Is Wealth Inequity Defended Due To Faith That Great Wealth Was Legitimately Amassed

[host]

I am going to keep this short, but I urge you to read the examples I've previously posted at the three links below, to get a sense about why I am taking the opposite side of the argument of this, from the Politics Thread titled "Inequality":

Originally Posted by loquitur

Actually, MM, if you look at what I was saying, I was positing that there is a level of income below which we should be concerned about the person. In a rich society like ours everyone should have access to basic nutrition, clothing and shelter. But if a person's basic needs are taken care of, then no, I don't think income inequality in and of itself is a problem.

At some point, railing against the "rich" is just plain and simple envy, which is a poisonous emotion, more for the person who has it than that person's target. And then there is the question of how you define "rich" - I have yet to get a coherent definition from the redistributionists that amounts to anything other than "someone who has more than I do." And bear in mind that that works both ways: there are people who have less than you who would want some of what YOU have, too. To them, YOU'RE rich. Whatever principle you might articulate to justify taking stuff away from people who have more than you merely because they have it can also be used to justify taking stuff away from you.

Where I'm going with this is here: at least in this country, <h2>simple inequality of income in and of itself is not a bad thing, unless the inequality came about because of theft or some other kind of bad conduct.</h2> If you're talking about ancien regime France, or Tsarist Russia, with a hereditary and useless aristocracy, that's one thing. <h3>But that's not this country. Most wealth in this country is earned. Yes, there is a luck element - there always is - but it doesn't explain all the disparities even remotely.</h3>

I have yet to hear an explanation of why simple inequality of income, in and of itself, is something we have to somehow "fix", when there are so many other unequal endowments people have that no one seems to be interested in fixing. Some people happen to be very good at making money. Other people, like me, are good at other things. So?

Is loquitur's premise, "most wealth in this country is earned", when we consider great wealth, an accurate statement, or does he just assume it is accurate? Doesn't the "grease" from massively increasing wealth, even if it is legal influence....political contributions, influencing zoning boards to transform the marginal property you have an opportunity to purchase, into prime zoned land, compared to the clout that you or I could wield with zoning officials, really the difference? Don't even the legitimately wealthy have ways to creat their "own opportunities", to open doors mostly closed to the rest of us, that consolidate their opportutnities, and thus, rob the rest of us of our potential ones....the opportunity cost to the rest of scoiety....that today, in retail, and in shopping center development, only a Walmart can wield and reap the benefits from?


http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...8&postcount=39

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...6&postcount=54

More support for post at preceding link:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...7&postcount=41

I read loquitur's post on the other thread (he made it clear that he did not want a discussion like the one I want to have here, happen in his thread, even though he posted statements like the one I highlighted in his post copied above), so I created this thread as a forum for this tangent of discussion.

At the first link I posted above, I provided support for statements I posted there that made the points that the CEO of the largest US Bank, and the CEO of the largest US Brokerage, both made public statements, last Sept/Oct, concerning the losses that their firms would be announcing in the near term, that they absolutely had to know to be false....they both dramatically understated the limpending loss amounts. The immediate results were that they "stabalized" the stock market indexes, and reversed the plummeting share prices of their own firms.

Both CEO's were forced to resign, shortly after these events, but they were allowed to leave with additional amounts of $100 to $200 million, each. The impact of their false statements benfited their firms, but negatively impacted the wealth of those who believed them and held stocks, or bought more, instead of selling at much higher price levels at that time, than were available later.....

I also documented, in that same post, the fact that the original parent of the bank described above, Citi Group, was National City Bank, and the fact that it's chairman, Mr. Mitchell, was found to have committed fraud and manipulation against his bank's pre-depression and depression era investors, according to the 1932 US Senate investigation led by attorney Ferdinand Pecora:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...6&postcount=29

In the last two links above, I documented my example of John McCain, and the background of his in-law's and now his, tremendous wealth.

Do we all agree that personal assets of $100 million or more, these days, is tremendous wealth?

I detailed, and I think....thoroughly supported the facts that McCain married into a family where his bride's father had a well publicized background as a convicted felon who was employed by the wealthiest man in Arizona, Kemper Marley, for at least eight years, and was arrested on felony liquor distribution charges twice while employed by this man, and convicted on federal felony charges the first time. I also documented that the man McCain's father worked for was suspected of ordering a "mob hit" against an investigative reporter who exposed his organized crime activities in the local newspaper, and that a close acquaintance of this man was convicted, and is serving a life term for car bombing the reporter.

I documented that McCain's father-in-law, along with his brother, also convicted and imprisoned in the first liquor felony arrest, and arrested in the second liquor felony indictment, and later convicted and imprisoned twice more on income tax evasion charges, bought a horse racing track in neighboring New Mexico, in 1953. and denied in a Gaming Commission hearing that an individual with mob gambling ties, "Teak" Baldwin, was their partner. Two years later it was determined that that the individual was an equal partner in the race track purchase with the two brothers. A New Mexico state police investigation of the brothers and their hidden partner, Baldwin found that the brothers' employer in Arizona, Kemper Marley,

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...48#post2398348
....The 1953 State Police report in connection with it's Arizona investigation of the Hensleys and Baldwin noted Marley "owned a wire service formerly operated in connection with bookmaking of the Al Capone gang."

The same report listed Baldiwn as a "bookmaker for leading tracks" and said that Marley "is reputed to be the financial backer for bookies..."

I documented that McCain's father-in-law sold his share of the racetrack in 1955 and was somehow able to buy the Budweiser beer distributorship business in Phoenix, at a time when his former employer, Kemper Marley's United Liquor distributors enjoyed a monopoly of the sales of all liquor in Arizona.

I posted the details of the company that held the race track refreshment concession contract at the brothers' horse racing track, a firm that financed the later purchase of the track from McCain's father-in-law's brother and partners, to new owners, along with the remaing years of the concession contract at the track.

The last words of the dying, car bombed investigative reporter, including the name of this sports venue refreshments concessionaire, "EMPRISE". The articles the reporter published, indicated that Emprise had become a lender to professional sports team owners, and was transitioning into actually purchasing some of the teams. The reported published his question of whether those purchases would put the Buffalo, NY company, known to have well documented relationships with organized crime, into the position of being able to actually influence the outcomes of professional sports contest, presumably for the purposes of benefiting sports betting bookmakers.....

Today, the company founded by McCain's in-law has been described as the fifth largest beer distributor in the country, and McCain and his mobster's daughter wife are worth $50 to $100 million, all from the profits of his in-law's businessed. The Business nets $50 million per year, and his wife, the potential first lady of the USA, is the firm's chairwomen.

The holding company that Emrpise has morphed into, is now called Delaware North Corp., and the owners, the Jacob's family of Buffalo, were described as having net worth of $600 million and owning businesses with annual revenues over $1 billion, in a <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F01E5DD1F3AF935A2575BC0A96E958260">NY Times article</a> ten years ago.

My core point is that the issue is not as easy to determine as loquitur described..... Kemper Marley and McCain's father in law, and the owners of Emprise/Delaware North, extract both wealth and opportunity cost from the rest of us, first by engaing in organized crime activity that the system does not confront and constrain, for a variety of reasons....corruption of regulators and law enforcement via bribes, political contributions to politicians who help thugs to thrive in their illegal and then laundered business acitivities, instead of representing the rest of our interests in government and in society, and through the impact of what the impression on the rest of us that their organized, illegal activities, effect.

They corrupt "the system" to the point where we lose faith in it, and perversely embrace, "private business"...."private capital", when we should actually be embracing tax policies that fucking confiscate it, to mitigate what all of the unenforced, unmitigated, illegal, unethical, and cronyized activity has taken away from the rest of us.

<h3>Instead, we observe a vehement "hands off" attitude towards those worth $100 million, and up, and we have a focus on demonizing the poorest and most powerless, because they are "the takers"....WTF?</h3>

I am not saying that everyone who controls $100 million or more is a crook, a thug, or a thief, but you don't get there by being an altar boy or a descendant or heir of an altar boy, either.

<h3>If we could reach a consensus of whether, given where all of his assets and the money that supported his initial political career came from, and the fact that he had to know, early on....about the background of his father-in-law and the source of the man's initial business investment, and the circumstances of his opportunity to buy such a "one of a kind" beer distribution business originated from, I think we would progress a long way on reaching some agreement about what society driving goverment, can and should do to confront and to mitigate growing wealth inequity in the US.</h3>

Mericfully, none of this discussion needs to focus of whether the poorest are truly poor if they own a microwave and a dvd player, or not.

We can shift discussion to whether they were wronged if they are working behind the counter of a sports venue refreshment concession, and paid a shitty li'l wage and no benefits because Delaware North even exists today, to own the concession's contract, and maybe the sports team itself, vs. whether it had it's ass shutdown, 60 years ago, when then incorruptible public enforcement officials, prosecuted it's mobbed up founder, as they should have, instead of accepting bribes to look the other way, and the assets of Emprise, way back then, were confiscated by a criminal court judge.

[ngdawg]

OK, I did my best to read what you had to say and I don't get your point. You used less than 5 examples of wealth thru nefarious means, but there are more than 5 wealthy people in the US.
No one would deny that some of our wealthy are not the most honest kids on the block, but are you suggesting that none are and therefore need to be dragged down a peg or hundred?

[dksuddeth]

wealth that is honestly obtained should never be punished, however, hiring a CEO who causes a 4 billion dollar loss to the company but saves 1.5 billion by laying off 25% of their workforce and STILL gets that 20 million bonus????
nuh uh. no way. no how.

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by dksuddeth

nuh uh. no way. no how.

And what would you do about it?

[host]

Originally Posted by ngdawg

OK, I did my best to read what you had to say and I don't get your point. You used less than 5 examples of wealth thru nefarious means, but there are more than 5 wealthy people in the US.
No one would deny that some of our wealthy are not the most honest kids on the block, but are you suggesting that none are and therefore need to be dragged down a peg or hundred?

I am asking if the reason some of us vehmently do not want to tax earnings over, say.... $1 million per year, at 90 percent or 70 percent, when earnings over $400,000 were taxed at 90 percent in the 1950's, is because the objectors have faith that the extremely wealthy did not amass their wealth at the deliberate expense (or offense) to the rest of us, and, if so...where they get their opinion that this is so....

What changed since the 1950's to make taxing the wealthy less justified or necessary? Do they own a smaller amount of total wealth now, than they did then? Do they operate more magnanimously or less corruptly than they did in 1955, and are they rest of us in a better position to pay the taxes that they used to pay, but are not paying anymore?

I am asking specifically what to do about John McCain....has he forfeited his opportunity, in the eyes of the rest of us, to lead us as our president, because he looked the other way when he accepted and amassed a fortune of "dirty" money, because he was greedy and ethics deprived, or able to rationalize that he was committing no crime in taking the money from his in-law's, or because he was too stupid or incurious to know or to think about where the wealth came from?

