‘Tis the politically directed shopping season

George Rebane

A correspondent sent me the following information about which retailers support which political parties in the country.  You wouldn’t want to shop in the wrong place now would you?  Brought to you in the spirit of the season as a dispute-free and modest public service.

With the holidays upon us, we might wish to be mindful of what political party businesses donate to, as reported by the Center for Responsive Politics.
 
Shopping?
 
Price Club/Costco donated $225K, of which 99% went to Democrats
Rite Aid, $517K, 60% to Democrats
Magla Products (Stanley tools, Mr. Clean), $22K, 100% to Democrats
Warnaco (undergarments), $55K, 73% to Democrats
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, $153K, 99% to Democrats
Estee Lauder, $448K, 95% to Democrats
Guess? Inc., $145K, 98% to Democrats
Calvin Klein, $78K, 100% to Democrats
Liz Claiborne, Inc., $34K, 97% to Democrats
Levi Straus, $26K, 97% to Democrats
Olan Mills, $175K, 99% to Democrats
 
WalMart, $467K, 97% to Republicans;
K-Mart, $524K, 86% to Republicans;
Home Depot, $298K, 89% to Republicans;
Target, $226K, 70% to Republicans;

3M Co., $281K, 87% to Republicans;
 Hallmark Cards, $319K, 92% to Republicans;
Amway, $391K, 100% Republican;
Kohler Co. (plumbing fixtures), $283K, 100% Republicans;
B.F. Goodrich (tires), $215K, 97% to Republicans;
Proctor & Gamble, $243K, 79% to Republicans
  
Hungry?
 
Sonic Corporation, $83K, 98% to Democrats
Triarc Companies (Arby's, T.J. Cinnamon's, Pasta Connections), $112K, 96% to Democrats
Pilgrim's Pride Corp. (chicken), $366K, 100% Republican;
Outback Steakhouse, $641K, 95% Republican;
Tricon Global Restaurants (KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell), $133K, 87% Republican;
Brinker International (Maggiano's, Brinker Cafe, Chili's, On the Border, Macaroni Grill, Crazymel's, Corner Baker, EatZis), $242K, 83% Republican;
Waffle House, $279K, 100% Republican;
McDonald's Corp., $197K, 86% Republican;
Darden Restaurants (Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Smokey Bones, Bahama Breeze), $121K, 89% Republican;
 
Traveling and/or dining?
 
Hyatt Corporation, $187K, 80% to Democrats
Marriott International, $323K, 81% to Republicans;
Holiday Inns, $38K, 71% to Republicans.

Comments

[Todd Juvinall]

When I worked for Assemblyman Bernie Richter in the year the R's held the Assembly by one vote and only for that one year, the lobbyists came calling sand Bernie told them to pound sand because they were always giving their money to the D's and he was fine without them. But, I got to see the J street prostitutes up close and personal and learned a lot about the game.

[Russ Steele]

Nice to have a Republican supporting cluster in Auburn. Should have a WallMart in 2012, completing the cluster.

[bill tozer]

Its beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.....don't know what to make of all the stuff going on in the world, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Get 'er done.

[Douglas Keachie]

Lowe's is one the Bad Boy list for yanking advertising from a show about American Muslims, at the behest of Florida Christian evangelicals. There is a calling for a boycott of Lowes on FB at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boycott-Lowes-Home-Improvement/196885343732232

[Todd Juvinall]

Lowe's pulled their advertising because the Muslims in the show were doing political activism. That was not acceptable to Lowe's. The left cracks me up when they cry when others use their tactics.

[Douglas Keachie]

Describe the "political activism" you speak of, Todd.

[David Smith]

Doug, too bad that Todd does not know the real story:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-1212-lowes-muslims-20111212,0,5764837.story

[Todd Juvinall]

Not my opinion. It was posted by an industry mag on line yesterday. Lowe's had no comment in that story.

[bill tozer]

Well, it is starting to all make sense. Wondering why the far left hates Wal-Mart, McDonalds, K-Mart and Hallmark Christmas cards so much. Well, maybe not just Hallmark specially, but anything with the Christ it, as well as Tide detergent and Outback Steak Houses. Apparently Calvin Klein, Liz Claiborne, Estee Lauder, and Olan Mills are more to the far left's "common man" non evil rich greedy corporate liking. It is all becoming clearer.

