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PoliGAF 2014 |OT| Kay Hagan and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad News
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speculawyer
Member
What the fuck?
Before I criticize this statement, let me list the 10 largest unions in the country.
1. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
Membership: 1.6 million
Special national bodies: Child Care Providers Together, AFSCME Retirees, AFSCME Corrections United, United Nurses of America.
Represents: Public service workers. Nurses, corrections officers, child care providers, sanitation workers, park rangers, EMTs, and more.
2. Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Membership: 2.1 million (1.9 in the US)
Represents: Health care workers, public services, and property services.
3. National Education Association (NEA)
Membership: 3 million
Represents: Education workers at all levels, from pre-school through college graduate-level.
4. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW)
Membership: 700 thousand
Represents: Workers in utilities, construction, telecommunications, broadcasting, manufacturing, railroads and government.
5. The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)
Membership: 11 million workers
Represents: Unrestricted. All-inclusive labor union.
6. United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW)
Membership: 1 million
Represents: Workers in manufacturing occupations, especially in the auto and aerospace industries.
7. United Brotherhood of Carpenters (UBC)
Membership: 500k
Represents: Workers in construction and wood-products.
8. International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT)
Membership 1.3 million in the US and Canada
Represents: Truck drivers/teamsters, and other blue collar working professionals.
9. Communications Workers of America (CWA)
Membership: 700 thousand in the US and Canada
Represents: Telecom and IT workers, news media, broadcast and cable TV, and airline workers. Also workers public service, health care, law enforcement, manufacturing, and other fields.
10. United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW)
Membership 1.3 million
Represents: Workers in grocery, retail, food processing, and meat packing.
So, you have some 23+ million members across these 10 unions. On the flipside, you have 2 Koch brothers.
How does their political spending stack up?
But sure, keep beating that drum that the koch brothers are fighting the good fight. After all, two people are only tripling the political expenditures of the 23 million most organized, most active workers, from a political lobbying standpoint.
Why do you hate free speech and free markets? They have more money so they win! That's America. EagleCry.gif
This is why 2014 may end up being a rope-a-dope for the GOP. They are going to stick with the same old same old and do reasonably well in 2014 because dems are too lazy to show up during midterm elections. And then they'll be blind-sided in 2016 when the results are much different.
shadowsdarknes
Member
Just paulbot things.
Lol Rand Paul is going to prove to be quite irrelevant come 2015-2016.
From the reviews ive read its a pretty readable book, not accounting for its 650p length..
His scholarly work is also pretty readable
http://gawker.com/attendees-wait-to-register-for-the-national-rifle-assoc-1567798732
Aw shit son, Old, Fat White Guy convention is getting underway!
Aw shit son, Old, Fat White Guy convention is getting underway!
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
What do unions have to do with Rove's statement?
benjipwns
Banned
It won't work.
He has no chance in the primary.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/15/kochs-brothers-labor_n_4966883.html
Cenk's great. Admittedly he can be a little sanctimonious, but he gets things right most of the time. He's also great at pointing out flaws in right-wing arguments that you don't hear from most other places.
Clearly a Game of Thrones fan.
Fenderputty
Banned
Neat. I didn't know they were in the top 10. My dad is in this union. It's great and treated out family well.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
Why are unions put together as a monolithic group? But not businesses?
9.5 billion compared to 600 MILLION. And Most of the money is state level.
benjipwns
Banned
I don't know, ask the person who made the misleading chart. And because the Koch Brothers don't own all businesses?
NYCmetsfan
Banned
And Labor together represents all workers? How is Gamie's chart misleading. It separates unions out.
benjipwns
Banned
Except for the big box in the upper right corner which is implying that union political spending is less than the Koch Brothers "secret" network. And which is how luminaries such as Robert Reich used the graph in their narratives.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
How is that misleading? They clearly show that the Kochs outspend the top 10 unions by a extreme margin, you're Huff Post figures attempts to group every single union together. And it links to an article with Gamie's chart. Its not misleading. Its demonstrating that the kochs have a vastly outsized influence. TWO brothers spend one fourth of every local, state and national union and double the top 10 combinded
benjipwns
Banned
Why the top ten? Why not the top five? Or top fifteen? Or top five hundred?
And how much did it buy them in comparison?
NYCmetsfan
Banned
Now the complaint is: it didn't show what I wanted? Top 10s are popular
The Kochs have gotten more of their legislative agenda through than unions in the past 10 years. They're getting a bargain because Unions have no power based in most of the states the Kochs are buying and bribing to oblivion. Union spending is concentrated. Kochs is diffuse and the article even states the Koch figure is probably low becuase the kochs mask their money because they fear sunlight.
benjipwns
Banned
Why are unions put together as a monolithic group?