If any of the answers about McCain are true, what does he stand for?

Arizona is the newest of the 48 states. It is unique in that two studies, "the Phoenix 40", and the "Arizona Project", tell us (no, scream at us....) that the wealthiest and most powerful in Arizona came to have what they have, almost to a man....via their relationships with each other, and with organized crime. Del Webb, for example, the contractor who built the Flamingo Hotel in Vegas in 1946, and who owned the NY Yankees for 20 years, and who built Sun City, the first retiement community in the US, was "mobbed up", his wealth and the growth of his businesses were directly related to his relationships with organized crime figures and their illegitmate and semi-legitimate businesses....

Other centers of wealth, in California, in Florida, and of course, in Chicago and in New York, are no different than what the studies of connections in Arizona have revealed, because the "players" in Arizona, are directly connected to the players in the other cities where US wealth is concentrated.

If you don't see and accept the idea that the collaberation of 18 of the welathiest US families to spend collectively, $150 million to push PR and a political agenda to first, rename inheritance taxes, "the death tax", and then to push incessantly for their repeal, because "they hurt family farmers", is an offense to the rest of us....we get saddled with making up for the inheritance taxes that they formerly paid, than you probably don't recognize much of the rest of what I am talking about.

Our "system" did not start yesterday or today. It began in the last century. When the taxes of the welathiest are reduced, as they were beginning in 2001, we move from an increased federal debt of $18 billion in 2000, to $700 billion this year...the wealthiest pay less, who makes up for it?

So, there are two problems, denial that there is an organzied mix of criminal or unethical collaberative activity of the wealthiest to make up for what they lack in numbers, by leveraging their connections and the influence that their money buys, to control our political system, weaken enforcement of rules implemented to contain their abusive activity, or to eliminate the rules themselves....see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-Steagall_Act">Glass-Steagall Act</a>..... and the influence on our thinking that the wealthiest buy....ownership of the news media and funding of several hundred conservative or libertarian "think tanks"....are examples of this....

I'll settle for your thoughts on what to do about John McCain? Do you want him and his mob princess wife, stinking up the white house?

[dc_dux]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

And what would you do about it?

Greater worker representation on corporate boards which is commonplace in Europe, Japan, Korea and most other economically developed countries.

[ngdawg]

OK, they distribute beer. He ranks 7th in wealthy senators. I'm betting Kennedy is higher and how'd he get rich? Daddy-it's been long rumored Daddy Kennedy made a fortune as a rum "distributor" during Prohibition.
Now, did you vote for John Kerry in 2004? Ketchup money through the wife.

Your post reaks of Republican bashing, not of wanting to understand the disparities of the classes or how they came about.

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by dc_dux

Greater worker representation on corporate boards which is commonplace in Europe, Japan, Korea and most other economically developed countries.

Compensation consultants aren't surprised by this convergence. All over Europe, they say, executives are demanding American-sized pay packages. Instead of just cash, European executives are now expecting incentive compensation like restricted shares and stock options, which can result in much higher pay packages.

Meanwhile, U.S. companies have pulled back on their use of incentive compensation, partly because of corporate scandals earlier in the decade and partly because of a change in accounting rules that require stock options to be treated as an expense. As a result, pay packages in rich countries are starting to converge.

In other words, American CEOs, like ordinary workers, are now subject to competition from cheaper foreign labor

http://www.forbes.com/compensation/2...ml?partner=rss

Try again.

[loquitur]

We have laws against fraud. There are huge incentives for private plaintiffs to bring corporate fraud-doers to heel. Prosecutors (I'm thinking federal prosecutors, mainly, but some state and local as well) can make their reputations bringing down big shots, and do. (Google the name "Phil Bennett" as a recent example.) So the notion that there is massive undetected fraud and theft in all big companies and the majority of rich people is just lunacy.

Of course there are some bad rich people. There are bad people everywhere. That doesn't mean most wealth is garnered by fraud and theft, it simply means that there are some bad people out there. The fact is, for every bad name Host throws out, I can throw out two (or more) names of people who made their money honestly and are well-respected for it. I bet I could even do it sticking with the names of rich people who are liberal Democrats. (They probably can't match Host's lofty ethical standards, but I doubt anyone who ever fired an employee can.)

[dc_dux]

Ustwo....How does that Forbes article (yes, I just read it) negate the value of having company workers participate in a minority position on the board of directors of said company?

[dksuddeth]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

And what would you do about it?

never invest in any company that hired him ever again would be about the only thing little ole me can do.

[host]

Originally Posted by ngdawg

OK, they distribute beer. He ranks 7th in wealthy senators. I'm betting Kennedy is higher and how'd he get rich? Daddy-it's been long rumored Daddy Kennedy made a fortune as a rum "distributor" during Prohibition.
Now, did you vote for John Kerry in 2004? Ketchup money through the wife.

Your post reaks of Republican bashing, not of wanting to understand the disparities of the classes or how they came about.

The evidence in the article I provided from the March 26, 1977 edition of the Albuquerque Journal, citing the minutes of meetings of the New Mexico Racing Commission, is overwhelming that James Hensley worked, for at least 8 years, for Kemper Marley and that Hensley fraudulantly received approval from the Racing Commission to purchase Ruidoso Downs Race track by concealing that one of his two equal partners in the purchase was a mob connected gambler specifically prohibited by the Commission, from being a partner seeking approval from the commission to purchase the track.

The evidence is that Hensley was convicted of multiple felonies of liquor invoice fraud, and received a suspended 6 months federal prison sentence, and then was indicted, 5 years later on similar felony charges, and was defended successfully against those charges by William Rehnquist, future SCOTUS chief justice.

The evidence of those racing commission hearing minutes shows that Kemper Marley..., the Hensley brothers employer for at least 8 years (1945 to 1953) and friend since the 1930's, was:

....The 1953 State Police report in connection with it's Arizona investigation of the Hensleys and Baldwin noted Marley "owned a wire service formerly operated in connection with bookmaking of the Al Capone gang."

The same report listed Baldiwn as a "bookmaker for leading tracks" and said that Marley "is reputed to be the financial backer for bookies..."

We also know that, despite felony convictions for liquor invoice fraud, James Hensley was allowed by the liquor commission of the state of Arizona to purchase an alcoholic beverage distributorship.

You have the gall to describe what I'm doing as "republican bashing", yet you offer nothing about Joseph Kennedy's background or activities that rises to the level of substance...a conviction, and material from official minutes of a state regulatroy hearing, backed by later reporting in articles I provided from the Arizona Republic azcentral.com, or Hensley's felony convictions, fraudulant assertions to conceal his mob ties at the racing commission hearing, AND YOU NOT ONLY IGNORE MY QUESTION ABOUT HOW TO REACT TO McCAIN, because of all of this evidence, but you attempt to blur the issue by comparing JFK to McCain.

Can you not see that there is no comparison between McCain and JFK? The comparison would be between McCain's wife, Cindy Hensley, born into a family, just as JFK was. Being born into a family is an involutary act. Once you are a child in a family, and grow up loved and nurtured, you do not have the objectivity that McCain, 45 years old when he married, should have had in deciding how close company to keep with his mobbed up in-law?

Can you not see that difference? Cindy Hensley and JFK could not not be their father's child.....but McCain could have married Cindy, and not taken a no show, VP position in her father's company, then accepted his campaign financing, and accumulated as his own personal wealth, $50 to $100 million that came directly from profits of his in-law's business.

I was pleased to read your earlier posts on this forum, especially the candid one about your own personal tax filing info.... posting that took guts, it was real, I gained a new respect for you, but the comparisons you made in your last post, make no sense, and I don't see where you get the "reaking" part...at alll.

If you have some "dirt" on some wealthy Dems...and it ought to be more convincing than what I've posted about McCain's in-law, since even compelling evidence like I provided did nothing to sway you....I'll be happy to discuss it with you.

I am the author of the "Historians looking at Bush presidency may well wonder if Congress actually existed", thread, and I think what I've posted there indicates that I have the capacity to be very critical of democrats who fail to represent the larger interests of the American people.

Let's see what you've got, besides an unsupported emotionally charged reaction....

Originally Posted by loquitur

We have laws against fraud. There are huge incentives for private plaintiffs to bring corporate fraud-doers to heel. Prosecutors (I'm thinking federal prosecutors, mainly, but some state and local as well) can make their reputations bringing down big shots, and do. (Google the name "Phil Bennett" as a recent example.) So the notion that there is massive undetected fraud and theft in all big companies and the majority of rich people is just lunacy.

<h3>Of course there are some bad rich people. There are bad people everywhere. That doesn't mean most wealth is garnered by fraud and theft, it simply means that there are some bad people out there.</h3> The fact is, for every bad name Host throws out, I can throw out two (or more) names of people who made their money honestly and are well-respected for it. I bet I could even do it sticking with the names of rich people who are liberal Democrats. (They probably can't match Host's lofty ethical standards, but I doubt anyone who ever fired an employee can.)

[ngdawg]

Where in those links does it mention that McCain's in-laws are running for office?
While Clinton was president, he pardoned 140 convicted felons, including.....his own brother.
Every bottle of Heinz you bought put a portion into John Kerry's campaign box.
I'm about as unemotional about this election as a person can get....yet you're on some sort of get'em because McCain's inlaws weren't stellar(well, gee whiz, Wally!) and then accuse me of being emotionally charged....
Relax, dude....
As a footnote, Hillary has both black and Jewish bloodlines.I find that about as interesting as McCain's inlaws being convicted of something decades ago.
In other words, ain't got nothin to do with anything now. Come back when MCain makes daddy-in-law a Cabinet member.

[host]

Originally Posted by loquitur

We have laws against fraud. There are huge incentives for private plaintiffs to bring corporate fraud-doers to heel. Prosecutors (I'm thinking federal prosecutors, mainly, but some state and local as well) can make their reputations bringing down big shots, and do. (Google the name "Phil Bennett" as a recent example.) So the notion that there is massive undetected fraud and theft in all big companies and the majority of rich people is just lunacy.

<h3>Of course there are some bad rich people. There are bad people everywhere. That doesn't mean most wealth is garnered by fraud and theft, it simply means that there are some bad people out there.</h3> The fact is, for every bad name Host throws out, I can throw out two (or more) names of people who made their money honestly and are well-respected for it. I bet I could even do it sticking with the names of rich people who are liberal Democrats. (They probably can't match Host's lofty ethical standards, but I doubt anyone who ever fired an employee can.)

C'mon, loquitur, the fraud and corruption at the top is rampant.

Here is an example, you can verify it yourself. Bush and his partners purchased the baseball team in the 80's for about $86 million, and they sold it, 14 years later, for less than $300 million, those numbers are part of the public record, but so is this:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...al+gain&st=nyt
Bushes Had $1.3 Million In Income

By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON
Published: April 18, 2000
Gov. George W. Bush of Texas and his wife, Laura, revealed some limited information about their income taxes yesterday, issuing a brief statement that they had income of $1.3 million in 1999 on which they paid $514,000, or 39.5 percent of their income, in federal taxes.