[George Rebane]

Lowe's is accused of practicing "religious discrimination". Now there's a term that only a liberal understands, the same liberal who does not acknowledge that Islam is a comprehensive system of socio-political order and governance. Its scriptural dictate is to colonize and, through taqiyya, subvert the existing order of governance starting with the demands for enclaves of sharia law. (Can anyone count the number of non-Muslim countries where this is already in progress?)

But please pay attention, the Left is for any form of social order that weakens US sovereignty - after all, there is a higher goal that awaits. It doesn't matter if what is promoted goes against their broadly touted backing of women's rights, abortion, secular humanist philosophy, environmentalism, equal opportunity, ... .

Whatever is the shortest available and most facile path to America's fundamental transformation is immediately embraced. This is the overarching utility that must be maximized, and doing so correctly explains the otherwise incoherent logic of the Progressive's seemingly conflicting public positions.

[David Smith]

Todd, maybe you should watch it. It's on you tube / TLC channel and think for yourself.

[bill tozer]

"This is the overarching utility that must be maximized, and doing so correctly explains the otherwise incoherent logic of the Progressive's seemingly conflicting public positions." Well said, Dr. Rebane. Its a one way street. The far left wants freedom from religion, the right wants freedom of religion. The right accepts with no qualms the freedom not to practice worship. The far left sees freedom of religion as a way to hinder my freedom to worship the Judea/Christian God. Guess it is the wrong kind of God. But, all is not lost. I do have fun going to those liberal "holiday" parties and dropping the G word in their midst. Like fingernails on the chalkboard. Gets the sad lot even more disagreeable than they normally are and turns the festivities into a pissing match which goes off topic from its all Bush's fault to Mother Teresa exploited children and beat them and chained poor people to the wall cause they have brown skin to Rush is a drug addict (as they eat their marijuana brownies). I usually have mercy on their party by flushing the punch bowl before leaving. Then I tell them the pie I brought (which they all rave about and beg me for my secret recipe for the crust) tastes so doggone tasty is because the crust is made with lard. Luckily I always flush their punch bowl before disclosing that. Happy Holidays to all.

[D. King]

Yes Todd, don't let others think for you! :)

Then watch Dancing with the Stars to round out your education.

[David Smith]

Bill, maybe the left wants what the founding father's decided about religion. Government should be free and seperate from governmental functions:

Ben Franklin:

First, from the pen of Benjamin Franklin, printer, writer, philosopher, scientist, statesman and diplomat, eldest and revered member of the Continental Congress, and signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution for the United States.

"I think vital religion has always suffered when orthodoxy is more regarded than virtue. The scriptures assure me that at the last day we shall not be examined on what we thought but what we did." --- Benjamin Franklin, letter to his father, 1738

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Thomas Jefferson:

Fourthly, from the pen of Thomas Jefferson, lawyer, philosopher, scientist and inventor, author of the Declaration of Independence, Author of the Act for Establishing Religious Freedom, Statesman and Diplomat, Secretary of State under Washington and Adams, Third President of the United States, and the mentor and the mind behind the Father of the Constitution and quite possibly the most brilliant mind of the 18th century...or since....

"The clergy...believe that any portion of power confided to me [as President] will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion." --Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1800.

"In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot ... they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purpose." --- Thomas Jefferson, to Horatio Spafford, March 17, 1814

"Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced an inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth." --- Thomas Jefferson, from "Notes on Virginia"

"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." --- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787

"It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three; and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one. But this constitutes the craft, the power and the profit of the priests." --- Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1803

"But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State." --- Thomas Jefferson to S. Kercheval, 1810

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose." --- Thomas Jefferson to Baron von Humboldt, 1813

"On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind." --- Thomas Jefferson to Carey, 1816

"But the greatest of all reformers of the depraved religion of his own country, was Jesus of Nazareth. Abstracting what is really his from the rubbish in which it is buried, easily distinguished by its lustre from the dross of his biographers, and as separable from that as the diamond from the dunghill, we have the outlines of a system of the most sublime morality which has ever fallen from the lips of man. The establishment of the innocent and genuine character of this benevolent morality, and the rescuing it from the imputation of imposture, which has resulted from artificial systems, invented by ultra-Christian sects (The immaculate conception of Jesus, his deification, the creation of the world by him, his miraculous powers, his resurrection and visible ascension, his corporeal presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity; original sin, atonement, regeneration, election, orders of the Hierarchy, etc.) is a most desirable object." --- Thomas Jefferson to W. Short, Oct. 31, 1819

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"It is not to be understood that I am with him (Jesus Christ) in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentence toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it.

Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others, again, of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. I separate, therefore, the gold from the dross; restore him to the former, and leave the latter to the stupidity of some, the roguery of others of his disciples. Of this band of dupes and imposters, Paul was the great Coryphaeus, and the first corruptor of the doctrines of Jesus." --- Thomas Jefferson to W. Short, 1820

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"The office of reformer of the superstitions of a nation, is ever more dangerous. Jesus had to work on the perilous confines of reason and religion; and a step to the right or left might place him within the grasp of the priests of the superstition, a bloodthirsty race, as cruel and remorseless as the being whom they represented as the family God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel. That Jesus did not mean to impose himself on mankind as the son of God, physically speaking, I have been convinced by the writings of men more learned than myself in that lore." --- Thomas Jefferson to Story, Aug. 4, 1820

"I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it." --- Benjamin Franklin, from "Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion", Nov. 20, 1728

"I wish it (Christianity) were more productive of good works ... I mean real good works ... not holy-day keeping, sermon-hearing ... or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments despised by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing the Deity."--- Benjamin Franklin, Works, Vol. VII, p. 75

"If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish Church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. They found it wrong in Bishops, but fell into the practice themselves both there (England) and in New England."--- Benjamin Franklin
==============================================================================================================

I think you should actually read some of these things, as they seem to directly contradict what you are trying to promote and look to be incredibly inaccurate!

[George Rebane]

DavidS 1045am - from these cuttings, how do you summarize the position of Franklin and Jefferson on the existence of God? on the purpose and mission of Jesus? on the transcendence of Man?

[D. King]

David Smith | 12 December 2011 at 10:45 AM

"I think you should actually read some of these things, as they seem to directly contradict what you are trying to promote and look to be incredibly inaccurate!"

Yes Todd, and you can find them all right here where people go to know what to think!

http://zenhell.com/GetEnlightened/FoundingFathers/

[Douglas Keachie]

There is a premise here that is unspoken and unquestioned. The Founding Fathers, whoever they really were, whatever opinions they really held, ( it's kinda hard to ask them today), were and are SMARTER than anyone around today, and therefore working from what little we do know about them, is the only way to TRUTH to LIVE BY. I think this is total BS, and a very poor way to run a society, as all it really means is that whatever agenda YOU want, you'll go digging for supposed facts from the past, instead of coming up with rational arguments to support your case.

[Ben Emery]

The list shows exactly what is wrong with our system, private corporate money and only two political parties. The answer if we want a representative government of the people.

Public Financing of Campaigns
Instant Run Off Voting
Constitutional Amendment stating "Corporations are not people and money does not equal free speech"

[George Rebane]

DougK 1120am - Your point is well taken, but I hope not true. For example, I hold no one's propositions sacrosanct beyond question. My life and training do not permit it. However, citing 'Founders' to summarize a subset of their tenets (and our common legacy) is often an efficient way to proceed in a dialogue. That should not be taken as a carte blanche acceptance of their entire credo or oeuvre.

BenE 1136am - a strong and clear position indeed. But I'm afraid that your unions will fight tooth and nail against it since they are the single biggest funding block in electioneering. And they know that the unequal repetition of simple slogans (verity aside) works most effectively with the constituencies they seek to influence.

Instant Runoff Voting is not the panacea that many people believe.
http://minguo.info/election_methods/irv

On your constitutional amendment, I assume that its prohibitions will apply equally to unions. Would you also consider banning public service unions (per FDR's 1936 arguments) because of their clearly demonstrated and now manifest conflicts of interest in subverting the elected officials under whom they work and who are supposed to represent the taxpayers?

[Douglas Keachie]

"your unions will fight tooth and nail against it since they are the single biggest funding block in electioneering"

As compared to all corporate and Chamber of Commerce interests combined? Where do you get this factavoid from, and what is it compared to?

[Todd Juvinall]

Check out Wisconsin contributions DougK. Three to one unions over everyone else. I bet you support that right?

[Ben Emery]

George,
Unions, Corporations, 527's, and PAC's should be off limits in funding the political parties and their campaigns, period.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=sj112-33

[RL Crabb]

One place I won't be doing business at is the Nevada City BofA. Just got a notice that they are closing up shop in March.

