The only reason we have Christian holidays is because companies make major bank off them. Look at Halloween, wtf is that shit? It makes no sense but it makes companies money so why not.
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Is the NRA the Most Powerful Group in America?
- Thread starter Wanda/Wander
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The only reason we have Christian holidays is because companies make major bank off them. Look at Halloween, wtf is that shit? It makes no sense but it makes companies money so why not.
Chuck Norris
Banned
The agriculture industry
Dodd-Frank gives the fed the ability to break up banks. That's pretty major.
But even if it were just lip-service, that's more progress than you can say has been made in gun control legislation.
Now this is actually a good example.
OrbitalBeard
Member
They're incredibly powerful, yes. But I don't believe they're as influential as they once were. The NRA used to heavily support both Republicans and Democrats.
The NRA lobby is strong but I honestly believe this country's issues with guns would continue even without them. Firearms are too ingrained in our culture.
This might be the real answer.
The NRA lobby is strong but I honestly believe this country's issues with guns would continue even without them. Firearms are too ingrained in our culture.
This might be the real answer.
I'd say that a group that managed to make government research of gun violence illegal its pretty damn powerful.
Unfortunately Sandy Hook happened well after we lose the supermajority in the Senate. Obama spent all his political capital on the stimulus, Dodd Frank and the ACA.
Wow so powerful you dont even think of them immediately. Its a good answer.
Oh yeah, you win. Those never-ending subsidies.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
What do you consider "substantial"?
Additional regulations on finance have the consequence of limiting additional entrants and further centralizing influence.
Additional regs on guns has no similar effect.
ugaboga232
Member
Healthcare/pharma given how much of the federal budget it is/going to be yet is still laughably bad at delivering care especially when other nations have shown much better systems (not just talking about single payer either).
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
1. Banks
2. Energy
3. NRA
The NRA and Republican Party have successfully brainwashed their disciples into thinking any gun regulation = "they commin for mah gunz". They got people to sit back after two dozen kindergartners were murdered and loudly proclaim "aint that a shame". They've set it up so even Democrats are frightened of them. If they got control of Congress back, they probably still would not put forth meaningful gun legislation.
2. Energy
3. NRA
The NRA and Republican Party have successfully brainwashed their disciples into thinking any gun regulation = "they commin for mah gunz". They got people to sit back after two dozen kindergartners were murdered and loudly proclaim "aint that a shame". They've set it up so even Democrats are frightened of them. If they got control of Congress back, they probably still would not put forth meaningful gun legislation.
Absolutely not. One of the most powerful, but not THE most powerful. A lot of people are misguided about the NRA anyway. A lot of it's members haven't contributed donations for the political earnings. I know members of the NRA(including myself not long ago) that paid a fee for the shooting ranges and safety courses. Also, the majority of NRA members are for gun control. It's like most members are oblivious.
I'm pretty sure a majority of gun owners and I believe a majority of Republicans also want better gun control. I'm unsure of the latter.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
ALEC? ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIMgfBZrrZ8 )
Look at what lobbying can do at the ground level. Look at what happens when nobody pays attention to these psychopaths running unopposed. Fixing the supreme court in the right direction is a start, but if people don't engage after this election.
I seriously hope a group of those Bernie Sanders supporters who believed in his message will fight the fight on the ground after this election. Whatever core that may be, things cannot go back to the way they were before.
ExxonMobile; "for example, their Political Action Committee effectively acts as a finance arm of the Republican Party in the United States, and until about 2006 they made aggressive investments in free market groups trying to combat mainstream climate science that I personally think will look pretty embarrassing for years to come. These are not the kinds of aggressive, one-sided interventions in American politics that you would expect from the country’s largest or near-largest corporation (depending on the year and the method of measure), a corporation that has diverse employees and is very broadly owned by individual shareholders, government pension funds, mutual funds, and so on. Also, they are their own worst enemy in public relations — remorselessly aggressive, arrogant, and often self-defeating. So in that self-inflicted sense, they also deserve their reputation."
http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/04/27/not-the-cia-not-bin-ladin-exxon-is-the-toughest-nut/
Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Walmart also strikes me as lobbying for massive influence. Disney in particularly is supposed to be spearheading TPP.
They need the TPP because Mickey Mouse and other Disney IPs are on the verge of risking public domain. That is unacceptable for them. They've lobbyed amazingly for many years for having 24 month extensions to keep Mickey and other characters from going hands off.
They want the copyright laws changed, but they also want more power on who they can sue for plagerisation.
Look at what lobbying can do at the ground level. Look at what happens when nobody pays attention to these psychopaths running unopposed. Fixing the supreme court in the right direction is a start, but if people don't engage after this election.