There was no explanation in the one-page statement for the high rate of taxes, which was close to the highest federal tax rate, 39.6 percent. But when a return is filed, the actual tax may be lower, said Mindy Tucker, a campaign spokeswoman for Mr. Bush, the presumptive Republican nominee for president.

''The $514,000 represents withholding and estimated taxes paid, not actual taxes,'' Ms. Tucker said.

The 1999 income was less than a tenth the amount the Bushes made in 1998. That year the couple reported income of $18,405,524, on which they paid federal taxes of $3,772,252, or 20.5 percent.

Most of their 1998 income came from long-term capital gains, which are taxed at 20 percent. Their biggest capital gain that year was from a $600,000 investment in the Texas Rangers baseball team. That investment grew 25-fold in value, to $15 million, when the partnership that owned the team, lead by Tom Hicks, a leveraged buyout specialist, sold the Rangers for $250 million.

The salary for a Texas governor last year was $115,345, but Mr. Bush relinquished 55 days of pay because he was campaigning, lowering his state salary to $97,964, said Anne Trenolone, a spokeswoman in the gubernatorial press office....

Shouldn't Bush's long term capital gain on the baseball team investment, considering that he never invested personally more than $1 million in the team, (and maybe even less than that...), if the team was sold for an amount that was less than 4 times the purchase price, been a capital gain of no more than $4 million?

How do you explain Bush paying taxes on at least $14 million in income in 1998, at the 20 percent long term capital gains tax rate, instead of at the higher, earned income rate of 39.2 percent?

Bush explained that his accountants took an "aggressive position" in deciding how to categorize Bush's actual capital gains. What do you call what Bush did, loquitur? It looks like he ducked paying an additional $3 million in taxes that he clearly owed.

If you disagree, don't you need to provide data that Bush invested more than I've posted, or that they team was purchased for less or sold for more than I've posted?

Isn't anything else, no matter how you slice or dice it, clear evidence of gross income tax fraud? What kind of example does it set, or influence perception that we live in a two tiered oligarchy of gross wealth inequity?

Originally Posted by ngdawg

Where in those links does it mention that McCain's in-laws are running for office?
While Clinton was president, he pardoned 140 convicted felons, including.....his own brother.
Every bottle of Heinz you bought put a portion into John Kerry's campaign box.
I'm about as unemotional about this election as a person can get....yet you're on some sort of get'em because McCain's inlaws weren't stellar(well, gee whiz, Wally!) and then accuse me of being emotionally charged....
Relax, dude....
As a footnote, Hillary has both black and Jewish bloodlines.I find that about as interesting as McCain's inlaws being convicted of something decades ago.
In other words, ain't got nothin to do with anything now. Come back when MCain makes daddy-in-law a Cabinet member.

We're not even in the same discussion, ngdawg.....I gave you specifics, you ignored or distorted them, and now you've marched on Clinton, H

Originally Posted by ngdawg

Where in those links does it mention that McCain's in-laws are running for office?
While Clinton was president, he pardoned 140 convicted felons, including.....his own brother.
Every bottle of Heinz you bought put a portion into John Kerry's campaign box.
I'm about as unemotional about this election as a person can get....yet you're on some sort of get'em because McCain's inlaws weren't stellar(well, gee whiz, Wally!) and then accuse me of being emotionally charged....
Relax, dude....
As a footnote, Hillary has both black and Jewish bloodlines.I find that about as interesting as McCain's inlaws being convicted of something decades ago.
In other words, ain't got nothin to do with anything now. Come back when MCain makes daddy-in-law a Cabinet member.

Huh???? ngdawg, I showed you that the money that McCain now possesses, had to knowingly come to him, and that it is proceeds from original investments made with organized crime proceeds invested into an opportunity provided by organized crime connections.

I asked at what point you think McCain's money was cleansed, and above is your response.

You've moved onto new things....how many criminals, in his own administration, and in Reagan's administration, did Bush Sr. pardon? Who had congressional hearings held about his pardons, Bush Sr. or Clinton? What was determind by those hearings?

Again, did McCain or did he not, immerse himself in the employment and the money of an Arizona organized crime figure?

It seems like a valid and a simple question, because he's running for president, and his past with Hensley either makes him stupid and incurious, or unethical.

[Tully Mars]

Originally Posted by dksuddeth

wealth that is honestly obtained should never be punished, however, hiring a CEO who causes a 4 billion dollar loss to the company but saves 1.5 billion by laying off 25% of their workforce and STILL gets that 20 million bonus????
nuh uh. no way. no how.

I'm lost. Did he save the company and it's shareholders money or loose their money? Did he first lose the 4 million and then make it and another 1.5 up by laying off workers or is the net loss 2.5 million?

[ngdawg]

Originally Posted by host

C'mon, loquitur, the fraud and corruption at the top is rampant.

Here is an example, you can verify it yourself. Bush and his partners purchased the baseball team in the 80's for about $86 million, and they sold it, 14 years later, for less than $300 million, those numbers are part of the public record, but so is this:

Shouldn't Bush's long term capital gain on the baseball team investment, considering that he never invested personally more than $1 million in the team, (and maybe even less than that...), if the team was sold for an amount that was less than 4 times the purchase price, been a capital gain of no more than $4 million?

How do you explain Bush paying taxes on at least $14 million in income in 1998, at the 20 percent long term capital gains tax rate, instead of at the higher, earned income rate of 39.2 percent?

Bush explained that his accountants took an "aggressive position" in deciding how to categorize Bush's actual capital gains. What do you call what Bush did, loquitur? It looks like he ducked paying an additional $3 million in taxes that he clearly owed.

If you disagree, don't you need to provide data that Bush invested more than I've posted, or that they team was purchased for less or sold for more than I've posted?

Isn't anything else, no matter how you slice or dice it, clear evidence of gross income tax fraud? What kind of example does it set, or influence perception that we live in a two tiered oligarchy of gross wealth inequity?

We're not even in the same discussion, ngdawg.....I gave you specifics, you ignored or distorted them, and now you've marched on Clinton, H
Huh???? ngdawg, I showed you that the money that McCain now possesses, had to knowingly come to him, and that it is proceeds from original investments made with organized crime proceeds invested into an opportunity provided by organized crime connections.

I asked at what point you think McCain's money was cleansed, and above is your response.

You've moved onto new things....how many criminals, in his own administration, and in Reagan's administration, did Bush Sr. pardon? Who had congressional hearings held about his pardons, Bush Sr. or Clinton? What was determind by those hearings?

Again, did McCain or did he not, immerse himself in the employment and the money of an Arizona organized crime figure?

It seems like a valid and a simple question, because he's running for president, and his past with Hensley either makes him stupid and incurious, or unethical.

Re: previous, in no part of my post did I compare JFK to McCain. What I stated was that the wealth of the Kennedys (note the plural) has been stated/rumored to have been obtained through liquor sales during Prohibition.
I've marched on Clinton because it's just as (un)important. Hillary married the brother of a known drug addict/felon...so is her campaign fund box funded with drug money? Does it make her a druggie?
McCain married the daughter of a felon/fraud. So, like Hillary, is he now a felon by osmosis? I'm not the one missing the point here.
Put it another way: I have had at least 3 speeding tickets. Does that make me a wreckless driver now? Now, if you were to bring up a point known that the campaign funds of McCain were illegally obtained by the fraud committed by his father-in-law, you might have something. There's no evidence of that. You're making a case of osmosis only. Perhaps you're having some trouble understanding. I got what you're attempting to say, it just doesn't have any bearing on McCain and where his funds come from now. Besides, the old man did his time and the state of AZ forgave that and gave him license to distribute. If a state can see to do that, perhaps you need to get past it as well and base your choice for president on the current merit of the candidates, not the errors of their felonious relatives.
If that was done across the board, no one would live in the White House.

[dksuddeth]

Originally Posted by Tully Mars

I'm lost. Did he save the company and it's shareholders money or loose their money? Did he first lose the 4 million and then make it and another 1.5 up by laying off workers or is the net loss 2.5 million?

i wasn't speaking about any specific company with direct regards to my example, however, I do remember last year that some CEO was hired by an airline, the airline lost nearly a billion dollars, but cut their labor force by 25% and then the CEO got several million in a bonus upon his resignation.

[roachboy]

host--i wonder if this is the strongest way to go about arguing your position:

it seems to me that the generating social and economic inequalities is a *structural* feature of capitalism.
arguing from corruption of individuals within that structure seems weaker simply because you can always find examples of that.
the link would be to demonstrate something qualitatively different about corruption within this system that goes beyond the fact that we experience it in real time...

personally, i think the question of inequalities and the politics that lay behind it run way beyond the characteristics of the oligarchy/ruling classes...

[Baraka_Guru]

Originally Posted by roachboy

personally, i think the question of inequalities and the politics that lay behind it run way beyond the characteristics of the oligarchy/ruling classes...

What would it be, then? International trade and the individual anonymity of globalization?

[roachboy]

o let's see: inside the logic of the globalizing capitalist order, you could see alot of problems flowing from the ideological assumption that a firms only coherent task and so only real obligation is to make money for shareholders---this is a royal road to irresponsibility...

personally, i think the main structural problem that lay behind all others is the division between wage labor and capital, but that leads in a more radical direction: the first could be addressed within the existing order--the second requires a transformation of that order.

[loquitur]

Roachboy, I think your argument is a much better one than host's. I disagree with it, primarily because I think any alternatives to capitalism are likely to be much worse, especially in terms of stifling human freedom and squelching innnovation and entrepreneurialism. But you're right that inequality is built into the structure of capitalism. Whether that's a feature or a bug is a different question.

Host's position as set forth in the OP makes me think, mainly, "I wish he could get over his bitterness, it's consuming him."

[host]

Originally Posted by roachboy

o let's see: inside the logic of the globalizing capitalist order, you could see alot of problems flowing from the ideological assumption that a firms only coherent task and so only real obligation is to make money for shareholders---this is a royal road to irresponsibility...

personally, i think the main structural problem that lay behind all others is the division between wage labor and capital, but that leads in a more radical direction: the first could be addressed within the existing order--the second requires a transformation of that order.

Since we can count on one hand, the number of us who even are of the opinion that there is a problem, does it really matter what approach we take to describe it and attempt to attract interest enough to discuss it?

We have some excellent historical resources....The IRE.org "Arizona Project", and the study of the Phoenix 40, from the information in those two resources, and our knowledge of the development of Las Vegas, and of Arizona, it isn't a leap to have the opinion that two of our most recent states in the lower 48, were corrupted during their boom phases, openly and dramatically, with connections to organized crime that run so deep that they surface today in examples like the one I attempted....leading to the question of when, if it was profits from organized crime activity, and it can be directly traced to that....the millions of dollars now residing in US presidential frontrunner John McCain, became "clean" money....what was the date that the money was transformed from mob money to clean, respectable money?

