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Aren't you a gem. I tell you I'm in favor of US to stop meddling, and you still shit on me.

Princeton University study: Public opinion has "near-zero" impact on U.S. law.

Gilens & Page found that the number of Americans for or against any idea has no impact on the likelihood that congress will make it law. "The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy."

One thing that does have an influence? Money. While the opinions of the bottom 90% of income earners in America have a "statistically non-significant impact," Economic elites, business interests, and people who can afford lobbyists still carry major influence. http://scholar.princeton.edu/s...

Everyone on here sees the same problem: money in politics. But in the fifteen 3+ posts, not one. single. solution. Saying "we need to take the money out of politics" does not actually do a darn thing to take the money out of politics. Voting by yourself doesn't do it, there's another popular mantra "my vote doesn't matter, waahh."

How about we actually do something? https://represent.us/

The notion that corporations are people is ludicrous. Campaign contributions shouldn't be considered speech, either. These campaign contributions are tantamount to bribery. The wealth is cleverly spread around to guarantee the support of whoever gets elected, regardless of party. There's no legitimate reason that corporations can make campaign contributions. Require that donations be placed by individuals through non-partisan government agencies. Those agencies can then be responsible for providing the money to individuals candidates, without revealing the donors. Stop the bribery.

And there is only one way to do this, afaik.

The Supreme Court ruled corporations are people. See the Citizens United case. This can only be undone with an amendment to the constitution. Good luck accomplishing that in today's political climate.

Agreed it'll be difficult, but here is the only way to do it, afaik: https://represent.us/

There's no legitimate reason that corporations can make campaign contributions.

If you stop corporations from making contributions you would also need to stop unions. But that's never going to happen, because if the unions know that if they don't own their lawmakers the unions would cease to exist.

Here in Canada, both corporate and union donations have been stopped, as well as real people (actually only citizens and permanent residents) being limited to just over $1000 donations. We still have both unions and corporations.

Agreed, and the bipartisan way to change it is this. I really don't understand how so many people can be outraged by this much money flying around, yet seldom do they contribute to the orgs that actually do anything to fight it.

To be partisan, I would personally recognize dems as slightly better than R's who brought us Citizen's United to begin with, but ignore that if it distracts from doing something about it.

We need to fix the funding of our political system or just accept bribery as the political norm.

I've found the only realistic first step is contribute to causes that get money out of politics. Then support their candidates. I think there's other orgs that do it, that's just my favorite.

It might feel slimey, but I believe it's legal. Anyone that's outraged, at all, should be contributing to causes that get money out of politics. Or maybe support the candidates that take the least donations.

It still is called corruption by anybody that understands how societies work. It is the cancer that corrodes a society.

So much outrage over corruption, is anyone of you complaining actually doing something about it? The least of which might be to contribute to causes that get money out of politics.

I forgot to mention regularly support and donate to bipartisan causes trying to reduce money in politics (example). If I found a cause that tried to get rid of Gerrymandering, I'd support that too. I haven't found a sexy quick fix for these two problems, but if it were easy it would have been done already.

And piss off your biggest donors? No, You want your constituents to believe you are working in their best interest without having to actually commit. Rattling a sabre at the FCC's new rules accomplishes this without getting any blood on their hands because they know the actual vote will fail. Then when the voters complain they just point out there just weren't enough votes.

Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) have spent $572 million on attempts to influence the FCC and other government agencies since 2008.

https://medium.com/theyoungtur...
https://represent.us/action/ho...
https://www.theverge.com/2017/...

If you believe that such big-corporation friendly, citizen hostile, laws and agreements are the result of monied interests perverting our governments, then support whatever anti-corruption movements are active in your nation. In the USA http://represent.us/ is trying with some success to get big money out of local elections around the USA. Ultimately they hope to get enough elected officials around the country to have an impact at the national level, and to get rid of our system of legalized bribery. We all feel a bit helpless in the face of massive international corporations using their wealth and other power to control our governments. Represent.Us might be one realistic way to at least begin to organize and effectively counter the oligarchs. They have gotten big money out of elections in more places than has my bitching and moaning on my own :-)

We've dealt with non-compete agreements in IT for decades. Let's impose some on the politicians.

I'm gonna have to throw this one back at you buddy... You don't know what you're talking about. Military spending is about half of social welfare spending (a good rule of thumb for our budgets is about 1/3 Military, 1/3 Medicare/Medicaid, and 1/3 Social Security). That has been true for a while now. See this graphic for actual data: https://www.cbo.gov/sites/defa...

