Slashdot Mirror
A Look at the Koch Brothers Dark-Money Network
An anonymous reader writes "The California attorney general and the state's top election watchdog named the 'Koch brothers network' of donors and dark-money nonprofits as the true source of $15 million in secret donations made last year to influence two bitterly fought ballot propositions in California. State officials unmasked the Kochs' network as part of a settlement deal that ends a nearly year-long investigation into the source of the secret donations that flowed in California last fall."
from TFA: there was a philanthropist involved in this. We should string up all of the philanthropists!
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Actually politics is one of the most 'nerdist' topics. Nerds tend to obsess over topics most would rather ignore.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
For one thing, the Koch brothers actually exist while this "gang of socialists" does not.
Damned iOS autocorrect. Sorosis = Soros.
Koch bros does it, soros does it, both the neocons and liberal progressives do it, it is just a left VS right battle over who controls the kleptocratic fascist state, the only ones really losing is the middle class which shrinks every year while the ghettos keep getting bigger, in another decade the rest of the USA will look like Detroit
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
the true source of $15 million in secret donations made last year to influence two bitterly fought ballot propositions in California
The Koch's have been shafting the political process for years, nobody cared before. What is this? Some sort of fo-public Koch exposure? We all know that the Koch's will remain hidden until the heat dies off then they'll come and fuck something else up.
This is a severely stupid comment. Comparing the Koch Brothers to a sitting US president?
Then why were they featured in the documentary film, Warriors, which depicted the struggle of a group of Conservatives trying to survive a night in a Liberal hellhole?
Recall Plato's admonishment.
'Nuff said.
All the world's an analog stage, and digital circuits play only bit parts.
Well, I guess we know who the conservatives are on Slashdot, now. It amazing to see how much they complain when criticism is aimed at rich people who are swaying elections in directions that they appreciate.
Anyone at least 20 years old should realize that an institution with a name like that is most likely a lobbying arm for crackpots.
The right uses George Soros to the same effect. Not too dissimilar to the way Jews were treated in the 1930s in Europe.
Assuming you know as much about bridges as you do about socialists, I'm sure it's actually a boat you're talking about.
No thanks, they tend to be money pits.
Yes it does.
Powerful people are using the Citizens United case to funnel large amounts of money into local elections to F up the society that we are trying to build. One where technology is used for good and lets us work less, while living better lives. Not one where two people who control the big companies that people buy a lot of stuff from get to dictate what the public thinks about climate change, upper class taxes, voting rights, and other issues that they can buy people off on.
The "Koch link" seems to be that one of the guys running one of the foundations was described by Politico as a "Koch operative". The other Koch link was that there was an E-mail asking one of the Koch brothers for contributions to help get a proposition passed that would have limited the ability of unions to raise private money for political purposes. Consistent with his libertarian views, he says he does not support such restrictions and did not support the proposition directly or indirectly.
Can someone explain to me how this turns into a "Koch brother network"? I mean, perhaps the Koch brothers are more deeply involved in this, but nothing in the MJ article or the settlement seems to provide any evidence for any significant involvement by them.
Why would a centre right president have a gang of socialists?
There are very few socialists in the USA. The politics are so distorted that some people assume that "liberal" means left wing. It doesn't. It means politically right in the middle.
If right in the middle is way to your left, where does that mean you are?
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
... and nothing of value was lost.
If right in the middle is way to your left, where does that mean you are?
Hopefully a padded cell.
Once again there are no criminal prosecutions of the rich and powerful who choose to deliberately violate the law. A one million dollar fine is nothing to these people, they will recover from that minor "inconvenience" in less than a month. When are the American people going to get fed up with these shenanigans enough to start throwing these people in prison? That's the only thing that will make others think twice about doing the same thing again next year.
So California can only throw them in prison for a year. Make it general population and not one of those country club prisons for the rich and actually fine them the double-the-amount part. A thirty million dollar fine might take them more than a few weeks to recover from.
C'mere, you. Lemme give you a big kiss. You just gave me a good laugh.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's damage to the political process. Route around it.
If this is news for nerds, obviously it is an exhortation to re-engineer politics such that they cannot be controlled by entrenched elites.
That's my reaction to the constant barrage of Snowden/NSA stories here. And each of those gets the predictable posts, probably from the same posters: there's the anti-American posts, the anti-Obama ones, China and Country X are just as bad, etc.
An occasional story on the NSA, OK (along with similar stories on Google, Facebook, and other governments arguably stepping over the line). But on a daily (at least) basis? Now we're seeing someone's political agenda.
It used to be difficult to get an article posted on Slashdot. These days it is pretty easy to get posted as "anonymous reader."
The articles look like this, especially as we move into a new election cycle. Slashdot is on a long slow slide into irrelevance.
Damned iOS autocorrect. Sorosis = Soros.
I take it then that: is = 1.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
stop reading them. better for your mental health then to stick to Drudge, Fox News, etc. then.
Hi there ya kleptocratic fascist! Please go fuck yourself with an outboard motor!
I dunno. Nerds like complicated machines. This story happens to be one constructed out of legal entities. The machine too complicated for the average attention span, so somebody who has a mentality that isn't daunted by a simple activity diagram ought to be paying attention.
Maybe "News for Nerds" doesn't must mean "Nerdy Stuff". Maybe it could also mean "News for Nerds to Pay Attention To".
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Pick only one topic:
- Arduino
- Bitcoins
- 3D printers
- Magnets
- Aliens
If it's not one of those, it doesn't belong on Reddit.
Wait, what do you mean this is not Reddit? Have you seen the topics lately?
Except the site's value.
The Koch 'Brothers' Funded the UC Berkeley study to demonstrate for once and for all that American human radiation is melting the Antarctic ice sheets and disturbing the breeding cycle of Japanese.
Ha ha.
Perhaps.
I concur with all the others that feel this article is not really what this site should be about.
Tech Articles pleaseâ¦.
We could probably balance the budget in no time!
It is amazing how an article like this gets so many responses that say it should not be posted yet Slashdot has so much pseudo libertarian crap posted that it sounds like a Ron Paul commercial. I doubt that two thirds of these people them have any real idea of what libertarianism is. The worst part is that these so called libertarians are being manipulated by people that are no more libertarian than Wilhelm Keppler or Orval Faubus.
> "the politics are so distorted that some people assume that "liberal" means left wing. It doesn't. It means politically right in the middle."
> That is the most twisted pile of crap i've heard in years.
The first question is how this is the most twisted thing you've heard. I mean, do you go outside? Second you go on to lump and disparage (with absolutely no reason) a mythical Limbaugh-like group. Some ethereal "current liberal crop" group.
I have no idea what you're trying to say. It "sounds" like you're mentally disturbed.
Good, we need an article about how Bloomberg and another billionaire tried to derail the grassroots effort to recall those two Colorado anti-gun rights state senators.
If you want an understanding of what "socialist" means in American political discourse (I'm guessing you're from the old country, given your sig and your spelling conventions), then search sometime for "AM talk radio" and listen in for a few hours. "Socialist" is little more than a pejorative. I truly wish we had some genuine socialists in the US, not because I support their politics (full disclosure: I'm decidedly to the right and reckon Edmund Burke one of your finest political writers) but because I appreciate their clarity.
The ACA was little more than mandating the purchase of a corporate product, centralizing its sales, and offering subsidies to folks with lower income who don't qualify for the medicare expansion (which is to say, indirectly subsidizing the insurance companies). What we have here are the problems of capitalism combined with the problems of central planning in one system.
Socialists offer a real alternative to this system, and an alternative which is rooted in specific moral principles. I do not agree with all those principles (but chiefly I have a different view of human nature, which is why I'm a conservative) but I can at least come to an understanding with a socialist based upon what principles we share. Our current political landscape seems to be dominated instead by centrist politicians whose chief principles consist in ensuring reelection by satisfying corporate donors. If we had real socialists, at least we could have a real conversation. Since the liberals in this country co-opted the right's plan and passed the ACA, the right has been devoid of any real ideas. The most interesting ideas I've seen on the right have come from distributists, but such get no play in our current political environment.
Please, stop this madness, and stick to clicking on stories that interest you.
This comment of "I DON'T CARE ABOUT THIS TOPIC" does not belong on this site.
Also, vote in the fucking firehose and stop complaining.
I love it how you're marked a troll when as somebody who lives in Colorado, and is a conservative, had a field day calling the liberals hypocrites when Bloomberg donated, what was it, $300,000 to try to stop the recall of one of the two liberal state representatives. Yeah, it's bad to have big money backings as long as it's the guy you don't support. And of course forget about the fact that in Boulder, CO, the town I live outside of is having a big pro-municiplization campaign of their power grid that had citizens united gone the other way, would be illegal. And of course, lets not forget that a lot of what the ACLU does would be banned had citizens united gone the other way. But hey, because they disagreed with that one case that was actually brought to court, who cares about the wider affects of the ruling and what they could have been.