This reporter had his legs and arm blown off, his life snuffed out, for reporting about the man, Kemper Marley, who was the employer, and source of McCain's in-law's money, business, and connections....and about the company the in-law and his brother contracted to manage the Hensley's NM horse racing track concession, and financed the sale of the track when they sold it:

http://www.apfn.net/dcia/chapter1.html<br>
http://www.amazon.com/Arizona-Projec...3441892&sr=1-2

The Arizona Project

By Michael Wendland
Chapter One: The Death Of A Reporter

......Once more, briefly, as paramedics from the Phoenix Fire Department worked over him, Don Bolles regained consciousness.

<h3>"They finally got me," he said. "Emprise-the Mafia-John Adamson-Find him."....</h3>

......By 1970, Bolles was enmeshed in the tangled world of the Emprise Corporation, a many-tentacled sports concession firm based in Buffalo which was closely linked to organized crime in a number of states. Bolles' reporting stopped the firm from taking over horse and dog racing in Arizona after Bolles discovered, and wrote stories about the taps Emprise had placed on his telephone in an effort to learn his sources. Bolles became such an expert on Emprise that he was flown to Washington,D.C., to testify on the firm before state Senate investigating committee. His Emprise work introduced him to the ways by which organized crime takes over legitimate businesses. Months of careful record checking gave Bolles a list of nearly 200 known Mafia members or associates who had recently settled in Arizona. With another Republic reporter, he wrote a series called "The New Comers" which named the mobsters and their new business associations in Arizona. All of this Don Bolles shared with reporters around the country. In a craft crowded with huge egos and ruled by fierce competition, Don Bolles' generosity was rare. When checking into a mobster from Chicago or Detroit or New York, Bolles was quick to get on the telephone and urge colleagues from those cities to join him. He did not hog glory. He felt too strongly about what he was doing.

But paranoia got him in the end. He tired of attaching a piece of Scotch tape to the hood of his car to make sure no one tampered with his engine, a routine practice when working on particularly sensitive stories. He became frustrated with the pious platitudes of politicians who vowed action on his stories but never did a thing. He began drinking too much and told his friends that the only things he believed in anymore were "God and children." He blamed his malaise on a policy of "official gutlessness in town." and said he had his fill of muckraking because "no one cares." His first marriage broke up. He was a burnt-out case.

The business does that to good reporters. It's nothing new. After a while, it just isn't worth it. The twenty-four-hour-a-day pressure; the worry of million-dollar libel suits; the late-night anonymous phone threats; the anger that comes when no one cares; indifferent, timid editors; the difficulty in making a twenty-thousand-dollar-a-year salary support two families-all eventually overwhelmed Don Bolles. He had done his part. So, in September of 1975, as he entered middle age, Don Bolles asked to be taken off the investigative beat.

His life began to come together again. Transferred to the legislative bureau in the state capital, he adjusted to the beat of a new drum, working a basic ten-to-six day. The job finally took a back seat to his wife and seven children. Six-year-old Diane, who was born deaf, was his and Rosalie's. Four of the kids came from his first marriage and two were Rosalie's by a previous marriage. He started playing tennis and jogging, trimming his six-foot-two frame into the muscled leanness of his youth. Friends said he was happier than he had been in a long time. In early 1976, he turned over his extensive files on the Mafia and organized crime to John Winters, another Republic staffer.

Bolles came up with a couple of pretty good pieces on the legislative beat. Most notably, he forced the resignation of millionaire rancher Kemper Marley from the state racing commission. When Arizona Governor Raul Castro nominated Marley for the position in March, Bolles searched the records and found that Marley had been Castro's largest single campaign contributor in 1974. Bolles pressed further, discovering that back in the forties Marley had been charged, though later acquitted, of grand theft while serving as a highway commissioner. Marley had allegedly taken a truck engine owned by the state. A few years later, Marley was appointed a member of the Arizona State Fair Commission, where, Bolles learned, he had been accused of financial mismanagement and flagrant nepotism.

Eight days after the seventy-year-old Marley took his racing commission seat in 1976, the controversy unleashed by Bolles's stories prompted the legislature to force Marley's resignation....

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2...and-car-bombs/
Hot Dogs, Beer, And Car Bombs
By Don Bauder | Published Thursday, April 29, 2004

....While investigators haven't found organized-crime relationships in recent years, and the successor company now enjoys a reputation for professionalism, the malodor lingers on. When the company bids on a concessions contract, competitors disinter the sordid past. When the firm gets a prestigious contract, such as for concessions at Yosemite National Park, the press digs into its past.

The company says it has cleaned house, but as the Wall Street Journal pointed out in a story November 17, 1994, the question of whether efforts are a cleanup or a whitewash "seems destined to plague the company for at least another generation."

The exclusive food service and retail concessionaire at Petco is called Sportservice. It is part of Delaware North Companies of Buffalo, New York, a privately held company with more than $1.6 billion in sales, concessions contracts at major sports stadiums, and a big stake in the gambling industry through racetracks, casinos, slot machines, and, of late, combination racetracks and casinos, called "racinos."

The predecessor company was named Emprise. It was founded in 1915 by three brothers. One of them, the late Lou Jacobs -- longtime head and patriarch of the company -- became infamous for his underworld relationships. The Reader's retelling of Emprise's history won't make that hot dog any tastier, but it serves as another example of the historical connection between professional sports and the gambling industry.......

......I gave her a list of questions about Emprise's dubious past associations. She passed the queries to the company's outside counsel, who said that Emprise is "a twice-removed predecessor of Delaware North that was dissolved in 1978 -- 26 years ago -- and the management of Delaware North played no role whatsoever in the operations of Emprise."

However, Delaware North's website makes it clear that the Jacobs family, owners of Emprise, own Delaware North. The current chairman and chief executive, Jeremy M. Jacobs Sr., one of Lou Jacobs's sons, headed a Canadian subsidiary of the Jacobs empire as early as 1961 and became chairman in 1968 at age 28 upon his father's death. As John Emshwiller's 1994 Wall Street Journal article pointed out, Jeremy Jacobs took over the parent company at a time that "investigators were probing the intensely private company for evidence of organized-crime ties." Later, the company became Delaware North.

In 1972, after Howard Hughes had bought Las Vegas's Frontier Hotel and Casino, a jury in Los Angeles federal court concluded that the casino's real ownership had been illegally concealed. Among the actual owners had been Anthony J. Zerilli and Michael S. Polizzi, "two high-ranking members of the Detroit Mafia family," according to The Boardwalk Jungle by Ovid Demaris. Another owner was Emprise, which, according to the jury, had loaned a bundle of money to front men for the allegedly mob-related owners. According to Demaris, Emprise also jointly owned a Detroit racetrack with Zerilli and Polizzi.

As a result of the Frontier case, some of the alleged mobsters went to prison; Emprise was fined $10,000, according to both The Wall Street Journal and The Boardwalk Jungle. Lou Jacobs and his son, Max, were named as unindicted co-conspirators. "That same year [1972], Sports Illustrated put the late Lou Jacobs on its cover under the headline, 'The Godfather of Sports,' " wrote investigative reporter John R. Emshwiller in the Wall Street Journal's comprehensive 1994 piece on Delaware North and its predecessor, Emprise.

In that story, Emshwiller said that Jeremy Jacobs "doesn't deny that his father traveled in a rough-and-tumble world. Lou Jacobs built the company by obtaining lucrative concession contracts at sports facilities and other locations in return for providing millions of dollars in upfront payments and loans to stadium and team owners.".....

I want to understand how others view this cleansing process, if it is a process?

I mentioned in the loquitur's "Inequality" thread, that the only investigation of power and wealth in the US, ended nearly 67 years ago, resulted in a collection of recorded data that is still partially sealed.....why?

Records of the Temporary National Economic Committee [TNEC]Records of the Temporary National Economic Committee [TNEC] in the holdings of the US National Archives and Records Administration.
http://www.archives.gov/research/gui...roups/144.html

More and more, participation here on this forum has opened my eyes to the nearly universal levels of deep denial, indoctrination, and objection to presentation of detailed information, in ....of all places, a political discussion forum....go figure?

I am left to sort out whether the aversion to progressive taxation as an obvious means to deal with the grwoing "problem" of wealth inequity, an aversion that has grown, since the '50s, in direct proportion to the amount spent to create and support conservative think tanks and the conservative owned media and funded advertising blitz, is more a result of the success in indoctrinating so many, especially the younger members of our population, or because of the intensity of the incuriousness and short attention span.

So, roachboy, I drive them away, the way I try to present the problem, but I think that on some level, some understand what I am trying to convey....I am not so sure that your way of trying to communicate, even reaches the pathetically poor level of connection I've achieved.....

[roachboy]

i wasn't looking to step on anything host--there is a logic question that i had about both the theads on this topic--i raised them in both, and it turns out that in this one there was a response. it's just a matter of what the most efficient way to move from anecdotal to structural problems might be. i don't see this route as the most efficient. that's all.

carry on however you like comrade.
i have stuff to do and not a whole lot of energy or time to play about here at the moment, so am entirely in this mode.

[host]

Originally Posted by loquitur

Roachboy, I think your argument is a much better one than host's. I disagree with it, primarily because I think any alternatives to capitalism are likely to be much worse, especially in terms of stifling human freedom and squelching innnovation and entrepreneurialism. But you're right that inequality is built into the structure of capitalism. Whether that's a feature or a bug is a different question.

Host's position as set forth in the OP makes me think, mainly, "I wish he could get over his bitterness, it's consuming him."

LOL.... I'll trade you your lack of concern/rationalizations for my alleged bitterness? Deal?

You post that you read a lot....have you ever heard of TNEC ? There was a heated political struggle to prevent it from getting started, ceaseless attempts to defund it, and they were successful in 1941, when TNEC was less than three years old.

Are you at all curious what is in TNEC's sealed records? 67 years seems like an excessive amount of time to conceal the abuses of the wealthiest and most powerful of the time, from the descendants of the oppressed, dontcha think?

After all, didn't the greatest generation fight a war, and take a large number of causalties, to contribute profits to the oligarchy of the time?

If I am bitter, was Smedley Butler bitter? How would you describe your own outlook, does it match the political and economic fundamentals and the history of the last 75 years, more rationally than my outlook?

[ngdawg]

You article re: the Bolles bombing and your subsequent conclusions are equal to the Kennedy/rum running I mentioned. It is barely circumstantial at best. Bolles was in investigative reporter for much of the fraud and mafia goings on in AZ and while the fingers can point to Marley they cannot PINpoint him.

I agree with loquitur: "I wish he could get over his bitterness, it's consuming him."

You are at the point now that you aren't even discussing your own OP's query.

[Ustwo]

I once had my lunch bought for me by Tony Accardo.

I knew his daughter and hung out with his grand daughter.

I was even once at a mafia pig roast (didn't know it at the time, was just a pool party to me).

