More businesses join Target in funding Republican PAC

Why would anyone be surprised that private businesses are supporting those politicians who will stop the government take-over and destruction of the private economy?

It’s a no-brainer. The same reason why unions and felons support democrats. They know who’s most likely to be on their side.

“It’s a no-brainer. The same reason why bigots and idiots support republicans. They know who’s most likely to be on their side.”

I like my version better.

oooh snap

Dennis,

This isn’t about supporting or not supporting private business. Emmer is anti-gay, and Emmer is the only candidate for governor that Minnesota Forward is supporting. You cannot expect the LGBT community to support or remain silent when KSTP Channel 5 (a.k.a. Hubbard Broadcasting in Saint Paul) Best Buy (headquarters in suburban Richfield, MN), Target (headquarters in Minneapolis) choose to be anti-gay enablers.

I’m not going to watch Minneapolis Channel 5, shop at Target, shop at Best Buy, etc. That’s the way it will be. I may even join the picket lines.

There is a bigger point here.

First there is a difference between Capitalism ( or what you may say is a private economy) and Democracy. Learn the difference, then when you understand that wrap this around your brain.

Target is a corporation, their goal is profits. Last time I checked Democracy was not about profits its about everyone having a say in how we are governed. This is the start of Capitalism taking away the value of our vote and taking away our Democracy. YOUR vote doesn’t count anymore because corporations will be buying and controlling who even gets on the ballot?

This is not about LGBT, RACE, RELIGION etc. Thats what Corporations want us to think its about. Calling each other names and creating names and taking sides against each other is exactly what they want us to do, fight among ourselves rather than catching them slowly taking away our rights and our ability to be part of our political system.

Peace and get active for all of us.

Steve,
We live in a Republic, not a Democracy.

I don’t recall saying we lived in a Democracy, maybe it was misconstrued that way. I mean our Political process.

Dennis,

Regarding your comment:

“Why would anyone be surprised that private businesses are supporting those politicians who will stop the government take-over and destruction of the private economy?”

Corporations can now pour unlimited amounts of money into political candidates and if the disclosure bill fails, they can do it anonymously.

Are you sure its a government take-over of private economy or the other way around?

We don’t have a free-market capitalistic system – it was destroyed by leftist processes a long time ago. These companies are fighting for whats left of it. The democracy in our system, luckily, still allows you the privilege of not buying (boycott) from these corporations and of course buycott’s have been working too of late – THAT, is democracy at work.

Yes, we are a Republic or what’s left of it. Government representing the people has been torn apart by the 2-party system – both of which are progressive in nature.

That any of us can debate the subject is great … for now.

Steve, sometimes you can be a bit patronizing in your comments. Periodically, people vote at the ballot box. They also vote every single time when they make a consumer purchase. I caution you not to dismiss or minimize the concerns of those in the LGBT community and their allies as they persevere in the quest for full equality for LGBT Americans.

Why is it that as soon as I read No Brainer, Tom Emmer popped into my mind?

Lane, Thanks for the observation.

Wow, I of all people have never been referred to as patronizing! But OK, I’ll take that.

However I in no way mean to dismiss or minimize the concerns of the LGBT community or any other communities. I was just trying to bring in the bigger picture on what this is really about which is how corporations in their own interests are inciting conflict within the main-street voters. Their objective is to distract us from the fact that they are slowly taking away our power to elect politicians that represent our needs no matter what our sexual orientation, race, religion, age, gender etc, we are all Americans.

Watch the media, soon, in fact already, you will see more focus on Guns, Gays, God, Race etc. Great for dividing main street americans, and distracting from what corporations are really doing to our political system. I’m not discounting any of these issues, but lets not let them get in the way of the more important and strategic issues that face us as a nation of Americans.

If anything please separate any tactical comments from my main point. Thats what I was trying to communicate, my skills may just be a bit rusty .

And by the way, I happen to be gay and an activist for equal rights for everyone.