I swear, liberals really can't see anything in the way of consequences past the end of their noses.
Especially considering the the California Teachers Union outspent everyone of contributions for California elections. These are the same people that make getting rids of child molesters from schools such a difficult task (see news reports about the difficulty in getting rid of truly bad teachers).
A Shadeless room is a brighter room.
Mod parent up...
The brains of a chicken, coupled with the claws of two eagles, may well hatch the eggs of our destruction.
" lets not forget that a lot of what the ACLU does would be banned had citizens united gone the other way."
How the fuck do you figure that?
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
Disregard that. I suck cock.
--Ethanol-fueled
"Please, stop this madness, and stick to real news for nerds.
This story does not belong on this site."
Yeah like the hard right and corporate world were FOR social security, perhaps if nerd wannabe's like yourself were not so fucking historically illiterate you'd understand the danger of extremist capitalist ideology to the stability of societies historically speaking. Hard left ideologies like communism didn't appear in a vaccum, they were birthed by the extreme exploitation of real people by the types of extreme right wing ideologues that are now rampaging across the US. Despite what capitalism's ignorant cheerleaders tell you, it took two world wars and the cold war to get a 'middle class' not capitalism. People had to bleed in the streets to fight for better wages you just assume fall out of the sky from right wing econ 101. Americans are just so historically illiterate it's shocking.
No, it doesn't. You sound like you're regurgitating something you were spoon fed in college. I don't care what it meant at one point. I do care what it means today.
"Liberal" means lose, freely, without limitation, etc. "Conservative", means limited, restrained, cautious, etc. A true liberal sees no need to be hampered by bad decisions made in the past. Progress can be made, things can be fixed. A true conservative, on the other hand, sees no need to fix things that aren't broken. Why experiment if something is working? You might break it.
Most of us are not one, nor the other. We're a bit of both, some more to one side or the other.
Here's the important bit that you need to wrap your head around: Liberal and Conservative aren't points on the political spectrum. They're directions. (Most people overlook this, including most professors.)
The common usage of these terms has varied wildly over the years. The fundamental definition of the words hasn't changed, but the tyrants, liars, and impostors over the years have all used them to prop up their own brand of crazy. Today, those words depend almost entirely on which country you're in. In the US, they mean "acceptable to Democrats" and "acceptable to Republicans". No, those aren't the actual definitions of those words, but no other country in the world uses strictly correct definitions for them either. Remember, they're directions, not destinations. (pointing towards change, and away from change)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
the topic adequacy police has spoken
we have to move on now
delete your comments and find a new topic
if the anonymous coward disapproves again, you need to abandon that thread too
i'm sorry folks, but the anonymous topic adequacy police is in charge here, we all know that
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That is actually a new one to me, but it makes sense. The ACLU does a fair bit of lobbying in the same manner as that of citizens united.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
I truly wish we had some genuine socialists in the US
They're called Unions.... you know, like the first name of USA?
Your username is in reference to your IQ, right?
Maybe you could show us how Soros is breaking the law and you could even write it yourself.
That depends on your perspective. From what I've observed, slashdot is very often pro AGW, anti-GMO, pro labor union, and "probama". You tend to notice those articles you disagree with more than the ones you agree with, and it's had articles pointing in favor of both sides of all of the above issues.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
So two billionaires should be able to effectively have more free speech than hundreds of thousands of union members?
It's all about perspective to be honest. Probably because Obama generally looks favorably upon redistribution, which most people in America aren't in favor of. To us, that is socialist.
This is as opposed to say Francois Hollande, who wants a 75% tax rate in France. Does him being more socialist make Obama less socialist? Absolutely not. A Hollande supporter would say Obama isn't a socialist, but that doesn't make him any less socialist either.
And honestly, I hate the terms left and right because they don't do anything to describe a persons view on issues like personal liberties and economics. Often you have strange mixes of either. For example the left claim to be pro freedom, yet the most hardcore of them want to ban firearms and soft drinks. Right wing is supposedly closer to being Fascist/Nazi all about control, yet they're derided by the left for wanting a government with fewer laws, regulations, and taxes.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
As any good Marxist will tell you, unions will not get you to socialism (unless they rather suddenly go revolutionary). They will get you to neoliberalism. The problem is that their interests are tied to those of their industrialist employers. They want a bigger slice of the pie but, ultimately, they also want to maintain the system that keeps them fed.
Unions take a rather conservative (in the looser sense of the term) approach to the labor issue. They're content to have the capitalist own the capital. They only ask that labor get a more equitable share of the revenue. This is not the case with a genuine socialist.
Point taken. I guess this sums it up (from the horses mouth): https://www.aclu.org/free-speech/aclu-and-citizens-united
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
If you think this doesn't affect us, you are an idiot.
Spoken like a typical Slashdot Koch sucker, indeed.
That is the most twisted pile of crap i've heard in years.
Sounds like a bad case of cognitive dissonance to me.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Actually, the majority political position on this site is center left.. neocon/pro religion perspectives are almost unheard of, and there is a slightly larger libertarian contingent. It makes sense as the majority of nerds posting here grow up with silly utopian stuff like star trek, then go off to ivy league universities whose cultures are loaded with marxist philosophy.
What we have here are the problems of capitalism combined with the problems of central planning in one system.
Yay!, Someone who actually understands something about the ACA. Don't forget that insurance companies have to actually spend most of their money on medical treatment, or give their customers a rebate. Hopefully that will bend the cost-curve. (Debatable if that has already happened.) The rest of the world has a much cheaper system, and adding government isn't always the solution, but the USA seems to suffer from an incompetent piece-meal approach, and _could_ do with some clarity. Personally I think most of the regulations should be gutted, but this should be done incrementally to minimise the impact and mitigate mistakes. (Many regulations are extremely important.) This would require co-operation between the GOP and the Dems, and that is a little too much to hope from the party of victimhood.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Get back to /pol/, goyim.
Haha, you have no idea what you're talking about. The crony capitalists have all but broken the unions and clipped most of their influence on the political process. The only people who are looking out for your interests are big business now. Good luck with that.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
The constant, and ignorant, anti-koch rants on Slashdot are rather amusing; All the left-wingers rant against the Kochs because the Kochs are frequent contributors to conservative/libertarian opponents of liberal candidates and/or policies (left-wing hatred of the Kochs is, therefore, understandable even though the over-the-top modern hysterical rhetoric tends to be extreme). Libertarian-leaning Slashdot READERS however ought to be better informed and not fall for it. The Kochs are NOT Conservatives, they're Libertarians who have even raised the ire of many Conservatives by supporting gay marriage; Their opposition to Obama and the hard left is from a Libertarian rather than Conservative angle. The Kochs support conservative and/or Republican candidates when doing so advances their libertarian ideals (as smaller, less-intrusive govt does) but given a choice between a candidate Pat Robertson and a slightly left-of-center Dem they'd probably fund the Dem. At least the Kochs are patriotic Americans.
On the other side, however, many of the anti-Koch ranting comes from people and/or websites and/or organizations partially or wholly funded by one Billionaire (using hundreds of front organizations with warm-and-fuzzy names like "open society" ) who hates the U.S., wants global leftist government, has done great damage to NATIONS (attempted to destroy the British pound), and has said he was happiest in life at the time when he was collaborating with Hitler's NAZIs plundering the possessions of the Jews on their way to the gas chambers.... That would be the most powerful funder of the modern Democrat party and its activist organs: George Soros
Given the choice between ANY candidate backed by American Libertarians who want to ratchet-down government influence in our lives and business, and ANY candidate backed (directly or indirectly) by Soros and working to tear down the U.S. and subsume national governments into intrusive dictatorial world government, I choose the former. It's a moral choice, and when there is no viable third option, if you crawl into bed with the NAZI you get all his fleas
If Slashdot is going to devolve into hyperventilating over political funders, can we at least have a little balance? NO article on a big right-of-center funder like Koch or a left-of-center funder like Soros should by here without an equal piece on the opposite side. Love letters on one side showing all the best of it, should be matched with love letters to the other side showing its best, and hard-hitting expose's on one side should be matched with hard-hitting bits on the other. In such an equal journalistic arena, I am absolutely certain that there is not a single bigger dirtbag on Earth to match the evil of Soros.... does the hard-left REALLY wanna play this game on a fair field?