Good thing she and I didn't hit it off, otherwise I'd be disqualified from ever being a public figure, after all my wifes grandfather would have been the big Tuna, and I'd be guilty by association.

[loquitur]

Originally Posted by host

How would you describe your own outlook, does it match the political and economic fundamentals and the history of the last 75 years, more rationally than my outlook?

I would describe my own outlook as tolerant and forgiving about most things, and accepting that people are human and thus flawed. I also think people should be left alone to live their own lives as they see fit, and that we should be wary of trying to impose our preferences on others. To my mind that's realistic, but others might disagree. That's why I don't get outraged about many of the things you do, host. There are things that genuinely are outrageous, and I'll save my outrage for those. If I got my knickers in a knot over every twist and turn of politics I'd have unmanageable blood pressure and wouldn't be the laid-back, somewhat wonkish, humor-loving fellow I picture myself to be.

[host]

I'm taking the risk that putting these exchanges all in one post might influence another member, or two....to pause and take stock of what is going on....every day, in this forum....and it sure as shit isn't a discussion:

<h3>post #7</h3>

Originally Posted by ngdawg

OK, they distribute beer. He ranks 7th in wealthy senators. I'm betting Kennedy is higher and how'd he get rich? Daddy-it's been long rumored Daddy Kennedy made a fortune as a rum "distributor" during Prohibition.
Now, did you vote for John Kerry in 2004? Ketchup money through the wife.

Your post reaks of Republican bashing, not of wanting to understand the disparities of the classes or how they came about.

<h3>post #13</h3>

Originally Posted by ngdawg

Where in those links does it mention that McCain's in-laws are running for office?
While Clinton was president, he pardoned 140 convicted felons, including.....his own brother.
Every bottle of Heinz you bought put a portion into John Kerry's campaign box.
I'm about as unemotional about this election as a person can get....yet you're on some sort of get'em because McCain's inlaws weren't stellar(well, gee whiz, Wally!) and then accuse me of being emotionally charged....
Relax, dude....
As a footnote, Hillary has both black and Jewish bloodlines.I find that about as interesting as McCain's inlaws being convicted of something decades ago.
In other words, ain't got nothin to do with anything now. Come back when MCain makes daddy-in-law a Cabinet member.

<h3>post #14</h3>

Originally Posted by host

C'mon, loquitur, the fraud and corruption at the top is rampant.

Here is an example, you can verify it yourself. Bush and his partners purchased the baseball team in the 80's for about $86 million, and they sold it, 14 years later, for less than $300 million, those numbers are part of the public record, but so is this:

Shouldn't Bush's long term capital gain on the baseball team investment, considering that he never invested personally more than $1 million in the team, (and maybe even less than that...), if the team was sold for an amount that was less than 4 times the purchase price, been a capital gain of no more than $4 million?

How do you explain Bush paying taxes on at least $14 million in income in 1998, at the 20 percent long term capital gains tax rate, instead of at the higher, earned income rate of 39.2 percent?

Bush explained that his accountants took an "aggressive position" in deciding how to categorize Bush's actual capital gains. What do you call what Bush did, loquitur? It looks like he ducked paying an additional $3 million in taxes that he clearly owed.

If you disagree, don't you need to provide data that Bush invested more than I've posted, or that they team was purchased for less or sold for more than I've posted?

Isn't anything else, no matter how you slice or dice it, clear evidence of gross income tax fraud? What kind of example does it set, or influence perception that we live in a two tiered oligarchy of gross wealth inequity?

We're not even in the same discussion, ngdawg.....I gave you specifics, you ignored or distorted them, and now you've marched on Clinton, H
Huh???? ngdawg, I showed you that the money that McCain now possesses, had to knowingly come to him, and that it is proceeds from original investments made with organized crime proceeds invested into an opportunity provided by organized crime connections.

I asked at what point you think McCain's money was cleansed, and above is your response.

You've moved onto new things....how many criminals, in his own administration, and in Reagan's administration, did Bush Sr. pardon? Who had congressional hearings held about his pardons, Bush Sr. or Clinton? What was determind by those hearings?

Again, did McCain or did he not, immerse himself in the employment and the money of an Arizona organized crime figure?

It seems like a valid and a simple question, because he's running for president, and his past with Hensley either makes him stupid and incurious, or unethical.

<h3>post #16</h3>

Originally Posted by ngdawg

Re: previous, in no part of my post did I compare JFK to McCain. What I stated was that the wealth of the Kennedys (note the plural) has been stated/rumored to have been obtained through liquor sales during Prohibition.
I've marched on Clinton because it's just as (un)important. Hillary married the brother of a known drug addict/felon...so is her campaign fund box funded with drug money? Does it make her a druggie?
McCain married the daughter of a felon/fraud. So, like Hillary, is he now a felon by osmosis? I'm not the one missing the point here.
Put it another way: I have had at least 3 speeding tickets. Does that make me a wreckless driver now? Now, if you were to bring up a point known that the campaign funds of McCain were illegally obtained by the fraud committed by his father-in-law, you might have something. There's no evidence of that. You're making a case of osmosis only. Perhaps you're having some trouble understanding. I got what you're attempting to say, it just doesn't have any bearing on McCain and where his funds come from now. Besides, the old man did his time and the state of AZ forgave that and gave him license to distribute. If a state can see to do that, perhaps you need to get past it as well and base your choice for president on the current merit of the candidates, not the errors of their felonious relatives.
If that was done across the board, no one would live in the White House.

<h3>post #21</h3>

Originally Posted by loquitur

Roachboy, I think your argument is a much better one than host's. I disagree with it, primarily because I think any alternatives to capitalism are likely to be much worse, especially in terms of stifling human freedom and squelching innnovation and entrepreneurialism. But you're right that inequality is built into the structure of capitalism. Whether that's a feature or a bug is a different question.

Host's position as set forth in the OP makes me think, mainly, "I wish he could get over his bitterness, it's consuming him."

<h3>post #24</h3>

Originally Posted by host

LOL.... I'll trade you your lack of concern/rationalizations for my alleged bitterness? Deal?

You post that you read a lot....have you ever heard of TNEC ? There was a heated political struggle to prevent it from getting started, ceaseless attempts to defund it, and they were successful in 1941, when TNEC was less than three years old.

Are you at all curious what is in TNEC's sealed records? 67 years seems like an excessive amount of time to conceal the abuses of the wealthiest and most powerful of the time, from the descendants of the oppressed, dontcha think?

After all, didn't the greatest generation fight a war, and take a large number of causalties, to contribute profits to the oligarchy of the time?

If I am bitter, was Smedley Butler bitter? How would you describe your own outlook, does it match the political and economic fundamentals and the history of the last 75 years, more rationally than my outlook?

<h3>post #27</h3>

Originally Posted by loquitur

I would describe my own outlook as tolerant and forgiving about most things, and accepting that people are human and thus flawed. I also think people should be left alone to live their own lives as they see fit, and that we should be wary of trying to impose our preferences on others. To my mind that's realistic, but others might disagree. That's why I don't get outraged about many of the things you do, host. There are things that genuinely are outrageous, and I'll save my outrage for those. If I got my knickers in a knot over every twist and turn of politics I'd have unmanageable blood pressure and wouldn't be the laid-back, somewhat wonkish, humor-loving fellow I picture myself to be.

<h3>post #22</h3>

Originally Posted by host

Since we can count on one hand, the number of us who even are of the opinion that there is a problem, does it really matter what approach we take to describe it and attempt to attract interest enough to discuss it?

We have some excellent historical resources....The IRE.org "Arizona Project", and the study of the Phoenix 40, from the information in those two resources, and our knowledge of the development of Las Vegas, and of Arizona, it isn't a leap to have the opinion that two of our most recent states in the lower 48, were corrupted during their boom phases, openly and dramatically, with connections to organized crime that run so deep that they surface today in examples like the one I attempted....leading to the question of when, if it was profits from organized crime activity, and it can be directly traced to that....the millions of dollars now residing in US presidential frontrunner John McCain, became "clean" money....what was the date that the money was transformed from mob money to clean, respectable money?

This reporter had his legs and arm blown off, his life snuffed out, for reporting about the man, Kemper Marley, who was the employer, and source of McCain's in-law's money, business, and connections....and about the company the in-law and his brother contracted to manage the Hensley's NM horse racing track concession, and financed the sale of the track when they sold it:


I want to understand how others view this cleansing process, if it is a process?

I mentioned in the loquitur's "Inequality" thread, that the only investigation of power and wealth in the US, ended nearly 67 years ago, resulted in a collection of recorded data that is still partially sealed.....why?

More and more, participation here on this forum has opened my eyes to the nearly universal levels of deep denial, indoctrination, and objection to presentation of detailed information, in ....of all places, a political discussion forum....go figure?

I am left to sort out whether the aversion to progressive taxation as an obvious means to deal with the grwoing "problem" of wealth inequity, an aversion that has grown, since the '50s, in direct proportion to the amount spent to create and support conservative think tanks and the conservative owned media and funded advertising blitz, is more a result of the success in indoctrinating so many, especially the younger members of our population, or because of the intensity of the incuriousness and short attention span.

So, roachboy, I drive them away, the way I try to present the problem, but I think that on some level, some understand what I am trying to convey....I am not so sure that your way of trying to communicate, even reaches the pathetically poor level of connection I've achieved.....

<h3>post #25</h3>

Originally Posted by ngdawg

You article re: the Bolles bombing and your subsequent conclusions are equal to the Kennedy/rum running I mentioned. It is barely circumstantial at best. Bolles was in investigative reporter for much of the fraud and mafia goings on in AZ and while the fingers can point to Marley they cannot PINpoint him.

I agree with loquitur: "I wish he could get over his bitterness, it's consuming him."

You are at the point now that you aren't even discussing your own OP's query.

<h3>post #26</h3>

Originally Posted by Ustwo

I once had my lunch bought for me by Tony Accardo.

I knew his daughter and hung out with his grand daughter.

I was even once at a mafia pig roast (didn't know it at the time, was just a pool party to me).

Good thing she and I didn't hit it off, otherwise I'd be disqualified from ever being a public figure, after all my wifes grandfather would have been the big Tuna, and I'd be guilty by association.

Consider that all of the above was predicated on an OP that provided strong support....as much as we ever usually get to inluence and eventually fix our political opinions....and, for that matter, most or all of our opinions about the outside world...a series of newspaper news reports from the Albuquerque Journal, (circa 1977), the NY Times, (circa 1996), and the Arizona Republic, (circa late 90s through 2007)...for the notion that all of John McCain's current wealth, ($50 to $100 million) and almost all of the financing of his first campaign, and his first employment in Arizona, and a significant portion of the contributions for his later political campaigns, came from one source.