But the thing is, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are all programs where Americans pay into a program and then get that money back at a later date either as direct cash or as medical care. Military spending, on the other hand, is money that goes nowhere. Sure, we employ Americans, but if your plan to promote jobs is to just give everyone a government job then we might as well be socialist. Hundreds of millions of dollars of military spending goes to bombs we literally vaporize. A shitload of money in the last decade went to building those big ass MRAP trucks that cost $1m apiece that we ended up handing to local law enforcement around the country for free because the military never actually needed them. The US bought $485m in new jets from Italy for Afghanistan and then scrapped them for $32k because they didn't work. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/f...
US Military spending is RIFE with pork.

Do you know how large the military budget is? It is way too big. In 2010 the budget was $700 Billion a year. In 2000 it was only $300B a year, and we were still BY FAR the world's largest military. We've added $400 BILLION dollars to our YEARLY military budget in the last 14 years. And it wasn't Obama that committed to that military spending, it was Bush. The president who committed to massive wars without paying for them (actually decreasing taxes at the same time).

This is how our military spending stacks up to the rest of the world.
http://cdn1.globalissues.org/i...

If Obama wanted to add $10B a year to helping Americans, you'd probably flip. But unchecked spending on the military is just fine by you?

The budget that is going through the House tonight has $490 Million for a fighter jet that doesn't work and the military does not want. Meanwhile, we are cutting $92 million from the food stamp program.
http://bulletin.represent.us/5...

Military spending in this country is fucking insane man, you literally have no idea. I can tell by your invocation of Obamacare as somehow a significant force in our debt that in fact you have no idea what you are talking about. Obamacare doesn't move the needle. And don't just shout that you know otherwise. You've been lied to and you've eaten it up. Go find the factual data that says Obamacare increased our budget by even 1% of our military spending. It's okay, I'll wait.

How do plan we make people care?

Here's a plan. Here's another plan. Here's another plan.

...is still garbage. We Americans should not feel at all good about how badly we're getting fleeced by the telecoms just because someone else has it worse, just as an American McDonald's worker shouldn't brush off their own depressing work conditions after witnessing work conditions in the third world. That kind of thinking is a race to the bottom.

Americans will not see fair prices for phone service until we accept that utilities like phone service are a natural monopoly and that the government must step in to to force sufficiently competitive conditions. Break up the oligopoly. Force them to act as common carriers. Separate the ownership of transportation mediums from those providing the actual service and compel them to allow many companies to compete over the same medium. Subsidize infrastructure build out where it is not normally profitable (like any other utility). Forbid vertical integration with, e.g., content companies so to avoid the blatant conflict of interest. Stop outlawing municipal broadband. So many other countries have made these exact structural changes with extremely successful results, much in the way that many of these same countries have very successful healthcare systems that the US also refuses to emulate.

Of course none of these changes will occur unless we take care of our corrupt political system ( http://www.represent.us/ ). Politicians will claim there is "no political will" which translates to "I don't want to be decimated by the telecoms' campaign money and PR offensives next election" and perhaps "maybe I'd like to quadruple my salary by becoming a telecom lobbyist in my later years". But I'm digressing...

And the "As a single parent" line sounds like something from your typical shill script and is rather out of place on Slashdot--especially since it's coming from an AC.

While still appalled, I'm just no longer surprised. A cable lobbyist passes through the revolving door, Obama/ does his usual PR game (in addition to the usual industry bought PR), the corporate media barely makes a peep about it (or presents a misleading view of it) despite the blatant conflict of interest and despite reputable public interest advocates sounding the alarm, and then the ex-lobbyist advocates for anti-competitive practices that will hurt the vast majority of Americans and further enrich the plutocrats he formerly worked on the behalf of (just like the public interest advocates said he would). And just watch this guy's compensation skyrocket when he transitions back through the revolving door into private industry--he will be rewarded well.

And it's the same story over and over again. The US continues to degenerate into a plutocracy as a result of rampant corruption (*legal* corruption, but still a corruption of the intent of the system itself--the intent being to serve the public good). More and more Americans seem to be arriving at this conclusion, but the vast majority still gets its "news" from the corporate media and is thus completely uninformed and misled. The corporate media is quite happy with this situation due to the vast monies being spent on political advertising, and candidates that actually have the public interest in mind do not even end up on the radar because getting coverage means competing with the wealthy-donor funded candidates (in other words, it's too expensive, e.g. a senate seat is usually around $4 million).

So I'm probably just about as apathetic as any other American, but here's at least a start on a solution: the problem itself, a solution in the works, an online movement to accompany that solution, another related movement, and a motivational speech for these movements.