[Todd Juvinall]

We should buy the building and put in a cartoonist gallery!

I haven't done biz with Bof A since 1981.

[bill tozer]

David Smith, you should expand your readings of the Founders. Perhaps George Washington's definition of a true soldier and what kind of man should pack up and go home. Sure, there was Thomas Paine (most oft quoted by the left) who wanted nothing to do with any religion that had a Father kill his only son. Point is they all agreed that government should stay out of religion (like a government sponsored state church, .i.e., the Church of England), not to ban religion from the government. TODD, all is not lost: http://www.journaltimes.com/news/local/two-teachers-unions-in-racine-county-disband/article_ec48afa0-22c0-11e1-82c7-0019bb2963f4.html Seems the two WI teachers unions disbanded cause they simply don't use the unions services. No need in a generous state like WI. The teachers got tired of paying 50 clams a month for a service they don't use or want. Image the 30 year drama teachers realizing they were forced to pay $18,000.00 of their earning for nothing. Suppose it was the math teachers who figured this out after several years of burning the midnight oil, lol. Money talks, BS walks.

[bill tozer]

Daid, I too share contempt for most organized religion. They have skewed the teaching by loading them up with man made interpretations, man made doctrines, man made traditions. I don't like religion, but I like spirituality. Jesus saved his anger for the religious leaders of his day calli9ng them a den of vipers and whitewashed tombs. He did not vent anger at the government or soldiers. Yes, he vented anger when his disciples tried once to keep children coming to him. Religion blocks mans access to God, throws in a third party mediator if you will. "The letter kills, but the spirit gives life" concerning one's soul. All men have flaws and all men harbor evil in their heart of hearts. Thought you were going to replay the tapes of the crusades again as most do, or at least the Inquisition. If God really spoke out loud to us instead of thru the heart, don't you think he would have told Jimmy Swaggert "Jimmy, don't pick up that prostitute. There is a police car behind you!" Our forefathers did they best they could with what they had to work with.

[Account Deleted]

The lefties on this blog continue to shoot themselves in the foot. They want us to read the 'real story' and what do we find, but a nut case California elected official that is totally out to lunch. "The apology doesn't go far enough, Lieu said. He vowed to look into whether Lowe's violated California laws and said he would consider drafting a senate resolution condemning the company's actions." Not sponsoring a show violates California law?
Ben chimes in with his volunteering to pay for Rush Limbaugh's senate run. Public financing is completely un Constitutional and causes far more problems than we have now and will solve none of the ones we have in govt.
If spending my own money in pursuit of spreading my opinion can be controlled by govt, then we have govt censorship. Sorry - that's un Constitutional.

[George Rebane]

Succinct and to the point Scott; well said. You own something only to the extent that you can dispose of it as you will. If the government bayonet stops you from spending your money to promote your opinion (i.e. 'speech'), then that clearly and concurrently violates a number of constitutional rights - see Bastiat Triangle.

[Ben Emery]

Scott,
Tell me where in the constitution it allows for special interests to invest in political parties and elections? It has been left up to the legislative process and never has a bill been passed giving such powers. In fact there have been numerous bills passed and signed into law stating the opposite. It has been a branch of government that has taken those powers making them unequal to the other two branches and making them superior. This is not what the founders created with the constitution but instead is what has been created through crony corporatism.

George an individual freedom of speech and an artificial entity that is granted privileges from government (We the People) are two completely different things. Hopefully you know this or you are further down the corporatist path than I thought.

[Todd Juvinall]

Since a corporation is a amalgam of real humans, how is their speech any different than an individuals? By trying to regulate speech as BenE desires, I think he poses a much greater threat to the Republic than any corporation.

Regarding BenE's opinion he cannot find a Founder's opinion or intent regarding the "party's" or corporate giving to politics, I would say we feel the same way about certain things like say, SS or Medicare. How about the "fairness" of the taxes the liberals desire. You know, taking from the rich and handing it over to others? I think the people the country needs to be afraid of are those that want the government to collect our money and han it out to politicians.

[George Rebane]

BenE 1101pm - people always forget that the Constitution is document restricting government when it spells out what must be done. What it doesn't explicitly restrict or specify is left to the several states and the people to decide, not the federal government.

[Todd Juvinall]

Enumerated is perhaps a word BenE needs to understand better.