The source was James W. Hensley, and his businesses, the most prominent being Hensley and company. Hensley was convicted on multiple federal liquor fraud counts, in 1948, and re-arrested for further incidences related to liquor related tax fraud, in 1953. I documented that Hensley and his brother were employed by, and or business partners with, Kemper Marley, for at least 8 years, and that a NM State police investigation found:

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...48#post2398348
....The 1953 State Police report in connection with it's Arizona investigation of the Hensleys and Baldwin noted Marley "owned a wire service formerly operated in connection with bookmaking of the Al Capone gang."

The same report listed Baldiwn as a "bookmaker for leading tracks" and said that Marley "is reputed to be the financial backer for bookies..."

I asked...more than once, when McCain's wealth and political financial support could be consider, "cleansed", since it evidently came principally from business activity originally funded by organized crime activity and connections.

Read the reactions, and responses, if they even can be called responses. They run the gambit from "well, the Kennedy family....", "Hillary married the brother of...." and "lunch brought by Tony Accardo.....after all my wifes grandfather would have been the big Tuna, and I'd be guilty by association..". ....and, oh yeah....speculation about my own emotional/mental state.....

If anybody can explain to me how we can actually discuss the facts....the details of any news reporting related to politics, My eyes will be glued to the screen, reading the explanation(s). What is the problem, are my sources not specific or detailed enough, do they have poor overall reputations, was James Hensley convicted of federal felonies related to liquor distribution fraud, and were he and Kemper Marley, from the record of reports I've presented, reasonably believed to be involved in organzied crime, for a number of years leading up to when Hensley began the business operations that John McCain has so handsomely benefited from?

Do John McCain's decisions, first to accept a high salary, low demand job from Hensley, and over time, campaign financing, employment for his son, and multiple millions of dollars of wealth, deserve discussion? Are they relevant, if we can put aside, Kennedys, Clintons and Tony Accardo, and my mental and emotional state....to whether he is ethically fit to be president of the United States?

....And if you believe that all it takes for corruption to dominate society, is for good men to stand by and do nothing in response to signs of it, how do we, as a democratic republic, and a society based on the rule of law, react to Hensley's and Marley's fortunes and power, and if you have no coherent argument that a result of it is something other than McCain's emergence as a wealthy and influential, top US political figure, how do we react to McCain's emergence?

[ngdawg]

Given the pasts of almost every president this country has had, from Jefferson's boinking his slave to Clinton diddling his intern and pardoning his drug-addled brother, yea, MCain is "ethically fit".
If you are naive enough to believe that everyone else trying to get to the White House got their funds from sweet little old ladies and politically righteous organizations, I got this bridge.....

[roachboy]

curious.
on the one hand, there's a series of posts that argue corruption is no big deal because it is a natural feature. like those stone heads on mount rushmore: you know, perfectly natural.

on the other, there's the problem of arguing from conspiracy--the implication that were you to erase the conspiracy, the system itself would be ok. conspiracies are agents of system distortion. remove the distortion and what remains?

[loquitur]

OK, Host, I'll come back to your OP and deall with it head-on. You're right that there has been some drift here. Not terrible drift, but there has been some.

The thesis you were propounding (if I might formulate it bluntly, the way it came across to me) was that the way rich people got that way is by theft and fraud. You illustrated that thesis with a few examples of bad people who were rich. Sorry, it doesn't wash. First of all, it's an illustration of the difference between anecdotes and data. Anecdotes don't prove a general proposition; you need data to do that, and you haven't supplied any. Second, it's illogical on its face - you're using a computer to write these posts. Do you think the people who got rich making computers stole their money? Or the people who wrote the software? You pour milk on your cereal in the morning - do you think the people who own the dairy stole it? Think, host, think! You get a checkup from a doctor who likely has a lot more money than you do - did he steal it too?

I said a few posts ago that humans are flawed, and they are. There is cupidity and venality in every walk of life.

Roachboy, I didn't suggest that corruption is not a big deal. It is, and we should fight it. But there's a difference between saying corruption is a bad thing (which it is) and saying that any society that has some measurable degree of corruption is bad. The latter I think is demonstrably false, because there is some degree of corruption in every society. The issue is how endemic it is, and whether it's crowding out legitimate endeavors. I haven't seen any indication that in this country we have corruption at levels rivalling many countries in the third world. We could do better, but we're not doing badly.

[roachboy]

but loquitor, you're repeating my objection in your response...sure, it's upside down, but the logic is still the same.

[loquitur]

Let me see if I get what you're saying: corruption is a system distortion mechanism. Conspiracy theory holds that systems are captives of powerful conspirators, which is also a system distortion. Therefore if you accept that some degree of corruption is normal, you must accept conspiracy theories.

You can't really mean that.

[host]

Originally Posted by loquitur

Let me see if I get what you're saying: corruption is a system distortion mechanism. Conspiracy theory holds that systems are captives of powerful conspirators, which is also a system distortion. Therefore if you accept that some degree of corruption is normal, you must accept conspiracy theories.

You can't really mean that.

loquitur, do you see the pattern here, the same propaganda, over and over? Do you understand how the left has been distorted, demonized, and subdued at gunpoint, again and again, to the point of it's near extinction in the US, today? Are we really, in our entirety, the better for it?

Do you see that islamofascism is the "red baiting du jour"? Are the interests of the majority today, in any way in common with the modern equivalents of the studio owners or the Willaim Randolph Hearsts? Who are the actual subversives? Can the majority properly be categorized as subversive?

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstra...+Sinclair&st=p

NEW YORK TIMES
November 4, 1934, Page X5

FILMS AND POLITICS
Hollywood Masses the Full Power of Her Resources to Fight Sinclair

From a staff Correspondent, HOLLYWOOD.

The full force of the motion picture industry, overwhelming in this fabulous city; has been thrown into the crusade to keep Upton Sinclair out of the Governor's chair at Sacramento.

Under a plan of campaign accredited generally to Louis B. Mayer Studios, the tirty-odd thousand people employed directly or indirectly in making pictures, as well as the talents and skill of the final multi-partisan assault upon the smiling Socialist who captured the Democratic nomination in the August primaries.

The higher salaried employees of each of the seven major studios have either been assessed or "requested" a day's salary for the campaign fund of Governor Frank F. Merriam, whose Republican candidacy has now become the standard for the "stop Sinclair" forces. All Movie workers, high and low, have been called or circularized and either told or "advised" how to vote in the interest of maintenance of their jobs. Merriam literature, buttons and emblems have been distributed through all the lots.

The city of Los Angeles has turned into a huge movie set where many newsreel pictures are made every day, depicting the feelings of the people against Mr. Sinclair. Equipment from one of the major studios, as well as some of it's second rate players, may be seen at various street intersections or out in the residential neighborhood, "shooting" the melodrama and unconscious comedy of the campaign. Their product area can be seen in leading motion-picture houses in practically every city or town of the state.

In one of the "melodrama" recently filmed and shown here in Los Angeles an interviewer approaches a demure old lady, sitting on her front porch and rocking away in her rocking chair.

"For who are you voting, Mother?" asked the interviewer. "I am voting for Governor Merriam," the old lady answers in a faltering voice. "Why Mother?" "Because I want to save my little home. It is all I have left in this world."

In another recent newsreel there is shown a shaggy man with bristling Russian whiskers and a menacing look in his eye.

"For whom are you voting?" asks the interviewer. "Vy, I am foting for Seenclair," "Why are you voting for Mr. Sinclair?" "Vell his system worked vell in Russia, vy can’t it vork here?"

All these "releases" are presented as newsreels

Another "newsreel" has been made of Oscar Rankin, a colored prizefighter and preacher who is quite a favorite with his race in Los Angeles county. Asked why he was voting for Governor Merriam, he answered that he likes to preach and play piano and he wants to keep a church to preach in and a piano to play.

Merriam supporter always are depicted as the more worthwhile element of the community, as popular favorites or as substantial businessmen. Sinclair supporters are invariably pictured as the riff-raff. Low paid "bit" players are said to take the leading roles in most of these "newsreels," particularly were dialogue is required. People conversant with movie personnel claim to have recognized in them certain aspirants to stardom.

But even cleverness has faltered at times in the ruthlessness of the anti-Sinclair campaign. A leading newspaper in Los Angeles is reported to have called upon one of the studios for a "still" picture of bums entering the State in response to Sinclair’s invitation to the unemployed of the whole country. The picture was quickly furnished and published. The publicity department of another studio immediately recognized the photograph as a scene from a recent cinema. The recognition was made simple because the leading juvenile star on the feature was sitting atop of the boxcar.

The studio managers have stopped at nothing to insure a full vote of their employees for Merriam. They have told them not to put too much stock in the writing genius of the man. "Out of forty-seven books he has written, not one has ever been filmed," an official is said to have told some of his employees the other day.

At another studio an official called in his scenario writers to give them a bit of "advice" on how to vote. "After all," he is reputed to have told his writers, "What does Sinclair know about anything? He’s just a writer."

Stories of this kind can be picked up at every studio provided the teller, who invariably is a "Merriam" man, can be assured he not be quoted and provided, too, that he can relate it out of any possible hearing of his associates.

A fun-making film news writer for an Eastern newspaper strolled into the commissary on the Metro Goldwyn-Mayer lot a few days ago and began distributing Sinclair literature, which he had purchased downtown just to see what would happen. When the high-powered Metro men publicity men, to whom he handed the leaflets, saw what they were, they crumpled them up and dopped them as if they were hot. They did not know whether to cram them into their pockets or what to do with them. They pleaded in all seriousness for the news writer not to play such a prank, which might be disaterous to their jobs.
<h2>
These stories sound fantastic, but they are no more than the very nature of the class war, which is called the Sinclair campaign .It is humorless, grim affair, made comical by its very lack of humor.</h2>

The background can be read here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1934_We...ngshore_Strike
Background
Longshoremen on the west coast ports had either been unorganized or represented by company unions since the years immediately after World War I, when the shipping companies and stevedoring firms had imposed the open shop after a series of failed strikes. Longshoremen in San Francisco, then the major port on the coast, were required to go through a hiring hall operated by a company union, known as the "blue book" system for the color of the membership book.

The Industrial Workers of the World had attempted to organize longshoremen, sailors and fishermen in the 1920s through their Maritime Workers Union. Their largest strike, in San Pedro, California in 1923, bottled up shipping in that harbor, but was crushed by a combination of injunctions, mass arrests and vigilantism by the American Legion. While the IWW was a spent force after that strike, syndicalist thinking remained popular on the docks. Longshoremen and sailors on the west coast also had contacts with an Australian syndicalist movement that called itself the "One Big Union" formed after the defeat of a general strike there in 1917.

The Communist Party had also been active in the area in the late 1920s, seeking to organize all categories of maritime workers into a single union, the Maritime Workers Industrial Union (MWIU), as part of the drive during the Third Period to create revolutionary unions. The MWIU never made much headway on the west coast, but it did attract a number of former IWW members and foreign-born militants, such as Harry Bridges, an Australian-born sailor who became a longshoreman after coming to the United States.

