/z/ - zaibatsu — finance and economics

There's no clear concept of them, it has more to do with tradition than actual meaning. As far as I know it originates from the French revolution, where those who supported the revolution and the republic would sit to the left and those who wanted to restore the king on the right. So usually those who want changes toward new arrangements tend to describe themselves as left-wing and those who would prefer to conserve the current state of affairs or a return to previous arrangements would be described as right-wing. But it's not set in stone and often gets fuzzy.

If you really want some opinions use the email field and good people will begin to write you, or better search on preferred search engine, or even better ask various irl persons to explain you.
But please don't make a thread here, you're only going to attract trash (assuming this is not you're intent and you're genuinely interested in the question)

I've moved this from /r/ to /z/ as it fits better in this board. Note that this board technically covers international relations and geopolitics, but not party politics and domestic policy, so please keep it civil or we will close it.

>>221 has the correct answer on the origin of the term.

In American society (the only one I can really speak to) the left wing is generally considered as being the liberal contingent; as in they want to progress to an ideal society where a state would take care of the people by implementing social programs that help the lower and middle class. Liberal ideas in the US generally support the idea of a social democracy, meaning that the government will assist the people by proving social services such as welfare, unemployment, and health care. The government would pay for these improvements by taxing the wealthy members of society and corporations more than the classes they are hoping to benefit. Also, they believe in people being able to live their lives as they want, as in the ability for minorities and LGBTQ people to integrate in to their society. The left wing generally believes in free immigration and less aggression towards other countries.

The right wing is considered to be the conservative contingent. This means that they tend to believe in tradition, including the nuclear family, structured as one man and one woman in a monogamous relationship with children. The free market is generally their ideal economic structure. This means that most things are subject to market forces - they may be cheaper or more expensive than they would be in the social democracy of the Liberals. They believe that empowering business owners via allowing them to keep their money will result in greater prosperity for everyone, and as such, support lower taxes on all strata of society, to include the wealthy and corporations. The right wing can see immigration as a threat to the working class, and supports policies to curb it. Conservatives also tend to support the military, believing that intervention overseas keeps the homeland secure.

I'm trying to be impartial and failing, I'm sure. There's really so much more to say about it, and those general answers can't really give you a good picture of what it all really means.

If you have questions, please ask. I'm sure I or someone smarter than me can answer.

Good on you for asking the question, not many do.

Okay, so basically, The left is like someone who wants to 'put the leader down the throne' and the right is someone who wants to 'strengthen the leader and keep him in his throne', that it?

If so, lets base on your personal opinion herewhat do you think is the more favorable 'wing' here if we're talking about the modern-day government?

>>225
Disclaimer I'm a socialist:

I'm not sure what you mean by
>put the leader down the throne
but your description of the other side is mostly correct, given the context of the French Revolution.

I don't know that this is the forum for discussing a favorable wing. Each side likely has its flaws, and each side likely has some good qualities. You're only going to get opinions with the "modern-day government" question.

Basically, you need to consider both sides and decide for yourself.

Thomas Sowel described it pretty well in his book "A conflict of visions". Essentially the left think that human beings are fundamentally good, it's only the structure and evils of society that cause them to behave badly, and if only they could be elevated to a more free position they could express their inner goodness. The right on the other hand think that human beings are fundamentally flawed and that the structure and rules of society are needed to rein in bad behavior and abuses of power. In his book he contrasts the french and american revolutions as examples of either view being expressed. While he has some bias towards the right it's a good read if you want to understand this sort of thing.

Another interesting thing is that personality as measured by the OCEAN model is one of the best predictor of political affiliation. People on the left tend to be higher in openness and people on the right tend to be higher in conscientiousness. This has many implications, but one I think is particularly interesting, is the effect openness has on dwelling preference. People high in openness prefer living in more densely populated areas and the more densely populated the area the higher the average openness of the people living there. This is interesting because in the recent US presidential election pretty much every county with a population over 250k went to Hillary and every county with a population under 250k went to Trump. Which explains the surprise many on the left had when trump won and the division in the country right now. When many on the left said they didn't know anyone who would vote for Trump they probably weren't exaggerating or unfriendly to people on the right because most of Trump's voter base lives in rural areas. Greater freedom of movement has allowed people to more easily express their innate preferences leading to most of those on the left living in cities and most of those on the right living in the country.

>>228
This sounds like a very bad generalization and I don't really understand how those examples could work as both would fall on the left.

