What are we going to do to trim the unearned political advantage and power of Berkeley economics professors?
This is a nice post luci. Well said.
Good point. I am not sure, however, that the Berkeley economics professor is in the same league with Roger Ailes and the Koch brothers free speech wise.
I do have to ask **Hank **whether you care about the Princeton study that was cited in the OP. Does it bother you that the vast majority of the population has no effect on policy decisions in the US?
What a load of bullshit. Right now you are communicating on the greatest tool for democratised discussion in the history of mankind. You are not being silenced by moneyed interests - anyone who wants to listen to what you’re saying can do so. Those moneyed interests will even host your video content free of charge and automatically put it on the front page of one of the most popular websites on the internet if enough people agree with you. Your problem isn’t that you cannot speak, it’s that people don’t think you’re worth listening to.
You don’t have to read any, won’t bother me none. Won’t even know, unless you feel the need to tell me. There now! All fixed! Bye!
Yes, all three of them. :rolleyes:
You’ve just uttered a bumper-sticker mythology that has to be one of the most naive and clueless observations ever made even on said “greatest tool for democratised discussion in the history of mankind” which is renowned for the amount of bullshit that pervades it.
Why do you think the Koch brothers alone are spending $900 million to influence just the 2016 election cycle? Don’t they know that all they have to do is start a little Internet blog which they can do for free? Why do you think conservatives are so obsessed with fighting and removing any hint of regulation over campaign and advocacy spending?
Do you think the Princeton Gilens-Page study cited in the OP, which concludes that the very fabric of American democracy is under threat from moneyed interests, just made it all up? I highly recommend this new book which goes into a lot more detail on the same subject. If you don’t want to read the book because it offends your preconceived ideology, then at least read the description of what it’s about and think about it.
The short answer to the question is that your aforementioned “greatest tool for democratised discussion in the history of mankind” is not what you think it is. It’s a whole new means of communication, all right, and one with a low barrier to entry, but it does nothing to effectively change the power of money in politics, because for one thing the in-your-face traditional media are still there, and for another, because it’s just as hugely lopsided and influenced by money as traditional media. As a humble blogger I may have the theoretical potential to reach the nation and the world, but as a humble buyer of lottery tickets I also have the potential to become a billionaire. Realistically neither is going to happen, and indeed for much the same statistical reasons.
Realistically no one is going to hear me over the din of CNN and Fox News which dominate the web as much as they do the airwaves – and, worse, dark money funded propaganda sites. And no, it’s not because people don’t think I or elucidator are “worth listening to”, because absent strong political funding the most likely key to minor Internet fame is to have a cat video on YouTube.
Otherwise it’s like a contest between the Hearst newspaper empire and a guy standing on a soapbox on a street corner. The Internet has opened better opportunities than the old soapbox, but the fundamental distribution of power and influence hasn’t changed. It isn’t the Internet that’s a threat to the established power base and plutocracy, it’s the kind of structural reforms that create a more level playing field and a real democracy that I described here. That’s what the Kochs are spending almost $1 billion in this election cycle to fight.
So these moneyed interests hold such vast power over people’s opinions that we need to alter the constitution to thwart them. But they they haven’t convinced you, of course. *You *can see right through the spin, and are doing the rest of us sheep a favor by trying to reduce the volume of their message, since it is so dangerously influential to everyone, except for you and those who agree with you, of course.
Fine. Thanks for looking out for a brother.
I am going to return the favor. I have determined that Robert Riech and Michael Moore are also too influential. And those smug pricks at Comedy Central, also. You might not see it, but of course that only proves my point about how they dupe everyone. And let’s add both unions and incumbent politicians to the list of those with more than their fair share of influence over public opinion, while we are at it.
Are you seriously calling the influence of experts, with doctorates and professorships, over general opinion in their fields “unearned”?
It’s earned to some degree, just like Super PAC money.
Lot’s of people get degrees, and there is a bunch of privilege and patronage involved in how they are distributed. Most people don’t get professorships, which are awarded. Again, with a large degree of patronage thrown in.
Like Bernie, Reich goes on to try to use his position to change policy in order to diminish the influence of his political rivals, and in doing so increase the influence of himself and others likely to be nearer than average to his political worldview. I see this as structurally very similar to the risks of regulatory capture that exist when industries use money earned in a market to manipulate legislation concerning that market to their benefit.
Money is speech because one can use it to buy paper and ink and print out leaflets, or TV advertisements if one is rich enough, or passes the hat with others. But giant hats full of Tea Party money are not the only thing that are speech, or influential. So is a lecture by a tenured professor at a high profile state school like Berkeley, or a speech by a politician who is covered on CSPAN by default because of his high profile. They all have, and should retain at all costs, freedom of speech, including freedom of the press. As in the printing press, a machine expensive to build, maintain, and operate. Not the press meaning a profession limited to a group of those approved by government or any other committee.
