Occupy Wall Street better defend its identity

[Ziggurat]

Fox news isn't ok, fox news is bad because it's basically political propaganda. But you can't limit everything.

So you limit what ordinary people can do, and you don't limit what the fat cats can do. And you expect that to help?

Why would you expect that to help?

I think where you and I disagree is that you think that if ordinary people are allowed to give out leaflets, they'll somehow be able to do so on a large enough scale to counter fox news

If they've got a more appealing message, then yes. That's what you seem to be ignoring: the quality of the content of speech has a massive impact on how easily it spreads. I don't care how much money you spend on advertising, you'll never get people to start buying turd sandwiches.

Fox news already has a disproportionate voice in america.

And you actually want to hand them a bigger proportionate voice, by shutting down competition. Why would you ever think that would improve things?

At the end of the day, I just don't think poor people have as much money as rich people do to put towards furthering their political interests.

Of course they don't. But why are you insistent in keeping them off the playing field entirely? You do them no favors this way.

 

[stokes234]

So you limit what ordinary people can do, and you don't limit what the fat cats can do. And you expect that to help?

Why would you expect that to help?

Err, no, that's not what i'm saying at all. I'm saying limit what ordinary people and what rich people can do.

If they've got a more appealing message, then yes. That's what you seem to be ignoring: the quality of the content of speech has a massive impact on how easily it spreads. I don't care how much money you spend on advertising, you'll never get people to start buying turd sandwiches.

I'm not ignoring it, but rich people have more money to spend on spin than poor people.

And you actually want to hand them a bigger proportionate voice, by shutting down competition. Why would you ever think that would improve things?

No, I propose shutting down the ability of both sides to sway an election with money. Ordinary people are still allowed to leaflet, as I have stated about five times now.

Of course they don't. But why are you insistent in keeping them off the playing field entirely? You do them no favors this way.

I'm not insistent on keeping them off the playing field entirely, as i've already stated. They have various options such as volunteering that don't require them to spend money. Please, start reading my posts, it's exhausting replying to someone who hasn't taken the time to read what i've written.

 

[Ziggurat]

Err, no, that's not what i'm saying at all. I'm saying limit what ordinary people and what rich people can do.

But rich people have alternatives. Poor people don't. You want to deprive poor people of their most effective means of exerting political influence, but you CANNOT remove the ability of rich people to use alternative methods that are unavailable to poor people.

No, I propose shutting down the ability of both sides to sway an election with money. Ordinary people are still allowed to leaflet, as I have stated about five times now.

No. You're trying to draw a distinction which simply does not exist under either the law OR the constitution of the United States. And that's what we're talking about here, remember?

Furthermore, you haven't prevented the rich from influencing elections with money, you're just making them do it in more circuitous ways, ways which not only hide their influence from the public but also are not available to poor people, even if they pool their resources. And these alternative methods are arguably more corrupting, too, since they are hidden.

I'm not insistent on keeping them off the playing field entirely, as i've already stated. They have various options such as volunteering that don't require them to spend money.

Volunteering for what? To do the bidding of some rich politician? To follow the lead of some party boss? That's not empowerment. That doesn't level the playing field between the elite and the masses.

Please, start reading my posts, it's exhausting replying to someone who hasn't taken the time to read what i've written.

I have read your posts. That's not the problem here. The problem is that I think completely different results will follow from your proposal that you think will. The fact that you don't understand that this is where we disagree demonstrates that it is you, not me, that hasn't actually been paying attention.

 

[Kay]

Yes, you would be. In the UK if you tried to spend large amounts of money to get one party to win over another, you'd be prevented, and you'd quite possibly hurt the party by splitting their available funds and tying them up in legal proceedings.

Okay, so at what point would I no longer be linked? If I attended a convention as a delegate 40 years ago, am I still linked to the party? You don't define what it means to be linked to the party, and so it can be taken and interpreted to such extreme lengths that no one can deal with political parties.

