So, How Did The Republicans Do It?
How quickly people forget.
After Bill Frist threatened the “nukular option” [this was the Hedgemony, after all], that champion of bi-partisanship, and hero to the current President, Joe LIEberman [who was still officially a Democrat at the time], teamed up with his best friend, John McCain, to create the Gang of 14. Of course, Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins had to be part of it. The Gang pretty much eliminated filibusters.
It was a great system that provided the American people with such wonderful public servants as Samuel Alito, the fifth member of “The Synod”, the five Catholic judicial activists on the Supreme Court who just used their powers of immaculate conceptualization to make corporations people and money speech, when they were asked to decide if a movie was entertainment or a campaign ad. [Stare decisis? We don’t need no stinkin’ stare decisis!]
[If you were in doubt – yes, this is definitely sarcasm.]
24 comments
David, no one is denying any of the individuals in the groups you mentioned their right to free speech. The question is, should large entities have the right to skew an election in their favor with tons of cash?
Put another way, if I’m a member of a labor union, I may not support the candidate whose campaign the union is contributing to. Why should my dues go to a candidate I don’t support? And if I pay premiums to an insurance company, why should those premiums go to a candidate I don’t support?
Uhm, actually, a corporation is PROPERTY, the property of its shareholders, not an organization of individuals like the ABA or AMA or “tea baggers” or AFL-CIO or whatever. Since when does property have rights? And why should shareholders of a corporation have twice the free speech rights of everybody else — their own individual free speech rights, and the free speech rights of their property? And get this, while you and I can’t deduct our free speech rights from our income taxes, corporations get to EXPENSE their advertising expenses, so every $1 they spend on influencing elections via advertising is 35 cents or so less taxes that they have to pay the government in taxes. It’s like getting paid to bribe public officials. Cooooooool!!!
Mr. Duff apparently can’t tell the difference between an organization of individuals and property. Sad, really. But then, that is to be expected I suppose, since it appears that our U.S. Supreme Court can’t tell the difference either.
– Badtux the Propertied Penguin
I’m sorry, but if you can buy and sell it, then it is property. And you can definitely buy and sell a corporation.
Or are you saying that buying and selling stocks in a corporation is a violation of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (the one that eliminated slavery)?
– Badtux the Slavery Penguin
.-= last blog ..Psycho bluegrass =-.
A corporation is an anti-capitalistic creation of government designed to avoid the real risk of the market. It is a legal fiction, not a person, and it most certainly has nothing in common with associations of people.
You can’t sell your membership in the AMA, but you can sell your shares of BofA. In an association of people like a labor union, every individual member has the same vote as any other member in the leadership, while the “vote” of a shareholder is dependent of the how much of the corporation the individual owns.
What this decision has done is to convert “free speech” into “fee speech”.
You should be aware, Mr. Duff, that the libel laws in the US are quite different than the UK. In the US it is almost impossible for a “public person” to even bring a libel action. You can lie all you want about politicians, and they are required to prove that you knew what you wrote was a lie, and that you did it for malicious reasons. That heavily distorts the area of political speech, and allows the negative advertising that takes place in the US.
George W. Bush said “There ought to be limits to freedom,” and I, stalwart conservative that I am, have such a limit to propose: there should be a maximum number of times a day (say, 100,000) that the utter claptrap in the first comment above should be permitted to be spoken in a public space.
Failing that, I’d like an explanation of why a shareholder should have more “speech” than someone who owns no stock. How is the amount of additional “speech” figured? does a shareholder get one extra unit (?) of “speech” per share of stock owned, or just one, overall, for being a (drumroll, please) $TOCKHOLDER? or is it per dollar valuation of the stock owned? Who exercises the “speech,” each shareholder? the broker who sold it to the shareholder? the current CEO or CFO of the corporation? In your answer, please show your work. And make me laugh; Dog knows I need a good laugh over this complete and total bullcrap.
Not everyone is *equal* in a Corporation. Even if you own a large parcel of stock, there are voting shares which the shareholder may or may not hold, and there are also ‘rights of veto’. For example, Bill Gates is a majority shareholder, has 2 voting shares (from memory, though his wife also has 1 or maybe even 2), and has the sole right of veto. Therefore, in M$, Whatever Gates say’s goes. And M$ has over 100,000 employees. Sure, they get to have their say, but it’s an illusion. Out of the 100k+ employees, there are only 11 controlling stockholders, and Gates controls at least 4 votes which doesn’t matter anyway as he controls the veto vote.
