Apple's Steve Jobs: "....about as a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat as ever there was."

[Elwood P Dowd]

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/ByteOfTheApple/blog/archives/2007/02/steve_jobs_shou.html

Edit to add: Article is about his low opinion of teacher's unions. I didn't realize so many Democrats, including a couple of Dem teachers I know, were down on the unions. What exactly is the cause of this?

<snip>

One thing that strikes me as odd, is the politics of the people involved. Jobs is about as a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat as ever there was. In 2000, he gave $50,000 to the Democratic National Committee, for instance; His Wife Laurene Powell Jobs has been recently contributing to Barack Obama and to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s pre-candidacy organization known as HillPac. Here’s a link to a search form from the Center for Responsive Politics (sorry it doesn’t allow deep-linking to search results, so you’ll have to search for yourself). If you search for contributions from people with the last name of Jobs who live in California, you’ll that Steve and Laureen gave a sizable chunk of change to Who’s Who of prominent Democrats over the course of the last decade.

Michael Dell, for his part is a solid Republican, at least based on who he gives his money to, as shown in the CRP’s records: He’s made contributions to Tom DeLay and the “Every Republican Is Crucial” PAC (ERICPAC) among others in recent years. You’d think that so stalwart a Republican would have less-friendly things to say about unions, especially teachers unions. Republicans aren’t exactly popular with teachers unions. But he took the easy way out, and defended the unions, saying “the employer was treating his employees unfairly and that was not good. … So now you have these enterprises where they take good care of their people. The employees won, they do really well and succeed.” Dell opted to be less controversial on the subject, perhaps for fear of hurting his sales to schools, while his company is is experiencing a bit of a rough patch.

[SocialistLez]

1. Very very interesting.

I just have to wonder what kind of Democrat would allow his products to be made by Chinese slaves....

[Elwood P Dowd]

5. All the competition is doing the same thing.

At least Apple admitted they were having problems with one of their Chinese contractors. The other companies don't admit to shit until a news story breaks about it. I want Apple and all the others to bring back production to the US, but it will never happen until our President and the majority of Congress change our insane trade laws.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

2. Is that the same as a

dyedinthewoolliberal? :bounce:

[mediaman007]

3. Way too many people, who have no knowledge of classroom instruction,

have too much say in the remaking of education.

As for teachers' unions, they do a lot more than protect teacher jobs. No one gives them credit for giving teachers a living wage and reasonable working conditions. Who represents teachers' perspectives in the legislatures when the states develop education rules?

As a teacher, I fear that we will return to the days when teachers were told to be in by 8:00 PM at night and to be in church on Sunday. Obviously, teachers who become pregnant will lose their right to teach while pregnant. Heaven help the teacher who becomes pregnant before marriage.

[cbdo2007]

4. Not all Democrats are for unions. Not all Repubes are against them.

[w4rma]

6. Dyed in the wool DLC Democrat. Corporatist. (nt)

[LiberalAndProud]

7. I'm guessing

Almost everyone I talk to has had the experience of watching a really bad teacher -- one that really should not be in the classroom -- kept in the classroom with the assistance of the NEA (is that the right acronym?)

I'm sure there are some that simply don't want to pay teachers what they're worth, but that hasn't been the criticism I've most often encountered.