Sure, so we can agree to disagree, but you're still standing in the country with fewer political parties and a much higher financial barrier to entry into the political system, while i've never even heard of anyones political speech being restricted in the UK. Besides discrimination perhaps, and even then the leader of the UKs racist party still got his slot on Question Time.

Campaign finance has nothing to do with the fact that we have two parties. It's because the American political system is different from the British one, and we emphasize that parties have to get above 50%. This almost certainly means that there will only ever be two parties.

As for political speech? From what you've said, a group of like-minded ordinary individuals are not allowed to publish a video that states that Gordon Brown sucks - after all, he's a member of a party.. That's a blatant violation of free speech.

 

[stokes234]

Okay, so at what point would I no longer be linked? If I attended a convention as a delegate 40 years ago, am I still linked to the party? You don't define what it means to be linked to the party, and so it can be taken and interpreted to such extreme lengths that no one can deal with political parties.

No, you've misunderstood. The law doesn't stop you being linked with political parties, it stops you spending money in favour of political parties during their election campaigns.

Campaign finance has nothing to do with the fact that we have two parties. It's because the American political system is different from the British one, and we emphasize that parties have to get above 50%. This almost certainly means that there will only ever be two parties.

The UK has the same FPTP system, but we have more than 2 parties.

As for political speech? From what you've said, a group of like-minded ordinary individuals are not allowed to publish a video that states that Gordon Brown sucks - after all, he's a member of a party.. That's a blatant violation of free speech.

Yes they are. They just aren't allowed to spend a large amount of money distributing that video during an election campaign if they have links to a political party that stands to gain. You could post the video on youtube, you could show it in private screenings etc, but you wouldn't be allowed to dump a million pounds worth of the video through people's letterboxes.

 

[stokes234]

But rich people have alternatives. Poor people don't. You want to deprive poor people of their most effective means of exerting political influence, but you CANNOT remove the ability of rich people to use alternative methods that are unavailable to poor people.

I disagree that for poor people those methods are particularly effective.

Volunteering for what? To do the bidding of some rich politician? To follow the lead of some party boss? That's not empowerment. That doesn't level the playing field between the elite and the masses.

Yes, to follow some party boss, but it does level the playing field precisely because the barrier to entry is so low that you have a much wider range of options when choosing the "party boss" whose views align with yours.

I have read your posts. That's not the problem here. The problem is that I think completely different results will follow from your proposal that you think will. The fact that you don't understand that this is where we disagree demonstrates that it is you, not me, that hasn't actually been paying attention.

No, you stated that poor people were completely removed from the field even after I described numerous ways in which they could still get their opinions heard but without having to spend money. That implies you did not read my posts.

 

[Ziggurat]

I disagree that for poor people those methods are particularly effective.

Versus "not effective at all" alternatives.

Yes, to follow some party boss, but it does level the playing field precisely because the barrier to entry is so low that you have a much wider range of options when choosing the "party boss" whose views align with yours.

Too bad they don't actually get any influence over those party bosses by volunteering for them.

 

[IDB87]

Doesn't really surprise me. My occupier shrinks when it's cold and not getting attention.

Had to bump this post.

 

[stilicho]

Fox news isn't ok, fox news is bad because it's basically political propaganda. But you can't limit everything. I think where you and I disagree is that you think that if ordinary people are allowed to give out leaflets, they'll somehow be able to do so on a large enough scale to counter fox news, whereas I suspect if a group of ordinary people got together to try as you suggest, they'd have trouble reaching 1% of the influence the Koch brothers could put out.

Fox news already has a disproportionate voice in america. Giving the people who run fox news more methods with which to pervert the democratic system just seems like a bad idea. At the end of the day, I just don't think poor people have as much money as rich people do to put towards furthering their political interests.

It's worth noting though, that in the UK you're not completely prevented from leafletting - you're prevented from leafletting/advertising over a certain budget, in favour of one party, during an election campaign, if you have any links to that party. And this is what I support, I don't support a total ban.