How the bullshit flows so freely. Instead of condemning the temptress, people have to learn how to resist. Fuck the money. It is a non-issue. It is the voters who sell their votes for the bling and the false promises, hoping for a piece of the pie. They are the only ones to blame. They are the ones who reward corruption.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
chicken/egg syndrome much? Every side points to the others and labels them 'extreme.' It's called an ad hominem attack. Communism sprung from the minds of ivy league utopianism, and capitalism was an extrapolation of barter, both of which are enabled by human nature at work. One did not 'cause' the other.
It's not like whatever country you hail from has an unbiased educational system. If it's state sponsored, which is likely, it's definitely not. It's going to spin the narrative to its benefit so that young minds like yours grow up and hurl its agenda out into the open as the truth, calling everyone else ignorant.
Try thinking for yourself. You won't have the peace of mind that comes from thinking you were taught everything you need to know, but at least you'll know what you've verified yourself, and perhaps more importantly, what you don't know as well.
It is a myth that most liberal are recipients of some sort of government aid. I suspect most are at least upper middle class especially people in tech related jobs. As to the hated 1%, please note that not all are so lacking Civic Virtue as to become tax whiners who insist on cannibalizing our infrastructure.
Disregard that. I suck Koch.
--Ethanol-fueled
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
I like the Koch bros. They're not a bunch of left-wing shitheads, like the wackos that hate them so much.
" Hard left ideologies like communism didn't appear in a vaccum"
Yes, they do. They come from the same place as all leftist ideologies come from... they are rooted on utopianism... the rather childish desire for paradise on earth, if not for a surrogate father and mother to make everything swell and warm and cuddly. It's a brutal world... that's kind of understandable.
Such philosophies are doomed to failure, of course. Where do such desires end? Can there EVER be enough happiness? They ALL end only when the power to take from other in fulfilment of the utopian schemes comes to an end. When there is no longer the ability to take from A to give to B. Happens every time, without fail. Such is the fate of such childish and selfish desires.
Are those the same universities that produced the last four US Nobel Laureates in Physics?
After all, this $15 million is important, but the $100 million that is laundered for Soros and Bennett by the Tides group every year is not important.
No, it's not important, because it's not money laundering, it's donations, and they are not even a substantial part of the budget of the Tides Foundation. Please note the last point: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/44343.html
Go back to your chalkboard, Glenn Beck.
Was waiting for that.
"The constant, and ignorant, anti-koch rants on Slashdot are rather amusing"
.. oh, btw, in none of that long-winded-ad-hominem rant did you actually address the original article.
Where, please give examples
--
ref: anti-koch, fleas, George Soros, Hitler's NAZIs, hyperventilating, hysterical, ignorant, intrusive dictatorial world government, left-wingers, Libertarian-leaning, rants, ratchet-down government influence, the evil of Soros
If the politicians would leave us alone, they'd be little more than an occasional joke entry.
But so long as they keep taking pot shots at us, we should show them why you don't kick the slumbering dragon.
I've been to Boulder Colorado. I'm pretty sure most of the folks there are suffering from Hypoxia.
That will be right after they review George Soros, Move On, etc.
No brain, no pain.
ivy league universities whose cultures are loaded with marxist philosophy
I was going to parody this comrade, but I couldn't think of any way to make it funnier.
Actually politics is one of the most 'nerdist' topics. Nerds tend to obsess over topics most would rather ignore.
Agreed. This article should not be here, not because it is political, but because it is garbage. The author claims there is a "Koch Brothers Network" right in the title, but has no evidence that the Koch brothers are involved, other than the fact that they were asked to donated (and apparently declined). It is absurd to claim the Kochs somehow control or own a political network that has no links to them, even as a donor. Koch Industries made an official statement that they never donated "either directly or indirectly". Since donating is perfectly legal, but issuing false corporate statements is not, why would they make a denial if it wasn't true? This article is just unsupported conjecture, and even if the insinuations were true, the activities would be perfectly legal. Political stories on Slashdot are okay with me, but garbage journalism is not.
Argument from authority, in this case an irrelevant one. Knowledge in physics does not give credence to a political philosophy. ..and in case you didn't notice, the nobels are mostly handed out for pro-left political 'victories' these days. Obama comes to mind. His 'accomplishment'? Being not-bush. In 2009, he had only been in office a little more than a year or so. Then there were the three women who were awarded it for....being women and politically active in a pro-left fashion. Oh, and here's another one. The IAEA in 2005.. you know, the organization that systematically covered up the true extent of the damage caused by chernobyl to appease the politicians in both east and west? The nobel is just a blue ribbon panel that rewards proper leftist thought and action taken by people known to promote that agenda. Whatever the intents of the originators, that's what it's become.
I don't trust the rigor of the nobel any more than awards handed out by the heritage foundation or any other politically motivated institution. It's just like getting a gold star for being the teacher's pet in 1st grade. Universities would do well to avoid such biases in their campus culture...at least in staff and faculty.
Which departments did those Nobel laureates come out of again?
Or religious organizations. I would like to know.
insurance companies have to actually spend most of their money on medical treatment, or give their customers a rebate
The proportion of premiums that the insurance companies have to pay out is called the medical loss ration. While the ACA puts a lower limit on the MLR, that limit is below the MLR they were operating at before the ACA was passed, which in turn is lower than what the insurance companies operated profitably at 10 years before that. It's like saying "we're putting an upper limit on your pay by giving you a raise".
I don't see why the usg should be largely exempt from critique here.. the site has a politics section for stuff like this.
is assuming the politicians are the ruling class. Make no mistake, the ultra-rich are the rulers. The folks in the House/Senate are, like you said, water carriers. But the actual, practical effect is that the Koch bros. and their ilk call the shots. So from a practical standpoint we have a Kleptocracy.
,it doesn't really matter what happens. This is why the economy keeps getting worse for Labor but the stock market keeps hitting record highs.
The middle class are still losing. We all are. I've always hated this logic: Things are continuously getting worse, but since they could get even worser it's all OK. It doesn't change the fact that the middle class is going away...
Also, the point of the upper class Kleptocracy is to take everything. If they have everything
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
likely this is a no true scotsman fallacy..
Why not? While I do not have proof, it would not shock me if there weren't many people between the sitting president and the koch brothers. Parties are irrelevant that high up.
"Socialist" is little more than a pejorative. I truly wish we had some genuine socialists in the US, not because I support their politics .... but because I appreciate their clarity.
Communist Party USA
(Not that I approve of their message, but they exist.)
then search sometime for "AM talk radio"
One station from Salem communications
If you like clarity, try Prager.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
IT wasn't a real documentary unless it was directed by Micheal Moore.
Praise Cthulhu, an intelligent and reasonable American conservative.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
You have Soros, on the left with his money, and the Koch brothers, on the right with their money, and "we the people" in the middle getting screwed from both ends.
Please, enough of this no true scotsman shit.. The democrats in this country support:
1. wealth redistribution
2. encouraging class segregation across race, gender, sexual orientation under the guise of promoting unity. This ensures support at the polls.
3. encouraging policy that encroaches on an ever growing list of daily life activities for various fallacious reasons (safety, the children, and other usual suspects).
4. using tax as a punitive measure to curb undesirable behavior/freedom.
That's 'socialist' in my book. Usually these statements come from EU countries run by 'social democrats' who are simply further along this agenda than their brothers are in the US. It's just a question of degree, not intent or philosophy.
Nobody does it more than Fox not-News corp. In fact in reality they outspend everyone else by ten to one. They provide free airtime for the craziest right views that other political groups would have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to buy.
As for your child molester theory, everyone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. If any teacher was proven guilty of child molestation in a court of law they would be in prison and really rather easy to fire. So what you are saying is news organisation particularly Fox not-News ramping up the fear factor spreads guilty upon accusation news far and wide and do everything possible to support any attack against teachers as long as they are unionised teacher and no private for profit, I don't know, what are they really going to call those unqualified, minimum wage, trainers.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
See Jane Mayer's New Yorker piece http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer to get a truer sense of the depth and breadth of the machinations.
Like a good neighbor, fsck is there
Socialist in American politics is a hold over from the socialist workers party who was behind much of Roosevelt's New deal legislation that actually was purposed years before in the 1900's. The biggest part of the opposition to it stems from the first red scare where the communist part attempted a coup and expected the socialist workers party to join in but they didn't. This was circa 1919. The US government deported all the foreign entities involved with the communist party's attempted coup and the remaining abandoned the party for the socialist workers party or went underground or both. This was exacerbated after WWII when a lot of the philosophic communist joined the socialist parties around the world because of the stigma the war and its successor the cold war created over communism.