Those militants published a newspaper, "The Waterfront Worker", that focused on longshoremen's most pressing demands: more men on each gang, lighter loads and an independent union. While a number of the individuals in this group were Communist Party members, the group as a whole was independent of the party: although it criticized the International Seamen’s Union (ISU) as weak and the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), which had its base on the East Coast, as corrupt, it did not embrace the MWIU, but called instead for creation of small knots of activists at each port to serve as the first step in a slow, careful movement to unionize the industry.

Events soon made the MWIU wholly irrelevant. Just as the passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act had led to a spontaneous explosion in union membership among coal miners in 1933, thousands of longshoremen now joined the fledgling ILA locals that reappeared on the west coast. The MWIU faded away as party activists followed the mass of west coast longshoremen into the ILA.

These newly emboldened workers first went after the "blue book" union, refusing to pay dues to it and tearing up their membership books. The militants who had published "The Waterfront Worker", now known as the "Albion Hall group" after their usual meeting place, continued organizing dock committees that soon began launching slowdowns and other types of job actions in order to win better working conditions. While the official leadership of the ILA remained in the hands of conservatives sent to the west coast by President Ryan of the ILA, the Albion Hall group started in March, 1934 to press demands for a coastwide contract, a union-run hiring hall and an industrywide waterfront federation. When the conservative ILA leadership negotiated a weak "gentlemen's agreement" with the employers that had been brokered by the mediation board created by the Roosevelt Administration, Bridges led the membership in rejecting it.

The sticking point in the strike was recognition: the union demanded a closed shop, a coastwide contract and a union hiring hall. The employers offered to arbitrate the dispute, but insisted that the union agree to an open shop as a condition of any agreement to arbitrate. The longshoremen rejected the proposal to arbitrate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_F._Merriam#_note-4
[edit] The Big Strike....
As Governor, James Rolph had consulted with other West Coast governors such as Julius L. Meier of Oregon and Clarence D. Martin of Washington to bring in the U.S. Department of Labor in order to settle the dispute. After his unexpected death in June, these efforts were suspended. Furthermore, negotiations between the federal government and local ILA organizers failed to yield any agreement.

On July 5, 1934, as more attempts to open the Port of San Francisco were made by employers, hostilities between strikers, their sympathizers, and the police reached their zenith. Later known as "Bloody Thursday", San Francisco Police shot tear gas at strikers and sympathizers on Rincon Hill, followed by a charge on horseback. Later, protestors surrounded a police car and attempted to overturn it, but were met by gunshots in the air, and quickly afterwards, shots into the crowd itself. Later in the day, police raided an ILA union hall, shooting tear gas into the building and into other local hotels.


Soldiers of the California National Guard patrolling the Embarcadero in July 1934Merriam, only Governor for a month, threw the state government into the fray. As reports of growing violence in San Francisco reached Sacramento by the minute, Merriam activated the California Army National Guard, deploying regiments to San Francisco's waterfront. In the weeks before "Bloody Thursday", Merriam had remained updated on the ongoing labor dispute, threatening only to activate the Guard if the situation grew too serious. Behind the public scenes, however, the Acting Governor had confided to fellow Republicans that ordering the Guard into San Francisco would ruin him politically.[2] The events of July 5, however, proved to be a turning point. In addition to the Guard's deployment, federal troops of the U.S. Army were placed on stand-by in the Presidio if the situation grew beyond the Guard's control.

Merriam also ordered the halt of construction on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge until the violence in San Francisco subsided.

Within the day, 1,500 Guardsman armed with fixed bayonets and machine guns patrolled the waterfront, with an additional 5,000 state troops on reserve. Explaining to the United Press the following day, Merriam placed full blame of "Bloody Thursday" on the political Left. "The leaders of the striking longshoremen are not free from Communist and subversive influences...There will be no turning back from the position I have taken in this matter."[3]

Following the funerals of the two men slain on "Bloody Thursday", the San Francisco Labor Council voted for a general strike. For four days from July 16 to July 19, the activity in the city ground to a halt. Mayor Angelo J. Rossi requested more Guardsman in the city, and in meetings with generals, plans were drawn to impose martial law over the entire city. However, with a heavily armed National Guard presence along the waterfront, violence did not break out again. In the meantime, the police, now backed up by National Guardsmen, raided and arrested militant and radical offices of ILA leaders and sympathizers. By July 19, the General Strike Committee and the Labor Council ordered an end to the strike, demanding its picketers to accept arbitration from the federal government. With the strike broken by its less militant leadership, longshoremen grudgingly returned to work.


[edit] 1934 general election

n the aftermath of the Longshore Strike, Merriam was highly praised by the conservative San Francisco press for his perceived victory over the longshore strikers. During the strike, state Republicans nominated the Acting Governor as its party nominee for the general elections that November. Merriam, however, had threatened not to deploy the California National Guard to San Francisco if the party would not nominate him.[4]

Running against Merriam in the 1934 elections was former Socialist Party member Upton Sinclair, who had surprisingly won the nomination of the Democratic Party for Governor. A third-party candidacy from Raymond L. Haight of the Commonwealth Party also challenged Merriam for the governorship.

During the campaign, Sinclair promoted the EPIC project, a socialist work program to ensure universal employment for all Californians, complete with the state control of factories, the opening of farm cooperatives and the creation of a cabinet-level California Authority for Production agency to oversee state employment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_Pov...ornia_movement

The Commonwealth Party's Haight relied on centrists from the Democrats who believed that Sinclair had driven the party too far to the left.

Merriam's campaign rallied state conservatives into the so-called "Stop Sinclair" movement. Among supporters were MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer and media tycoon William Randolph Hearst. During the campaign, Mayer turned multiple studio lots in Los Angeles into propaganda machines, churning out fake newsreels to be played before feature-length films in the state. One notable newsreel included Soviets arriving in California to vote for Sinclair.[5] Also during the campaign, Merriam frequented football games and public events, and on one occasion, attended a hospital talking to deaf mutes through an interpreter. Many such events were quickly publicized by the conservative newspaper press.[6]

The end result of the 1934 general elections saw Merriam defeating Sinclair with 48 percent of the vote, opposed to Sinclair's 37 percent. Haight garnered 13 percent.[7] After the election, Merriam announced that the result was "[a] rebuke to socialism and communism."[8]

The 1934 general election is generally remembered as one of the most hotly contested elections in California history. It has also been cited by political historians as one of the first modern elections, due to the various uses of popular media and rhetoric to both popularize and demonize candidates.


[edit] Rest of term

beginning his first elected term, Merriam immediately faced an ever-shrinking state budget and growing deficit. In an effort that later angered many powerful conservative backers who had originally supported his 1934 candidacy, as well as challenging his own deep-seated conservativism, Merriam proposed to the Legislature a tax increase of nearly $107 million dollars. The tax reform laws included instituting a state personal income tax modeled after the Federal Income Tax of 1934, which had been created by the Democratic-controlled Congress, and raising sales taxes to three percent. The Legislature agreed, and passed the tax reform law in 1935.[9]

William Randolph Hearst, whose newspapers provided one of the bulwarks of the governor's 1934 campaign, complained bitterly over the reformed tax laws. The Hearst-owned San Francisco Examiner's editorial shortly after the reform bills' passage read: "[e]xtortionate and confiscatory taxation will mean...devastation of business, paralysis of industry."[10]

Fanning the growing rift between Merriam and conservative Republicans, right-wing author and playwright Charles Gilman Norris penned letters that became widely circulated thanks to Hearst's newspaper empire, complaining of Merriam's reforms. "[T]he minute the proposed State Income Tax becomes law, my wife, Kathleen Norris, and myself will put both our homes—-the one in Palo Alto and our ranch near Saratoga—-up for sale and move out of the State. There is no alternative for us. We pay 52% of our income now to the Federal Government at Washington and under the proposed State Income Tax Law, we shall have to pay an additional 18%, so that out of every dollar we earn from our writings, 70¢ will go out in taxes!"[11]

Hearst supporters challenged Merriam's and the Legislature's 1935 reform laws during a special referendum in 1936 with Proposition 2. The proposition would automatically repeal the tax reforms, and would in the future require the support of two-thirds of the Legislature and approval of voters by statewide referendum before any new income tax could be imposed. The measure, however, was defeated.[12]

While the State Senate was controlled by Republicans, the crucial lower house Assembly, where finance bills originated, was split between conservative and socialist-leaning Democrats. Merriam proceeded with appeasing the closely-divided Legislature by praising the federal Townsend Plan, while complaining to conservatives and other capitalist supporters that he was surrounded by fanatics.[13]


Merriam's official portrait in the California State CapitolBy the 1938 general elections, Merriam had lost much support from the right due to the 1935 tax reform laws and support for Social Security, while he garnered little support or sympathy from the left due to his troubled relationship with labor unions and the quelching of the Longshore Strike. For the elections, the Democratic Party nominated State Senator Culbert Olson, a former EPIC and Upton Sinclair supporter as well as an unabashed supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Republicans, meanwhile, renominated Merriam for a second term of office.

Merriam lost to Senator Olson in an electoral landslide, ending the Republican dynasty over the governorship that had lasted for over forty years....

loquitur, the cycle plays out repetitively, in California currently it manifests itself via the right wing overthrow of former Gov. Gray Davis in favor of Gov. Terminator.....If you believe that the propaganda sponsored by Hollywood corporate media and William Randolph Hearst drove an election result that defeated Upton Sinclair in the 1934 California governor's race, in favor of Gov Merriam, was beneficial for the majority of the depression era electorate, you may not understand the point of this post.

Upton Sinclair had written the 1906 expose, Jungle, about the meatpacking industry. Gov. Merriam was simply a conservative politcal hack, in service to his corporate masters.

I know you don't see the difference, or the harm. It is criminal, because it is such a distortion, and when it boils over, out come the machine guns, gas, and billy clubs, in the name of civil order.

Is what you defend, if it is always based on lies and bogeymen....reds, communists, al-Qaeda, really worth the defense you reflexively mount? Is the alternative, really worse? How could it be?

[loquitur]

I might not be the best guy to ask if you want agreement that the left has been suppressed to the point of death. I live in NYC and all my friends are lefties, including my wife. Pretty much everyone I know (with some exceptions) is a liberal Democrat. I don't see any suppression here at all.

And honestly, I'm not "defending" anything, host. I'm just saying that you get your moral outrage frothing over things that are simply not outrageous - these things are nothing more than human beings behaving in the flawed ways human beings behave. In any crowd, there is some percentage that is nasty, some that is greedy, some that is violent, some that is dishonest, etc etc etc. People are people. We don't have to like the bad things people do, and we can hold people accountable if they do something wrong, but I'm sorry, I don't find the existence of some (low) level corruption in and of itself cause for outrage. Government by its nature breeds corruption by creating opportunities for it.