>>224
What Americans call "liberal" are actually social liberals, which is a branch of liberalism that believes that a certain level of social justice is necessary for capitalism to function well. In contrast with conservatives, who are a different branch of liberalism and believe that capitalism left alone can only produce social justice.

American "liberals" are very far from social democracy and conservatives mainly oppose immigration because they see it as a threat to their cultures and traditions and not because they suddenly started caring about the plight of the workers.

>>229
The examples apply to the populace, the leadership and the law. Many left wing leaders are opposed to policies that would regulate them. Many on the right believe in limiting the power of both the government and those in it. The whole american revolution was about setting up a system of checks and balances to make sure an individual bad actor in power could do as little harm as possible. The french revolution and most left wing revolutions have involved an individual or group seizing power and using that power to do what they thought needed to be done to help everyone without setting up a robust way to limit the power of those in power.

Sowel probably does a better job of explaining it than me if you have the time to listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGvYqaxSPp4

>>231
Everyone in power are opposed to policies that would limit their power. It's always self-perpetuating and has very little, if anything, to do with ideology.

The American Revolution was about getting rid of British rule, other than that it had little immediate impact on the actual relations of power in the USA. For this reason many are actually wary of calling it a revolution, especially compared to the French or the Russian revolution where there was radical social change.

This is a very bad classification and completely ignores the numerous democratic left-wing revolutions and the countless brutal right-wing dictatorships. To be honest it sounds like Cold War propaganda.

>>232
>It's always self-perpetuating and has very little, if anything, to do with ideology.
Then why did the founding fathers draft the constitution and the bill of rights and also separate government power through the executive legislative and judicial branches ?

>The American Revolution was about getting rid of British rule, other than that it had little immediate impact on the actual relations of power in the USA.
Because going from being colonies ruled by governors appointed by a government across the ocean to a representative democracy is not a change in power ?

Based on everything I know it does the best to describe the current right vs left divide going on right now which is really progressives vs conservatives. Progressives think that if they change things in the right way they can improve the world. Conservatives think change is dangerous and giving one person too much power could really mess things up.

I don't think either the modern left or the modern right have much in common with or would support the extreme regimes either side created in the 20th century.

>democratic left-wing revolutions
Can you name a few ? None come to mind and searching for it is not turning up anything.

>>234
The Paris Commune is the first that comes to mind. But I'm sure you can easily remember multiple right-wing dictatorships, which alone should demonstrate how useless your model is. Of course in your first post you claimed that the right is about disciplining the masses and the left is about liberating them and then you completely reversed it, so I'm not sure what to think.

>>235
While socially conservative I don't think the right wing dictatorships you're talking about have the same ideological roots or anything in common with the modern right. Fascism goes against everything constitutional conservatives stand for.

It's not about what they do but how they perceive humanity that is important. This is getting way off topic though hopefully it makes sense to other alices.

>The Paris Commune
Any that stayed in power for a significant length of time ?

>>236
There were many right-wing dictatorship around the world and not all of them were fascist. I'm not that knowledgeable about them but for example Pinochet is usually not considered to be one. I wonder how Sowell would classify him, especially considering how "Libertarians" seem to idealize him.

If their beliefs are important and not what they did then it shouldn't matter how long it lasted. Or that supposedly many left-wing leaders were opposed to policies that would regulate their power.

In fact, going by your original post where you claimed that the left was for emancipation and the right for discipline, the only modern ideology that could be classified as right-wing is fascism. Every other ideology that I can think of is based on various degrees of emancipation, at least in theory. Even capitalism fundamentally views humans as naturally good whose individual acts leads to collective betterment.

>>237
This is where it gets into it not necessarily being about what they do but how they perceive humanity. Even when emancipated under capitalism people are assumed to not be trustworthy which is where contracts come in. In the context of the american revolution this led to them limiting the power each section of government had because they thought if power was too centralized it would lead to corruption and abuses. To try to rephrase it the left or unconstrained view thinks that humans will do good socially, economically, and politically when given the opportunity. The right or constrained view thinks all humans are inherently corrupt and corruptible so no one person or group should wield too much power or be trusted to not take advantage of a situation. This explains their respective views on socialism, immigration, drugs, war, and economic policy. It does not cover everything but it is a useful tool.

Considering Sowel went to the same university as many of the economists who later ran Chile's economy under Pinochet and was both a student and a fan of Milton Friedman who laid out the economic plan Pinochet later implemented he definitely agrees with him on economic grounds.