I seriously hope a group of those Bernie Sanders supporters who believed in his message will fight the fight on the ground after this election. Whatever core that may be, things cannot go back to the way they were before.
ExxonMobile; "for example, their Political Action Committee effectively acts as a finance arm of the Republican Party in the United States, and until about 2006 they made aggressive investments in free market groups trying to combat mainstream climate science that I personally think will look pretty embarrassing for years to come. These are not the kinds of aggressive, one-sided interventions in American politics that you would expect from the country’s largest or near-largest corporation (depending on the year and the method of measure), a corporation that has diverse employees and is very broadly owned by individual shareholders, government pension funds, mutual funds, and so on. Also, they are their own worst enemy in public relations — remorselessly aggressive, arrogant, and often self-defeating. So in that self-inflicted sense, they also deserve their reputation."
http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/04/27/not-the-cia-not-bin-ladin-exxon-is-the-toughest-nut/
Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Walmart also strikes me as lobbying for massive influence. Disney in particularly is supposed to be spearheading TPP.
They need the TPP because Mickey Mouse and other Disney IPs are on the verge of risking public domain. That is unacceptable for them. They've lobbyed amazingly for many years for having 24 month extensions to keep Mickey and other characters from going hands off.
They want the copyright laws changed, but they also want more power on who they can sue for plagerisation.
Yeah...gonna have to go with these 2. They're never the go-to examples, but you'd probably be hard pressed to find better examples after looking into things.
Thing is, refusing to increase taxes on the rich and "starving the beast" is possibly the worse negative feedback loop ever devised in a democracy. It effectively justifies itself as government does worse; calling for less funding and worse government.
Plus as confidence in government gets hit and participation goes down, all the lobby groups move in.
He's literally the posion thats led to a lot of these other issues.
1.21Gigawatts
Banned
Wall Street, the military industrial complex, oil/gas/coal lobby and others might be more powerful in terms of money and connection, but unlike all these special interest groups the NRA also has a sizable amount of normal citizens behind them.
Edit:
Measured by effect the fossile fuel lobby is probably the worst offender. Their actions will cost millions upon millions of lives and trillions upon trillions of dollars.
Edit:
Measured by effect the fossile fuel lobby is probably the worst offender. Their actions will cost millions upon millions of lives and trillions upon trillions of dollars.
I agree with this. Just saying that if the NRA wants to ruin a republican's political career they can do it just as well, if not better, than Grover could.
I can think of 3:
AIPAC
The Financial Industry (Read: Banks and their lobbyists)
Military Hardware companies
These three are insanely strong, to the point where opposition to them is fucking laughable at this point. Whatever they want, they get, and to go against them is political suicide. It's crazy to imagine organizations even more intractable than the NRA in terms of power and influence.
mattiewheels
And then the LORD David Bowie saith to his Son, Jonny Depp: 'Go, and spread my image amongst the cosmos. For every living thing is in anguish and only the LIGHT shall give them reprieve.'
I wanted to start a thread about what can be done about the influence of the NRA in politics. I saw the Twitter screen grab of the NRA donations to politicians, and it seemed kind of low rent compared to what I expected the buy offs to be. Is it just a matter of them not having to try too hard, preaching to the choir in the tea party congress? I'm sure I'm not seeing a lot of political maneuvering on their part, though.
Host Samurai
Member
No contest
It's a reinforcing loop, as other alluded to. They live in conservative states, which typically hold very strongly to individual gun rights. The money isn't even all that big for Congressional races which tend to run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars to the low millions.
Grover also has considerable control over the NRA too IIRC.
The agriculture industry is very powerful (stronger than big pharma) but it's also huge. I think in terms of influence vs size nobody beats the NRA.
Unknown Soldier
Member
AIPAC beats them all.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
Illuminati.
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CrocMother
Banned
There are many powerful special interest groups in the US that have collective economic interests and conflicts.
It's not about what they donate to congressmen but rather that they spend money on attacking anyone who doesn't fall in line.
All the same, they get good bang for their buck because they only need to defend the one thing.
IISANDERII
Member
Nice link.
Chamber of Commerce holy shit $1billion spent on lobbying in 15yrs.
Interesting that the Medical Association was in favour of the Affordable Care Act
Not only that but think of California's water crisis, and Erie's algae problems. Both heavily influenced by Agriculture. In fact agriculture is by far the heaviest user of water in Cali but there were very little in the way of legislated cuts to their water use while ordinary people couldn't even water their lawns.
RoyaleDuke
Banned
Nah man, the rich and entitled rule the world.
