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From Apple To Xbox, Tech Companies Lean Left
Velcroman1 writes "Only a week to election time! How does tech feel about politics? If you guessed liberal, you're right: Big Tech leans left. 'They're dominated by coastal people who tend to be more liberal,' says Jim Taylor, a management consultant who writes about the business of psychology. 'Also, those in Big Tech tend to be educated in the better schools, which lean left. Big Tech skews younger and hipper [and favors] social and environmental issues. Their political values trump financial concerns at the organizational culture level and the missions of many firms, especially those that are new media.' For example, Marissa Mayer, known as 'the face of Google,' gave $30,400 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2009. In fact, of the top 10 contributions made by Google in 2009, only one — by CEO Eric Schmidt — was to the Republican National Committee. Facebook has donated almost exclusively to Democratic candidates, according to Transparency Data, including $1,000 to California Sen. Barbara Boxer a year ago, and more recently, almost $5,000 to Richard Blumenthal, who is running for senator in Connecticut."
The revelation that California and the Seattle area, where most of these companies are based, tends to lean left is a complete revelation to me. You see, I have been living under a rock on a desert island for the last hundred years and didn't realize that every state in the Union was not, in fact, like my home state of Alabama. I am shocked to learn that executives from these tech companies live in a place where each public school-day DOESN'T begin with school prayer, a mandatory salute to the Confederate flag, shooting practice, and a discussion of why America would elect a satan-worshiping negro marxist as President. I had always assumed, on my desert island, that America was a homogenous place, and that no region had its own unique political leanings. Now, I know that there are actually areas in the U.S. where it's not okay to beat down anyone publicly admitting to supporting fag rights--where even *calling* someone a fag is considered somewhat offensive (even if they are). I guess I can understand these executives' leftist points of view, considering that they come from a place where it's considered impolite to burn down the houses of non-Christians. Thank you for enlightening me.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The vast majority in tech I know lean more towards the libertarian side of things. These kind of tests, due to their flaws of being linear, usually fail to capture that. ("Left" comes up more commonly than "right" for many libertarians because of how self-extreming "right" has become lately.)
Seriously -in the US we have two parties. The far right party, and the psychopathic kill-and-censor-everyone-in-the-name-of-patriotism party.
In practical terms, we have no left. This article is BS.
Come on editors, i know you desperately want to talk about american politics, but isn't that what the poll to the right is for?
Who needs a big stupid flamewar? No one but Ralph Nader leans LEFT in the usa ANYWAYS!
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
I don't think you understand the word "liberal" in its oldest meanings. It used to be that liberal meant more freedoms, both economically and personally. Using that definition libertarians are the most liberal of parties. It is only in the last few years that liberal has become synonymous with the progressive movement, which isn't even liberal at all because most support less freedoms both personally and economically.
What the US really needs is more political parties so people could accurately state their belief system, because I don't think hardly anyone is truly a republican or democrat.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Note I said "liberal", not "progressive", not "Democratic Party", not either libertarian or "Libertarian".
The problem is that too many people confuse "fiscal responsibility" with "conservatism". Fiscal policy is separate from "liberal" and "conservative". I am *EXTREMELY* fiscally 'conservative'. But I'm also *EXTREMELY* liberal.
In fact, one could even argue that fiscal responsibility is, itself, liberal by definition.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Somewhere in America right now there are two college students. One is trying to recruit for the Young Republicans in the art department. The other is trying to recruit for the Young Democrats in the business school. both are wondering why their results have so far been disappointing.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Big Corp wants nothing to do with capitalism or free markets.
Big Corp wants Big Government around to regulate their competitors out of existence and bail them out when they get into trouble.
A few months of actual free market capitalism would destroy most of the big corporations.
Note that, rhetoric to the contrary, neither major party has done anything to shrink the government in at least the last quarter century.
So far in 2010, the oil and gas industries have contributed $12.8 million to all candidates, with 71% of that money going to Republicans. During the 2008 election cycle, 77% of the industry's $35.6 million in contributions went to Republicans, and in the 2008 presidential contest, Republican candidate Sen. John McCain received more than twice as much money from the oil and gas industries as Obama: McCain collected $2.4 million; Obama, $898,000.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_05/023945.php
Sure, you can single out Exxon and Obama in 2008, because that's the exception to the rule you're pretending doesn't exist.
A more accurate statement about tech companies would probably be that at least until recently they were largely apolitical. They gave very little money, compared to their size and other companies, to politicians. It has been increasing, because politicians have been increasingly meddling (for good or for ill). MS is an interesting study in this. Prior to their anti-trust deal they gave only a token amount to either party, now they give quite a bit. Makes sense if you think about it, the government started bothering them, at the behest of their competitors. Now right or wrong on that, it let them know that they needed more influence, and so they set out to get it.
In general though, tech companies seem to donate a hell of a lot less. They just aren't as interested in buying off politicians it seems. Perhaps because they don't need to, perhaps because they are younger companies, I don't know.
Not really a bad thing if you asked me, I think companies out to stay out of politics, but there you go.
