[dohboi]

ol has it right.

But really, it only takes a moment of reflection on the nature of power and capital.

Perhaps the central contradiction of capitalism is that it is supposed to be all about competition. But the outcome of competition is that one, or a few, players come out the winners, they then have enough power to rig the system in their favor and get rid of the others. What is left is no real competition (or just the appearance of the same), with the average joe completely left out of the game.

Major corporate interests now always are careful to fund both sides of any close campaign so that they win either way. And you can believe that they are very ready to remind office holders about their support and what they expect from it if the politicians want to see any more contributions for their next campaign.

I really am sorry to crush your naive optimism about our system, but once you look at all closely, it's fairly obvious what the situation is. You don't really need an academic study to see it.

ETA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeTbDdl7XiE

[Subjectivist]

Of course this raises an interesting question. Trump looks set to run the table tomorrow with one or two possible exceptions. He also claims to be turning away major donors wanting to fund his progress.

The big money people funded Jeb in a big way, and got nothing to show for it. The last ten days or so they have been dumping money on Rubio who is also not showing headway despite massive funding.

So if we end up with self funded Trump vs corporate funded Clinton how will that all work out?

[dohboi]

It's the same.

.001% funding in both cases.

The main difference is that Clinton is only a dutiful servant of the oligarchy.

Trump IS the oligarchy.

(And a particularly fascist, egomaniacal one at that.)

[onlooker]

I would not be too sure that Clinton is not an Oligarch. The Clintons have made alot of money over the years.

[dohboi]

The Clintons are merely multi-millionaires.

Billionaires are in a whole other league.

Some of the oligarchs do really seem to love here, though: http://usuncut.com/politics/alice-walto ... y-clinton/

Hillary Clinton Just Received a Massive Donation from America’s Most Hated Oligarch

Newly revealed campaign finance records show that a wealthy Walmart heiress gave a donation exceeding a third of a million dollars to Hillary Clinton’s “Victory Fund.”

Alice Walton, who ranks #12 in the Forbes 400 with more than $32 billion in personal assets, gave $353,400 to the Hillary Victory Fund — one of the funds backing her 2016 presidential campaign. While the donation was made in December of 2015, the record of her contribution wasn’t made public until this week.

[onlooker]

I would not trust those so called tax audits and disclosures these politicians especially ones as prominent as the Clintons most certainly have money and assets in the most secretive of places and are making money in ways I think we can only suspect.

[dohboi]

Perhaps.

But there are also a lot of people whose jobs it is to figure out who has how much money--I should know; I used to be one of them! (Research librarian for Harvard's Development office, briefly. )

[onlooker]

Wow D, you studied in Harvard?

[dohboi]

guilty

[ennui2]

Perhaps the central contradiction of capitalism is that it is supposed to be all about competition. But the outcome of competition is that one, or a few, players come out the winners, they then have enough power to rig the system in their favor and get rid of the others.

My career in IT bears that out, having seen innovation bloom in a given segment, like social networking or streaming video...start out like a cambrian explosion, only to coalesce around a monopoly and an also-ran alternative.

I think a big problem with America is that American society sincerely believes in a level of free-market capitalism that is too loose vs., let's say Europe, not that Europe is immune from corruption in its own way either.

But there are certain sacred cows in the US. To go sniping at the pillars of capitalism is to be seen as unpatriotic (residual pinko red scare outrage).

This is why an ex-hippie like Bernie Sanders can't win over the Red States.

I really don't think the kinds of limits that would have been able to reign in the negative effects of capitalism would have been incompatible with our democratic system. I just think there was never enough public support for them. Sure, we had Teddy Roosevelt Trust-busting over 100 years ago, but now what do we have? Too big to fail and let's bail out the car industry and let's send Tea Partier's to Washington so we can have our Ayn Randian objectivisit rights!

So this idea of a top down power-grab against the will of the people I don't really buy. I know not everyone subscribes to trickle-down, but ever since the public hoisted up the Gipper for Morning in America, we decided to make our bed and now we have to live in it.

It's hella dysfunctional and the chaos with the election shows that there's at least an ongoing dialogue about what the F is going wrong. I just don't think there's enough of a consensus to do anything about it. It's a classic case of what Lincoln said that "A house divided against itself cannot stand".

[Subjectivist]

guilty

Well that explains a lot

[Tanada]

Congratulations to Rubio for finally managing to win 1 state. Unfortunately for the GOP Establishment you spent many many millions in the first 15 states and only won 1.

[dohboi]

Yeah, that would be my state.

I think what we can be more proud of is giving Bernie a win, and also giving Trump a big fat LOSE--the first time he fell to third place since Iowa!

[Subjectivist]

Marco was asked specifically about global warming. He gave the two standard answers, it's natural and no matter what we do China and India will just burn more than ever.

[onlooker]

Marco was asked specifically about global warming. He gave the two standard answers, it's natural and no matter what we do China and India will just burn more than ever.

So basically a lie and a cop out. Amazing what politicians say and even more what voters are willing to believe.

[Tanada]

Marco was asked specifically about global warming. He gave the two standard answers, it's natural and no matter what we do China and India will just burn more than ever.

So basically a lie and a cop out. Amazing what politicians say and even more what voters are willing to believe.

When I got caught doing something wrong by my parents growing up those were the two reflex answers, "I didn't do anything wrong" and "Everyone else was doing it"

[Subjectivist]

Marco was asked specifically about global warming. He gave the two standard answers, it's natural and no matter what we do China and India will just burn more than ever.

So basically a lie and a cop out. Amazing what politicians say and even more what voters are willing to believe.

Fox morning crew gave it their stamp of approval as the 'perfect answer'.

[Lore]

Then again, Fox and company often confuses perfect answers with lies.

[onlooker]

Then again, Fox and company often confuses perfect answers with lies.

For them the perfect answer is a lie

[Tanada]

I do get frustrated being ecologically minded and global warming aware by the complete dismissal of the climate by the entire 'right' wing of American politics. Unfortunately the 'left' wing does little more than pay lip service to the issues so its hard to know which is worse. My biggest hot button is hypocrisy so naturally politicians of every stripe raise my blood pressure almost every time they speak.