[David Smith]

So Todd and George, you would support a corporation such as Bechtel being able to give millions to the candidate of their choice, while citizens don't have that same luxury?

[Todd Juvinall]

Absolutely, with instant disclosure to the public. That is free speech.

[George Rebane]

DavidS 812am - Citizens do have the same luxury in voting with their shares and their memberships in other contributing groups like the unions. As ToddJ says, instant and searchable posting of all contributions, as prescribed by the laws of the jurisdiction for which candidates and issues are applicable - fed, state, county, ... . Only our ballots need be secret, not our campaign contributions.

[Ben Emery]

Unbelievable, I encourage everyone of you to go read the history of the East India Trade Company and the US Revolution. Why the colonies were set up, who they were to benefit, and who was behind the Tea Act that sparked the Boston Tea Party? Ever heard of a company town.

Again, Unbelievable

[Todd Juvinall]

Yes total freedom of the individual and association is unbelievable to someone who believes as BenE does. We are for more freedom, you are for less.

[George Rebane]

BenE 849am - please don't think that your concern here is dismissed. We all know that money can buy votes. But putting more restrictions on the legal uses of stored wealth is not the direction from which we should be looking for solutions. I know it's the Left's first response to restrict, remove, and criminalize, but that is making us into a land of dolts whose only recourse is 'gimme'.

[Ben Emery]

The other thing that didn't happen was that you did not cite where in the constitution where special interests or corporations are given the ability to donate or influence government? In fact please cite anywhere in the constitution where corporations are even mentioned? 800,000 human beings have given their lives in pursuit of these human rights throughout America's history. With a stroke of a pen corporations were given these same rights the founders never intended them to have.

[Account Deleted]

There is nothing in the Constitution that defines what a 'special interest' is. The people have a right to individually or collectively petition and influence the govt. It doesn't matter if it's a corp or a lobbying group. Just as in free speech, there can be reasonable limits. It would certainly be wrong to have a group or organization that receives (unearned) money from the govt turn around and spend money for partisan campaigning. But if the money is private, there should be no limit, only full disclosure. I don't see any problem with that arrangement. The major problem is that the fed govt has an unbounded ability to spend money on all sorts of un Constitutional items. As long as that continues, there will be unbounded graft and corruption.

[George Rebane]

BenE 906am - are you purposely ignoring the counter-arguments to how the Constitution was written and intended to be applied? The document doesn't mention a million things that government through force has imposed on us. Selecting out the things you don't like for the perennial 'Where in the Constitution does it say ...?' treatment is a little old. You have already been answered several times in this comment stream alone.

A better tack would be to discuss voter enfranchisement, information, and practices to insure continuance of our republic.

[Todd Juvinall]

BenE, do you think a voter should produce a photo ID when they enter to vote?

[Todd Juvinall]

Here BenE. This link will let you read what is and isn't in the US Constitution. It appears everyone's ox gets gored so pick your poison.

http://www.usconstitution.net/constnot.html

[Mikey McD]

Corporations are not evil. Corporations are made up of human beings. Corporations are not the problem. The problem is a government powerful enough to be sold to the highest bidder (corporations, labor unions, etc).

Limit the power of the government and you will limit the power of special interests.

[Douglas Keachie]

"real humans, how is their speech any different than an individuals?"

Because it becomes a lynch mob led by some people whose stated goal in forming the corporation is to make money for the stockholders FIRST (cheapest possible labor [no UNIONS!] and cheapest possible extraction of raw materials (see fracking and effects on water supplies, and clearcut logging), and environmental controls be damned, and worry about the public good later, if ever.

[Douglas Keachie]

"BenE, do you think a voter should produce a photo ID when they enter to vote?"

How about corporations have to have open online books in real time for all to see, before they can lobby?

[George Rebane]

DougK 1048am - public corps already have their books open and published. Private corps need to keep theirs closed for the same reason that the Keachie and Rebane families want our books closed.

[Douglas Keachie]

Good, then let the corporate associated individuals vote, one person, one vote, and no lobbyists, no PACs, no perks, just the simple letters that private individuals can send, will make corps look and behave like individuals, instead of power hungry Godzilla sized megalomaniacs roaming the globe and the halls of Congress.

[Douglas Keachie]

And their books are far far removed from any real time expressions and details like what does one ATM transaction cost a bank, really?