>>238
So this is where libertarians get their "anarchists are actually right-wing" retardation. Yeah, it seems to be really useful as American propaganda, but completely useless for honest discussion or for explaining how people actually use the terms.

>>237
>fascism is the only right wing today

Absolutely true, though I would add monarchism to that. The capitalists and the socialists are all idealistic left wingers.

I would say that the Right is about accepting the human condition and all of its consequences. This means that authority is natural and must remain so. Equality is a spook. The economic system does not matter, it depends on the people. Tradition is a significant source of knowledge for humanity.

>>249
First you claim that authority is natural, and then you go off and call something a spook. I beg of you to develop a greater familiarity with Stirner before you use that word again. If you subjugate your ego to authority because you've convinced yourself that it reflects some sort of natural order, you are just as spooked as if you were to fail to pursue your self interest because it would lead to inequality with someone else.

>>249
Monarchism is either a meme or authoritarian "reputation management" ie. propaganda.

The arguments are so laughable, any passing historical knowledge shows countless examples of why monarchy is a terrible idea.

Monarchists never seem to respond to these arguments, leading me to the conclusion that they're either chatbots or 12 year old memesters.

>>251
I think that Filmer made a pretty decent case for the institution in his book Patriarchia. While he does manage to get beyond the idea of divine right, he bases the legitimacy of the monarchy in the family structures of his time. Don't dismiss his work out of hand, because he's a very good example of how subscribing to one rigid, reactionary idea leads to believing in loads more.

>>238
>The left […] thinks that humans will do good […] when given the opportunity.
>The right […] thinks all humans are inherently corrupt and […] no one […] group should wield too much power.
Nonsense. A large portion of the right thinks their church should have absolute power. A large portion of the left think that people are inherently bloodthirsty savages just itching to pull the trigger.

>>249
>Tradition is a significant source of knowledge for humanity.
This is what Russell Kirk called "the organic wisdom of institutions".
The belief in the value of this and the belief that much of progressivism "carelessly damages the organic fabric of society, woven by history and supporting human happiness in ways not understood until it is torn asunder" is the core of conservatism.

The "left" and "right" are so abstract that they lose coherency. The terms should be abandoned for anyone who isn't comfortable with being treated as a child by mass-media.
The 'center' complicates the left-right paradigm beyond the majority's comprehension
The libertarian-authoritarian axis even more so

Improved discourse would be had by replacing left-center-right with socialist-liberal-nationalist-monarchist(deprecated) and adding 'libertarian' or 'authoritarian' as descriptors where necessary (anywhere except for nationalism, as the ideology is designed with authoritarianism as a foundational building-block, so saying "authoritarian nationalism" would be redundant, obviously).

This would allow one to navigate and contrast between two big schools of (neo)liberals - authoritarian liberals (Chicago school: Reagan, Thatcher, Pinochet) and libertarian liberals (Austrian school: Rothbard, Konkin III). Two broads schools of socialists - authoritarian/state/centralized socialists (Blanqism, DemSoc, Leninism, ML) and libertarian socialists (anarchism, revolutionary syndicalism, autonomism).

The remaining political ideologies are ones that mix between these broad categories. For example social democracy is a half-step towards liberalism, away from socialism. Social liberalism is a half-step towards socialism, away from liberalism.

The two major currents within nationalism seems to be civic nationalism (close to liberalism) and ethnic nationalism (close/definitive to/for fascism, nazism).

>>253
>A large portion of the right thinks their church should have absolute power.
No, they want to make the law reflect their personal views which are informed by their religion. Most of the hardcore religious people in the US are protestant and being anti gay does not make them pro theocracy.

> A large portion of the left think that people are inherently bloodthirsty savages just itching to pull the trigger.
Really ? Then explain their position on immigration.

>>249

Meh ignoring your soykaf arguments I tend to think the left is more about enlightenment (aka church) values while the right is about competition. From a surface acceptance I'd say the right makes more sense but there's a whole heap of sexist and racist ideology that typically goes with it; it's easier to just disown oneself from the entire political affair and - let go.

>>264
> enlightenment (aka church)
Oh my, how did you end up with this? Don't they teach history in the schools you attended?

>>256
Well they just think we should ban guns and weapons, that will fix all the problems right?

Its naive, people will kill without weapons, they will make weapons. They will continue too fight.

I half think the reason the left wants to ban weapons is to stop people fighting back when they purge the wrong thinkers, 100 Million dead and counting there.