From a previous post, here's the collected list of suggested actions people can take to help change the situation.

Have more ideas? Please post below.

Links worthy of attention:

http://anticorruptionact.org/ [anticorruptionact.org]

http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html [ted.com]

http://action.fairelectionsnow.org/fairelections [fairelectionsnow.org]

http://represent.us/ [represent.us]

http://www.protectourdemocracy.com/ [protectourdemocracy.com]

http://www.wolf-pac.com/ [wolf-pac.com]

https://www.unpac.org/ [unpac.org]

http://www.thirty-thousand.org/ [thirty-thousand.org]

Join the class action suit that Rand Paul is bringing against the NSA.

Suggestion #1:

(My idea): If people could band together and agree to vote out the incumbent (senator, representative, president) whenever one of these incidents crop up, there would be incentive for politicians to better serve the people in order to continue in office. This would mean giving up party loyalty and the idea of "lessor of two evils", which a lot of people won't do. Some congressional elections are quite close, so 2,000 or so petitioners might be enough to swing a future election.

Let your house and senate rep know how you feel about this issue / patriot act and encourage those you know to do the same.

If enough people let their representivies know how they feel obviously those officials who want to be reelected will tend to take notice. We have seen what happens when wikipedia and google go "dark", congressional switchboards melt and the 180's start to pile up.

Fax is considered the best way to contact a congressperson,especially if it is on corporate letterhead.

Suggestion #2:

Tor, I2dP and the likes. Let's build a new common internet over the internet. Full strong anonymity and integrity. Transform what an
eavesdropper would see in a huge cypherpunk clusterfuck.

Taking back what's ours through technology and educated practices.

Let's go back to the 90' where the internet was a place for knowledgeable and cooperative people.

Someone Added: Let's go full scale by deploying small wireless routers across the globe creating a real mesh network as internet was designed to be!

Suggestion #3:

A first step might be understanding the extent towards which the government actually disagrees with the people. Are we talking about a situation where the government is enacting unpopular policies that people oppose? Or are we talking about a situation where people support the policies? Because the solutions to those two situations are very different.

In many cases involving "national security", I think the situation is closer to the second one. "Tough on X" policies are quite popular, and politicians often pander to people by enacting them. The USA Patriot Act, for example, was hugely popular when it was passed. And in general, politicians get voted out of office more often for being not "tough" on crime and terrorism and whatever else, than for being too over-the-top in pursuing those policies.

Suggestion #4:

What I feel is needed is a true 3rd party, not 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th parties, such as Green, Tea Party, Libertarian; we need an agreeable third party that can compete against the two majors without a lot of interference from small parties. We need a consensus third party.

Suggestion #5:

Replace the voting system. Plurality voting will always lead [wikipedia.org] to the mess we have now. The only contribution towards politics I've made in years

From a previous post, here's the collected list of suggested actions people can take to help change the situation.

Have more ideas? Please post below.

Links worthy of attention:

http://anticorruptionact.org/

http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html

http://action.fairelectionsnow.org/fairelections

http://represent.us/

http://www.protectourdemocracy.com/

http://www.wolf-pac.com/

https://www.unpac.org/

http://www.thirty-thousand.org/

Suggestion #1:

(My idea): If people could band together and agree to vote out the incumbent (senator, representative, president) whenever one of these incidents crop up, there would be incentive for politicians to better serve the people in order to continue in office. This would mean giving up party loyalty and the idea of "lessor of two evils", which a lot of people won't do. Some congressional elections are quite close, so 2,000 or so petitioners might be enough to swing a future election.

Someone added: Vote them out AND remove their lifetime, taxpayer-funded, free health care. See how fast the health care system gets fixed.

Someone added:You can start by letting your house and senate rep know how you feel about this issue / patriot act and encourage those you know to do the same.

If enough people let their representivies know how they feel obviously those officials who want to be reelected will tend to take notice. We have seen what happens when wikipedia and google go "dark", congressional switchboards melt and the 180's start to pile up.

I added: Fax is considered the best way to contact a congressperson,especially if it is on corporate letterhead.

Suggestion #2:

Tor, I2dP and the likes. Let's build a new common internet over the internet. Full strong anonymity and integrity. Transform what an
eavesdropper would see in a huge cypherpunk clusterfuck.

Taking back what's ours through technology and educated practices.

Let's go back to the 90' where the internet was a place for knowledgeable and cooperative people.

Someone Added: Let's go full scale by deploying small wireless routers across the globe creating a real mesh network as internet was designed to be!

