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Mastercard to Hold Shareholder Vote That Could Cut Off Payments to the Far-Right
- deogeo 8y agoAlternative title: US multinational considers interfering with EU elections by blocking funds to disfavored groups.
- olliej 8y agoSo should they also be required to support the IRA?
- toomuchtodo 8y agoPayment networks are utilities and should be regulated as such. You should never be able to block a legitimate payment (as a corporate entity) that isn’t associated with illegal activity.
- skoskie 8y agoHadn’t considered this before, but it’s a good point.
- deogeo 8y agoThey should be required to treat everyone neutrally unless specifically ordered to block them by a court of law. No good will come from allowing unaccountable banking oligopolies to decide who can buy and sell.
- Veen 8y agoThe IRA is a proscribed organization in the UK. It’s illegal. Far right parties are not.
- pjc50 8y agoSome are: National Action is proscribed.
- DanBC 8y agoYes. Here's a list of the proscribed organisations: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/proscribed-terror-groups-or-organisations--2 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/proscribed-terror... There are groups that are to be treated as if they are National Action: > Note: The Government laid an Order in September 2017 which provides that “Scottish Dawn”and “NS131 (National Socialist Anti-Capitalist Action)” should be treated as alternativenames for the organisation which is already proscribed as National Action. For people who don't know who national action are, they're linked to the death of one MP and the planning of the murder of other MPs.
- Veen 8y agoYes, some are. But not the ones associated with that jackass Tommy Robinson, who is mentioned in the article. Distasteful as the EDL is, it’s a legal party that takes part in the democratic process.
- olliej 8y agoIf your party is based on the concept that some humans are not equal, and should be treated as such, then you aren't justifiably part of the political system. If you want to be part of the political system, a fundamental concept is that everyone should be treated as having equal political power.
- Veen 8y agoThis is not precise enough to mean anything. It’s pleasant-sounding emotive nonsense that is true on its face but has nothing to do with the realities of the political situation in the UK. Who thinks humans are not equal? In what way do they think them unequal? What do they want to do about it? Are they white supremacists or are they just anti-immigration? Do they hate Islam or do they want to protect what they see as the established culture of the nation? Are they prepared to work within democratic structures and appeal for votes the same way everyone else or not? These distinctions matter when you’re talking about banning people from political involvement.
- perl4ever 8y ago"As crazy as this initially sounds, you might consider funding your IRA by using a cash advance on your credit card." https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/funding-ira-with-credit-card-1267.php https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/funding-ira-wit...
- DanBC 8y agoYaxley-Lennon isn't running in any political elections. The EDL isn't a political party.
- deogeo 8y ago1. No-one said this move would be limited to the handful of examples given in the article. 2. "SumOfUs has also pointed to the activity of Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. The former English Defence League founder is running as an independent in May’s European election."
- DanBC 8y agoIsn't he disqualified?
- olliej 8y agoAbout time
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- draw_down 8y agoAh yes, Mastercard, that famous communist organization.
- hollasch 8y ago“This weapon we're developing — it will only be used on bad guys, right?”
- csense 8y agoIf a bakery's not allowed to refuse cake-baking services because the cake is going to a gay couple getting married, Mastercard shouldn't be allowed to refuse payment services to a political speaker because the speaker says that Islam is bad. Either allow them both, or forbid them both. If you allow one, but forbid the other, your policies are nothing more than thinly disguised attempts to use the law to attack people with different political beliefs. Arguably, a tougher standard should be applied to decide to whom Mastercard is allowed to refuse service, because there are a lot fewer alternatives to Mastercard than there are to the corner cake shop.
- Traster 8y agoFirstly, on the facts: The bakery that refused the gay couple actually won the supreme court case. Secondly, in your example you're comparing a protected class with a non-protected class. Thirdly, let's do away with the idea that government is apolitical. There are things that the government makes value judgements about, that's not a bad thing. The government can decide that some groups deserve protection more than others - for example, that being Gay is a part of who you are, whereas voicing particular political views is a choice.
- pesmhey 8y agoThirdly, let's do away with the idea that government is apolitical. There’s also no fighting in the war room!