[Douglas Keachie]

Boycotting is as American as Apple Pie, or so the Florida Family Association thinks:

http://shortformblog.tumblr.com/post/14108250851/florida-family-association-lowes

[Ben Emery]

Can a corporation register to vote? If an entity cannot register to vote or legally vote then that entity should not be able to influence the vote.

No I don't think a voter needs to show a picture ID but rather a voter ID. Register to vote and get a voter ID card from Secretary of State office.

Your guys obsession with voter fraud is pure propaganda. I have posted it here before the study during the Bush administration of voter fraud 80 something convictions out of 300 million votes and a majority of the convictions were proven to be purely accidental. But election fraud has been taking place since 2000 but you guys are alright with that going on.

Mikey, Who said anything about corporations being evil. They (big business's) do whatever they can get away with to increase profits, period. I don't think Lazy Dog Ice Cream is influencing policy in Washington DC or Sacramento but rather dealing with the policies put in place by big business. The government (We the People) need to make sure big corporations are conducting business in everybody's interests not just their own. When big corporations buy off our political parties then policies begin to shape in the favor of big business and screw the rest. That is what we have today and that is what the TP and OWS movements are screaming about.

[George Rebane]

But Mikey's 956am assertion "Limit the power of the government and you will limit the power of special interests." stands. The corporations only lobby to get special perks/privileges because government has the power and propensity to grant them (i.e. corruption). We seem to want to do nothing about the corruption in government, but only limit the freedoms of people and businesses outside of government. How come?

[Todd Juvinall]

So let me get this straight BenE. Since a corporation can't vote it should have no say in the process of governance? Would you say the same for the Sierra Club, or the NRDC? How about the Foundation setup to lobby for AIDS research in Africa? That is a corporation. Oh, maybe it is only for profits? How about an entity like SBC whose CEO lobbied for the defeat of Prop 23? Please be more specific.

[Ben Emery]

Todd,
Yes, in the sense that Sierra Club buying off representatives. Lobbying is ok absent of all the junkets and goodies that come along with it today. 90% plus of special interests lobbying isn't corrupt but once again a small % of lobbyists are the ones doing the majority of the damage.

George,
As wealth began to accumulate into a small few hands (Merger/ Acquisition era and tax policy shift) in the 80's we have seen the increase in the size and scope of government. More and more of elected officials or bought off and more and more watchdog agencies are captured. The government has been made the externalality arm of private industry, which is the cost of doing business such as livable wages, environmental standards, health care, and pensions. That was the compact we had for 40 years and then it has been dismantled over the last 30 years and we are suffering the consequence of it now.

Check out Michael Stone on KVMR right now interviewing John Perkins. Here is a former interview with him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTbdnNgqfs8

[Todd Juvinall]

So in BenE's opinion, 90% of th lobbyists are OK and it is the 10% creating the problems. Well, BenE, can you explain why you would then shut down the 90% rather than go after the 10%. I am confused.

[Account Deleted]

Ben thinks that gov just started increasing in the 80's? It started a lot longer ago than that. We had big fed govt back in the 1930's. It has been growing since it discoverved that it could grow and not be challenged by the citizens. They always managed to find Supremes that only read enough of the Constitution to find some way to twist things around to OK the latest power grab by the feds.
Doug's post is a laugh - "Because it becomes a lynch mob' That would be the unions, Doug. I don't know how many times I have read about or seen union thugs brutally assault innocent folks trying to make a living. The unions are all about thuggery and power.
They make me sick. Unions in theory are a good thing, but once they were granted monopolistic power they no longer represented a wide spectrum of the public, but only narrow left wing interests.

[David Smith]

Todd you write:

Yes total freedom of the individual and association is unbelievable to someone who believes as BenE does. We are for more freedom, you are for less.

Posted by: Todd Juvinall | 13 December 2011 at 08:57 AM

Ok Todd, based upon that statement I guess you support the right to grow Cannibus then, wether for personal use or for profit?

[Todd Juvinall]

No

[Dixon Cruickshank]

Mr Smith explain why I shouldn't be able to for personal use - who says? you, keachie, Ben who exactly? who died and made you boss of me?

[David Smith]

OK Todd, but based upon that personal freedon mantra I'm trying to understand how you pick and chose.

Dixon, I don't hasve a problem with you growing and consuming that product, but it sure seems funny that when someone say's "We are for more freedom, you are for less", but then they contradict their previous statement.

I'm just trying to understand where the line is drawn.....