From Apple To Xbox, Tech Companies Lean Left 685
Velcroman1 writes "Only a week to election time! How does tech feel about politics? If you guessed liberal, you're right: Big Tech leans left. 'They're dominated by coastal people who tend to be more liberal,' says Jim Taylor, a management consultant who writes about the business of psychology. 'Also, those in Big Tech tend to be educated in the better schools, which lean left. Big Tech skews younger and hipper [and favors] social and environmental issues. Their political values trump financial concerns at the organizational culture level and the missions of many firms, especially those that are new media.' For example, Marissa Mayer, known as 'the face of Google,' gave $30,400 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2009. In fact, of the top 10 contributions made by Google in 2009, only one — by CEO Eric Schmidt — was to the Republican National Committee. Facebook has donated almost exclusively to Democratic candidates, according to Transparency Data, including $1,000 to California Sen. Barbara Boxer a year ago, and more recently, almost $5,000 to Richard Blumenthal, who is running for senator in Connecticut."
Re:More obvious stories (Score:5, Informative)
Exxon donated more to Obama than any other person in office, so that isn't true either, and that tidbit just chafes the leftwing mantra.
I can see how some people would be chafed by that tidbit, since it doesn't appear to be true.
I looked.
The best I could find was that Obama received more than McCain [cnn.com] -- not "any other person in office."
Furthermore, those donations were only in the 5 digits, while it looks like Exxon regularly spends $600,000+ in political bribes every year. [exxposeexxon.com] Seems to me that any of their favourite senators could easily rack up triple digit donations over the years - and according to this article [boston.com] which does not name names so is unfortunately a PITA to verify, the top 20 cumulative recipients of Exxon money since 1990 are all republican.
If you have some citations that show otherwise, I am all ears - I'm looking for the truth, not truthiness.
Re:Retest (Score:3, Informative)
The Political Compass [politicalcompass.org] website demonstrates this well. I suggest taking the test before reading the rest of the website.
(My result: -9.25, -8.21.)
Closer to Obama than most people know. (Score:2, Informative)
John Podesta's brother, Tony Podesta is BPs lead lobbyist. John is the founder of the Center For American Progress and the former Clinton chief of staff. I know it is from Beck. But DAMN.
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/42150/ [glennbeck.com]
Re:More obvious stories (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.exxposeexxon.com/ExxonMobil_politics.html [exxposeexxon.com]
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/08/both_mccain_oba.html [boston.com]
Re:democrat != left (Score:3, Informative)
Seriously -in the US we have two parties. The far right party, and the psychopathic kill-and-censor-everyone-in-the-name-of-patriotism party.
Left and right are and always will be, relative. In the non-political sense, my right and your right are only the same if we're facing the same direction. Even then, if you're standing on my right, the area to your right is further to the right than mine.
In political terms, you look at the parties and apparently they're both more conservative than you are, or maybe you're comparing it to other countries where the average voter is more liberal than the average American voter. Still, to say that we have no "left" party is nonsense. One is more liberal than the other, even if it's not liberal enough for you.
Re:More obvious stories (Score:4, Informative)
We also donate more (per employee) to non-profits than any other sector. Dunno about other companies, but Microsoft will match your charitable giving dollar for dollar up to $12K a year, and will match hours volunteered by donating $17 per hour as well.
I'm much happier seeing corporate money going to these programs than lining some politician's pockets. At least charities have rules about how much overhead they're allowed to have.
Re:Moderate/Conservatives are the quiet majority (Score:2, Informative)
The Libertarian Party is not classically liberal. It's idea of "economic freedom" is plutocracy, a reduction in effective freedom for most people. As Kim Stanley Robinson put it, "That's libertarians for you -- anarchists who want police protection from their slaves."
The Progressive movement was intended -- and we can certainly debate how well this end was served -- to increase the freedom of individual persons by reducing the power of corrupt big businesses. To them, your right to (for example) sell tainted food and drugs ended where people's health began just as your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.
Re:More obvious stories (Score:5, Informative)
If American Democrats are "right of center" ... what is Center?
Slightly to the left of most Democrats. A lot of people in the US like to call Obama a socialist. These are people that have never looked at European politics, where you can see real socialists. Take a look at the political compass [politicalcompass.org] and count how many 2008 candidates were left of center.
Re:I like how people maintain the delusion... (Score:3, Informative)
Except when Republicans controlled the Congress and the White House, these donations also strongly favored the Democrats, if not by as much.
Re:As a hillbilly from a desert island, I have to (Score:5, Informative)
But the funny thing is, Democrats have been in control of the Alabama legislature for the past 136 years, and were in control of all politics in the state between the time of Reconstruction and the Civil Rights movement.
These were fairly conservative Democrats, mind you... but they still swing in the liberal direction on many issues.
Re:Big Tech employees (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately, that claim of Clinton's is just another statistical mirage (of the kind both parties engage in).
First, when you talk about "federal employees" most people think of civil servants. But their ranks GREW during the 90s. The "shrinkage" was almost entirely due to downsizing the military.
The numbers also don't count contractors, jobs funded with federal grants, etc.
Depressing details here:
http://www.govexec.com/features/0199/0199s1.htm [govexec.com]
Re:Retest (Score:1, Informative)
I totally get your criticism of Obama.
It's not like he helped reduced the deficit by 126 Billion dollars in the worst economic crisis since the great depression. [reuters.com]
cut our income taxes by $116B [nytimes.com]
reversed a trend of epic job loss and ended up created millions of jobs [reuters.com]
I mean, he's all that Obamacare thingy, and we all know that that will massively increase the deficit in the long run. [reuters.com]
So yeah... I'm right with you, brother.
Re:More obvious stories (Score:3, Informative)
,
Empirically, that's really suspect. Agricultural subsidies exist because of Republicans, while free trade is quite popular in highly democratic Washington. Clinton is the one who signed NAFTA and granted China most-favored-nation status. Meanwhile, Republicans tend to be against proper anti-trust enforcement and Democrats tend to be pretty enthusiastic about small-business subsidies.
The simpler reason is that big businesses tend to trend Republican, which is why corporate contributions have gone to Republicans over Democrats 6:1 this cycle. They do this because they are run by rich people with high tax bills, and Republicans have not agreed to a tax increase since 1991. And yes, Rich people are Republican. See http://redbluerichpoor.com/blog/2008/10/amazon-usa/ [redbluerichpoor.com] . If only rich people could vote, then Republicans would win everywhere but New York and Cali, where it'd be really close.
"A reduction on income tax doesn't make the slightest difference to the ultra-rich, who get most of their money from capital gains."
Bullshit. Most of the money from Bush's tax-cuts went directly to the rich. As far as Capital gains go, most Democrats support an increase in the capital gains tax, while not a single Republican does.
"you don't hear anything about how John Kerry reduced capital gains taxes"
How exactly did John Kerry do that? The Republicans controlled the Senate when the cuts were passed.
"how Democrats recently killed the carried interest exemption (one of their 2008 campaign promises) after they had a lot of money thrown at them by lobbyists."
If by "Democrats killed" you mean "5 or 6 Democrats out of 59 joined all 40 republicans in order to filibuster", then sure...