It's an interesting question, and you'll probably be surprised at the answer. The oddest source of the left's money comes from the rich. The really rich. The Washington Times recently reported that the richest 1 percentof Americans give disproportionately more to Democrats than to Republicans. Republicans, on the other hand, get more money from the richest fifthof income earners.

That makes sense, when you think about it. Ted Turner can afford to support high-tax policies because he can fork over half the millions he makes every year and still have enough left over to buy the state of Oregon.

A tax cut makes more sense however, to say a family of four making 0,000, with two kids in college. Both are taxed at the highest bracket, but Ted can afford to be a little more generous in support of the way the government spends your money.

Much of the remainder of the left's financial backing comes from coercion. That is, they take money without asking for it, often from people who would rather not give it to them.

Taxes are the best example. Each time Congress creates a new government program, it gives birth to a fresh litter of Democrats and left wingers. That's because each government program needs to be staffed by people who, naturally, don't want to lose their jobs. So they vote Democrat, the party most likely to continue government programs. And with the exception of certain corporate welfare and farm subsidy programs, the people who benefit from those vote Democrat too, for the same reason.

In most cases, employees of the federal government are required to join the union that represents federal employees, and pay dues. Your taxes fund it all.

That brings me to my second example: unions.

In most states today, most blue-collar jobs are "closed-shop." That means if you want to be an electrician or a carpenter or a welder, you've no choice but to join the union-- and pay dues. A portion of those dues then goes to political efforts-- "get out the vote" drives, for example-- and those efforts almost always benefit the Democrats.

In its famous Beck decision in 1988, the Supreme Court ruled that unions must make the portion of union dues used for political efforts refundable to members. But for eight years, that decision was unenthusiastically enforced by the Clinton administration. Today, unions of course make acquiring such a refund far more trouble than it's worth .

A third, less-known example of leftist coercion is Ralph Nader's nationwide army of Public Interest Group chapters on college campuses across the country. PIRGs are notorious for surreptitiously conning college students into donating one, three, sometimes as many as five dollars to the organization each time they register for classes.

When I was an undergraduate at Indiana University, PIRG representatives came into my fraternity with a petition. They told us they were a "completely apolitical" organization that "represents the interests of college students."

Funny. I was a college student at the time. "Ensuring fair and affordable insurance," "asking the EPA for tougher diesel engine standards" and forcing industries to pay into a pollution cleanup fund-- all taken from the PIRG Web site -- weren't at all causes I would have found to be "in my interest."

The Indiana University chapter also sought to fund itself through a sneaky "reverse check" system, whereby each and every college student on campus automatically donated three dollars to the organization each time he registered for classes unless he specifically sought out the donate box and unchecked it.

PIRG chapters today employ awide variety of shady funding schemes , but very little of the money extracted from college students actually stays on campus. Most of it goes toPIRG's national headquarters, and is then redistributed.

College campuses are also notorious for mandating that students pay "activity fees," which are collected into a general fund, then redistributed, usually by student government representatives, and almost always disproportionately to leftist causes.

Leftists often respond that yes, unions and some colleges often divert mandatory fees to the left, but that corporations are just as guilty when they divert shareholders' money to the right.

Not quite the case. In fact, corporations-- and particularly their philanthropic wings-- unfortunately give copious amounts of money to causes directly in opposition to their interests. Washington D.C.'s Capital Research Center has documented this bizarre trend of self-loathing advocacy for almost 20 years.

This is in part because the philanthropic wings of corporations and corporate foundations are often staffed by people interested in philanthropy, not business. And those people lean disproportionately left.

But it's also because corporations are regular made to feel guilty by shakedown schemes like Jesse Jackson's now-legendary "Wall Street Project," where he threatened big corporations with bad race-based publicity unless they open their checkbooks for his causes.

And even if corporations did give disproportionately to the right, the comparison doesn't hold up. Shareholders are free to invest in companies whose politics are more in line with their own. But if you're a Republican electrician in a state that mandates union membership, your options are simple: Pay the dues demanded of you, or find another line of work.

So to answer our original question, there really isn't a Richard Mellon Scaife of the left. There are a few Ted Turners and Barbara Streisands-- people so rich that they can afford to be generous with your money. But much of the rest of the money that funds leftist causes comes from unwitting autoworkers, from reluctant taxpayers and from the oblivious parents of college students.