NYCmetsfan
Banned
Now you're just going in circles. I'm playing on your ground: all unions vs just the kochs
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
Context, obviously. GaimeGuy's chart compared the Kochs with the top ten unions, not all businesses with the top ten unions.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
I know what his chart did. He should the outsized influence of two brothers. Its wasn't misleading though. It illustrated its point very well. The only reason to go down the route benjipawns did, is to be either a contrarian or downplay the kochs influence which is undeniable. Its what the right and apologists for oligarchy specialize in. little factoids that have no value but shift their conversation away from the wider point the original statement was meant to illustrate. Its the same thing you were doing with the silly income story.
benjipwns
Banned
Do I need to update this with my in-kind contribution to the Koch's, and does it count if they're paying me in the first place?
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
Yes, GaimeGuy's chart did show the Koch's spending towering over the spending of the ten unions listed. And benjipwns showed how such selectivity was deceptive (not to mention thus-far-unexplained). There's no need to rely on deceptive charts to show "the outsized influence of two brothers." In fact, benjipwns' link did just that, but didn't depend on visual trickery to make its point.
And I think I showed conclusively that my "silly income story" was the general understanding of the "1%," the recent and convenient bout of amnesia that has befallen many in this thread notwithstanding.
What's the controversy here? A common rebuttal to criticism of political spending by private business interests is that unions have similar influence. That chart shows how one organisation's spending dwarfs that of the top ten spending unions. It's tearing down another false equivalency.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
Do I need to update this with my in-kind contribution to the Koch's, and does it count if they're paying me in the first place?
Snark is overrated sometimes.
But its not a personal attack, its frustration at horrible arguments that intentionally seek to distract so the underlying point is left alone. Gamie's point was the kochs have a too much influence, the most popular labor unions cant even match that. It wasn't a pissing match it was a frustration that Rove could write and article praising people who buy elections single handedly "patriots".
That's dismissed and irrelevant data to that argument is presented as a refutation.
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
I was under the impression the chart showed the top ten unions in terms of size, not spending. Can we get some clarification?
NYCmetsfan
Banned
it says on the chart its the top ten spending hence why the number 1 has less member than the number 2
The chart is labelled "Political Spending", and has dollar amounts on the Y axis.
Are we looking at the same chart (GaimeGuys)?
WayneMorse
Banned
So how likely is this seat to be picked up by the Dems in November?
benjipwns
Banned
The chart is trying to promote the narrative that unions are just so weak and irrelevant in the political process and the Koch's are just buying all our elections.
That's how Robert Reich used it:
Robert Reich said:
The chart ITSELF was created in an attempt to debunk the idea that collective union spending was greater than the Koch's:
http://www.republicreport.org/2014/unions-koch/
When the reality is both waste an ungodly amount of money for no real gain. The Kochs would be better off investing it into their business and others while the unions would be better off both investing and using it to pay for member services.
I group him into the category of Bill Maher: "shallow and loud giggletron". Find something ridiculous, giggle. Rinse. Repeat.
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
Riddle me this: does the chart mean political spending by the top 10 unions, or political spending by the top 10 political-spending unions? The label is ambiguous. Either way, GaimeGuy seems to think it's the former ("let me list the 10 largest unions in the country").
NYCmetsfan
Banned
He made a typo. List disproven!
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
Tihs is a typo. An entire sentence, followed by a list that appears to support the straightforward meaning of that sentence, isn't. And the issue isn't whether the "list" is "disproven," but whether the chart shows the ten top-spending unions or the spending of the ten largest unions. Spare me your ill-considered sarcasm.
That's not what I got from the chart. The chart doesn't make a definitive statement about unions being "weak and irrelevant", just that the top ten unions (whether by head count or amount spent, apparently that's up for debate) has less influence than an organisation that represents the political will of two individuals.
So Robert Reich made a mistake? I'm not here to defend his comments. However, it's patently ridiculous that we have to have an argument that makes a comparison between all union spending vs all Koch spending, and pretend that is a legitimate comparison worth discussing. I'm not a fan of giant political spend by anyone, but I think it's more harmful to a democracy when wealthy select individuals can outspend and thus potentially have more influence than that of organised structure that represent millions of people.
benjipwns
Banned
It's spending. The Steelworkers and AFT aren't on it. (Unless AFT is included in AFL-CIO.) Both claim 800,000+ members.
benjipwns
Banned
John Boehner and Barack Obama (arguably the heads of two massive corporations) have more political influence than the Koch Brothers, the unions, the tens of millions who voted "for" them, then tens of millions who voted "against" and most of the rest of the world.
Why is being elected by a third of the voting eligible after spending millions (or billions) more legitimate in having a political say than not being elected and spending millions (or billions)? What's so special about getting a plurality in a rigged head count?
WayneMorse
Banned
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/michael-grimm-house-seat-106041.html?hp=f1
I'd like to this this is when the tide turns in the Democrats favor for the House this year.
I'd like to this this is when the tide turns in the Democrats favor for the House this year.
Aaron Strife
Banned
Dem pickup.
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
Do I need to update this with my in-kind contribution to the Koch's, and does it count if they're paying me in the first place?
