If media corporations really saw it as a threat, they wouldn't take all this advertising. In reality, media corporations love unlimited spending b/c it goes heavily to advertising...
Jon Stewart nailed it: http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/wed-june-13-2012-maggie-gyllenhaal?xrs=share_copy
Sadly the Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are people for over 100 years now... It is only getting worse, the biggest issue we are facing in this country is the power and influence of corporations, from their control of the media, unbridled influence on politicians, control of the war contracts, control of medical care and the FED (a non government entity). It has gotten to the point where corporations control or influence our lives from womb to tomb.
Hold on, I'm completely confused here. You post some link where Stewart says something you like....and then advocate that his political speech should be restricted. It's not even a matter of right or wrong, I just truly don't get it.
Let's just say that to get anything done in this system requires you to go through corporations---perhaps an indication that something is wrong with the system.
If there was absolutely no other way to restrict this type of "free speech" by people like Sheldon Adelson, then yeah obviously I much prefer a viacom-less Stewart than an Adelson-full politican campaign. Advocacy: It's free, and the reward is that people buy into the ideas. Investment: It costs money, and the reward is more money. When these two intertwine, there is a potential conflict. That conflict cannot be monitored or supervised appropriately due to the anonimity of the donations, and absence of supervisory powers. Frankly there is a shocking lack of interest on the part of Americans to figure out a way to officially track the behavior of the presidents against campaign donors where they can be held accountable. Yes, there is no perfect way, but really any way is better than this way except the one OLD way which they use to scare Americans: it's better than secret bribes, at least we can see parts of it!! On a global basis, how many people do you think would support this given the facts? What about in America? It's roughly 69% who want to outlaw it, in a country where roughly 60% vote at all. http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2012/03/super-pacs-illegal-abc-poll-/1 http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2...t-americans-want-super-pacs-to-be-illegal.php http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/poll_super_pacs_leave_americans_less_likely_to_vote/ America is being run by rich people, like most other countries, and the rest of the Americans probably don't like being portrayed as the last-placed losers in the "who can afford most free speech" race. They also probably don't think it should be a race at all. It's starting to look like home to me: Ofcourse you have free speech, just some have more than others.
Stewart mentioned this: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/us/politics/pro-gingrich-pac-plans-tv-ads-against-romney.html?_r=1
Except since Stewart, like pretty much any television show out there and especially a cable show, cannot survive without corporate sponsorship or advertising, you've destroyed every news organization out there from the New York Times to the Daily Show in the name of free speech. Pretty Orwellian. As John Roberts pointed out, free speech is not only restricted to the man on the soapbox. Polls mean nothing to me. The fact that the American people may overwhelmingly support something doesn't make that something good. The laws are more important than the anonymous will of the people.
Let me understand, public opinion is irrelevant to you? I see what you're saying. There were no comedians before advertising and corporate sponsorship right? On a non-sarcastic note, I see what you are saying, but I am certain you don't believe the industries will just stop. Surely you see that new ways will be created to pay Jon Stewart to entertain people as long as people want it and there is money. But the more important point: Stewart has a comedy show, which is a vastly different thing that being a brass plate advocacy group funneling anonymous money towards a man who may end up the President of your country. It is entirely possible that free speech can be restricted for corporations because their right to it isn't set in stone, like the right of people to speak freely. As governments love to say, it is a matter of National Security so "special" measures can be taken i.e. rights can be suspended.
Just a regular guy: <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/JvJPG6KURV8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> lol Romney's marketing team have no chance against Obama's. Luckily, there are super pacs to counter. It's a good thing people respond to money and marketing.