So, if M$ the corp is now also a *legal entity*, Gates controls the *free speech* within his corporation of over 100k individuals and speaks on their behalf, no matter what the individuals think or say. The employees of M$ are little more than serf’s. The only *right* they have in M$ is to accept it, or go somewhere else. And M$ have a long history of making it extremely difficult for disgruntled employees to find work in IT anywhere else. Gates controls not only M$ and it’s employees, but also many other companies and organizations (including Gov entities) who do not want to loose M$’s favor.
Gates also owns shares in many other corporations. For example, he owns 150,000 shares in Apple (via various mechanisms). Thogh these are non-voting shares, they are *preferential* shares. M$ and Gates own many *proxy* companies that own part or a majority of other companies. Example, ITD Venture Capital, Inc. (owned by M$) has a majority stake in Liberty Media International, Inc., Liberty UK Holdings, Inc. and Liberty UK, Inc. Amazing what you can learn by checking, for example, IRS ID’s. M$ is: 91-1144442. This no appears on various share transactions. It’s actually not that hard to *follow the money*. 🙂 M$ also own Titan Cable PLC, and other such seemingly *IT* unrelated companies, usually because they have some influence in their market or in their State, City or Town (especially if there is a Politician that M$ wants to influence). M$ also owns a number of divisions and subsidiaries globally. One example here is ‘Microsoft Dynamics SL’ which manages ‘Supply Chain Distribution’ and is used by many large companies and Gov. M$ has a great deal of influence in companies that have influence in certain other areas. One example is L.L. Bean. Bean & M$ entered into a *JV* to create a Stock Planning and management system (which was done). There are many such examples.
M$ also seems to have a new champion in the Huffington Post and other influential media and blogs. I used to like HuffPo a few years ago. Now they are just an online version of Fox.
Huffington Post Lets Microsoft Lie and Lie and Lie
Can anyone connect the dot’s? 😉
Make no mistake. Gates controls far more than most people realise. And everyone REALLY should be vary afraid!
If fictional characters, like corporations, can participate in politics, can I have Calvin and Hobbs as my Senators?
Oh, yes, Kryten, all of the stock the US was given in various criminal organizations financial institutions was non-voting stock, so they had the limited liability, but no actual say in what occurred, which is insane. Rule number one should always be strings are attached to taxpayers’ money. That’s why there was no change in behavior – the government gave them billions, but had no control. Brain dead concept. The UK did a much better job in their bail-out.
There is talk of banks leaving London because of the new taxes. Where are they going to go – China? After what they did to the world financial system, they should be happy they aren’t all on the “terrorist watch list”.
There are several “private equity firms” that are even dodgier than Bill. They tend to be old money with a lot of practice at looting companies and corrupting governments.
You only have to follow the threads. What people imagine *government* to mean, isn’t what you have any longer. It’s not simply the GOP, it’s the Dem Party also. there is really no difference once you strip away the superficial surface. They are all influenced (at the least) by the Corporates. For example, my mentioning of M$ new ties to HuffPo were not simply a random example.
It’s always been about power and influence, but never so much as now. M$ are smart when they stack the deck in an organization. They see to it that the Charmain of a particular committee they are interested in is a *friend* of M$, the Chairman then influences the selection of the rest of the committee. It’s one way M$ is very influential in the Education, Health and Financial systems. 🙂
You will never have an honest or in any way caring Government, no matter what Party affiliation, while this systematic manipulation exists.
There’s more about that here BTW.
Microsoft Executives Go Personal, Pay Obama Instead of Their Lobbyists
Gates and co are now so confident about their influence and control that they are even bypassing the thin illusions of *independent lobbyists* and paying off their pet politicians directly. Brings back memories of Al Capone doesn’t it? Appropriate in OBama’s case. 😆
Same wolf, diffent skin. 😉
BTw.. Notice the mention of Gates father? Remember, Bill’s name is actually William Gates III, his father is William gates II. And all financial transactions of whatever type are signed ‘William Gates’ 😉 Will help with the confusion, especially if any of it ever get’s to a court (not likely). Remember that Bill’s pappa and momma are powerful attorneys in their own right. 🙂
And still no one mentions the Trade Unions. Why?
Because it’s a faulty comparison in terms of equivalency. The trade unions are, in terms of membership and financial power, on the level of a high school football team vs. the NFL.
