Interview w/Thomas Ferguson 1 of 3 (on recent Supreme Court ruling)

[beta447]

I like that he refers to libertarians as the new fascists, it is true in so many ways. Libertarians think that regulation almost as a rule is somehow with out value and just gets in the way of how things are supposed to be happening. If they got their way today, tomorrow we'd all be homeless/slaves to debt and inflation. Corporations behave as stereotypical sociopaths and need to be locked behind glass. Libertarians want to do away with the glass but want you handcuffed to boot. Damn.

[mrtyles]

if corporations are people, maybe they need to be emancipated from the stock holders who own them.

[mrtyles]

the corporate equivalent of a marriage is a merger. now corporations will be able to marry people. lol.

[KhmerD0g]

damn. foreign companies are now ready to buy american politicians.

[RonnieInOC]

I was wondering what Ferguson thought of the SC decision.

[metalorg]

Since corporations are people so I guess we have to stop corporations from buying each other. Slavery is illegal isn't it?

[Xenu]

Where does Prof. Ferguson publish? Aside from his books I can't find anything aside from a few short age-old articles on "Mother Jones" and "The Nation," I think. Has he published anything on the 2008 presidential election? How was it that Mitt Romney failed to win the Republican nomination despite the fact that he was corporate American's main candidate in the Republican party?

[yrrmom]

Ferguson publishes mainly in academic journals, not so much in "popular" ones. There is a short piece he did on the "early" campaign contributions in the 2008 presidential election, titled "Financial Regulation? Don't Get Your Hopes Up". (Google it; it's easy to find.) He also did a couple of interviews in 2009 with the Real News Network. One recent paper (written with Robert Johnson) is "Too Big to Bail: The 'Paulson Put', Presidential Politics, & the Global Financial Meltdown", in 2 parts.

[Xenu]

Much thanks, friend. I figured he published in academic journals but I haven't had much luck finding any referenced on-line. The two last articles you mentions were unknown to me.

[Cefuroxx]

@xenu concerning romney

MItt Romney split the fundie christian voterbase along with Huckabee and this allowed McCain to win the nomination.

[enkelin32]

Duh, because he was (1) a mormon and (2) his company was a investment management comp which would Buy American companies take them apart, sell the equipment and move the jobs overseas or just out right sell it to a foreign corporation. How do you think that would have played in a campaign commercial?

[Xenu]

The same way an ignorant war-monger like McCain would have played to the American public. No campaign commercial played about McCain's ignorance about the surge policy, alleged Iran support for Sunni insurgents, etc. No campaign ran about Obama's senate record of being a tool to finance. I agree with the dude below - Romney lost because the religious base was organized well enough to split the Republican vote with Huckabee in opposite to the corporate candidate, allowing a third figure, McCain

[Xenu]

.. to wedge himself in. I think McCain's win of the nomination was historic since it is an example of an organized mass being able to press again the will of corporate investors. Neither the corporate candidate or the organized religious right movement candidate won the battle but it allowed a third to win the candidacy. It merits a chapter in Ferguson's book.

[enkelin32]

Mc Cain was as corporate as you can get. Learn a little about his history and the Savings and Loan crisis. Do you think he didnt still have those ties and MORE.

[enkelin32]

You have No idea how corporate Mc Cain was as well. He had ties WAY back to the financial industry. Heck his Economic Advisor was PHIL GRAMM, The man who deregulated the banks and wrote the CFMA act of 2000 which enabled this whole credit crisis to blow up the world while he worked for a Swiss Bank. The people who voted for Huckabee (a TV evangelist) just showed how stupid many republicans can be.

[Xenu]

Uh.... yes. That's why he was the number 1 Republic recipient of donations from the financial industry. But finance is NOT the only type of capitalist. Finance donates far more to Democrats than Republicans (since finance is capital intensive & can co-exist with organized labor; labor-intensive capitalists cannot; that is why Republicans are far more anti-working class). Just because McCain was the Rep finance liked the most doesn't mean that Romney wasn't corporate America's favorite Repub.

[yrrmom]

Thanks for this, mr1001nights. I was wondering what Ferguson thought of this.

[porkchopexpress07]

So much for getting the money out of politics. :( "Mussolini-style corporatism with the face of libertarianism" Another great quote coined on this show.

[samsonlovesyou]

Tom: "It's not obvious to me what you do about that."

I suppose one thing reformers could push for is that every candidate has to declare all funding sources in the media (and have a legal requirement that they be published), so that conflicts of interest are easily detected.

There are obvious ways around that, of course. Bi-proxy funding and whatnot. At least it's 'something', I guess.

[Antiks72]

The politicans aren't forced to take this money, they could refuse. The onus is ultimately on them for not doing something about it. Maybe we'll see Alan Grayson's bills passed? Doubtful.

[OntologicalQuandary]

Man this ferguson guy is ignorant.

How the hell is this anything like libertarianism? There is NO government in true libertarianism so how could there be judiciary rulings?

[medicatedsaint]

He said "with the face of Libertarianism." He didn't say it was Libertarianism. I agree with you on your comment. But I have seen so many Republicans flag wave Libertarian views on one side of their face but act and do more Republican/statist things on the other side. If more Libertarians were taken seriously and voted in the Republicans would see what a true Libertarian is. And they wouldn't like it.

[OntologicalQuandary]

@medicatedsaint

Well I hate fake libertarians (republicans).

And the idiots that watch this video dont know what real libertarianism is either as they have give us a total of 11 thumbs down out of ignorance.

[SeanyPancakes]

IMO, Libertarianism these days is simply a refuge for the far-out republicans to hide behind since their party is so fucked. I'm talking about the guys that say "I don't like Republicans either, I didn't like Bush either", even though their only beef with the Bush admin was the bailouts. Its a joke. Glenn Beck and the Tea Party folks, where the fuck were you guys before 2009?

[evejc8]

@SeanyPancakes Come on now. Libertarians dont like Us foreign policy either. We want out of both wars. We want to end the war on drugs and end the outsourcing of jobs. Real Libertarians are very nationalistic. Does this really sound like a republican?

[rring88]

i wonder if in the future corporations will be able to adopt children like in the truman show and do what they please with them. Its really scary.

[netinfoseek]

@rring88

And if those corporate children dont do all their chores, then they will just have to go to their rooms without dinner.

[PlasticJesus341]

Maybe now people will notice corporate control over elections. If you have corporations so blatantly buying elections, even at the local level, maybe people will realize there is a problem.