Government health care and/or government mandated health insurance has been a topic of the socialist workers party since then also. The AMA and all the groups who now support it that was around in the early 1920's, at the time were against it.
You are right in that socialist is used mainly as a pejorative in modern times. It means anything from the government taking and giving to others to government controlling you beyond what is clearly and plainly spelled out in the constitution.
To us, that is socialist.
Reminds me of another line:
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean'
Others prefer to use a defined definition, as provided for example by Merriam and Webster:
socialism
1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2
a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property
b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
Please describe which Obama policies meet one or more of those definitions.
Mmm... how do you square that understanding with the $500 million in rebates that US families just got due to insurers not meeting the MLR guidelines? AFAIK, not-for-profit medical insurers don't have to worry (since they already met the MLR guidelines), but about 20% of insurers _do_. Hence half a billion in rebates due to the provision.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
You have news about Soros violating contribution disclosure laws? Please share and cite it.
^^^^ THIS!!!! OMFG, why oh why today do I have no mod points.
It is absurd to claim the Kochs somehow control or own a political network that has no links to them, even as a donor.
[Emphasis mine.] Absurd? No. Irrelevant? Yes. From the article:
As part of the deal, two Arizona-based nonprofits, the Koch-linked Center to Protect Patients Rights and Americans for Responsible Leadership, admitted violating [California] state election law.
And yet you claim:
Koch Industries made an official statement that they never donated "either directly or indirectly".
That does not appear to square with the facts.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Colorado Springs is 600 feet higher than Boulder, which would explain a lot of their craziness.
Define 'craziest' for us. If you do it by relative 'extremity', I'll beat you over the head myself! That is not a valid critique, unless the goal is to have 'consensus' instead of deriving truth.
Teachers, like any other group, tend to run in packs and protect their own, lashing out at anyone on the outside that dare questions their motives.. It's human nature. We see this with the catholic church too...and cops..and soldiers...and the NSA, FBI, CIA et al. Over time, the cultures organizations brew become less and less focused on external realities as they accrue power. The more power they accrue the more they can get away with this. The problem is that they quickly become worse than useless to free society in the process.
If you want to talk about 'guilty-upon-accusation' accusations, just look what feminism is doing to men in 'family' court...that's a left wing thing, mostly, with the neocons latching on when they're in man-up-it's-chivalry mode. Fox is one of many news organizations with political agendas. It's no worse than CNN or MSNBC but people pick on it because it's the minority view in that arena. None of them can be relied on to tell the whole truth.
After all, this $15 million is important, but the $100 million that is laundered for Soros and Bennett by the Tides group every year is not important.
Cite?
Nationalizing 15% of the economy is not right in the fucking center. If you think it is, where the hell does that mean you are?
FWIW, some of the strongest stories about problems in firing teachers were published by the LA Times while it was part of the same organization that owned the Chicago Tribune. One recent case was the teacher who was giving his students cookies laced with his semen. The two propositions that were mentioned in TFA were sponsored by the Cal Teachers Union.
A Shadeless room is a brighter room.
Koch Industries made an official statement that they never donated "either directly or indirectly".
That does not appear to square with the facts.
What facts? Are you claiming to have evidence that Koch Industries' statement isn't true? The author of TFA didn't seem to have any. Other than insinuation and conjecture, and describing organizations as "Koch-linked" (whatever that means), there is nothing in the article. It doesn't even make sense. Political donations are legal, and the Kochs are open about their political views, so why would they hide their involvement even it they were involved?
The NRA didn't start the recall effort. It was started by locals. Then the organization of which they are members and pay their dues helped the effort, to try to counter the much higher amount of money pumped in by out of state billionaires.
It would be amusing if not tragic that Unions decry others' political contributions and want to make them illegal while committing vast treasure to the same arena, often against the wishes of many members forced to contribute via dues and assessments.
The Koch brothers links to those organizations have been known for some time: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/california-politics/2012/11/koch-brothers-california.html
Left as an exercise to the reader: figuring out the distinction between what is stated by the entity know as "Koch Industries" and what is actually done by the Koch brothers.
Sort of like the same place from which American libertarianism comes. You know the never-never land where the magic "free market" is never manipulated by greedy corporations and everyone lives by "enlightened self-interest." That way everyone lives in peace and harmony. (That is if you have several billion dollars.) Libertarianism - sociopathy massaged into a political philosophy.
How so? The NRA receives nearly half of its entire operating capital from individuals. It's far more "grassroots" than most organizations.
If you think the vast majority of firearm owners own them as "penis replacements," you don't know much.
Tell that to the hundreds of thousands who use firearms in defense every year. Mass shootings are used to whip up hysteria, while the defensive use of firearms in deadly situations is conveniently ignored.
Toss out suicides and criminal-on-criminal violence, and the US numbers start to look a whole lot like those of other industrialized nations. But then most victim disarmament people like to ignore the results of the CDC study commissioned by Obama, including Obama.
This may be one of the best examples of Poe's law I've ever seen. I honestly cannot tell if you're trolling or actually think the government has taken over all of the hospitals and forced those working inside to become government employees.
I think I'm going to give you a golf clap and laugh at you at the same time, just to cover all my bases.
Exactly.. most of the liberals I know are "self-made" (upper-)middle class from lower-middle class parents. The upper-middle parents have a lot more right wing kids, and the longer they've been upper-middle the more right wing they are. It's much easier to express your privilege guilt by voting left than by actually doing something for others ;)
But wait, voters are the victims. We can't blame the victims!</sarcasm>
It's always a vocal minority that gets the most attention in any group. Libertarians and pseudo-libertarians are no different. The same goes for the 1% whiners.
I agree wholeheartedly. I'd assume it was intended humorously, if not for the rest of the comment.
And those who rose up from exploitation swing hard the other way, and are just as evil and extreme as extremist capitalists (who are really no more capitalist than those lefties are communist).
Left as an exercise to the reader: figuring out the distinction between what is stated by the entity know as "Koch Industries" and what is actually done by the Koch brothers.
From your link to the LA Times: In a statement, a spokeswoman for Koch Industries said the Koch brothers were not involved in either of the campaigns supported by the $11 million from the Arizona group. So Koch Industries has made an explicit statement that neither they, nor the Koch brothers were involved, either directly or indirectly, in funding the campaigns. Contributing to the campaigns is not illegal. Lying about is illegal. So why would they lie? And if there was any actual evidence that they contributed (as the author of TFA insinuates, but does not provide), they why aren't they being charged with a crime? Perhaps the author thought that putting "Koch Brothers" in the headline would generate more hits?
I am a government Employee, middle class (barely) and in the Tech field. I'm Libertarian, and staunchly against most "progressive' politics simply for one reason. Most of progressive politics never takes into account the individual rights when they are infringed upon by the majority.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Pretty much true avoiding extremes usually works best.
Socialist is to the right, what "Tea Party" is the to left. Just name calling to dehumanize your opponent. Of course, if you agree with those terms you might be one of the useful idiots that are on both sides.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Our current political landscape seems to be dominated instead by centrist politicians whose chief principles consist in ensuring reelection by satisfying corporate donors. If we had real socialists, at least we could have a real conversation.
Two big democracies whose political systems can be compared as they are big countries are India and US. I have always felt the multiparty democracy we have in India has greater advantages as far as representing diverse political views compared to the two party system of USA. The American senate and house need to have diverse views. You need 10 more Justin Amash, Dennis Kucinich, more (far) right and (far) left in the political process. In such a system a safe centrist character like Obama may not even become President. The race for President - the ultimate political prize in this planet - itself is anti-democratic.
The disadvantages of having a multiparty system are small regional players keeping the coalition alive and sometimes holding the government to ransom. But then with the latest US government shutdown such a situation can arise even with a two party system.
Indian Prime Minister is only an elected representative of the upper house (Rajya Sabha), or lower house (Lok Sabha) - not a winner of a nationwide pageant like the US president elections. Imagine the hubris such a win can impart on the psyche of an individual like Obama - he is the leader of the free world, not a constitutional professor who was a community organizer - that element of Obama, which made him endearing does not apply anymore.
Some of the clueless Indian politicians - like Shashi Tharoor, a glib writer and UN diplomat with American roots - want to remake our political process to more reflect the US presidential style. But I don't think it will happen, and it should not happen.
Tat Tvam Asi
As long as you define "politics" as the second rate copy of DU.
That's it. I think I'm done with Slashdot. I was going to quit as soon as their new UX took effect, but if they're going to post stories like this, no point in staying even that long.
Maybe that's because the society you're trying to build has already been tried elsewhere, and failed.