Steve, a corporate is nothing more than a group of people who have banded together to make money. They are people first, and as such, don’t give up their right to vote or support political candidates just because they work for an organization that sells a product or service.

In fact, one could say they have an obligation to their stockholders and employees to do whatever is necessary to protect their livelihoods and investments when it means they are under attack by political forces who’s policies and actions could cost their employees their jobs or their investors their retirement income.

I would expect them to support those politicians who share their view that they have a right to make a living and government taxation, regulation and litigation impedes that right.

I meant “corporation” of course.

Setting aside the example of KSTP for the moment because it is more or less a Hubbard family corporation, Target, Best Buy, Regis Corporation are all publicly owned and traded corporations. 87% of the common (voting) stock of Target is owned by institutional investors, i.e. many regular people like me in their retirement accounts. Same with Best Buy.

Target:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=TGT+Major+Holders

Best Buy:

http://www.dailyfinance.com/company/best-buy-incorporated/bby/nys/institutional-ownership

Don’t the profits go to the owners? Who says some guy who got appointed president or whatever gets to decide to give my money, if I’m a direct or indirect owner to some pol. or cause I totally disagree with?

And Hubbard, having a monopoly franchise from the government to use the public domain and Bill Cooper, who took over TCF, formerly a S&L (coop), having a monopoly franchise to own a bank, are also ” affected with a public interest.” Who says they can use their monopoly profits extracted from consumers like me to pay off their friends in high places?

Dennis,

Corporations are not people or a group of people, a corporation is a legal entity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation

You are absolutely right, the people who work for the corporation don’t give up their right to vote. This is not about the right to vote, its about using corporate funds to buy elections.

To demonstrate my point: Say you own a home in a nice neighborhood, down the street is a corporation which you work for. That corporation wants to expand and take your property and all the houses in your neighborhood, but doesn’t want to have to pay for it because they are focused on profits and return to shareholders.

An election comes up. The corporation pours $1 million to a candidate who will pass legislation for eminent domain in your area. They also pour $1 million to discredit a candidate who won’t, to keep them off the ballot.

So when the election comes and the ballot comes out, your choice has been limited to only the candidates that that corporation decides they want to give you because they have the “funds” to manipulate the elections. Thus eliminating the value of your vote.

Their candidate gets elected, and passes legislation that the corporate lobbyist writes for them, they come along and legally take your property.

Your family is homeless, but you still have your right to vote!

Believe it or not elections are about money, and who ever has the most, 99% of the time wins. Corporations, especially large ones have DEEP pockets. $10, $20, $100 Million is but a mere drop in the bucket for corporations. And they now have unlimited power to buy elections and take more and more power away from main street Americans. This is not the Democracy our founding fathers had in mind.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of capitalism, it made our country great, but it’s now being abused and greed and power above all else is taking over (Wall Street, Oil Companies (Cartels) etc.) and we are moving dangerously towards becoming a Corporatocracy at the cost of the middle class who made this country what it is today.

This may sound weird, but I would recommend watching an old movie called “Born Yesterday” with Judy Holiday and Broderick Crawford. This paints a perfect picture of what is happening in this country today except that in todays world, with the Supreme Court Ruling, what Broderick Crawford is doing is fundamentally legal.

Steve, everything you said in your anecdote could be said of unions.

Steve’s take on corporations is correct.

Oh, and from your link you’ll find this line: “Despite not being natural persons, corporations are recognized by the law to have rights and responsibilities like actual people.”

The legitimacy of “corporate personhood” is still questioned along with what constitutional rights corporations should have – and to what degree, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood

Yes Dennis, and the key word is responsibility. Is it responsible for corporations to socialize debt and privatize profits? Is it responsible for corporations to bribe and buy political candidates? Is it responsible to put profits ahead of social responsibility, safety, or human lives?

This is just my opinion: I as an individual would like to have a say in my government however the conservative Republican agenda is destroying this country by taking more and more rights away from the middle class and individuals and transferring that power to the elite wealthy and large corporations. The inequity and distribution of wealth in this country is proof.