Yes, polls are completely irrelevant when I determine whether something is good or not. I draw my conclusions through rationality and thought, as opposed to just believing that "if the majority believes it, it's true." A good chunk of the American public don't believe in evolution, thinks vaccines cause autism, and believe in God after all. Henrik Ibsen's Enemy of the People is an excellent example. You're being facetious, because we're talking about Stewart the news reporter, not Stewart the comedian. And newspapers and other media outlets that reached on a national or global scale did not exist before those things occurred. Really? So the US government could tell the New York Times, which is a corporation, to shut down immeadiately? That's an interesting application of free speech. Honestly, I thought Commodore was being extreme in his rhetoric, but I guess. I guess leftists really do just want to shut down all speech which they disagree in the name of "fairness" which will naturally be regulated by the government.
MSNBC 'apologizes' for the edited video you showed <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Di5CtANNuFk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Romney clearly needs to do more dinners with SJP and other celebrities. It's doing wonders for Obama's image.
- But after you draw your own conclusion, the collective conclusions of the rest of the population is irrelevant? - I don't know a news reporter by the name of Jon Stewart. Newspapers existed in 59 BC, or in their modern form in the 1600's. They did not exist "internationally", but keep in mind these are some big empires. Corporations came into existence in the early 1800's. People would find ways. Surely, the entire industry wouldn't disappear? - I did not say it is a good thing, I said that if closing this superpac loophole necessitated restricting all corporate political speech, then I think things would probably be better prioritized than they currently are. However, I do think there are better alternatives than those suggested. That aside, on a very sincere note, do you think it is a good situation that Obama's campaign managers win marketers of the year with huge financial backing, and subsequently Romney amasses hoards of anonymous money to try and top him? Is this good for you? Is it good for Americans? If not, how do you propose to fix it? I'm not American but I see these things as being very very important if America is ever going to be allowed to make an educated decision based on its own agenda items and its own spectrum of candidates. It is worrisome to think that money or marketing are playing more than an ancillary role in these politics, and I thought we would have a shared interest in reducing the role of these ancillary components of a campaign.
If they can convince me through reasoned argument, sure. But simply stating "69% of the people believe Super PACs should be abolished" isn't that at all. It's simply throwing the weight of the number and using the concept of "everyone else believes it, so it must be right." Which is completely wrong. Stewart's as much of a news reporter as he is a comedian. And sure, the entire industry wouldn't disappear. But by those standards, since the US newspaper industry wouldn't disappear if the US government shut down the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, doing so would not be a violation of free speech. I've used the example several times, so I might as well put it into a question: if corporations do not have the right to free speech that people do, what law prevents the United States government from shutting down the New York Times? I don't have a problem, because 1. spending money is free speech, and thus it is legal and 2. the role of money of political elections is overstated. Christine O'Donnell, the crazy Tea Party witch, raised tons of money to take down Harry Reid. She got destroyed. Steve Forbes, incredibly wealthy businessman, ran for the GOP nomination in 1996. Got destroyed. Ron Paul's raised a quite a lot of money, but that didn't help him at all in becoming more than a fringe candidate, aside from media notices which stated "oh hey, he raised a lot of money." Money in political election, to me is kind of like referring in basketball. It's visible, and prominent, and serves as an easy excuse to justify why one side lost. I can guarantee that regardless of who wins this upcoming Presidential election, the losing side will point to a rich person on the other side such as Soros or Adelson and prop him up as a mysterious bad person who stole the election from the rightful winners. Heck, Beck did that in spades over the last four years.