In that LA Times link, immediately after the part you quoted: "We have not contributed to any group with the intent of helping Proposition 32 or defeating Proposition 30 in California," Melissa Cohlmia said. (emphasis added). But if the money they gave went that way, I'm sure they didn't complain.
Look, this is called 'dark money' for a reason. The direct links have been deliberately scrubbed, but they are there. And the Koch brothers are keeping quiet about their involvement because the campaigns are more effective without their names attached.
I'm not too sure why you're getting so animated about the issue.
This may not mesh with what libertarianism is in actuality, but my view on it has always been this:
Do what you want as long as you dont' step on anyone's autonomy to do what they want.
Which in that sense I agree with...to me economically exploiting people until they have no choice to do x or y action is stepping on their autonomy. So the standard slashdot argument against it wouldn't apply. Since libertarianism is basically defined as a philosophy advocating minimal state intervention my definition would seem to apply.
A lot of people have perverted that, but I personally, feel at it's core that's what it is. At the very least this is what *I* advocate.
Every side points to the others and labels them 'extreme.' It's called an ad hominem attack
No, no it's not.
Required reading for internet skeptics
So in that case the problem is with the law, the courts and the police. Failure to legally prosecute and imprison and thus resolving the issue with straight forward dismissal.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I'll answer that - it's a cool sounding label self applied to people whose political views cover the entire range from outright anarchists to the sort of people George Washington if he was alive today would want to shoot for being counter-revolutionary royalists. In other words - an utterly meaningless label. Your "so called libertarians" is just "no true Scottsman" bullshit and you have no more "idea of what libertarianism is" than them. Astroturfing has added more by bussing in extra teabaggers for more noise but they as just a much "libertarian" as anyone that sticks that label on themselves.
Everybody knows from where that money came...
Coming soon to a Ruling near you: in the spirit of Citizens United, he Roberts court is currently teetering on the edge of classifying all political donations as free speech, regardless of source or amount. Watch for it.
Bribery wants to be free!
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
If you want an understanding of what "socialist" means in American political discourse (I'm guessing you're from the old country, given your sig and your spelling conventions), then search sometime for "AM talk radio" and listen in for a few hours. "Socialist" is little more than a pejorative. I truly wish we had some genuine socialists in the US...
Right. The current President of France is from the Socialist Party, which is one of the two big parties in France. France has universal socialized medical care - everyone legally resident in France is covered. France has free abortion on demand. France has a 35 hour work week and 5 weeks of vacation a year, enforced by law. Productivity per hour worked is one of the highest in the world, above US levels. The median wage per hour worked is one of the highest in Europe. France has energy independence, with 80% of electricity coming from nuclear power. Most education through college is Government-funded. Current tuition at French universities is about 200EUR/year.
France is a "social democracy". The French government doesn't own most businesses. Most employment is private. There's a lot of regulation, some of it petty, some of it historical going back to Napoleon. It's more annoying than serious.
That's what socialism looks like.
However demonstrated success does over-ride stupid insults like your outdated cold war one above. Take it at face value instead of moving the goal posts again.
Communism sprung from the minds of ivy league utopianism
Thanks for proving parent's point about American historical illiteracy. I mean... you DO know that Socialist/Communist theory is based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, two 19th century German philosophers, rather than being an invention of American universities, right? ...right?
Contributing to the campaigns is not illegal. Lying about is illegal. So why would they lie?
People lie because they think they can get away with it.
In law, it's actually pretty easy to get away with lies as the burden of proof is on the accuser and all of the useful evidence would be held by the liar.
I'm not saying Koch brothers are lying, merely that the fact that lying in a corporate statement is illegal is in itself not proof they are not lying.
Any public statement, whether legally binding or not, made by a company (or a person) regarding their own innocence is proof of neither guilt nor innocence and should be ignored.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I don't know why people are so interested in them suddenly.
But what I do know is that they give big donations to libertarian thinktanks and media companies, one of which is the cato institute.
The cato institute was originally founded by a well known economist, murray rothbard, who later left because they were no longer true austrian libertarians but chicago half-libertarians. Now they're not even chicago economists with speakers such as BEN BERNANKE at conferences.
The koch brothers aren't libertarian, they're big-business "libertarians", they support what will further their big oil business and thats it. They couldn't care less about civil liberties, the federal reserve, subsidies or anything else.
For the full story, read the below link. I hope you've learned something.
http://archive.lewrockwell.com/gordon/gordon37.html
But also where the free market is not manipulated by irresponsible politicians who care not one bit for the actual return on investment for their meddling. Just ram something through and when it does not work, feed the media another sound bite and keep spending/borrowing.
dunno, no communist scheme so far has been taken so far as to run out of things to take before turning into something else.
the schemes have usually started with taking the lives of some people and killers taking the loot and excluding majority of the people from being able to take any loot.
but getting people to agree to such schemes doesn't start in a vacuum. it wasn't a surprise that communist revolution in russia happened. what happened afterwards was anybodys guess but it was quite likely that the lower class would be incited into revolution by someone. because they were pissed off and being pissed on.
there's plenty of things that are "far left" by somebodys standards which are not utopian at all too - like standard education for all and universal healthcare. I've enjoyed both of them in a country that was having regular famines(the kind of during which you walk 400 kilometers through forests looking for work) among lower classes until 100 years ago. some people tried a communist revolution there as well a little under 100 years ago but since "elite" wasn't so hated(or numerous even) than in russia-proper the non-communists managed to gather and organize enough people to their cause for a win(and in the end lead the country to become what could be argued be in every aspect more socialistic than the areas where the revolution did go through).
what kind of socialism is it if you take everybodys social rights away, anyways?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Totally off topic, but can't resist.
Tell that to the hundreds of thousands who use firearms in defense every year. Mass shootings are used to whip up hysteria, while the defensive use of firearms in deadly situations is conveniently ignored.
I think a lot of people would argue that the vast majority of "defensive use of firearms in deadly situations" would not even be necessary in a country where it is even slightly difficult to get your hands on automatic firearms.
Toss out suicides and criminal-on-criminal violence, and the US numbers start to look a whole lot like those of other industrialized nations.
No, actually it doesn't. Toss out suicides and criminal-on-criminal violence and you're still left with outrageous numbers of cases of "defensive use of firearms" (which you mentioned in the first paragraph but had forgotten in the second?). Cases which in most other countries would wind up a fistfight or not even that.
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
I'll define crazy for you, in this context: encouraging millions of people to act against their own self-interest on the basis of fact-free drivel. That's what Fox does. It is considerably worse than what CNN or MSNBC does because it is so determinedly fact-free, and it causes millions of people to suffer real economic harm.
As for this arse-twattery about feminism doing stuff to men in 'family courts': it will be reasonable for men to complain about this kind of injustice at the point when women are not raped, beaten and abused in their millions in the US by men. I say this as a man. The vast majority of gender-based inequity in US society flows one way, and it ain't against women.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/funderprofile.asp?fndid=5184
It seemed last week that you were unfortunately wrong
Amazing that some of you think that way. You see a firearm as a penis replacement. I suppose that some gun owners are insecure, and also view their weapons as a macho appendage. Strange stuff happens. But, you. What about you? Why do YOU see a firearm as a penis? What is it about a firearm that makes you think penises? Are you insecure? Do you have penis envy? Are you jealous of anyone who can handle a weapon, without fear? Oh - are you AFRAID of penises?
I wish that we could get some qualified psychoanalysts to figure out what is happening inside a liberal's mind, when he sees penises being carried around in public.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Speaking of ethics - what makes it acceptable for the left to stand on the graves of the victims, politicizing their deaths? You people just can't WAIT for the next mass shooting, so that you can dance on the bodies, proclaiming "I told you so!".
Meanwhile - Chicago has the highest death toll by handguns in the WORLD. Imagine that. You won't address those statistics, will you? The strictest gun regulations in the world lead to the highest death toll. Which death toll is higher - that of Chicago, or that of Iraq?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Just don't get excited and shoot Koch out your nose. That shit burns.
Don't the Koch brothers stand to make about $100,000,000,000 profit from the KeystoneXL pipeline?
In theory, yes. But in practice, they tend to strangle the industry once they grow to an industry-wide monopoly. It becomes about bravado and 'getting more' because that's how the union leaders stay in power, so it creates a field of political waste. As an industry, it no longer becomes a race to progress and competing with your rivals, but who can slash costs enough to stay afloat when crushed with huge union costs. Yes, all the companies in the industry experience these, but it actually serves to cripple and centralize the industry, the exact opposite of what a union should theoretically do.