According to the Congressional Budget office:
The middle class income has only risen by 25% since 1979
The upper middle class income has risen 95% since 1979.
The income for the top 2% has risen over 281% since 1979.

Also 89% of all stocks in the NY Stock exchange are owned by the top 2% of the country. (I heard this on CNN or one of the news outlets, so not sure of its validity) but it sure smacks of inequity.

And now corporations have even more power to legally buy off elections. Republicans fight to keep tax cuts for the very wealthy and raise them on the middle class, and fight for even more DE regulation of businesses. This is what we are in for. The TARGET issue is just the VERY TIP of the iceberg.

Thats my opinion, I’m sticking to it.

Thanks all for this interesting and cordial discourse. I wish our politicians could take a lesson from this kind of civilized discussion.

Peace and best of luck to each and every one of you.

Oh, one more thing regarding Unions.
I think your point is somewhat valid about unions Dennis. However if it weren’t for unions there would probably be no increase in wages for the middle class over the past 30 years and we would be a nation of low wage corporate slaves working for $4.50 and hour and living in tenement housing. And there is current proof of that.
Corporations (especially food corporations) hire illegals and pay them less than minimum wage, (rather than pay american citizens living wages), pay no health benefits and keep them at poverty levels, and much of the pittance of money the illegals earn doesn’t even go back into our economy, it goes to Mexico, Canada, or name any other country. Then the corporate controlled media blames the Government and the illegals themselves for this problem, while they continue to hire them. WHen was the last time you heard on the news about Illegal Hiring? This is great for share holders (remember who owns the majority of stock in this country) but destructive to the economy and this country.

OK, I’m done. Thanks all.

[...] Target Gives $150K to Anti-Gay Republican's SupportersAutostraddle (blog)More businesses join Target in funding Republican PACMinnesota IndependentNPR (blog) -FOX 9 Newsall 492 news [...]

There is not a single for-profit company in this country dedicated to creating a healthy and prosperous economy. Building a solid customer base with disposable income is someone else’s responsibility. They are only interested in market share, not market survival.

Capitalism built this country, and extreme, globalized capitalism is destroying it.

Zera, how would a corporation expect to survive, and make their “obscene profits” if there were no customers?

It’s in everyone’s best interest to have a thriving economy – businesses so they can make money for their owners, employees, so they can be assured of further employment, government, so they can benefit from the tax revenue, and most of all, the consumers, who have the benefit of a wide choice in products at competitive prices if all businesses thrive in the marketplace.

You’ll notice that the ony entity that doesn’t contribute to that equation is government, who only benefits from the arrangement. Everyone else contributes something to making the free markets work.

[...] Target Gives $150K to Anti-Gay Republican's SupportersAutostraddle (blog)NPR (blog) -Minnesota Independentall 498 news [...]

“how would a corporation expect to survive, and make their “obscene profits” if there were no customers?”

A very good question,Dennis. Answer: the company will fold. Hopefully, that will happen to Target and Best Buy as people boycott their stores for their poor choice of political friends.

Denns’ world view is very sophisticated. Guvment bad. Bidness good. Black and white. Uguh-uguh.

I honestly don’t know who is the Dumb and who is the Dumber – Tom Emmer or this troll Dennis.

Shocker: Government helps make free markets possible in numerous ways. Take transportation infrastructure for one. ‘Nuf said.

Amazingly Mark Dayton, is the great-grandson of Target founder George Draper Dayton

[...] the word is out that the “Elect Tom Emmer” tee shirt has a couple more logos to be added : Best Buy, the Regis Corporation beauty salon business, and Securian insurance and [...]

I noticed Target and Best Buy’s conservative and insensitive business practises, that included discrimination against older people, people with disabilities, people of different races etc, and now gays and lesbians. It seems to be never ending with Target.

http://esmerasli.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/target-corporation-off-target/

Dano wrote: “We live in a Republic, not a Democracy.”

Last time I looked, we lived in both. Merriam-Webster: “1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.”