- iamnothere 8y ago> The government can decide that some groups deserve protection more than others - for example, that being Gay is a part of who you are, whereas voicing particular political views is a choice. Indeed, a government could in theory do this. A government could refuse to take action when banks refuse to accept customers with particular political views. A government could allow "redlining" housing practices against people with particular political views. A government could cut off police services to people with particular political views. Barring legal and constitutional restrictions (which these days are very "fluid") a government can do almost whatever it wants to do until it meets pushback from its power brokers. Just because this could happen, doesn't mean it should. Modern civil society is based on the notion that non-criminals are entitled to some degree of participation in society, even if they are disliked. If you take away that foundation, society will quickly become paralyzed by violence. I personally would like to live at least a few more decades, so I'm not too eager to see where that road takes us.
- ibeckermayer 8y agoThis is an attempt to undermine the constitution and extrajudicially violate the human right of free association for political ends. Any pseudo arguments of “the free market” are completely irrelevant in a financial system legally monopolized by a single institution (the federal reserve) and regulated and controlled to the degree the US system is.
- skoskie 8y agoAre you arguing that this is unconstitutional because MasterCard faces financial regulations and is therefore equivalent to the government under constitutional law? That’s one hell of a stretch.
- ibeckermayer 7y agoYes, Mastercard and nearly the entire financial industry is effectively a government program. If your industry is based on a legislative cartel (monopoly federal reserve feed monopoly big-banks feed monopoly payment networks), you're already unaccountable to market forces. If that same industry can count on the taxpayer to bail them out when their incompetence uproots the entire financial system, they are morally equivalent to a government institution. Mastercard and all other monopolistic financial institutions should be forced to uphold the Bill of Rights so long as they benefit from this level of government privilege.
- anon1000 8y agoThis has all the trappings to make it smell very much like communist political repression, just ever so slightly softer.
- itry2develop 8y agoBasically everyone right of Marx falls under "far right" to these groups in 2019...
- xfitm3 8y agoIt should also apply to far-left.
- sonnyblarney 8y agoIn Canada we have a fairly modern constitution (it's only 40-ish years old, very new, comparably). It starts out with 'freedom conscience, religion and association' etc.. This is because historically, the #1 thing by far that authoritarians are concerned with is stomping out the opposition. People 'gathering' to discuss 'political ideas' that challenge the status quo are really why the KGB etc. existed. Most armies in the world exist to suppress their own people (FYI it's why the US Army cannot be 'deployed' on US soil). In that context, it's a very, very dangerous thing to start blocking people from the financial system for political views. Yes, we can block Nazis and ISIS. FYI I still don't know why we allow Communists to exist after the reality of the last century, but hey, they don't get many votes so there's that. But this is pragmatically a very, very slippery slope. The slipperiest of all ropes. The bar for financial transactions is much higher than for Twitter and FB. This kind of stuff could blow up into a pop culture war, where every corporation and every teenager with an Instagram account will be calling for banning this or that for whatever reason. It's doubly hard when everyone thinks they are acting for the 'social good'. Let's actually try to be tolerant here.
- perl4ever 8y ago"In that context, it's a very, very dangerous thing to start blocking people from the financial system for political views." We aren't "starting". Recall all of the countries that have had sanctions placed on them, such as Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Russia, etc.
- sonnyblarney 8y agoThose are nations, not citizens. Nation states don't get constitutional protections. Russia invaded parts of Ukraine, is actively trying to take over the governments in the Baltic states, and is directly interfering in the elections of democracies. What kind of punishment do you think we'd give a person who did that? It would be more than a 'ban' from Mastercard, it would be more like life in prison or possibly execution.
- perl4ever 7y ago
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Proven 8y ago> who want to escalate the battle against white supremacists and far-right groups from tech platforms like Facebook, Google, Twitter, Patreon, and PayPal to one of the biggest companies in world finance, in an attempt to choke off donations. Those totalitarian fanatics are fighting against something that is completely legal, because they don't like how the recipients use legally obtained money. Separately, they are also trying to restrain various other human rights of their political opponents, and expect our sympathy and support? These people sound more dangerous than what they are fighting against and I can't help it buy wish them to fail miserably in their attempts to violate freedom of speech and other rights of their political opponents.
- pjkundert 8y agoNow that everyone and their grandma is labeled “far right” unless they are a registered Democrat or Antifa member, I guess we’d better start implementing tactical and strategic defenses. I’m a libertarian and I’m labeled “far right”. If that’s a harbinger of the future, get ready for it to be your turn — unless you swear fealty to your local leftist overlord, you’ll be “re-educated” with a bout of starvation or freezing on a park bench. Is that the future we really want?
- Fjolsvith 8y agoLet them do it, I say. I'm pretty sure that conservatives would en-mass boycott Mastercard, similar to the backlash that Nike experienced.