Both the far left and the far right will end up violating your rights by pure Libertarian standards. In my case, I lean pretty far left because I'd rather my personal rights be violated (e.g. be taxed too much) to ensure the poor kid in the trailer down the street has enough to eat and a shot at a decent education. There but for the grace of God go I, and so on.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Before we can make the world we want, we need to be honest with ourselves about the world (and people) as it is (they are)
"Give a woman two glasses of wine and some pad thai, and they'll agree to just about anything." the Sports Guy
Marx and Engels did not goto University in the States
Actulay in the private sector Unions are quite keen on employee share holders.
Take a look at someone's when you're in the lavvie.
Long, barrel shaped. Shoots stuff out one end.
What really bugs me about the holier than thou liberal types who love to froth at the mouth over the Koch Brothers is how they completely ignore and dismiss similar ties to folks like George Soros. And what of buying votes directly from the White House in the form of private meetings with MSNBC anchors and waivers for unions and preferred corporate supporters? Shine the spotlight on corruption, by all means, but recognize there is just as much if not more coming from the left and from this administration.
The society you are trying to build? Which one is that? The one that wants rich people to pay for everyone else and for nobody to have to work hard or take responsibility for their actions?
It is as if you really think you aren't being brainwashed by the same types and you think under ordinary circumstances any sane adult would completely agree with your ideology. That sums up the mind of liberals, I think.
Then what pray tell me would you consider politically left if you find liberals in America to be moderate, reasonable, smack in the middle types?
Clinton is making a living as a circuit speaker and author.
Al Gore has several businesses.
How do you think people are supposed to make money? Be born into it only?
And in your HOPE that smacking down insurance company profitability you will have lower rates you have revealed your ignorance. The insurance companies were a small contributor to the ever increasing costs of care. Guess what else contributed? MANY things like hospital mergers and big pharma, labor costs, etc. None of these were adressed, why is health care costs continue to increase despite the ACA. The concept that you can enroll millions of previously uninsured sick people and lightly fine healthy uninsured and have cost reduction is bankrupt. By the time the gullible get it the rest of us will also have much worse care.
From good for many or most to equally shifty for all.
Hooray liberals, you know how to fix things. Next will come amnesty and making it illegal for citizens to own firearms, and our turn into a third world shithole will be complete. Of course when the economy completely collapses under tax and spend and crime continues to rise to epic levels and immigrants take jobs from other low income families... I have no doubt the media and the brainwashed will find a way to blame it all on the Koch Brothers and Geroge W Bush.
I think a lot of people would argue that the vast majority of "defensive use of firearms in deadly situations" would not even be necessary in a country where it is even slightly difficult to get your hands on automatic firearms.
I think you are making some faulty assumptions about defensive firearms use. They are used in many differ sorts of circumstances as you can see from a few of the stories at this link: Stories That Happened In MI
No, actually it doesn't. Toss out suicides and criminal-on-criminal violence and you're still left with outrageous numbers of cases of "defensive use of firearms" (which you mentioned in the first paragraph but had forgotten in the second?).
I think you will find some interesting commentary here: Murder by Numbers
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
If you think the big player in Cali politics is the evil Koch brothers then you're clueless. The big unions... especially the government unions... teachers unions, cal trans, police/firefighter/etc unions are MASSIVE in cali. Just absurdly hugely powerful.
This bill as I read it, would have limited their ability to automatically put the wages of union members towards political contributions. That is a huge part of their power in the state. These unions are very large and they can kick in huge sums of money to every election and never run dry because they're taking a relatively small portion of every union member's pay check. And they don't need to get your consent to do it. If you work for the government, you probably belong to one of these unions... and if they decide to kick in money it will come out of your non-voluntary dues at the very least.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
At least you get it.
Unfortunately, the ideal utopia where people "learn to resist" doesn't seem to exist.
Rockets to the moon didn't exist before we came along and built one. Are you saying it's... impossible?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
He puts his fingers in his hears and goes "lalalalalalla" while turning on his TV to Fox News.
The true test becomes not with how you feel about your own personal rights but in how you apply those rights to others.
You may not care about being taxed but that doesn't mean that it's right to apply that standard to others.
Obama comes to mind. His 'accomplishment'? Being not-bush.
I don't know which Obama you've been watching, but I think they were tricked.
Obama comes to mind. His 'accomplishment'? Being not-bush. In 2009, he had only been in office a little more than a year or so.
Not even that. While awarded 8 months into his first term, he was actually nominated 2 weeks after taking office.
Obama was the first U.S. president to receive the award during his first year in office (at eight and a half months, after being nominated less than two weeks in office)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Nobel_Peace_Prize
OR you can have Progressivism... the political philosophy that brought you eugenics, forced sterilization of "undesirables" and a massive state mechanism that punishes success and rewards sloth. 100 years of this shit and people STILL won't admit it failed.
Don't let facts get in the way of a good MSNBC rant.
ivy league universities whose cultures are loaded with marxist philosophy
I was going to parody this comrade, but I couldn't think of any way to make it funnier.
What I see isn't so much funny as sad. Higher education has clearly been captured by the Left, and Cultural Marxism is dominant. Ideas springing from or influenced by Marxism are influential or dominant in many areas even when outright Marxism isn't. Chomsky is the most highly cited living author. Apparently you would deny this.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Well, who pumped money in there first?
Cannot blame anybody for playing along.
The different Nobels are rewarded by different panels. The sciences tend to be pretty clean but Peace is awarded by a mostly left-leaning panel. Economics is also a mess but is not, in fact, a real Nobel anyway.
But to go back a point, sure the universities produce Nobels. But that's orthogonal to the political outlooks. A scientist will typically be more interested in the science than where the money is coming from to fund it. But that source will affect their worldview. It's hardly surprising that someone would support a system that allows them to continue what they're doing, particularly if they are not deep political thinkers in the first place.
A compromise position is biased and unworkable if you have only one "extreme" view allowed. It's "codified" as the "Overton window", but it's just as well stated with (forget the dude, some European thinker) "The world changes by the efforts of unreasonable men. The reasonable man will change to fit the world, the unreasonable one will move to change the world to fit him."
Or something of that sausage.
I prefer to consider "I'm a centrist" as someone with the completely ass-backward idea of there being only straight lines and "in the middle" defined as "I disagree with those people over there I put on one side, and those people there I put on another side, therefore I must be moderate and in the middle!".
I like to consider the idea that these spectra are NOT straight lines, but triangles. Each extremist on the three ends can see two more extremists either side and they are EXACTLY in the middle. Therefore they MUST be moderate.
Except each extremist can see the same thing.
Moreover, they can say they agree with some things (on the line between them and the point mid way between "the other two sides" and disagree with others, because they are not against the true median as much as they are against those extremists. More proof they are "moderate"!
Only the extremist can see this, though.
The actual moderates can see themselves more in agreemeng with one of those extremists than either of the other two, hence see they are NOT "moderate" when compared to "the extremists".
The only ones CERTAIN they are moderate are the extremists.
All in all, I think the triangle works really well as a metaphor.
I'll define crazy for you, in this context: encouraging millions of people to act against their own self-interest
This is where I differ. I don't believe we should be always looking out for our OWN self interest, but that of the whole. This selfish, I got mine attitude is what is crippling this nation of dependents.
Well I am not sure if you expect me to consider a site called "gunssavelives.net" entirely objective. But even so, from skimming down their front page it turns out that yes, sometimes a gun was used against a knife or somesuch, but mostly it is guns defending against against guns. There is no explanation given for how they select these items, or how much goes unreported and why.
So what I still think is likely, and actually that's all I said in my earlier post, is that if there were 99% less firearms to begin with (which would bring the US in the same ballpark as most other Western nations) there would likely be very few situations which would even escalate to that point, as is the case in so many other places.
The murder by numbers data is interesting. Basically it is saying that the murder rate is decreasing. Well, I would surely hope that that's right. But if so, I should think it would be a good reason to ease up on the armed-to-the-teeth fashion you've got, rather than taking it as encouragement to push it even further?
As an aside, I can't help notice that the sudden dip in the graph happens to coincide with a swap in source of these numbers (see the legend). Not sure what that means, if anything, but it is something which stands out and is not further explained as far as I saw.
They then go on to argue that the apparent drop in murder rate is unquestionable due to the facts that the number of prisoners has quadrupled in 20 years, as has the number of prisoners executed, and the number of states which have introduced concealed carry permits.
They say it like they're proud of that shit (quoting SLJ, natch)
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
When has any Tea Party claimed to be libertarian? Sure, their platform may attract more since there's an overlap but they are people centered around a shared concern, not an overriding political philosophy (albeit there has been an effort from the Republican party to co-opt the cause).
But that is the plot for next year's summer teen movie.