Fox News exists because there is a demand for it and a niche market not already served by the existent networks. I would recommend visiting the US and speaking with some of its citizens. Americans, I find, are a remarkably opinionated people and their opinions are formed through a combination of experience, curiosity, education, and a strong feeling of obligation to their political systems.

There is a huge diversity of opinion in the US and it's this diversity that creates Americans as a sometimes baffling and churning mass of humanity instead of simply a nation-state. I can tell when someone hasn't spent a lot of time with Americans when they object to American customs with something like "that isn't how we do it here". In the US there's almost no such sentiment because almost every individual in the US has their own informed ideas of how things ought to be done.

Into this kind of atmosphere, a network like Fox News (as CNN before it and the internet since) has a very good opportunity to be successful one decade and go entirely bankrupt the next--unless it changes its format.

By the way, most of the election laws here in Canada (and it sounds like the same there in the UK) are falling far behind the capacity of technology (especially the internet) to furnish political campaigns with a much greater impact than they had in the days of leaflets, periodicals, radio, and television. No competent campaign team is complete without an electronic media director.

 

[portlandatheist]

Doesn't really surprise me. My occupier shrinks when it's cold and not getting attention.

Had to bump this post.

Ditto!

 

[stilicho]

....

And how does one get the word out about a new political party in the UK? How many great ideas died at birth because there was no legal way to disseminate them?

I almost have to call shenanigans on stokes who lives in a Commonwealth country just as I do. We have a brand new national political party pop up at least once a decade here in Canada (Reform, Alliance, Conservative, Bloc, Green, WCC, to name a few recently) and it does require money to do that. A lot of money.

Stokes seems to be evoking some kind of craftsman argument about politics in parliamentary democracies complete with leafleteers and probably streetcorner demagogues. The last I saw, the UK was actually in the 21st Century with the rest of us and they still use radio, TV, telephones, and the internet to communicate and to disseminate information.

 

[stilicho]

....

Yes they are. They just aren't allowed to spend a large amount of money distributing that video during an election campaign if they have links to a political party that stands to gain. You could post the video on youtube, you could show it in private screenings etc, but you wouldn't be allowed to dump a million pounds worth of the video through people's letterboxes.

Here's a simple question for you, stokes. If George W Bush had been your PM in 2004 when Michael Moore released Fahrenheit 911, would it have been prohibited from being shown in theatres or pay-per-view during an election campaign? From what you've been telling us, this is the case in the UK. Do you have any examples to back that up?

 

[stokes234]

Versus "not effective at all" alternatives.

Disagree.

Too bad they don't actually get any influence over those party bosses by volunteering for them.

Well, perhaps no more than you would over either of the two parties in america, but you get more choice over who to back, and if there is nobody who represents your views you can form a new party. It's difficult, and often ineffective (as I say, i'd rather see PR) but it can and does happen in the UK, but not so much in the USA.

 

[stokes234]

I almost have to call shenanigans on stokes who lives in a Commonwealth country just as I do. We have a brand new national political party pop up at least once a decade here in Canada (Reform, Alliance, Conservative, Bloc, Green, WCC, to name a few recently) and it does require money to do that. A lot of money.

Stokes seems to be evoking some kind of craftsman argument about politics in parliamentary democracies complete with leafleteers and probably streetcorner demagogues. The last I saw, the UK was actually in the 21st Century with the rest of us and they still use radio, TV, telephones, and the internet to communicate and to disseminate information.

Sure, electronic means are much more important than they used to be, and one of the restrictions is that UK parties only get so much they can put into TV advertising. On the BBC, the parties all get 5 minute "party political broadcast" slots during election campaigns, and that includes the minor parties.

 

[stokes234]

I would recommend visiting the US and speaking with some of its citizens. Americans, I find, are a remarkably opinionated people and their opinions are formed through a combination of experience, curiosity, education, and a strong feeling of obligation to their political systems.