UnemployedVillain
Member
Can't believe I'm one of the few people in here to mention AIPAC. They're the primary reason we still even bother with Israel's triffling ass
Chuck Norris
Banned
Or deforestation, and methane emissions caused by cattle, water pollution caused by waste run off. Poor conditions for animals.
The agriculture industry rarely have to deal with these PR issues in the way others like NRA, Cigarettes or Energy are constantly dealing with their own problems
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Is there any gun group with membership near that of the NRA that pushes for reasonable Gun Control?
Because I'll be honest. Each and every member of the NRA condones doing absolutely nothing about these mass shootings. Each and every NRA member is OK with that, and gives money to make sure that future shootings are just as easy for some psycho to engage in. Each and every NRA member say back after two dozen Kindergartners were massacred and said in a loud, expensive and proud voice, "So?".
Maybe not THE most powerful, but it's certainly up there.
Imagine if there was something else that caused deaths every single day and, in one instance, caused 50 deaths and over 50 injuries in one fell swoop. Everyone would rightly call for heavy regulations of that thing.
But when it's guns, nope, regulations have no chance of getting passed because we can't piss off the NRA.
Imagine if there was something else that caused deaths every single day and, in one instance, caused 50 deaths and over 50 injuries in one fell swoop. Everyone would rightly call for heavy regulations of that thing.
But when it's guns, nope, regulations have no chance of getting passed because we can't piss off the NRA.
The Albatross
Member
No, absolutely not... They're not even remotely close.
In terms of campaign contributions, the NRA doesn't top the top 20 of "Special Interest / SIngle Issue" category on OpenSecrets:
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?Ind=Q
That category is #4 overall for total contributions... WIth the entire category amounting to $180m in contributions... Compared to the top category, Finance/Insurance/RealEstate amounting to over $500m.
The NRA gave about $1m in campaign contributions in 2014.
That said the NRA's campaign contributions are around a single issue, guns. And $1m in campaign contributions in an election cycle around a single issue can drive the issue... Soros Fund gives $15m but it's spread over a number of issues, some which they win on, some which they lose. EMILY's List, the Pro-choice women's election fund, roughly doubles the NRA, Environment America nearly triples it. Despite that the NRA really doesn't spend that much (they don't crack the top 20 of their category, a category which is smaller than the others in the top 5), it's because they don't have to. Guns are an issue that people don't need convincing on. It's an issue that people feel strongly about on both sides, without being pushed one way or the other.
(Also, outside of direct contributions, the NRA also spends millions on lobbying and advertising, but the ratios work out the same in comparison to others)
In terms of campaign contributions, the NRA doesn't top the top 20 of "Special Interest / SIngle Issue" category on OpenSecrets:
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?Ind=Q
That category is #4 overall for total contributions... WIth the entire category amounting to $180m in contributions... Compared to the top category, Finance/Insurance/RealEstate amounting to over $500m.
The NRA gave about $1m in campaign contributions in 2014.
That said the NRA's campaign contributions are around a single issue, guns. And $1m in campaign contributions in an election cycle around a single issue can drive the issue... Soros Fund gives $15m but it's spread over a number of issues, some which they win on, some which they lose. EMILY's List, the Pro-choice women's election fund, roughly doubles the NRA, Environment America nearly triples it. Despite that the NRA really doesn't spend that much (they don't crack the top 20 of their category, a category which is smaller than the others in the top 5), it's because they don't have to. Guns are an issue that people don't need convincing on. It's an issue that people feel strongly about on both sides, without being pushed one way or the other.
(Also, outside of direct contributions, the NRA also spends millions on lobbying and advertising, but the ratios work out the same in comparison to others)
Dollar donations alone don't represent how powerful a lobby can be. The NRA can kill a republican candidate with just the lack of an endorsement. They have far more influence than you give them credit for with this post.
Yup a lot of the issues with water quality are caused by agricultural runoff see the Erie Algae blooms. In fact things like water shortages caused by their excessive pumping of aquifers are seen as oh poor farmers rather then we might want to regulate them pumping so much water....
The Albatross
Member
That's a good point, but it's because voters feel strongly about the issue that the NRA represents. As misled or crazy as people who are strongly Pro-Gun might be, there is a large plurality of voters who feel strongly about gun ownership.
The issue is a strong one, and the NRA represents that issue without doing as much work of their own compared to other organizations/special interests which lobby more, spend more, and advertise more.
The "power" of the NRA is because a lot of people agree with what the NRA stands for. Comparatively very few people feel strongly about preserving some obscure facet of the lending industry, and while those groups spend as much as 100 or 200 times what the NRA spends, the issue just isn't a motivating issue for most people, and yet politicians change their policy because of that spending, not because their constituency requests the policy.
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