See, this is where you go wrong. The aim of libertarianism is not peace and harmony and an ideal world, it's just that we believe there'd be a lot less misery than your fucked up left-wing roads-to-Utopia end up providing.
The locals mainly. I do know that the NRA's big $250K donation (at the request of its local members) came after Bloomberg. In the end, pro-recall forces were outspent 5 to 1, mainly due to these large contributions from outside the state.
There's a map of contributions out there. In it, you'll see that pro-recall donations came from around the country in small amounts, while the far smaller number of anti donations came mainly in large amounts on the East and West coasts. Within Colorado, large amounts came from the cities against the recall, while those supporting the recall were more widespread.
So what you have is a handful of rich people and corporations looking to protect the infringement of rights, but widespread popular support trying to stop it.
Nearly everyone hates hearing other people say things they disagree with.
You might be thinking of immoral, selfish, or stupid people. Honestly, the stupid/immoral/selfish side of the spectrum causes SO many problems that I don't see why you would bother trying to frame it in terms of political spectrum. Sometimes the SIS is associated with the fringes, but there are plenty of political moderates who angrily try to shut down the internet with lawyers when someone says something about them they don't want said.
Well said.
Bad journalism is getting more and more common and people fall for these kinds of stories all the time.
While the masses are freaking out over this does anybody know who George Soros is?
He is the guy on the other side of the political fence who has had the same things said about him.
Being a reporter used to mean something, now quite often it's just an algorithm. Robo-reporter.
No, you are thinking of geeks. Nerds are just insanely smart people.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
You do realize that automatic firearms are much more than slightly difficult to get in the US and are in fact illegal here, right? Most firearm homicides, and defensive uses (which usually don't end in homicide), are with handguns and not automatic weapons.
Aside from impressions you apparently got from Hollywood movies, automatic firearms are almost non-existent in civilian life in the US. Their possession is limited primarily to collectors as they are rare, outrageously expensive, and very highly regulated.
A huge percentage of the guns owned in the US are small caliber (.22s) and/or long guns not suitable for crime (the .22 rifle is the most commonly owned firearm by caliber/type [its uses are primarily hunting rabbit and soda cans]). This makes the number of guns in the US look high, but it doesn't translate to "armed to the teeth". Removing these firearms from the population isn't going to translate into lower numbers of homicides. Indeed, only 34% of guns owned in the US are handguns.
Most legally owned guns are never involved in a crime. Unsecured guns are stolen, though, which doesn't help the issue and guns should be secured when in storage. This would reduce criminal access to guns. The solution to the crime issue in the US need not involve the disarmament of the population. It is a social issue, first and foremost.
When will investigations into Soros, Buffet, or Bloomberg happen? Should they every, I wonder if all the Conservatives will applaud while the Liberals moan. Could we have a consistent standard?
Obama is a leftist, what part of that don't you get?
The part that makes him a leftist. Obama's definitely seems like a right of center politician.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
the union is a bunch of people who pool money. the Kochs are two guys with a lot of money. which one is closer to democracy?
And David gives a shityload of money to colleges, hospitals, PBS, opera ...
Not saying this excuses their politics.
Their birth rate is declining, businesses are fleeing and their welfare state is unsustainable.
So you're right: They are socialist.
Said no one. Ever.
There are times when it's appropriate to voice objections to stories; such as shameless astroturf advertising and such. If there were scores of disapproving posts, don't you think that would affect the editors?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
CA being hardcore liberal Democrat would do its damnedest to point out the evil conservatives 'dark money' network, while saying JACK SQUAT about the Democrats and their behind the scenes money making. This is what is killing America, the bias of 'journalists' and the political machinery in government that is determined to stay in power at all costs.
It's funny and frightening how the America is paralleling the Late Roman Empire in it's political maneuvering, graft, corruption and spin doctoring. I am amazed at how idiotically short sighted we are here in America. The old 'it can't happen to us' mindset is a true killer.
Pax Vobiscum
Meanwhile - Chicago has the highest death toll by handguns in the WORLD. Imagine that. You won't address those statistics, will you?
Ah, but They do. They blame the NRA for the violence in Chicago, believe it or not (link is to a political cartoon).
Free Martian Whores!
why is it "dark money" if it involves these guys, but when it is paulie walnuts dropping off a sack of cash at the seiu office no one cares.
lose != loose
My (unasked for) view is that money is free speech. However, the AMOUNT of money is the VOLUME of free speech. So, everybody should be able to have free speech, as described by the first amendment. However, nobody should be able to drown out the free speech of others. So, the ability to donate should never be impeded, but the AMOUNT of money donated should be strictly controlled.
Sadly, the Supreme Court does not ask for my opinion.
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company -- Mark Twain
Teaching all the kids to read and write is socialist, don't even get me started on critical thinking. That could be why there's a lot less positively cited right wing propaganda in education. If the educational establishment was captured by the right, it would be the beginning of the end of education.
We can look forward to the regurgitation of 'facts' and obsolete science which is demonstrably wrong but doesn't contradict the bible, and thats what really matters. Kids knowing their place, NEVER QUESTION ELDERS OR AUTHORITY, the strictly defined laws of the land, the infallible founding fathers, working hard will always equal success.
Thats the education i want my kids to receive for sure.
Or maybe in places with lots of gun crime they introduce controls in order to reduce it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
No, in Boulder it is more likely to be highpoxia.
extra credit question for the Big Data wonks. What is correlation between gun ownership and illegal activities? How different is the incidents of illegal activity between gun owners and non-gun owners?
Oh, you can't answer the question because the NRA actively works to limit the collection and dissemination of the information. Too bad for civil society.
I'm confused how the loony^Hreligious right in the USA cope with the concept that Jesus Christ is clearly a socialist.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Well, considering that those thousands of union members only have money to speak because billionaires like the Koch brothers give it to them, in wages grossly inflated relative to the work provided, then I'd say that the Koch brothers effectively pay for all political speech.
Or facts, those work too.
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/09/gdp-per-capita.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_hour_worked
Median wage is about $15.11 per hour. Median GDP per hour worked is about $63.37. That means the capital investment of folks like the Koch Brothers keeps about 75% of a workers productivity. So, if you think about it this way, the Billionaires tax you 75% for the right to work. The billionaires then use that money to convince people to vote against thier self intrest. Of course this number is going up and has been migrating up since the 70's.
The machine is much more complex than it should be...
emt 377 emt 4
It amazes me that someone whose philosophy has rationalized the use of theft and violence by the government would describe their opponents as "sociopaths". If people so wanted to help each other, why did you have force them to do it?
So, do you own your own business?
agribuisnes, and are you worth millions?
Post your financial statement, or are you just a Tea Party Republican?
I hope you don't live in California.
I can help you leave and go to the Midwest, Jesusland, soon to be.
With California a new nation.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Erm, you're kind of missing the point.
This is not about poor people voting to sponge off rich people. Quite the opposite, it's about rich people duping poor people into voting for laws that make the rich even richer and the poor even poorer. That's not being selfless, that's being duped. It also - duh, obviously - *creates* dependency, because it reduces people's incomes and assets, making them more likely to need handouts.
But you keep on living the counterfactual, in between sucking Rove's nuts. It seems to make ya happy.
A am reasonably wealthy and chafe at transferring my hard earned wealth to the indolent, illegals, or union thugs. As for Jesus, I hope the Koch brothers will help bring Him to California, forcibly if necessary. We on the right would not let go of a prize like California.
an ill wind that blows no good
I escaped to the country with a degree from the University of Detroit in 1970. Doing OK now.
Went back to visit last summer, got a 2 inch drywall screw stuck in my tire. Won't be back again.
...is that it's "you're", not "your."
Tragic that this canard keeps getting recycled. You can vote on where dues go. You cannot vote on the executive hooker budget for the board, much less what slush money they decide to throw around.
Or if he's truly ignorant of the fact that Obamacare == Romneycare. The Republicans have been losing their minds over the fact that a Democrat......signed their own Heritage Foundation-crafted plan into law.
To us, you're so far off-base you're off-planet. Obama, the one who continued the Bush tax cuts? Obama, who let the banks get away with stealing millions of homes with fraudulent documents? Obama, who adopted the Republican idea to force people to buy for-profit health insurance?
Unless, of course, you're talking about redistributing wealth to the wealthy. Obama is guilty of that, but the word you're looking for is Fascism, not Socialism.
I am sure you believe what you said. Unfortunately it does not comport with first-person union member interviews I saw during the last election run-up and its aftermath. One of us has been fed a line. If all union headquarters had votes of all members on political contributions and then distributed the money in proportion to the outcomes, I'd be more receptive to your arguments. Nothing personal.
