting adopt Software Patents for all of Europe without a vote, but beyond that, no brighter than anyone else.
It's always interesting to see people who assume that THEIR interests should be assumed by a foreign government. Hint: the EU government, nor any member nation has my best interests at heart (these days, I'm not even sure it has the European people's best interests at heart). The US government doesn't have the best interests of Europe or Europeans at heart (and it may not have the best interests of the American people at heart - at least not the hlaf that's out of power at any given time). And that (the non-parenthetical part) is the way it should be.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
"Any American citizen who is athiest should not be considered an American, nor should they be considered a patriot. This is one nation under God." - George Herbert Walker Bush, 1988 (and again restated in 2004 in an interview on the Don Imus radio program)
I suspect the apple does not fall far from the tree. As someone who believes strongly in freedom for all to believe or not believe in anything they want, I am extremely offended that two of my presidents do not feel that I deserve to be an American or a patriot, because of my beliefs (or lack thereof).
That alone is all the reason I need to dislike Bush and not support him - the rest of his actions and policies be damned.
(By the way, I'm actually agnostic; not atheist.)
If we are supposed to be offended at the expense of throwing an event of this nature in light of the tsunami, where are the voices calling for the MPAA to cancel the Academy Awards? The inaguration costs a fraction of what is spent on the Oscars. Take all of that money and send it to Asia, and I'll be impressed.
The "Left" had control of Congress during the Reagan years and the "Right" had it for 6 of Clinton's years as president. That's a big difference from the situation now where an extremist president* has no real opposition within the government to stop him from pushing through a reactionary agenda.
* And different from Clinton, who was extremly centerist. In spite of what the Republicans wanted people to think and in spite of all of their hatred of the man.
Can we go ahead and just stick a big "L" on the collective Slashdot forehead now? You guys are redefining the words "sore losers".
"Bush's inauguration costs too much! Rich people are paying for it! The money should go to Tsunami relief! The money should go to the poor! There shouldn't be an inauguration!!!"
Fuckin' Waaaaaahhhhhh...
Let's see...when Clinton was inaugurated, half of hollywood was there pouring in millions of dollars, and the party lasted a whole week. And yet a civil war was going on in Angola that killed thousands of people, with bodies literally piling up in the streets, with numerous recent natural disasters still plaguing the third world.
Funny how no one wanted to cancel the inauguration then, eh? I recall ThunderCunt Numero Uno Maureen Dowd saying that it was so much fun that she wished it could've lasted forever.
So take the hypocrisy over the inauguration and shove it straight up your assholes. So Michael Dell is shelling out big bucks...so fucking what? If Kerry had won, Larry Ellison or a host of other people would be doing the same thing.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Generally such contributions that are not directly for candidate election purposes are called "soft money". (Although that generally refers to contributions to the general political party funds, so I'm not sure if this technically would count as "soft money".) Contributions directly to candidates are limited to $2000 per donor, to limit bribery, or at least the appearance of quid pro quo. So effectively, we're limiting direct bribes to $2000 per person, which doesn't get you too far in Washington these days. So instead, the big donors hold dinners and such, or donate to 527s or the political party itself, which are "soft money" contributions with no limits.
So I was thinking about this yesterday. There's an argument that 1st Amendment free speech requires that spending on political speech not be limited. But is that what's going on here? If I give money to the Democratic Party, is that me expressing my opinion? Or is it me trying to buy influence? And if I'm free to spend my money any way I please, doesn't that mean bribery should be legal? So obviously, there must be limits to what we're allowed to spend our money on.
Language matters. The labels we put on things effect the ways we think about those things. So let's change the language here to call a spade a spade, just like RMS suggests we call DRM "digital restrictions management". So I propose that we call these "soft money" contributions "soft bribes". Because that's what they are.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
Seriously, could someone please explain to me one more time how it is that this man was even re-elected? Just how stupid is America?
I'm no Republican, but I really think that if the Dems would have focused more both on what they wanted to do with this country and what grievances they had with the previous administration, instead of calling Bush and Republicans alike silly names, they may have had a chance.
I'll be the first to admit that many Republicans sunk to name-calling as well, but I'll bet quite a few swing voters got really sick of liberal elitism and Bush-bashing.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
Your entire argument is bogus for one simple reason: We cannot expect rational behavior from a busy, harried electorate when the politicians use corporate money to advertise themselves as something they're not.
For every voter who actually takes the time to figure out the problems arising from corporate influence, there are probably five who can be suckered in by simplistic sales pitches, fraudulent attack ads, and promises the politician has no intention of keeping.
So, if I'm a politician, do I take the high road? Do I work hard, study issues in depth, write rational legislation that fixes serious problems, and make realistic campaign promises? That's what I'd do. But then I'd lose in a landslide to some pompous, self-aggrandizing bastard who tells people what they want to hear, while whoring the political process out to whoever will give him the money he needs to amplify his voice.
Your final point is incoherent. You believe that corporations give money, but don't expect anything in return. You believe that politicians accept money, but don't expect they have to do anything in return. Which brings up the critical point: If nobody expects anything, why are all these checks being written?
Take, for example, the post-9/11 bailout of the airline industry. The taxpayers gave the airlines, what? Fifteen billion dollars? Why? Not to protect jobs, obviously. All the airlines cut tens of thousands of jobs despite the bailout. Not to protect against an interruption of transportation, either. In the end, we taxpayers basically handed a crapload of money to the people who invested in the airline industry. Corporate welfare at its finest. But politicians lied to us, telling us that if we didn't do this the planes would be grounded.
Collectively, we accepted this because the corporations fund the means of communication that matter to most voters. Had there been a real debate over the issues arising from the bailout, said bailout never would have happened.
You seem to believe that the system, as it stands now, is behaving in a basically fair and rational manner. Either you're making serious cash off the status quo, or you're seriously deluded.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
:) Now you know you're in trouble.
Expect a flurry of comments all saying the same thing "You've been brainwashed."
The best part is I think a lot of the people on the left don't realize they have been exploited by individuals like Michael Moore, Franken, Stewart, Richard Clarke, etc so that they can sell their books. I really think they believe the saw only cuts one way.
So, because corruption is default, we should just accept it? We need to believe that this corruption is new to remark on it, to reject it? Who's naive?
--
make install -not war
Also, the world didn't hate us nearly as much under Clinton.
We already have this kind of system in place for teachers.