I don’t like the Tea Party/Koch Brothers message at all, but the calls to respond to their influence by limiting the right to criticize politicians during election season are insane. And the regularity that this insanity get’s babbled out, in bumper sticker slogan phrases about “corporations being people” and “money being speech”, is proof (to me at least) that the Tea Party crowd sure aren’t the only ones driven by simplistic narratives drilled into them by overly-influential partisans.
I love Robert Reich, but the idea of getting money out of politics, and specifically overturning Citizens United, is tragically naïve and just not well thought through. It makes for easy and appealing sloganeering though.
IMO this is what the election is really about, which most people don’t want to accept, unfortunately:
Wow.
I realize you’re trying to be sarcastic here. But FTR Reich is more than just the (“unearned”? 
) Chancellor’s Professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy. He was also a Professor at Harvard, is a prolific author, and served in high positions in both Republican and Democratic Administrations, including a stint as a Cabinet Secretary.
Alter the constitution? :smack: Oh. You think when a stuffed SCOTUS votes 5-4 on a controversial case, that’s the end of discussion. Plessy v. Ferguson was decided 7-1; Dred Scott v. Sandford was decided 7-2. That’s why Earl Warren et al refused to certiorari Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, telling plaintiffs they needed to Amend the Constitution. :smack:
And BTW, campaign financing is just one of many ways that the American system has been corrupted to serve the rich. Many in this thread seem to think that that’s all Sanders, Reich et al are talking about. :smack:
Academics and philosophers studying public policy is exactly the same as greedy businessmen corrupting government officials. Got it.
Very peculiar then, that the predominant policies of US government so favors the most wealthy and that, ironically, this promotes such profound distrust of the only public institution that can actually protect the public. Very peculiar that the tax structure so favors the most wealthy, that such egregious loopholes exist for corporate tax writeoffs and general financial and environmental malfeasance, and that the pro-wealth favoritism is so uniquely and deeply entrenched in the US which so much favors “free speech”, and nowhere else in the world except in outright dictatorships. Must be coincidence. Just like it must be total coincidence that the middle and lower classes are getting poorer while the 1% are getting phenomenally richer, much more so in the US than in any other developed country.
You’ll note that my brief description of the kinds of things other countries have done has actually been far less about “restricting” campaign spending (although such limited restrictions have existed in the US for a century without too much caterwauling about “the constitution”) than it has been about leveling the playing field and promoting diversity – by things like funding or subsidizing public broadcasting, providing free political air time, providing public funding to political candidates, and in some cases having a parliamentary structure that limits the amount of influence that money can buy.
What the promoters of these simplistic “free speech” bromides seem to believe is that the natural order of things when completely deregulated is supposed to be a healthy diversity.
But the reality is just the opposite. The reality is that in all areas of human organization, the most powerful interests tend to dominate and to consolidate their power. The almost total domination of moneyed interests in the political process in the absence of public funding and regulation to ensure that all voices be heard is very closely analogous to the almost total domination of the largest corporations over unregulated markets. The idea that unregulated markets are the most free is a preposterous oxymoron; in the absence of market regulation you get collusion and oligopolistic and monopolistic domination. Small companies trying to compete in this market with innovative ideas are crushed and driven out, often almost effortlessly, like swatting flies – a mere annoyance. And so it is with the unrestricted influence of money in the political process.
So do you actually have answers for these questions?
[ul]
[li]Why do you think the Koch brothers alone are spending $900 million to influence just the 2016 election cycle? Don’t they know that all they have to do is start a little Internet blog which they can do for free? [/li]
[li]Why do you think conservatives are so obsessed with fighting and removing any hint of regulation over campaign and advocacy spending?[/li]
[li]Do you think the Princeton Gilens-Page study cited in the OP, which concludes that the very fabric of American democracy is under threat from moneyed interests, just made it all up?[/li][/ul]
I might agree with you if you mean it’s “naive” in the sense that trying to introduce single-payer health care in the US in the contemporary political climate would be naive. Every other advanced democracy in the world has done it, to their enormous economic and social advantage, but yes, in the US, it would be naive and political suicide to try to do it now.
Getting money out of politics? Every other advanced democracy in the world has done it, but yes, in the US, it would be naive and political suicide to try to do it now.
Wolfpup, you would need to alter the Constitution, since BCRA only limited corporate ads directly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate 30 days before an election.
To limit individual billionaires, like the Kochs, would actually take an amendment. The Kochs are persons, indisputably, and thus have unfettered freedom of the press.
So some books and a bunch of appointments.
Riech and his fellow Berkeley profs spent their time earning their influence, yes. And so did the people spending money via super PACs. Of course either group could have also benefited from monetary and status based privilege, nepotism, or cheating.