No disagreement there. I wasn't intending to do what you describe. I don't think anyone thinks about the polls the way you're describing, and if they do it would be news to me. But public opinion has a quality which you forgot to mention. If there is a deficit between what the public believes and what the government does, i.e. a democracy deficit, then democracy is not being served, even if what the people want is not considered smart by others. No he is not, because a news reporter cannot be conflicted. The need to make news funny destroys the basis of fair and accurate reporting. No one calls Jay Leno a news reporter, though he points things out about politics (probably because he's not very funny). Being half a news reporter means being a BAD news reporter, and he does not in any way want people to consider him a source of information for that very reason. He has said this repeatedly, feel free to google it. I understand your question. I'm saying to you that I think there would be nothing stopping them. However, more crucially, there is nothing stopping you or your government from creating new rules to mitigate these risks and govern these issues. If the right of free speech is taken away from the NYTimes, I'm sure new and BETTER rules can be put in place to ensure that the NYTimes can speak freely without facing the problems we are discussing. Money is only free speech because "we" want it to be. Tomorrow, if we ALL agreed, we could say "money is not free speech". That would be perfectly normal. IMO it would make more sense, because everyone has a right to free speech, but not everyone has a right to money. Moreover, some people are born with a lot of money, and some people are born with less than $0. To me this says: if you HAVE more money, you can have louder free speech. Total hogwash. In third world countries, some people have -1 free speech and some +1. Equating money and free speech just means some poeple have 0, and others have +2. I'm having trouble expressing this. Please let me know if you are understanding, and subsequently agreeing or disagreeing. Yes you are correct, there are many instances of money not winning. But money usually wins. This is because they are still accpeting votes at the moment, so it's not purely (or even mostly) a money game. It is partially a money game, and that should be unacceptable to you. You shouldn't have to have the responsibility of filtering that out for yourself, though I'm sure you are fully capable of doing so. http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance Barack: $260m Mitt: $122m Ron: $40m Some interesting figures: Bush $184m, Clinton $175m Kerry and Mccain $75m each
I know he says that, I'm a huge fan of his. But you can't have it both ways. You posted a video link of Jon Stewart making a political point, but the minute Commodore and I argued against his point, you backtrack to "Oh, he's just a comedian." It's one or the other. Either he's a comedian, which means that what he says is just silly and there's no point to posting that link. Or the point is serious, which means Commodore can call him and point out that with corporate sponsorship and advertising, the Daily Show, like every single television program out there, wouldn't survive. These statements show a complete misunderstanding of the Constitution and free speech in general. Free Speech's goal is NOT to make sure that everyone is at an exactly equal level of speech. It's to make sure that everyone has a voice, nothing more and nothing less. If one person's level of speech is at a million and another is at 2, that's fine, because the goal is to simply ensure that no one's level is at 0. If your response is that that's not right, then frankly you're completely ignoring reality in the name of your ideals, because it's impossible to make everyone on the exact same level of free speech. Regardless of whether money is or is not part of politics or whatever system you implement, a rich and influential person like Jon Stewart or the President of BP is going to have a bigger voice than you or me. And changing that, frankly, is just not possible, short of massive government regulation like the Fairness Doctrine on free speech. In fact, if you removed money from politics, the President of BP would gain relatively MORE influence in Washington, as he has lobbyists and people who are friends of Congressman. So if you cut off money from both me and the president, he still has his connections, while I have absolutely nothing at all. Unless you can give me specifics, you're just waffling BS. Because ANYTHING could be justified if your counterargument to someone pointing out the problems is "Oh, we'll enact vague regulations which will somehow prevent the bad sideeffects."
1) If it's one or the other, then I repeat: He's a comedian. He's not a reporter. Comedians can make points, without being reporters, even political ones. It's not for me or you to decide he is a reporter or not. He says he is a comedian and he says that his show should not be taken as news, he knows it is flawed in that sense. 2) Thanks for the clarification. You're correct, I don't think it's right. It solves one problem (the one you state) but now there is a real problem which is getting more and more serious, so the laws/rules have to be updated. 3) I don't understand what you're asking here. You want me to suggest something, but I'm not a lawyer and I'm a total rookie when it comes to US Laws. I'm pointing out the problem, and making my best guess as to the solution. I have a feeling you want to "declare victory" or something because I don't have the exact solution. If it's really bugging you, I suggest that an independent committee is formed which includes the global experts on the topic of free speech, as well as the opinion of the people of America, and separately the relevant officials in the US government, and they are mandated to come up with better rules. Are you implying that because I'm incapable of suggesting something that there must not be anything better? I'll take it as a compliment.