The left think as soon as you have a weapon, even if for sport you will go on a killing rampage.

>>253
the further left you go the more puritan you get, the further right you go the more puritan you get.

Left of right people people start to develop dogma, and its almost a n unquestionable religious dogma.

The right have the church, the left lately have post modernism. Two dogmas that must be defeated.

What are peoples thoughts on Unlimited Democracies?

I'm of the view the a limited democracy will work best, you should have to demonstrate you ability to place social well being in front of individual well being before you get the right to vote.

Since people are inherently selfish and will vote for "free stuff" even though someone has to pay for it.

Here for example the Childfree couples are taxed to pay people to have children. Ultimately making life harder for those who choose to not have children for personal or environmental reasons.

>>265

i dont fuck with bourgeois history.

>>272
While it is true that most gun control supporters in the US are center-left liberals, gun control supporters can be found in any part of the political spectrum, especially in Europe. Then again, most anarchists, who are generally considered left-wing are pro-gun and reject the monopoly of violence.

>Black Book of Communism
Meh.

>>275
You should, you are probably a member of that class.

Most Socialists I come across now are hilariously, and they are more than willing the throw the working class under the bus.

>>276
Like Australia, where the conservatives where the ones to strip firearm ownership from the civilians, though the left use the licensed owners as a convenient punching bag, "Did you know someone in this suburb owns more than 20 firearms, this must be stopped What if the owner goes full Las Vegas!" Even though they cant own anything like those used….

Any authoritarian group will strip rights.

Horseshoe theory is oddly accurate. The further right, or left you go, the closer they are.

>>249
>this pic
my sides

I could write a long summary of the extreme autism of each of those LARPing neoideologies but I don't think it would be worth the trouble so here's an abridged version which is still tl;dr.

>Nazism
If you decided to ditch the at least a bit developed fascist doctrine for this undefinable German clusterfuck of the 1930s because Hugo Boss and raunchy memery, you should actually kill yourself on the spot. No one loves you nor acknowledges you.

>snek
Cryptocurrencies won't make you rich and the REAL elites won't thank you, they'll fuck you with the cheapest broomstick they can find. If you're a wealthy individual who's favorized enough by the statu quo to retire profit of instant lolbertarianism, you're not posting on this website to begin with.

>Monarchism
It's 2017, it's dead since a century. Monarchies had their role in the shaping of states, but today's surviving monarchies are just bourgeois/client regimes where the king is either someone's little bitch or the first of his bourgeois friends. It's funny to see the "b-but monarchy can work in theory!", yeah, just like stalinism.
The only thrieving monarchy of today's is Morocco, because the previous king (who knew more about the history of Europe than all "The Right" combined) knew how to develop an unique culture, double the size of his country and choose a market economy against the whole of Africa and Middle East states. But he was a Muslim so I guess Jesus would weep if his legacy was studied by The Right.
Xi Jinping seems to want to position himself as some kind of mock monarch to rebuild China as a coherent whole, but since his open goal is to save communism, I guess he is just looking for a way to kill 100 millions people. Pls ignore. Why am I giving those examples anyway? We know that 90% of "monarchists" are just fanboys of Final Fantasy, Code Geass, Game of Thrones or Warhammer 40k.

>Fascism
Oh look, it seems this time, we have something that might be more than just LARPing! Neofascism (I will include the New Right) was an intellectual movement that despite from being totally disconnected from reality, was worth studying as it looked like a genuine force against American imperialism. Yes, American imperialism. Our neo-nationalists don't seem to realize that neofascists used to be everything they claim to hate, pro-USSR, pro-revolutionary Arabs, anti-Anglo to the core and they sure didn't give a soykaf about Eastern Europe.
The tides turned this decade because globalization and the Internet turned out to be so strong that neo-fascism, already nothing more than a concept, was on the verge of extinction. They jumped on the "populist" bandwagon of identity politics which leads them right to the cliff. Actually, it's kinda sad to see anti-Americans of the 60s suddenly support Trump because they want to stay relevant (they won't).
Alain de Benoist wrote something around 2014 about the youth who were yearning for adventure while going in Syria/Irak, but the neo-nationalists were so offended he had to back down. Because once again, the politically incorrect are on par with the rainbowed-gender in terms of skin thickness. So yeah, fascism? Killed by The Right.