.-= last blog ..He’s The One? =-.
Bobby, David is like the little bird that flies over my patio daily, making sure there’s at least one squirt on each and every patio chair… except that David flies over multiple progressive blogs and drops ritual incantations about corporations and unions. The first time I saw David do this, I used a research tool too advanced for his comprehension … Google… to show that ExxonMobil alone pours perhaps a dozen times as much money into campaigns in America as all unions combined. But the droppings continue unabated. That is what happens to people who are driven solely by their ideology: no matter how many droppings they leave, they are still full of (splat! there’s another one!) …
You are worried, Kryten, because you don’t understand the American political system. Now in Congress you people who are actually honest, believe in what they are doing, and vote according to their stated beliefs. Then you have the group, that once bought, stay bought and vote according the wishes of the people who bought them.
Now let’s look at the other 500 members. The two main groups are those that are greedy and need to be constantly bribed or they’ll vote against you from pique, and the largest group, those that are just stupid.
Because of this mix, the system sort of works, and hasn’t been too destructive.
The change is that now the corporations can actually identify and run their own candidates who will be totally dependent on the corporation, and will be subject to a complete cut-off of funds. This is a much better position for the corporations than having to bribe people who had other sources of support.
Given the level of design shown by M$, I’m confident that their plans will be short circuited by their incompetence, and WalMart will get a Congress for a much lower cost.
To review, Mr. Duff: you mentioned unions, Abi mentioned them, Badtux mentioned them, and I mentioned them. Did the fact that Kryten didn’t mention unions while talking about Microsoft bother you so much?
Unions have restrictions imposed by the individual states on their political spending, and the political funds are not mixed with the general funds. This ruling may change that, but I doubt it, because the reasons behind the separation makes good sense to most unions, and their membership, and the rules are generally included in the union charters. We don’t actually have a Labour Party in the US, and there are unions that have voted Republican for extended periods. The AMA is a reliably Republican guild/union.
Just because you are the only one who sees any kind of threat from unions, doesn’t mean no one mentioned them.
My maternal Grandfather was a *Unionist* (he was a Shop Steward in at least 3 unions I know of from the 40’s to the 70’s). He became a Union man he said because he wanted to ensure that the working class had a fair go because that was what he fought in two wars to ensure. He didn’t fight to protect the liberties of the wealthy, they take far too many liberties they don’t deserve as it is. 😆 He was right too of course. 🙂
There are many moronic Corporate lap-dogs that will happily parrot their propaganda for whatever they think they will gain from it (money, recognition, a pat on the head and *good boy*, whatever). Many of these parrots are the ones who cannot think for themselves. I used to pity them, now I just ignore them or use them as a reminder that I can thank the stars for people like my Grandfather that taught me how to think for myself and how the real World *actually* works.
The Unions today are mostly inconsequential. They have been sidelined by the greedy and the stupid. Ignoramuses like Duff who know as much about History as my dog are a major reason this World is in the state it’s in now. Maybe if these people had had to fight for their very existence in a couple of Wars, and then been dumped like garbage for their trouble at the end of it (assuming they survive, these types are generally too stupid to survive in my personal experience), they would have a clue and some understanding of the cost of being human.
Any intelligent human would have given up by now. But he serves to give us a chance to put things in their proper perspective for any visitors who might wander through, and who actually want to get a clue and some facts (provable facts, rather than the fiction the propaganda peddlers want everyone to believe is fact). 🙂
They want people to live in *Hope*. Because people can spend most of their lives *hoping things will get better one day*, until one day (if they are lucky), they finally realise they have wasted their lives for nothing and the greedy have taken everything and given them less and less each year. The truth of course is that the *hope peddlers* are worse than thieves. They steal peoples lives. And that is something that can never be recovered and no amount of insurance will get all that stolen time and life back. But hey… the wealthy will be more wealthy, and their ass-kissing propagandists will get another pat on the head and maybe even a bone to chew on! 😈
We had a cool banner on LM years ago that said “Don’t feed the Trolls!!” But I liked the Trolls, they served as an opportunity to educate the curious and those seeking some truth, or to learn how to separate the facts from the fiction and white noise. But perhaps more importantly these days, they serve as a source of constant amusement! And G*d knows we need something (or someone) to laugh at! 😆
You are worried, Kryten, because you don’t understand the American political system. Now in Congress you people who are actually honest, believe in what they are doing, and vote according to their stated beliefs. Then you have the group, that once bought, stay bought and vote according the wishes of the people who bought them.