Suggestion #3:

A first step might be understanding the extent towards which the government actually disagrees with the people. Are we talking about a situation where the government is enacting unpopular policies that people oppose? Or are we talking about a situation where people support the policies? Because the solutions to those two situations are very different.

In many cases involving "national security", I think the situation is closer to the second one. "Tough on X" policies are quite popular, and politicians often pander to people by enacting them. The USA Patriot Act, for example, was hugely popular when it was passed. And in general, politicians get voted out of office more often for being not "tough" on crime and terrorism and whatever else, than for being too over-the-top in pursuing those policies.

Suggestion #4:

What I feel is needed is a true 3rd party, not 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th parties, such as Green, Tea Party, Libertarian; we need an agreeable third party that can compete against the two majors without a lot of interference from small parties. We need a consensus third party.

Suggestion #5:

Replace the voting system. Plurality voting will always lead to the mess we have now. The only contribution towards politics I'v

From a previous post, here's the collected list of suggested actions people can take to help change things.

Have more ideas? Please post below.

Links worthy of attention:

http://anticorruptionact.org/

http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html

http://action.fairelectionsnow.org/fairelections

http://represent.us/

http://www.protectourdemocracy.com/

http://www.wolf-pac.com/

https://www.unpac.org/

http://www.thirty-thousand.org/

Suggestion #1:

(My idea): If people could band together and agree to vote out the incumbent (senator, representative, president) whenever one of these incidents crop up, there would be incentive for politicians to better serve the people in order to continue in office. This would mean giving up party loyalty and the idea of "lessor of two evils", which a lot of people won't do. Some congressional elections are quite close, so 2,000 or so petitioners might be enough to swing a future election.

Someone added: Vote them out AND remove their lifetime, taxpayer-funded, free health care. See how fast the health care system gets fixed.

Someone added:You can start by letting your house and senate rep know how you feel about this issue / patriot act and encourage those you know to do the same.

If enough people let their representivies know how they feel obviously those officials who want to be reelected will tend to take notice. We have seen what happens when wikipedia and google go "dark", congressional switchboards melt and the 180's start to pile up.

I added: Fax is considered the best way to contact a congressperson, especially if it is on corporate letterhead.

Suggestion #2:

Tor, I2dP and the likes. Let's build a new common internet over the internet. Full strong anonymity and integrity. Transform what an eavesdropper would see in a huge cypherpunk clusterfuck.

Taking back what's ours through technology and educated practices.

Let's go back to the 90' where the internet was a place for knowledgeable and cooperative people.

Someone Added: Let's go full scale by deploying small wireless routers across the globe creating a real mesh network as internet was designed to be!

Suggestion #3:

A first step might be understanding the extent towards which the government actually disagrees with the people. Are we talking about a situation where the government is enacting unpopular policies that people oppose? Or are we talking about a situation where people support the policies? Because the solutions to those two situations are very different.

In many cases involving "national security", I think the situation is closer to the second one. "Tough on X" policies are quite popular, and politicians often pander to people by enacting them. The USA Patriot Act, for example, was hugely popular when it was passed. And in general, politicians get voted out of office more often for being not "tough" on crime and terrorism and whatever else, than for being too over-the-top in pursuing those policies.

Suggestion #4:

What I feel is needed is a true 3rd party, not 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th parties, such as Green, Tea Party, Libertarian; we need an agreeable third party that can compete against the two majors without a lot of interference from small parties. We need a consensus third party.

Suggestion #5:

Replace the voting system. Plurality voting will always lead to the mess we have now. The only contribution towards politics I've made in

From a previous post, here's the collected list of suggested actions
people can take to help fix the government.

Have more ideas? Please post below.

Links worthy of attention:

http://anticorruptionact.org/

http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html

http://action.fairelectionsnow.org/fairelections

http://represent.us/

http://www.protectourdemocracy.com/

http://www.wolf-pac.com/

https://www.unpac.org/

http://www.thirty-thousand.org/

Suggestion #1:

(My idea): If people could band together and agree to vote out the
incumbent (senator, representative, president) whenever one of these
incidents crop up, there would be incentive for politicians to better
serve the people in order to continue in office. This would mean
giving up party loyalty and the idea of "lessor of two evils", which a
lot of people won't do. Some congressional elections are quite close,
so 2,000 or so petitioners might be enough to swing a future election.

Someone added: Vote them out AND remove their lifetime,
taxpayer-funded, free health care. See how fast the health care system
gets fixed.

Someone added:You can start by letting your house and senate rep know
how you feel about this issue / patriot act and encourage others you
know to do the same.