>Authority is natural
Except the current gov because I don't like it. Also it's a bad definition because despite what ignorant memesters from The Right always try to imply, Rousseau wasn't about running naked in the jungle, he was about the law, the law, and only the law. The fact that he believed Man was inherently good didn't mean he was an anarchist. His model was Sparta and he was a prime influence of fascist doctrines.
The classical Reaction lived on the premise that the revolutionary times were nothing revolutionary. It was just a short period of troubles led by idealists which was doomed to fail and which would bring nothing but endless, stupid wars. This is quite the difference between today's The-Right which get off at chaos and share fake news of violence in what really is wishful thinking. So, not only today's modern era is the most peaceful one in human history, but the pseudo-Reaction is jumping all over in hopes of war. This is ironic.
On the Reaction side, we can say the most influent thinkers were Joseph de Maistre and the Czar Alexander. They didn't really "lose" in the sense that they weren't the nutjobs the Left and The Right claim they were. They were intelligent people, influenced by the Enlightenment, who realized their own world didn't lived to their expectations and who tried to reform it. Perhaps they have failed in the formal way, but their values are still hold by normal people who never heard about them, the same that actually care more about refugees than Realpolitik and the virtues of Despotism. Austria tried the most regressive stance and broke down in less than half a century.
One funny anecdote, a monarchist uprising in France failed in the 1830s because it was revealed that the mother of the legitimate heir was pregnant from an unkwown man. Today's The Right brags about the virtues of porn, creatine, and sex with teens in nightclubs. But abortion is still a no-no.

On that stuff, the pseudomonarchists who worship Mencius Moldbug always spout bullsoykaf like
>The Right is about muh hard truths
This is how you spot the manchild. Inequality (especially through capitalism and its pseudomonarchist variation) is inherently modern. The difference between a Patrician and a Plebeian was that the Patrician's father gave him the (costly) protection of the family's god. Equality between men was always the norm: inequality came from the blessing of the gods, and the more gods you got the protection of, the better your fared. That means a Greek princess would rather marry Subsaharan nobility than your redneck ancestor. Le Antic Cucked, lol. In the medieval/warring ages, equality of all men was a given, through the teachings of Christianity, Islam, and modern Buddhism. Hence the organic distribution of the roles in society, the recourses against tyrannical rulers, all of this which allowed for the states to span beyond simple cities abusing their surrounding, allowing the terrible globalist forces to develop trade, culture, and other elements which compose that loose word "Civilisation".
Did this ideal state translate perfectly in practice? No. Were there abuses? Many. And when the trust in the institutions start to shatter, symbols of power, impressive monuments and shows of forces vainly try to cement what doesn't seem to be that obvious anymore. Those shows of force are what make the shiny The Right foam. Decadence and ostentation is what the dirt born Moldbug fanboys want in the first place.

Enough talk about The Right, what is the right? Believing in authority, real authority, not the lust for decadent symbolic. It means being polite, trying to be excellent, avoid conflict, avoid chit-chat and talking only when it's necessary, helping the poor no matter where they came from, choosing action before reaction, frowning at ostentatiousness, not trying to do an expert's job for x reason like redpill, abstaining from making trouble in general, and trusting God/whatever in-built logic in the universe that led us from primitive living to modern conditions to fulfill whatever role is given to us. We can't describe it in words? Well, we don't need to, you and me are just atoms in this whole construction and we just need to be moral. Humbleness is where it's at.

>Right
Most hierarchies are an unavoidable consequence of some people's superiority over others. Since these systems are natural they should be preserved. A right authoritarian will advocate for absolute hierarchies based on what they believe to be the natural state of humanity. People will be forced to conform with this ideal (Nazi Germany etc.) . A right libertarian will argue for a society based on markets and other types of structures where a constantly changing hierarchy emerges based on each individual's merit in the given system. Said system is usually considered an inevitable extension of human nature (USA etc.)

>Left
Most hierarchies result from exploitation and are not natural. Hierarchies should be destroyed. A left authoritarian will advocate for absolute equality and sometimes equity. People will be forced to conform to this ideal (USSR). A left libertarian will advocate for systems which they believe will naturally tend toward an equal society (Rojava etc.)

It seems to me that neither position is based on an empirical data.

>>283
>Rojava
Unless you're living in Sweden it's hardly libertarian and even those are often gun-cherishing anarchists. Hippies are a more valid comparison.

>empirical data
What kind of empirical data are you referring to? If it's not in an exploitable form yet, what method would you suggest to get it? Just curious.