Yes.

It comes from you.

Radley Balko is a writer living in Arlington, Va. He also maintains a weblog at www.theagitator.com .

Last I heard that right-wing rag was owned by none other than the Rev. Moon, Bush's spiritual advisor...

Hey if those richies are funding "the left", how come I haven't seen any of the money?

Oh, your not talking about "the left", your talking about the democratic party. Oh yeah, those are three different beasts.

It’s always mystifying to witness the mindset of “left”/”right”, either/or mentality. If it’s not “right”, then it must be “left”. Or one can include “centrists”, but that’s little more than a combination of those same views.

Why does it appear beyond the grasp of the general public to come to the awareness of something altogether different? Why identify with some limiting label to begin with? “Left” isn’t right and “right” isn’t wrong. The fragmentation is the error and source of the illusion.

Unless a critical mass of the population steps out of the comfort zone of some self-identifying label, then we are all doomed to suffer the dire consequences of those who would “defend” their “identity”.

I agree. To live in a world of duality is to die in a world of endless duals.

Here's a great articel for those of you who, like me, refuse to be pigeon-holed into easily definable categories. Drives the pollsters loony, don't you know?



The San Francisco Examiner

Publication date: 01/16/2003

The missing 'middle' in media

BY ANDREW JARVIS

Special to The Examiner

THERE HAS BEEN voluminous debate recently about alleged media bias. Conservatives in particular never cease carping about perceived liberal media bias. They back up these claims with an unceasing sprinkling of light anecdotes. Liberals usually take the opposite view and see the media being full of conservative bias.

Yet when one looks at the pundits, talking heads and columnists, one sees a constant, sorry parade of archetypal "conservatives" and "liberals." While conservative pundits outnumber the liberal, what is really absent are thoughtful moderate, non-ideological opinions. The voice of the moderate majority of Americans is underrepresented in the media.

The liberal vs. conservative face-off is a favorite format. This confrontational setup, designed to grab ratings, is sold like a showdown at the OK Corral. The assumption is that shouting, hyperbole and personal insults sell better than thoughtful discourse. People with a black-and-white vision of the world are more likely to produce colorful soundbites than non-ideologues, who see the world as having many nuances.

These media ideologues don't represent most Americans. Multiple surveys have shown that the majority of Americans are moderates. Where is their representation on talk shows or in opinion columns?

Only a minority of Americans think the truth can be neatly fit into an ideological box. Want to know the truth about an issue, just open your magic book of ideology and -- hey, presto! -- an easy answer. But most Americans are too smart to see the world in black and white.

The news media is dominated by these stale ideological battles. Instead of placing so much emphasis on the simplistic, ideological, two-party dichotomy, more attention should be given to the conflicts within ideologies and parties. The philosophical battles fought inside the Democratic and Republican parties are more important in determining future policy direction than those fought between them.

A party shifting its traditional position is a big catalyst for change. President Clinton radically changed the welfare system as we know it, scaling it back dramatically. Who opposed this? The Republicans could not offer significant opposition to what they had advocated for a long time. The real debate over these reforms took place within the Democratic Party.

President Reagan's signing of the INF treaty with the Soviet Union marked a true shift in history. The old Cold Warrior making peace with the "evil empire" meant the Cold War was over. There was no way that Democrats, who were traditionally in favor of a dÈtente approach to Soviet relations, were going to substantively oppose or overturn such agreements.

If you want to see the real trends within America, look inside the two parties.

When a new issue comes to the fore, it is very predictable how dogmatic people like Rush Limbaugh or Phil Donahue will respond. They rarely have anything fresh or original to say. They are more interested in advancing their ideology and party than making America a better place.

It is time that more moderate voices were brought into the media. Having middle America better represented in the media would dramatically improve the discourse on important issues.

http://www.examiner.com/opinion/default.jsp?story=op.jarvis.0116w

It was my impression that those on indymedia are not "Democrats" at all, as the author of the post assumes. I for one voted for Nader in 2000 and am a registered Green.

In case the poster hasn't heard, the Green Party doesn't take any coporate money, thus making his allegatiions irrelevant.