Yes, you know, like the amendment Bernie authored…
No, those academics have tenure, and don’t suffer from mistakes the same way those in business or STEM fields do. People don’t stop being greedy and power hungry just because they are an academic or politician or union leader. These are attributes of all forms of human organization and resource and influence allocation, because people from all backgrounds and belief systems can be or become greedy and power hungry.
No, I mean that it is actually a bad idea which I oppose. There are a lot of things that are done better in Western Europe and Scandinavia, including health care, but something we have here that I think is very valuable is the First Amendment and a near absolute protection of free speech. And I don’t think my fellow progressives have really reckoned with the fact that overturning Citizens United would jeopardize things like MSNBC’s editorial stance and Michael Moore’s ability to distribute his films, for just a couple examples.
I disagree. No one is entitled to have his message received. Freedom of the press, to assemble, to speak, and religion do not grant one equality in audience as an entitlement. Should Rush Limbaugh or J.K. Rowlings be restrained in reach to their least competitors? Should the Democratic Party be limited in membership to that which the Reform Party can scrape up? How’s it fair that the Democratic Party has national reach and tremendous influence when every other party in USA, aside from those filthy, ignorant, idiotic,racist Republicans do not?
And the solution that liberal statists would have would be to empower the government to approve of the content of movies, books, newspapers, magazines, tv shows, comic books, the Internet, and radio to ensure some cosmic sense of fairness? If you all trust any government with that power democracy shouldn’t be in your hands.
What you say here is a little hyper, but if you are capable of discerning these structural defects then so are others, although saying our tradition of freedom of the press is only matched by dictatorships is, strange. Someone convinced you that the tax structure is unfair, so use your words and convince others to change it. Don’t try to turn the volume down on the other guy, just because he has more seashells hidden in his cave to trade for papyrus.
If a democracy chooses to spend the people’s money on subsidizing those politicians who reach some threshold of popularity, so be it.
But the results still won’t be fair. Some people will be given more life advantages than others that will make it easier or more likely for them to reach that threshold and get their campaign paid for. This could be money, or status, connections ect.,
But what should not be done is to try to shut down the presses of people because just you consider their message to be dangerous and too influential.
No matter how powerful you make out these dark evil monied forces to be, in my assessment they are guys passing out fliers, and you are trying to rally people to smash printing presses.
[QUOTE]
So do you actually have answers for these questions?
[li]Why do you think the Koch brothers alone are spending $900 million to influence just the 2016 election cycle? Don’t they know that all they have to do is start a little Internet blog which they can do for free?[/li][/QUOTE]
Because they drink so much of their own Kool Aide that they think (like the FeelThaBern crowd) their message is so profound and perfect, that if they get it heard it will change the world. Of course money can be spent to do this more effectively. A pile of paper will always be better than scratching it out on rocks and trees.
[QUOTE]
[li]Why do you think conservatives are so obsessed with fighting and removing any hint of regulation over campaign and advocacy spending?[/li][/QUOTE]
For the same reason that Democrats cater to the groups like Unions, and others that support them, and align with their interests.
It represents a narrow slice of a complex subject, who’s conceptual framework and assumptions point it right at the conclusions it comes to. It’s not wrong, but it only represents one of a multitude of equally correct ways of understanding the available facts.
First off, you panic too easily. Granted, regulations on campaign money are tricky and must be carefully examined. But you hear “regulation” and you get the heebie-jeebies, dark visions of Beige Shirts storming gated communities and burning their printing presses! Waterford Crystalnacht!
Sometimes I wish the liberals were just a bit more assertive, but…c’mon! The loud crunching of liberals approaching isn’t hob-nailed jackboots on the pavement but granola and trail mix munchies.
So liberals do accept the Buckley v. Valeo decision as binding precedent? That was the one that said that indivduals have the right to spend as much as they want.
[quote=“wolfpup, post:91, topic:744399”]
So do you actually have answers for these questions?
[ul][li]Why do you think the Koch brothers alone are spending $900 million to influence just the 2016 election cycle? Don’t they know that all they have to do is start a little Internet blog which they can do for free?[/ul][/li][/quote]
Because they’ve got more money than they can spend on themselves, and so spend some of it on telling the world “We like this guy. Vote for him.” And if that works, it works because people choose to listen and treat those words as if they have merit. Speech is not mind control. The Koch brothers cannot make you vote Republican any more than Grand Theft Auto can make you become a spree killer. If they are at fault, it is only for convincing disinterested, ignorant adults that things would be better if they exerted the political power that is their right, instead of recognising that the election is better off without them if they can’t be bothered to pay enough attention that they can vote well.
[quote]
[ul][li]Why do you think conservatives are so obsessed with fighting and removing any hint of regulation over campaign and advocacy spending?[/ul][/li][/quote]
Because the right to free political speech is vital to the functioning of a democracy, and it is abhorrent that you would want to suppress that right specifically because it is important?