I'd love to, and I do intend to, probably summer of 2013, but it's a hell of an expensive holiday.

There is a huge diversity of opinion in the US and it's this diversity that creates Americans as a sometimes baffling and churning mass of humanity instead of simply a nation-state. I can tell when someone hasn't spent a lot of time with Americans when they object to American customs with something like "that isn't how we do it here". In the US there's almost no such sentiment because almost every individual in the US has their own informed ideas of how things ought to be done.

I recognise that, but from what I can gather you do tend to share some cultural beliefs that europeans don't, and one of those is the holding up of aspects of your constitution even when it no longer appears, from my perspective, to be serving you all that much good. I think partly it comes from america not having had class warfare in the same way as in europe, with rich people and poor people not really being pitted against eachother in the same way. You also had your trade unions crushed with more force (and in some cases tried to defend themselves by hiring the mob, who then took over), and they largely seem to have lost their identity of fighting for left-wing causes, and instead seem to have mostly become advocacy groups purely for their own members. In europe trade unions are often seen more as spokespeople and political campaigners for the less well off members of society.

 

[WildCat]

The last I saw, the UK was actually in the 21st Century with the rest of us and they still use radio, TV, telephones, and the internet to communicate and to disseminate information.

Do I go to prison if I buy a computer costing more than the legal amount solely to post "the Labour Party sucks" all over the internet?

 

[stokes234]

Here's a simple question for you, stokes. If George W Bush had been your PM in 2004 when Michael Moore released Fahrenheit 911, would it have been prohibited from being shown in theatres or pay-per-view during an election campaign? From what you've been telling us, this is the case in the UK. Do you have any examples to back that up?

I don't know, actually. I think it would have been legitimate because it was a commercial enterprise and wasn't pushed on people - instead they had to pay to see it. It also wasn't totally a political campaign ad, even if that was the likely effect - it didn't openly say "vote democrat". But i'll admit I don't know the law well enough there. I'll try and find out.

 

[stokes234]

Do I go to prison if I buy a computer costing more than the legal amount solely to post "the Labour Party sucks" all over the internet?

no

 

[JihadJane]

Occupy LA Teach In: William K Black:



Finance industry fraudulent from the top down. Prosecute them!

 

[stilicho]

I'd love to, and I do intend to, probably summer of 2013, but it's a hell of an expensive holiday.



I recognise that, but from what I can gather you do tend to share some cultural beliefs that europeans don't, and one of those is the holding up of aspects of your constitution even when it no longer appears, from my perspective, to be serving you all that much good. I think partly it comes from america not having had class warfare in the same way as in europe, with rich people and poor people not really being pitted against eachother in the same way. You also had your trade unions crushed with more force (and in some cases tried to defend themselves by hiring the mob, who then took over), and they largely seem to have lost their identity of fighting for left-wing causes, and instead seem to have mostly become advocacy groups purely for their own members. In europe trade unions are often seen more as spokespeople and political campaigners for the less well off members of society.

I'm Canadian. So it's still "their" and "theirs" but your sense of history might be a little ill-defined. Trade unions in the US wield quite a bit more political power than you might think they do. Unlike here in Canada, their public service unions seem to be a little bit weaker but that's simply a quirk and it appears to be limited to specific states rather than being a broad-brushed rule.

Here's a summary of AFL-CIO campaign spending:

http://nlpc.org/stories/2011/08/08/afl-cio-plans-super-pac-boost-campaign-contributions

During the 2007-08 election cycle (i.e., the most recent cycle involving a presidential election), unions and their political action committees spent about $400 million on preferred candidates and party organizations. This figure does not even include various in-kind expenditures such as phone banks, mass mailings, media advertising and voter education projects. Most of this money flows into Democratic coffers.

In fact, the AFL-CIO has been one of the biggest winners in the Citizens United decision and plans to spend considerable money in the upcoming 2012 US presidential election campaigns and the other ancillary campaigns that go along with an election year.