😆 I’m not worried. 😀 This is all part of an endless cycle that will be repeated until humans finally destroy ourselves. 🙂 I never *worry* about things I have no control over or little chance of influencing. 😉
The thing with M$ (and others like them) is that their products will always be *designed* to the minimum function and cost they can get away with because they know that the ignorant and stupid will buy them regardless. Corporates can afford to use the products because they can afford to pay to have them made to work by M$ (or whoever) and pass the costs on to the suckers. 🙂 M$ is only incompetent by design. 😉 I don’t underestimate The Dweeb and his family and powerful friends with vested interests in ensuring that The Dweebs plans succeed. As always… time will tell. *shrug* and as is usually the case, it will tell when it’s far too late to do anything about it. 🙂
“Way of the WorldTM” 😉
“A house devided against itself cannot stand.
I believe this government cannot endure permenently half slave and half free.
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved-
I do not expect the house to fall-
but I do expect it will cease to be divided.
It will become all one thing,
or all the other.”
Excerpt from Lincoln’s famous speech, noted for the phrase “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” when accepting the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate from Illinois (appropriately today) in June of 1858.
Maybe this will become a famous quote one day:
“Microsoft: it does politics… and some software too.”
😆
The Dweeb only cares about control! It’s all he’s ever wanted. M$ is simply a vehicle, a means to an end, it’s not the end itself for The Dweeb. M$ could die tomorrow, it would hardly make a dent in The Dweebs plans. He has several other ‘ways and means’ now. *shrug*
Now, you’ve gone and spoiled it, Kryten, you’ve mentioned unions, too.
Full disclosure, I was a member of two industrial unions, a faculty association, elected treasurer of a public employees union, and have been a member of several professional associations and guilds. Collective bargaining and a standard contract make job decisions a hell of lot easier for everyone.
When I was treasurer, I was an ex officio member of the political action committee that distributed campaign contributions, so I know how some US unions do it, and in our case, we voted after a discussion of the merits of individual candidates. I didn’t always agree with the choices, but it was a fair and open vote, so I signed the checks. In a couple of cases I had to defend the choices to the membership who were as unhappy as I was about them, but that’s democracy.
Oh, I’m sorry, Kryten, assumed knowledge. There on 535 total members of Congress, and I assume that 500 of them are either stupid or greedy. I also assume that the majority of the 35 fall into the “stay bought” camp, rather than being honest.
I don’t underestimate the desire of Gates to control things, but I question the ability. He makes too many enemies, many of them needlessly, and that is not the way to steal elections. He lacks the deft touch, because he has never needed it. He is too clever by half, and has shown too often that his word is worthless. There are some standards, even among criminals, and Gates doesn’t believe in standards other than of his own devising. The people who would go along with Gates are too stupid to be effective, and he doesn’t know who really needs to be bribed.
Don’t blame me! Lincoln (and many before him) said the *U* word first! 😉 😆 And for the record… the USA *IS* a Republic, a Union of States. 😛 (for those too stupid to understand what exactly the name of the country (United States of America) means. 🙂
20 years ago The Dweeb had a desire. Now he has a great deal of control and influence. 🙂
Eg from Sept. ’09:
Government Not Designed for Security
There are many other examples.
The M$-Gov incest is a product of the revolving door between government and business. IBM adopted MS-DOS after they were told to stuff it by Digital Research, and business followed IBM’s lead down the primrose path to purgatory [or Vista – YMMV]. Despite all of the standards in place, when the business clowns cycled into government, they brought the bane of M$ with them.
No one really concerned with security uses M$ software, even with encryption because it is such buggy garbage, but they have the money to buy impressive dog-and-pony shows that impress the small minds of political appointees, who view M$ as the “safe” choice for their careers.
Obama is a Republican in all but party identification, so, of course, he and Gates know each other. This administration isn’t going to do anything that is actually centrist, much less left of center, they are solidly on the right. Hell, Obama is probably to the right of Howard on most issues.
This is why I no longer identify with the Democratic Party – if I wanted to vote for a Republican, I would vote for a real Republican.