[host]

loquitur, the dilemma for the top ten percent wealthiest in the US is that there is no natural, mass constituency for their political goals. They compensate for that in two major ways, they "cage" the vote, we saw this at work with the phony "felon purge list" in the 2000 Florida election, and we see it with the Federalist Sociey "Op" of positioning thousands of lawyers and other "volunteers" as "poliing place obervers", challenging the credentials of voters who are attempting to vote, and we see it with the subversion of the voting rights protection section of the DOJ, the movement for "Voter ID" restrictions, and the Marc "Thor" Hearne led "Op" by republicans against a fictitious "voter fraud" problem, famously and fraudulantly described by our President, himself.

The other method is the use of the news media that these wealthy elite own and control, along with conservative and authoritarian factions in government:

Buckley's life was probably a "deep cover", domestic disniformation "Op". Tiny message, tiny "natural" constituency, successful effort to persuade large numbers to support an entire political philosophy against the best interests of 95 percent of them:

http://wconger.blogspot.com/2007/09/...cia-front.html
Monday, September 24, 2007
NATIONAL REVIEW: a CIA front?
Was the launch of Bill Buckley’s National Review in the mid-1950s a CIA operation? I first heard Joseph Sobran imply this in 1993 at a Rothbard-Rockwell Report conference in San Mateo, California. I thought the idea was kinda paranoid and kooky at the time. But here’s Murray Rothbard himself suggesting the same thing in The Betrayal of the American Right, written 30 years ago:

“In the light of hindsight, we should now ask whether or not a major objective of National Review from its inception was to transform the right wing from an isolationist to global warmongering anti-Communist movement; and, particularly, whether or not the entire effort was in essence a CIA operation. We now know that Bill Buckley, for the two years prior to establishing National Review, was admittedly a CIA agent in Mexico City, and that the sinister E. Howard Hunt was his control. His sister Priscilla, who became managing editor of National Review, was also in the CIA, and other editors James Burnham and Willmoore Kendall had at least been recipients of CIA largesse in the anti-Communist Congress for Cultural Freedom. In addition, Burnham has been identified by two reliable sources as a consultant for the CIA in the years after World War II. Moreover, Gary Wills relates in his memoirs of the conservative movement that Frank Meyer, to whom he was close at the time, was convinced that the magazine was a CIA operation. With his Leninist-trained nose for intrigue, Meyer must be considered an important witness.
“Furthermore, it was a standard practice in the CIA, at least in those early years, that no one ever resigned from the CIA. A friend of mine who joined the Agency in the early 1950s told me that if, before the age of retirement, he was mentioned as having left the CIA for another job, that I was to disregard it, since it would only be a cover for continuing Agency work. On that testimony, the case for NR being a CIA operation becomes even stronger. Also suggestive is the fact that a character even more sinister than E. Howard Hunt, William J. Casey, appears at key moments of the establishment of the New over the Old Right. It was Casey who, as attorney, presided over the incorporation of National Review and had arranged the details of the ouster of Felix Morley from Human Events.”

Here is William Buckley's nephew, and we got to experience how well his prediction played out in the run up to the invasion of Iraq:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Pol...ophy/HL380.cfm
January 21, 1992
Why Conservatives Should Be Optimistic About the Media
by L. Brent Bozell, III
...Imagine, if you will, a future wherein the media willfully support the foreign policy objectives of the United States. A time when the left can no longer rely on the media to promote its socialist agenda to the public. A time when someone, somewhere in the media can be counted on to extol the virtues of morality without qualifications. When Betty Friedan no longer qualifies for "Person of the Week" honors. When Ronald Reagan is cited not as the "Man of the Year," but the "Man of the Century."...


http://pseudoconservativewatch.blogs...ous-fight.html
Monday, October 30, 2006
William F. Buckley's Courageous Fight for Principle--NOT
In

"Conservatism in America Since 1930: A Reader"

"Conservatism in America Since 1930: A Reader"

edited by Gregory L. Schneider (2003), one of the readings is William F. Buckley's "Statement of Intentions" for his National Review magazine (pp. 195-200). Buckley lists as "Among our convictions" the following: "The competitive price system is indispensable to liberty and material progress. It is threatened not only by the growth of Big Brother Government, but by the pressure of monopolies--including union monopolies. What is more some labor unions have clearly identified themselves with doctrinaire socialist objectives. The characteristic problems of harassed business have gone unreported for years, with the result that the public has been taught to assume--almost instinctively--that conflicts between labor and management are generally traceable to greed and intransigence part of management (sic). Sometimes they are; often they are not. National Weekly will explore and oppose the inroads upon the market economy caused by monopolies in general, and politically oriented unionism in particular; and it will tell the violated businessman's side of the story."...
....Here is Wikipedia's descriptive account of William F. Buckley's childhood:
"Buckley was born in New York City to lawyer and oil baron William Frank Buckley, Sr., of Irish Catholic descent, and Aloise Steiner, a southerner of Swiss-German descent. The sixth of ten children, young Buckley moved with his family to Sharon, Connecticut. He soon moved to Paris where he attended first grade and learned French. By age seven, he had received formal training in English at a day school in London. As a boy, Buckley developed a love for music, sailing, horses, hunting, skiing, and story telling. All of these interests—and his strong Roman Catholic religious faith—would reflect in his later writings. He is also an accomplished amateur harpsichord player. He attended St John's Beaumont in England at age 13 just before World War II."..
..... he is mainly concerned with "union monopolies"--and this in a country where it took unions until 1938, just 16 years before Buckley was writing, to gain adequate power to organize and fight for working interests. On the other hand, business corporations were given huge aids to their development for decades prior to 1938. The courts, government and police were biased against labor unions throughout most of the period while corporate collectivism was feeding gluttonously.

[/quote]

Consider this "proud" chapter in our nation's politcal history:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/ea..._id=1003695457
When 'Mad Men' In Media Took Control of Political Campaigns
Upton Sinclair is back, thanks to 'There Will Be Blood' movie ties. But in 1934 his race for governor gave birth to the modern media-based political campaign.

By Greg Mitchell

January 11, 2008) -- It's good to see Upton Sinclair back in the news again amid the raves (which I don't quite share) for the new film "There Will Be Blood," very loosely based on his 1927 novel "Oil!" Even though Sinclair earned a nod in many of the articles and reviews of the film, which stars Daniel Day-Lewis, few have commented on the original source material..

..On Aug. 28, 1934, Sinclair swept the Democratic primary for governor and all hell broke loose across the state, then across the continent. On the day after, the Los Angeles Times, under Harry Chandler, denounced Sinclair's "maggot-like horde" of supporters, and the Hearst press was no kinder. The movie studios threatened to move back east if Sinclair took office.

Sinclair, author of "The Jungle" and dozens of other muckraking books, led a grassroots movement called EPIC (End Poverty in California). His friend H.L. Mencken explained in a column, "Upton Sinclair has been swallowing quack cures for all the sorrows of mankind since the turn of the century, is at it again in California, and on such a scale that the whole country is attracted by the spectacle."..

The prospect of a socialist governing the nation's most volatile state sparked nothing less than a revolution in American politics. With an assist from Hollywood -- and leading newspapers -- Sinclair's opponents virtually invented the modern media campaign. It marked a stunning advance in the art of public relations, "in which advertising men now believed they could sell or destroy political candidates as they sold one brand of soap and defamed its competitor," Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. later observed.

The 1934 governor's race, in short, showed the candidates the way from the smoke-filled room to Madison Avenue, from the party boss to the "spin doctor." Media experts, making unprecedented use of film, radio, newspapers, direct mail, opinion polls, and national fundraising, devised the most astonishing smear campaign ever. "Many American campaigns have been distinguished by dirty tactics," columnist Heywood Broun commented, "but I can think of none in which willful fraud has been so brazenly practiced." (See link at bottom for video on the campaign.)

The political innovation that produced the strongest impact was the manipulation of moving pictures. MGM's Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg produced fake newsreels, using Hollywood actors. W.R. Hearst helped distribute them. For the first time, the screen was used to demolish a candidate, a precursor of political attack ads on television.

No institution dishonored itself quite like the California press. One anecdote that illustrates this: In October that year, The New York Times' star reporter Turner Catledge (later top editor of the paper) came to California. Naturally, he hooked up with the Los Angeles Times' political editor Kyle Palmer, who pretty much selected the state's chief executive every four years -- hence his nickname, "The Little Governor."

Decades before the press combed through Barack Obama's books and Mike Huckabee's old sermons, the L.A. Times printed out-of-context excerpts from Sinclair's many books on its front page every single day. Palmer was also advising and even writing speeches for Sinclair's opponent. Over dinner, Catledge asked Palmer why the paper refused to be fair and balanced. "Turner, forget it," Palmer replied. "We don't go in for that kind of crap that you have back in New York, of being obliged to print both sides. We're going to beat this son of a bitch Sinclair any way we can. We're going to kill him."

.Sinclair's huge lead evaporated -- especially after those fake newsreels hit the screen -- and Gov. Frank Merriam won re-election. Kyle Palmer continued to rule California politics for decades. And today, "media politics" still dominates most elections.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniont...8chandler.html
Ex-publisher boosted L.A. Times' stature
By Jonathan Kandell

February 28, 2006
Otis Chandler, who inherited the Los Angeles Times from his parents and then, as its publisher, transformed it into one of the most respected, widely read and profitable newspapers in the United States, died yesterday at his Ventura County home in Ojai. He was 78.

..Almost immediately he angered family members and local Republicans by shifting the paper from its inbred right-wing bias to a more centrist outlook.
Under his leadership, the newspaper hired talented journalists, opened dozens of bureaus throughout the world and won numerous awards, including nine Pulitzer Prizes. Chandler also distinguished himself as an empire builder, expanding the Times Mirror Co., the parent corporation of the Los Angeles Times, by purchasing Newsday, The Baltimore Sun, The Hartford Courant, several broadcast and cable television stations and two highly regarded book publishers, New American Library and Harry Abrams Publishing.
However, Chandler was never able to rid himself of the suspicion he wasn't taken seriously enough by his peers at The New York Times, The Washington Post and other members of the Eastern news media establishment..

.. Soon after taking over as publisher, Otis Chandler vowed to raise the stature of the paper.
The daily's new course was evident in the 1960 presidential election. While the editorial page, as expected, backed Nixon, who was then vice president, news articles gave balanced coverage to his opponent, Sen. John F. Kennedy.
Two years later, the paper again demonstrated impartiality while covering Nixon's losing gubernatorial campaign against Pat Brown. It was a reporter from the Times who was the chief target of Nixon's sour post-election statement in which he declared: “You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”
Under the next two decades of Chandler's stewardship, the Times Mirror Co. and its flagship newspaper scored one success after another. Reversing decades of indifference to Los Angeles' black community, the Times won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Watts riots in 1965..

[loquitur]

Words fail me.

Most of the rich people I know are liberal Democrats, host. The densest source of Democratic party fundraising is right here in Manhattan, on the Upper East and West Sides.