>>284
He probably meant that Rojava is striving to become an equal society, not that it already is. And in what alternate reality do you consider Sweden to be the anti-thesis to libertarian?

>>285
Unless you're a Swede keyboard warrior brewing soykaf on Twitter about geopolitics* Most of them have Scandinavian-sounding name for some reason.

Rojava is hardly striving, it repopulates areas with their own militants and has been recognized guilty of ethnic cleansing, while making PR for the Western lib who can't stand still when he feels like he can finance armed groups. They are hated across all the ME for a reason.

Also
>>285
>in what alternate reality do you consider Sweden to be the anti-thesis to libertarian?

You might stop arguing with alt-righters because I wrote that they aren't libertarians UNLESS they live in Sweden, which was just a way to say "unless you're an idealistic first-worlder".

>>286
>>287
Okay i understand, im just tired of info wars bullsoykaf and those trying push it here.

>>288
Yeah I know that feel, I tense every time I read "Sweden" on an imageboard. I'm tired of hearing the very same insane arguments.

>>284
When I talk about empirical data I mean actual evidence that in general one system works better than the other. Most of the time when evidence is presented in regards to left v right, it isn't presented as part of a study (various claims of "well if you look at the statistics"), has methodological flaws (most pay gap research, The Bell Curve, "Gun Violence Statistics") or is consensus based (did you know that X% of people in place Y, want policy Z enacted, this just goes to show how out of touch our politicians/media/right-left wingers are with society).

I would prefer if governments just did the pragmatic thing rather than pursue their particular political dogma. Most politicians in reality do neither and just do what's pragmatic to get elected/re-elected. At least that's what it seems like to me.

Whenever right wingers or left wingers say that they know what is "natural" for humanity I roll my eyes. Why do you think you know that? Whenever someone claims that policy X will work I ask where are the studies that show it will?

>>284
>>290
Oh and as an addendum
>Unless you're living in Sweden it's hardly libertarian and even those are often gun-cherishing anarchists. Hippies are a more valid comparison.
I am more talking ideals. The US isn't really right libertarian but, that what the founding ideal was. I don't know too much about Rojava but, they are founded on Anarchist beliefs. And as much as I'm not entirely up to date on Rojava, they seem to be doing a pretty good job of it. You claim that they are guilty of ethnic cleansing but no evidence was found by the UN. Whether or not they are lying is another story.

>>290
>I would prefer if governments just did the pragmatic thing rather than pursue their particular political dogma. Most politicians in reality do neither and just do what's pragmatic to get elected/re-elected. At least that's what it seems like to me.
There are two broad factors of power that politricksters need to be able to leverage in order to obtain and maintain any kind of power.
The lesser of the two is political or electoral power – the support of the people through favorable votes and polls. It is the lesser because the power to determine who runs and who wins is far more so in the hands of large capital holders, established statesmen and media conglomerates. More particularly, the people's will is almost entirely at the mercy of the largest of said media conglomerates, which essentially makes electoral power a mere symptom of the greater factor of power: economic power.
Economic power doesn't really refer to what the specific politrickster actually owns. Rather, it is their willingness to put their power to the purpose of those who do own exorbitant capital holdings, and the facilitation and enablement they receive in return. By making policy and PR decisions that line up best with the goals of the upper class, they are backed by that wealth and influence. When a politrickster is acting in a way that seems impractical, ask yourself whether it might not be for one of these reasons:
1. It may be that political ideologues are using ideology purposefully to control and divide people better.
2. It may be that the specific policies carried out, while impractical to the untrained eye, are very useful to the ruling elite.
3. It may be that some politricksters are truly idealist and have beliefs they want to soapbox about or push, and it's not enough of a threat for the lobbyists to care.
4. It may be that you are seeing a politrickster making an actual blunder, and that he is mere days or weeks away from some media exec killing them in the public spotlight over some dug-up blackmail piece he had written years ago for this exact occasion

>>292
I think you may have misunderstood me. In the text you quoted I am basically agreeing with you on most of the points you've made about political and economic power.

>>292
Where do you live? Unless you're in a Republican hellhole or some client state in what used to be called the third world, things aren't that black and white. For instance, restriction about food importation or GMOs do not benefit big business. In the latter's case, they even have their press calling you a luddite. You've also got the unrelenting attacks against Net neutrality: they surely aren't the ones who put that principle into the law. Elites may be elites but absolute power is in no one's hands.