The difference between a union and a corporation is that a union isn’t property. A union is a membership organization, like your local PTA. Larry Ellison can buy Sun Microsystems and make it his own personal property, but Larry Ellison can’t buy Pipefitter’s Local #543 and make it his own personal property — the whole notion is ridiculous, Pipefitter’s Local #543 is a membership organization, a bunch of guys who got together to enhance their bargaining power for pay and benefits with the local shipyard, not a business.
The notion that property has its own individual rights, apart from the individual rights of its individual owners, is… bizarre. That’s all I’ll say on that. Only morons who live in cloud-cookoo land could ever claim that property should have the same rights as actual living human beings — or dishonest hacks paying back the people who put them into power, willing to make dishonest arguments in order to further the interests of their paymasters. Too much of that going around, alas.
BTW, Digital Research didn’t tell IBM to “stuff it”. They offered IBM their standard OEM deal for CP/M-86. IBM is the one who refused to accept DR’s standard OEM deal, instead demanding complete source code and the right to modify CP/M-86 to have their own custom incompatible version so that programs written to IBM’s CP/M-86 would not run on standard CP/M-86 machines. The Kildalls basically shook their heads and said it wasn’t in the best interests of consumers to have multiple incompatible versions of CP/M-86 around and refused to do it. Bill Gates, being Satan Incarnate, had no trouble at all saying “f**k consumers” and giving IBM whatever it wanted — with a few tiny-print little contractual snares here and there that ended up with IBM getting what it wanted, but not what it expected ;). Oddly enough, today it’s Microsoft saying “nyet!” to companies wanting to create custom versions of Windows.How things change!
– Badtux the Corporeal Penguin
.-= last blog ..Ah-choo! =-.
Yeah, it’s more than just a shame. Same everywhere now. In times long past, the Republicans were mostly men worthy of various levels of respect (such as Lincoln). Nowadays, it’s not even worth acknowledging their existence. The same for our so-called *Liberal-Party*. You often mention that our system of Government is in some ways better than the USA *model*, but in many ways it’s just as bad. Do you know that the Liberal Party here has not actually won an election by direct vote in the past 50 or so years? They only end up in power because of preference deals and the Coalition they created with the National Party (which many people in rural areas vote for since most NP politicians are from rural areas and supposedly have the rurul voters needs firmly in their hearts and minds. The reality is somewhat different of course. 🙂
We once had 4 major parties, Labor, Liberals, Nationals and the Democrats. The Democrats self-imploded during *Howards Reign of Ignorance, Stupidity, Greed and Insanity* and are only a shadow now, and they side with Labor. The Nationals do what they are told by the Liberals. So we really only have two parties now.
You may recognize our new Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott (Liberals) and even be momentarily confused if you hear him speak, he sounds just like some of the most extreme GOP Bushevist Evangelist Politicians every time he opens his mouth. 🙂 He can’t utter a sentence without the word Christian, G*d, or some such in it. When Abbott won the Leadership contest from Malcolm Turnbull, it gave Rudd a breather and a stronger chance next election. Nobody in their right mind will vote for Abbott, but some would have voted for Turnbull (he’s far more moderate and sane). Rudd’s slowly falling popularity has slowed markedly simply because Abbott is now Leader of the Opposition and so there is very little choice unless Rudd goes completely off the rails (which wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened).
When I heard last year that Obama had the support of such people as Bill Frist, I gave up on Obama completely (these days, Frist appears to be a Dem more than a GOP, which is more to do with the Dem’s moving his way rather than he moving their way). 😉
Yeah… It’s an insane World. If anyone talks to me about the whole Cristian G*d vs Satan think, I’d comment that anyone with eyes would have to believe that Satan’s won and G*d has taken his marbles and gone off somewhere to try again! Of course, that’s if one believes that stuff. 😉 😈
At that point in history, not giving IBM what it wanted was the same as saying “stuff it”. I was sad to hear of Gary’s suicide. I knew them slightly, as they were neighbors of one of my classmates while I was at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey. They seem like nice people who weren’t put off by a group of Russian speaking spooks. He was teaching at the Naval Postgraduate School. [This may even have been before he created CP/M.] We ran into each other at micro events in San Diego years later. He was “good people”.
I had a version of CP/M-86 for the PC, that came in IBM style packaging, but I can’t remember if IBM actually sold it. It was available at the big corporate stores. It was faster than PC-DOS for WordStar and dBASE II, but then Lotus 1-2-3 came out and the PC took off.
The “good old days”?
Hey, Kryten, it’s like Robby Burns wrote in To A Mouse: sh*t happens. 😉