My understanding of Union politics is akin to the old joke: "Comrades, comes the revolution you'll all eat strawberries and cream." ( voice from the crowd): "But I don't like strawberries and cream." "Comrades, comes the revolution you'll ALL eat strawberries and cream!"
You mean, strangle the ability of the CEO to make 500 times the average worker by cutting the worker's pay and benefits.
So it's the equivalent of indie in musical genres and asatru in religions?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Socialists as found over here since WWII.
Read about what happened in the postwar election in the UK to see what they do if not prevented by vested interests.
Some of those actions need done again.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Theft and violence? I guess I have to add paranoid to that. It is unfortunate that Civic Virtue is not longer taught in schools.
Good, we need an article about how Bloomberg and another billionaire tried to derail the NRA and Koch brothers funded effort to recall those two Colorado anti-gun rights state senators.
Fixed it for you.
Contrary to your misconceptions, this recall was about controlling the Colorado state Senate and threatening legislators, not just about gun rights. Also, the "grass roots" recall of Senate President John Morse drew only a 20% turnout, there were more petition signatures to put it on the ballot than votes to recall in the actual election, and about $100 spent by outside donors for every vote actually cast.
Have you read my blog lately?
It was started by a couple local guys who never had anything to do with political organization. Those organizations you hear like Basic Freedom Defense Foundation that ran the recall effort were set up by them. This is fact. They started it.
Once their movement grew they realized the big money they were up against, the warchests of the powerful incumbent politicians. So they asked the NRA for money, and they got some.
Then the recall effort gained steam. Bloomberg donated big money to stop it, and so did other billionaires and corporations (most of the anti-recall money was large donations). After this, the NRA donated the bulk of their contribution to counter that. The Koch brothers did use their existing organization to distribute flyers, but that's about it.
But in total the big-money anti-gun interests spent at least five times the amount as the recall people. They thought they could buy those senate seats from the people of Colorado. That's most of your $100 per vote -- against the recall from big out of state money.
What many people may not realize is that this wasn't completely about guns. In their zeal to follow the will of their anti-gun bosses, these politicians completely ignored the citizens of Colorado. They didn't allow them to speak as is traditional, they cut off debate to prevent it. At townhall meetings, the gun bills were a forbidden topic. The people rightfully felt their voices weren't being heard, so they decided to teach these politicians a lesson. This is why independents were the reason the incumbents lost, one in a heavily Democratic district.
It may have been "started by locals", but it quickly became a national cause. The anti-Morse campaign was funded by $500K of anonymous outside money by some organization that wasn't required to file campaign statements - sounds like the Koch brothers greasy fingerprints to me. If you live in Colorado Springs (as I do) you would find it obvious that the recall proponents were well-funded, since we got bombarded by negative anti-Morse ads. Morse lost by only about 350 votes (out of about 15000), so the Kochs actually spent over $1000 for each decisive vote. Since the turnout was so low, the activist loonies got a much larger share of influence - most of the Democratic side wasn't really engaged enough to bother voting in this off-year off-cycle election, hence the 20% turnout.
Have you read my blog lately?
Powerful people are using the Citizens United case
There is no such thing as "using" a court case. What they are using is their God-given right to speak freely. And whining about how they may be better at it than you are (for any reason whatsoever) is nothing but envy. You don't complain about people you agree with when they use their louder-than-most public speaking abilities. Not even when it's your own tax dollars used to influence public opinion.
It's better that way that allowing some compromised bureaucrat decide who gets to say what, and how, and when.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
It's called democracy, Slick, and not everyone gets what they want all the time. Shocking concept, I know. You could suggest an alternative, like fascism - and may I say that's a mighty fine brown shirt you're already wearing - but then people would get even less of what they want.
So you're back at square one. Don't like your union's political activities, you're free to vote for some other course of action. Don't like you're non-union shop's political activities....you're free to shut up and like it.
Democracy is not winner take all. It's a social contract based on compromise and protection of minorities. Your idea of "democracy" is the dictatorship "of the proletariat", namely the majority, and that's what many unions are. And there have been too many cases of ballot rigging and jail sentences to think some unions represent the will of even the majority.
They just have no clue about the actual source of the problem. Regulations do not develop in a vacuum.
What are taxes, exactly? And what happens when you stop paying them?
There is nothing virtuous about doing what is required of you. Virtue only has meaning when it is not compulsory. And what it is about public servants that makes them so much more virtuous than the rest of us?
Well, hopefully enough conservative voters get mad about it happening to their elections, that Dems and Republicans can get together can put some campaign finance laws in place. Some common sense laws that don't allow 1-2 people to completely change a state election or state issue.
You are a rare breed of conservative. I wish there were more of you who understand factual things like "liberals in this country co-opted the right's plan and passed the ACA". The vast majority of conservatives in this country think the ACA is a socialists dream or something....
An entire legion of your best non sequiturs. Still dancing around the fact that unions are a democracy, and by definition not everyone gets what they want in a democracy. Also avoiding the fact that workers have a say over union donations, but no say over corporate donations.
Workers are not equity owners unless the company has a Kelso/ESOP plan. If it does they have more say than Union members in a non- Kelso company. In some cases workers own the company ( United Airlines). I suggest you do your homework before spouting off. By the way, John Dunlop, who assisted many union negotiations, was a colleague and when I was Deputy Policy Director for the Secretary of Commerce, Kelso came to us with his idea and we assisted legally with the creation of employee stock ownership plans. So as the Russians say, don't try to teach your grandmother how to suck eggs.
Ownership is a red herring. There is no company that employes workers that isn't dependent on the sweat off the brow of said workers. So you're fine with that sweat going to political causes, so long as the workers don't have any say in it. I suggest you think outside your Randian fantasy before spouting off.
You seem to have difficulty with the concept of private property. I am sorry I cannot help you further. If a worker does not like the terms of his employment at an employer who observes the labor and immigration laws, he is free to seek elsewhere. There is no "right" to a job in another's company.
You seem to be a good little bourgeoisie who thinks those two little words form some kind of trump card. Funny how businesses are free to pool their capital (money) however they want, but workers should be barred from doing the same with their capital (labor). Almost like it's some kind of hack double standard, or something.
And now you've destroyed your own argument, how considerate of you.
Union membership is required in many states. That is why popular rising has created right to work states. There in no free choice in closed shop states. As to your constant attempts to provoke with name calling, it is none of my business what you think of me. Finally, as a PhD Economist who received that degree at one of the founding socialist schools, the London School of Economics, I must tell you that you are simply wrong. Labor is not capital. The factors of production are land, labor, and capital. Each has distinct properties.
That'll be every news to every business on the planet that treats laborl as a resource just like capital.
A PhD that needs to be revoked if you're going to Fool's Mate yourself not once, but twice over basic economics. First for arguing that workers are free to seek another job if they don't like their boss's political activities, when the same has to apply to union shops as well.
And secondly, because you can neatly swap "shareholders" and "dividends" for all your concern trolling over "unions" and "dues". If union members shouldn't have to support political actions because blah blah rights blah blah, then neither should shareholders.
Hoist on your own petard.
Your constant claims of triumph do not persuade. You do not appear to know the difference between a resource and capital. I suggest a good economics dictionary. If it will make you go away quietly feel free to declare victory and pull out of your Vietnam.
Just to be clear, capital is a resource, but other resources ( land, labor) are not capital. Capital has distinct properties; it's price is denominated by interest; labor's price is denominated by wages; land's price by rent. Any other "rights" are limited to the law. If you want workers rights to extend to telling a factory owner how to exercise his free political speech, try passing a law. Good luck with that given the Constitution. If instead, you are advocating the overthrow of the Constitution, we are in an entirely different discussion. There are explicit voting provisions for that. Again, good luck trying. Finally, if you are advocating something more direct, consult your local police department, not me. For more details, consult any good economics or governance text, not me. I've done all I can to assist you; time to do your own homework.
Finally, just to complete the distinctions before I leave you, you can buy land. It then becomes part of your capital. You can create capital, for example through profits which are the entrepreneurs', not the factors, to dispose of as he sees fit. You cannot buy labor: that's called slavery and is illegal in most places. Only God ( or parents) can create labor, but it is not chattel under most countries' laws. If a worker wishes to obtain the rights of an entrepreneur he is free to try to amass the necessary capital, rent the necessary land, and hire the necessary labor to take the risk of going into business for himself.
One last thing. Anyone, including a worker, can obtain a partial or complete ownership interest by buying equity(common stock) in an enterprise, through investing his own capital either directly or with the aid of an employee stock ownership plan. Bond holders, in contrast, are lenders whose rights are limited to the terms of the bond note. Here endeth the lesson.