Exxon donated more to Obama than any other person in office, so that isn't true either, and that tidbit just chafes the leftwing mantra.
I can see how some people would be chafed by that tidbit, since it doesn't appear to be true.
I looked.
The best I could find was that Obama received more than McCain -- not "any other person in office."
Furthermore, those donations were only in the 5 digits, while it looks like Exxon regularly spends $600,000+ in political bribes every year. Seems to me that any of their favourite senators could easily rack up triple digit donations over the years - and according to this article which does not name names so is unfortunately a PITA to verify, the top 20 cumulative recipients of Exxon money since 1990 are all republican.
If you have some citations that show otherwise, I am all ears - I'm looking for the truth, not truthiness.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
People complain that our universities, urban elite, etc. 'lean left'. Now let's see, the smarter and better educated you are, the more liberal you are. What does that suggest to you?
It suggests to me that we have too many ignoramuses, who lack the education and experience to learn to deal with different kinds of people, to understand how progress is made, and to be informed or to deal with complicated policy issues like global warming. And those ignoramuses are called "conservatives".
Our "leftists" could not even manage a public option for insurance coverage so that takes your first point right out, and our right-wingers support jailing people for victimless crimes so there goes the other.
All corporations lean to the right. The article is a troll piece, based on the misinformed notion that the Democrat party is "left wing" as opposed to "right of center." Both Democrats and Republicans have been receiving enormous corporate campaign contributions for the past 4 decades, and unsurprisingly, both parties have drifted further to the right. The Republicans are just more honest about being right wing; the Democrats continue to present a public face that says, "Hey, we're the left wing! Really, we swear!" I would guess that this is part of an effort to ensure that the actual left wing parties in America never get enough votes to make a difference. The mainstream media -- big corporate contributors to the Democrat party -- work to further the "Democrats are the left wing" image as well, probably because the real left wing parties might not be as friendly toward business interests.
In case you have any doubt, remember that it was a Democrat president who signed the DMCA into law, it is Democrats who are pushing for ever stronger copyrights, and that like the Republicans, Democrats continue to push forward an agenda of "corporate interests first," and continue to try to spread that agenda to other countries. As for the media, well, when a left wing group wanted to pay NBC to run an advertisement that encouraged people to spend no money for just one day, as part of a general anti-corporation campaign, NBC refused to air the ad -- despite the fact that the group was willing to pay the same price as every other advertiser -- because the ad ran counter to US economic policy.
Not that any of this should come as a surprise. After all, corporations exist for the purpose of realizing profits, so why would a corporation ever support a political party or movement that works against the system that has allowed corporations to become as big, powerful, and profitable as they are today?
Palm trees and 8
Not terribly insightful, Exxon is prohibited by law from donating money directly to the candidates or parties but can give unlimited funds to 501(c)4 and 501(c)3 groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or Americans for Prosperity without needing to disclose such contributions
FTFY. HTH. HAND.
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I didn't vote for a third party candidate because not voting is just as effective.
And the Republicans and Democrats both thank you for continuing to prevent any competition.
I'm always amazed at people who believe the "voting for a 3rd party is like throwing your vote away". Are you really saying that because your particular candidate didn't win, that you wasted your vote?
I had a conversation with a co-worker about our recent vote. I said that I had voted Libertarian (Bob Barr) for president. He laughed and claimed that I wasted my vote. I then asked him who HE had voted for. He then stopped laughing and quietly mumbled, "John McCain". I then proceeded to laugh, as we live in California, and Barr and McCain had roughly the same chances of winning the state (about 0% chance). Was his vote for McCain a "wasted vote", simply because McCain didn't win? Or was his vote OK, since it fell into your acceptable category of being a (R) or a (D)?
If American Democrats are "right of center" ... what is Center?
Slightly to the left of most Democrats. A lot of people in the US like to call Obama a socialist. These are people that have never looked at European politics, where you can see real socialists. Take a look at the political compass and count how many 2008 candidates were left of center.
I think Americans need *no* political party. They should legislate and govern on a per issue bases. It's the fact that we have "big politco's" that I think is the problem.
You see, I've come to believe that many Americans simply pick a party based on one or two beliefs they hold most strongly and then vote for that party, regardless of all the other beliefs they may or may not agree with.
An example: An LGBT person probably supports LGBT rights. This might, in fact, be the one issue they really care about. Because of this they might vote Democratic because they're known for supporting popular LGBT "gay" rights like marriage. This can be in spite of the fact that they might not support any other issues the party supports.
I'd rather see the whole system stripped down to "the issues"(tm) and not "the party". Of course, there's also the fact that Representatives simply don't Represent anymore. Instead, they get elected and then vote THEIR beliefs (which often include their belief to keep their job by voting how the party wants them to vote so they can fund their next re-election campaign with all the bull-shit and spin that includes). That leads to simply trying to vote for someone who's "most likely to vote how I would vote" and that's too bad.