If enough people let their representivies know how they feel obviously
those officials who want to be reelected will tend to take notice. We have
seen what happens when wikipedia and google go "dark", congressional
switchboards melt and the 180's start to pile up.

I added: Fax is considered the best way to contact a congressperson,
especially if it is on corporate letterhead.

Suggestion #2:

Tor, I2dP and the likes. Let's build a new common internet over the
internet. Full strong anonymity and integrity. Transform what an
eavesdropper would see in a huge cypherpunk clusterfuck.

Taking back what's ours through technology and educated practices.

Let's go back to the 90' where the internet was a place for
knowledgeable and cooperative people.

Someone Added: Let's go full scale by deploying small wireless routers
across the globe creating a real mesh network as internet was designed
to be!

Suggestion #3:

A first step might be understanding the extent towards which the
government actually disagrees with the people. Are we talking about a
situation where the government is enacting unpopular policies that
people oppose? Or are we talking about a situation where people
support the policies? Because the solutions to those two situations
are very different.

In many cases involving "national security", I think the situation is
closer to the second one. "Tough on X" policies are quite popular, and
politicians often pander to people by enacting them. The USA Patriot
Act, for example, was hugely popular when it was passed. And in
general, politicians get voted out of office more often for being not
"tough" on crime and terrorism and whatever else, than for being too
over-the-top in pursuing those policies.

Suggestion #4:

What I feel is needed is a true 3rd party, not 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th
parties, such as Green, Tea Party, Libertarian; we need an agreeable
third party that can compete against the two majors without a lot of
interference from small parties. We need a consensus third party.

Suggestion #5:

Replace the voting system. Plurality voting will

From a previous post, here's the collected list of suggested actions
people can take to help change the situation.

Have more ideas? Please post below.

Links worthy of attention:

http://anticorruptionact.org/

http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html

http://action.fairelectionsnow.org/fairelections

http://represent.us/

http://www.protectourdemocracy.com/

http://www.wolf-pac.com/

https://www.unpac.org/

http://www.thirty-thousand.org/

Suggestion #1:

(My idea): If people could band together and agree to vote out the
incumbent (senator, representative, president) whenever one of these
incidents crop up, there would be incentive for politicians to better
serve the people in order to continue in office. This would mean
giving up party loyalty and the idea of "lessor of two evils", which a
lot of people won't do. Some congressional elections are quite close,
so 2,000 or so petitioners might be enough to swing a future election.

Someone added: Vote them out AND remove their lifetime,
taxpayer-funded, free health care. See how fast the health care system
gets fixed.

Someone added:You can start by letting your house and senate rep know
how you feel about this issue / patriot act and encourage others you
know to do the same.

If enough people let their representivies know how they feel obviously
those officials who want to be reelected will tend to take notice. We have
seen what happens when wikipedia and google go "dark", congressional
switchboards melt and the 180's start to pile up.

I added: Fax is considered the best way to contact a congressperson,
especially if it is on corporate letterhead.

Suggestion #2:

Tor, I2dP and the likes. Let's build a new common internet over the
internet. Full strong anonymity and integrity. Transform what an
eavesdropper would see in a huge cypherpunk clusterfuck.

Taking back what's ours through technology and educated practices.

Let's go back to the 90' where the internet was a place for
knowledgeable and cooperative people.

Someone Added: Let's go full scale by deploying small wireless routers
across the globe creating a real mesh network as internet was designed
to be!

Suggestion #3:

A first step might be understanding the extent towards which the
government actually disagrees with the people. Are we talking about a
situation where the government is enacting unpopular policies that
people oppose? Or are we talking about a situation where people
support the policies? Because the solutions to those two situations
are very different.

In many cases involving "national security", I think the situation is
closer to the second one. "Tough on X" policies are quite popular, and
politicians often pander to people by enacting them. The USA Patriot
Act, for example, was hugely popular when it was passed. And in
general, politicians get voted out of office more often for being not
"tough" on crime and terrorism and whatever else, than for being too
over-the-top in pursuing those policies.

Suggestion #4:

What I feel is needed is a true 3rd party, not 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th
parties, such as Green, Tea Party, Libertarian; we need an agreeable
third party that can compete against the two majors without a lot of
interference from small parties. We need a consensus third party.

Suggestion #5:

Replace the voting system. Plurality voting will

http://anticorruptionact.org/
http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html
http://action.fairelectionsnow.org/fairelections
http://represent.us/
http://www.protectourdemocracy.com/
http://www.wolf-pac.com/
https://www.unpac.org/
And many others - someone passed those links on to me and whenever someone asks 'What can we do" I usually reply along those lines.