Anonymous v. Koch brothers
dangerousminds.net
dangerousminds.net
Wow. I was skeptical at this claim, but it appears to be true?
* http://drudgeretort.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/walker-to-make-...
* http://wisconsin.onpolitix.com/news/36834/governor-walker-an...
Bizarre.
As far as Koch Industries they specifically said (in the 2nd link you posted) that they have no interest in the power plants.
Any government bidding program is going to take several years to complete. It's going to involve a committee to evaluate the bids. That committee will have to be formed meaning there will be politics involved in deciding who is on the committee. Once that's all done you'll have to put out the request for bids and wait for those bids to come in. Then comes the evaluation by the committee and so on.
Again I wouldn't disagree if you said he's acting rashly but it's consistent with his public stance to push these things quickly.
It doesn't have to be that, either. A fixed, short to medium time frame will do for bids; it doesn't have to be all or nothing.
And honestly, perhaps he's 100% on the up and up (like every other politician), and Koch Industries is honest to a fault (like so many other corporations) and really DOESN'T want utilities at potentially criminally low prices; this non-bid clause give a huge appearance of impropriety. With nothing else anywhere to show that there isn't any, would it not be prudent to either explain his actions or change them accordingly?
I doubt this. Governments routinely sell assets, such as property seized in criminal cases, tax foreclosures, and surplus equipment at auction and it doesn't take years. There doesn't seem to be anything about the proposed sales in Wisconsin that would require a long procedure.
Paul Collier, author of the "Bottom Billion", said poor countries get screwed for their resources because they don't put them up to bid. He even said the British government valued certain frequencies at 2 billion, but they later sold for 20 billion during bidding, so it's better for all governments to auction assets instead of pricing them or giving them away.
Unfortunately, Walker seems to think that experience is an instruction manual.
No one's saying it was a bad decision to build the infrastructure. The the state only has so much money and this is taking more of it every month.
Why is there a no-bid clause? Should the government not be obligated to try and get the best price it can on a major property sale?
The no-bid part just reeks of corruption - there's no solid reason to have it there. If someone bids ten dollars for a power plant and nobody else comes forward with a better bid, so be it, but at least the process needs to be competitive and transparent.
In other words, "Don't let the best be the enemy of the good."
By announcing that they're "targeting" an organization, knowing that that will be reported and that people will completely forget this "conflict" by the time whichever person or persons within Anonymous made this announcement lose interest in this "operation"?
OK, that last is almost kinda sharp.
2. They're bringing up politically salient points like the "clause would allow the sale of publicly owned utility plants in Wisconsin to private parties (specifically, Koch Industries) at any price, no matter how low, without a public bidding process."
3. Their writing sounds populist and they're boldly declaring attacks against powerful opponents which gives them a David v. Goliath story which is easy for the public to get behind.
4. Colbert did a story on them so their name is growing.
5. I'm not saying they're good or bad. But, whatever their ideology, they're becoming a stronger presence and they're getting better at diplomacy.
2) This is not their discovery. Or, you know, particularly remarkable. No-bid contracts have a long and dirty history.
3) That's not "sharpness", that's just grandstanding by individuals in a community that values attention-seeking.
4) And? See #3.
You're rather clearly confusing political acumen with "can get attention".
Brilliance in obscurity has no political impact.
And anonymous isn't part of "the Left".
In fact, almost any sentence involving a capitalized "the Left" is probably missing the mark.
They've donated at least $20 million to the ACLU to fight the Patriot Act. They support the Cato institute. One of them ran for president on the Libertarian ticket.
The Koch family isn't unified in its views; collectively the group does support some "movement conservative" causes. For that matter, they've supported a few democrats and democrat-favored causes. But "libertarian" actually fits pretty well if you need an overall label.
The people attacking the Koch brothers are from the Left--left-wing blogs, left-wing radio hosts, and so on. You don't give any reasons why my statements missed the mark, so I can only assume you have none. You may not like the phrase simply because you don't like being labeled--I'm sure the Right feels the same way.
Anonymous is just a label any anonymous people can use, and I didn't make a determination about who any anonymous people belonged to. I simply described the recent attacks on the Koch brothers, which is most definitely coming from the Left.
As for the rich creating so-called grass roots organizations I don't see Anonymous going after George Soros. So they can't be all that opposed to the practice.