The latest scientific breakthrough in forum technology:
Yeah, I'm not sure why it matters that the Koch brothers represent two people and the unions "represent" millions. The Koch brothers fund organizations that are fairly mainstream conservative/libertarian. Sure, they promote a lot of policies that will have the effect of making them even wealthier, but these are policies that lots of Americans support. It's not like the left doesn't have their wealthy benefactors. It's just not going to be unions.
AFT's AFL-CIO membership predates the AFL and CIO merger IIRC, so I don't see why they would be excluded.
e: If you're talking about USW, they're AFL-CIO too, though for how long I am uncertain.
Because in a democratic system, process matters to legitimacy. JB and BO have a greater political day precisely because of the reason you mentioned: that they were elected by a plurality of participating voters in an established democratic system of governance. If a plurality of voters do not approve of their performance, they can be voted out at the next election. In other words, they are held accountable by the populace for their performance.
The Koch brothers, George Soros and Tom Steyer in contrast are not elected by the people and cannot be held accountable in the same way as politicians for their actions. Their resources can potentially drown out the voice of millions of other citizens. They can sway policy that affects everyone, purely because they have a disproportionate influence in funding the representatives in government that determine policy. You may think this is ok, but I and many others certainly don't. This can only lead to policy that favours the interest of a few.
speculawyer
Member
Sadly, this is just not true. There have been various studies showing that lobbying is one of the best investments that a company can make. They get HUGE returns on their lobbying "investment" in the forms of tax-cuts, tax-breaks, incentives, deregulation, government contracts, etc.
benjipwns
Banned
I thought they were just talking about election spending. Lobbying is a different beast. It's my fault if I misread it.
In theory.
So can News Corp., Kabletown and the New York Times Company.
Policy is always made in the interest of a few.
The more people represented by a group, the more their monetary contributions accurately represents and contributes to, rather than corrupts, the democratic process. There is a huge problem when two individuals can spend comparably to millions of people. If you can't see that, you're blind.
The Koch brothers are almost solely responsible for the huge libertarian shift the right has seen over the last 20 years. Republicans used to be anti large corporation, pro-small business, pro-environment, and militarily less hawkish than democrats. Even through Nixon and most of Reagan. Hell, Nixon started the EPA and pulled us out of vietnam. George HW Bush was a huge advocate of the Americans With Disabilities Act
I'm not sure I understand where you're coming from here. What would a merely good (as opposed to an ideal) system look like? How ought we to go about governing the country if not by doing something that looks kind of like what we do, with voting and (de facto or official) party leaders and all that? Certainly there are things we could do better, but it seems like it'd be difficult to have a functioning system that doesn't produce something like Barack Obama and John Boehner. This sort of structure isn't unique to the US - all other successful countries have similarly powerful* political figures whose power depends on this sort of "rigged head count". Is your position that basically everything should be handled by direct democracy?
So, sure, it's not fair that Obama and Boehner have the power they do. This seems to be a necessary sort of unfairness, or at the very least it would be a very difficult sort of unfairness to do away with. I don't mean just politically - it's difficult as a matter of reforging a working system that doesn't have people like that. After all, we've tried, right? That's most of what communism is all about. But it's hard to get there from here, and I'm inclined to stick with more-or-less what we've got, structurally, and live with this sort of unfairness.
However, just because the system requires this particular sort of unfairness, it doesn't follow that we have reasons to allow other sorts of unfairness. The political influence that the Kochs wield is easily severable from the system as a whole. We can see this. Various other countries keep a much tighter lid on economic inequality, which limits the political inequality that can result from economic inequality. The US itself had a somewhat different campaign finance regime until not too long ago, limiting the ability of the economically powerful to leverage that into political power. I think we can all readily imagine other possible laws that are perfectly compatible with the sort of system we have that would do these things to a much greater extent, even.
You're talking like this sort of influence is unfair. So why not do something about the sorts of unfair influence which we can readily deal with and which we don't have good reasons to allow? It seems pretty trivial to come up with a positive defense of the value of institutions like The New York Times Company, even if you get the occasional News Corp. It's easy to see the function that political parties serve in allowing people to organize, and likewise it's easy to see the value in people pooling (individually small amounts of) resources to participate in politics in other ways. It's difficult to see what's valuable about people like the Koch brothers, or George Soros (although obviously the Kochs spend a lot more), being allowed to put as much money as they do behind various causes. So why not stop this one thing, given that it's unfair that they have this kind of power and given that nobody seems to be making a positive case for why it's valuable that they have this kind of power?
*The big difference is going to be that the US government wields a lot more power outside of its borders, but I don't think this is a problem for the argument I'm making.
benjipwns
Banned
It's trying to combat a symptom by increasing the cause.
This doesn't make sense, you're saying the Republicans used to be more libertarian, but the Kochs have single handledly made them more libertarian?
Modern libertarianism is anarcho-capitalism. Republicans used to favor regulations that looked out for the willing but not able (the disabled, the small business owner fighting off bankrupcy as a large chain moved in, etc)
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