And this isn't to excuse the voters either. Very few people actually speak up and call/write their Reps. Though, that's not to say if they do, they'll listen. There's been some cases where it's been clear that Reps. are Rep-ing and we'll see them with a new job in a few weeks. (I won't say they'll be unemployed because ex-congress-people end up becoming consultants / lobbyists for special interests because they know how things work and who to talk to, so they'll still be making boat loads of money).
Of course, the whole thing is far more complex than just that, but that's just my recent thoughts.
Things have just gotten too "sporty" in terms of politics. It's like you have to support your "team" no matter what, and you can't agree the other team has some good ideas, simply because it's the other team. This shit isn't suppose to be a fucking competition. We're all suppose to be on the same team here.
But the funny thing is, Democrats have been in control of the Alabama legislature for the past 136 years, and were in control of all politics in the state between the time of Reconstruction and the Civil Rights movement.
These were fairly conservative Democrats, mind you... but they still swing in the liberal direction on many issues.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
The "psychologist" may just not want to say it. Not only because it's subjective, but also because it's probably accurate. The specific kind of smarts is a genuinely evidence-based smartness, as opposed to a rationalization-to-support-the-status-quo sort of cleverness. This by itself means that those offended will find all sorts of reasons to not listen, and instead rationalize how bad/liberal the psychologist is.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
>>All corporations lean to the right
Do you mean "the right" in the European sense of the word, or the American sense of the word? To Europeans, all of America is "right wing". If you mean it in the American sense of the world, you should spend some time looking through Open Secrets.org to see how corporations actually give. Goldman Sachs gave nearly a million to Obama, and around two hundred thousand to McCain, for example.
>>After all, corporations exist for the purpose of realizing profits, so why would a corporation ever support a political party or movement that works against the system that has allowed corporations to become as big, powerful, and profitable as they are today?
Big businesses often trend Democrat because Democrats believe in protectionism, whereas Republicans believe in competition and small businesses. Small businesses represent threats to big businesses, but regulation and red tape (Democrat tools) can impose severe barriers to entry for small businesses. For an insightful lesson, look at the difference in how many big businesses failed in post-war France versus America in the same time period. Off the top of my head, something like 90% of France's large businesses in 1950 were still around in 1980, whereas only 10% of America's were. Competition vs. Protectionism. Too big to fail, and all that.
Contrary to popular perception, the ultra-rich also like Democrats. If you believed the media, you'd think that Republicans were all about giving tax breaks to the ultra-rich. But we pay taxes in two different ways here in America - 1) income tax, and 2) capital gains. A reduction on income tax doesn't make the slightest difference to the ultra-rich, who get most of their money from capital gains. But all you hear about in the media is "Republicans pose tax break for the ultra-rich" and you don't hear anything about how John Kerry reduced capital gains taxes, or how Democrats recently killed the carried interest exemption (one of their 2008 campaign promises) after they had a lot of money thrown at them by lobbyists. Not that tax cuts aren't good things, but the carried interest exemption is just a bone thrown to Goldman Sachs.
It's interesting reading to see how Billionaires actually donate to political causes:
http://www.newsmeat.com/billionaire_political_donations
I know the feeling, my GF is half Indian (Navajo to be exact) and when we are out the locals will sometime just start speaking Spanish to her thinking she is Mexican. She just blushes and says no habla but I just love how her brother handles it "Me no Mexican, me Indian. Me scalp your kind!" . Maybe it's different here (north AR) surrounded by the military bases, but we always laughed our asses off at the idiot racists like the klan, who last I heard are hiding out on a hill in Boone county, because the thought that anyone here was "white" was about as stupid as saying my dog was anything other than a mutt. Here every race has mingled with every race (or as I like to call it "Forget fighting, let's just screw") so much there isn't a pure ANYTHING anymore. I look white but am actually Irish, English, German, Two kinds of Indian (Comanche and Creek) and Cajun, which of course is pretty much any race that ever stepped through Louisiana. My girl looks Mexican but is just as much a mix as me, so the thought that anyone still judges based on "race" is kinda just silly to me.
As for TFA, it is nice to see that some put their money where they believe, and not just on the bottom line. We have had pretty much constant tax breaks for the top 3% for the past 30 years, and are worse off than ever before. I can drive through entire towns nearby that are nothing but empty factories and boarded up homes, The level of unemployment is frankly just insane, and if it wasn't for the dems extending unemployment benefits I know quite a few that would be living in their cars, not because they don't want to work, but simply because there isn't any work to be had while they push for more and more education while at the same time expect us to be able to compete with someone who paid $5k for their degree compared to our $70k, it is just nuts. It is just simple math folks, you can't have these ever growing huge masses of unemployed without it blowing up in your face. Just look at what happened to Germany in the 30s, the fascists basically came to power by offering "bread and jobs" and the people went along. Right now you have huge masses that simply don't believe in the American Dream anymore, and they grow more numerous every day. Things simply have to change, period.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I know it's second nature to tar both major US political parties with the "whores for business", and I've done it myself. However, in the 30 or so years since I started to pay attention to politics, this much has become crystal clear:
Luke, help me take this mask off