The “we’re not a democracy” chant is political-pseudo-science churned out in Texas so that no Republican has to sully his or her lips with a positive use of the word “democratic.” (They already tried to take it away from Democrats by insiting on calling it the Democrat Party, a phrase that makes anyone who uses it sound like a moron.)

Get over it, folks: Republican is an adjective, and it describes this country. Democratic is an adjective, and it also describes this country. Both are the qualifiers of the word “party” in this country, even at those moments when the Republican Party isn’t being very small-r republican and the Democratic Party isn’t being very small-d democratic. The dumb language games get offensive when they actually try to make the claim that ours is not actually meant to be a democracy. Of course, the people who make that claim tend to be very anti-democratic, with a small d, preferring oligarchic rule and methods like “poll taxes” that shut people out of voting. I don’t know if you’re one of them, Dano, but if not, you should be careful of the games you play.

Amy, thanks for your comment. Dano’s statement was out of character for him; I felt thrown off without knowing exactly why – and now we all know!

Out of character in the sense that the statement didn’t seem like another of his usual word games … Turns out he’ll never grow up after all!

I joined the group on facebook http://www.facebook.com/ABetterMinnesota?ref=mf&v=wall#!/pages/Boycott-Target-Until-They-Cease-Funding-Anti-Gay-Politics/147077835306202?ref=ts and in just a few days we have over 24,000 people in this group. That is 24,000 less consumers for Target, Best Buy and now Regis. Join the boycott and join the facebook page BOYCOTT TARGET and keep the numbers growing. I will NOT shop at any place that supports anti-gay and pro-hate messages and philosophies, political or not, until those same entities make it right, apologize PUBLICLY and arrange for AT LEAST the same amount of $$$ to be donated to human rights campaigns or something similar. First, though, the PUBLIC APOLOGY.

Minnesota is making ALL the national headlines, even mine. Great investigative reporting, especially by Andy Birkey. http://ttthomas.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/target-between-hard-rock-gospel-and-a-bad-place/

I will increase my buying o Target

I happen to be a fiscal conservative and social democrat or what I personally like to as
a moderate. To touch on two things that Steve and Dennis have both brought up. A Corporation
is in fact a legal entity. It’s fundamental responsibility, indeed it’s legal responsibility is to its
shareholders. That responsibility is to make profits. It is not designed to be ethical or moral
depending on how you choose to describe it. It is only required to follow the law. Dennis pointed out that Corps have certain rights like ordinary citizens. They also have certain protections that are not granted to citizens. To use an old adage, The get to have their cake and eat it too. I am
all for making money. The more the merrier. I am not, however, for making money at the
expense of others. When we talk about the old robber barons we tout the money they made
while at the same time reflecting on the lives they destroyed. We look back on it and point ouy
how ruthless and often unethical Andrew Carnegie and and Rockefeller as if we are to learn something from that. We apparently have learned nothing because in todays modernized America it still goes on. Instead of using a hammer like the old days they use a scalpel bet the socio-economic effect is still the same. As we can see in our latest Wall Street debacle
which we are all paying for. Personally I think we need to pull the plug on Corps being recognized as citizens. I think it would automatically create a level playing field. If you think about it as a shareholder, and I am one, you have an unfair advantage over the little guy. How so? well you basically get two vote. One from your company and one from yourself. That is just one example of questionable but legal perks to being a part of a corp in america. I began to take a much more objective perspective when I saw my portfolio take some massive hits. Also while watching the whole Goldman Sachs thing with congress was an eye opener. Goldman was talking apples and congress was talking oranges. Goldman had done nothing legally wrong. That was effectively the whole point to there argument. While congress on the other hand was accusing them of being unethical. Here is what I mean about ethical versus legal with corps.
They have a LEGAL obligation not an ETHICAL obligation. Corps do not sail by a moral compass. The sooner we, all of us, come to terms with that the sooner we can take well thought out action that curbs certain corporate practices without jeopardizing the economy

Oh and pardon my typos. My computer does not like this interface so I could only see a portion of the screen.