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Pay to Play the U.S. Way
Thu Anon Coward writes "There's an article on CNN.com that finally shows proof that corporations actually demand access to politicians for contributing $$$. And that political parties promise access based on how much the corporations "donate". Microsoft donated money on the condition that they be seated next to "Sen. (Paul) Coverdell or leadership, Commerce Committee or Judiciary Committee," according to a GOP memo. The memo added Microsoft did not want to sit with Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a major critic." How can we fight this? Write letters to the companies saying we won't buy their products because of their undue influence? You think the politicians will actually listen if we write them instead?" The campaign finance debate is probably the most important political issue in the U.S. right now. You should pay attention, even if you hate politics.
Can I donate money to my local politician to guarantee that I get a seat at a DMCA meeting next to Ellen Feiss? If she's not available, how about Natalie Portman at an MPAA meeting?
a friend of mine just started a new political party, The Patriot Party of Canada, and the biggest thing going for it is that it does not accept donations from corporations or special interest groups. Only time will tell whether he can succeed with it or not, but it shows that many people are getting the message. The response so far has not been negative, either.
Are there not limits set that a single person can donate to any single canidate? It was always my understanding that corperations were treated as if they were their own person. If there are indeed limts to contributions that an individual can make to any party/canidate/measure/whatnot, why should a corperate entity be allowed to make huge contributions (read:bribes) while individual citizens are limited in their ability to contribute?
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
I can only come to one conclusion: The ballot is definitely stronger than the bullet, but in today's United States of America, the Dollar is stronger than the ballot.
We all know how well threatening and writing letters to Microsoft works. Microsoft doesn't care much about the individual consumer, what they care about is the corporation using Microsoft products. And I don't know about you, but I can't go write letters on the behalf of my company threatening to stop using Microsoft products.
This is why there are laws against forming monopolies. However we've passed that threshold. Microsoft isn't "becoming" a monopoly that we can stop, Microsoft is and has been a monopoly that those laws were suppose to prevent in the first place. Now it's going to take a lot longer to rid them of the monopoly than it would have been to prevent it from forming about 8 years ago.
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
Not a damn thing, since so few of us even vote. The few who bothered to vote in november elected the buddies of legalized bribery by a landslide. Mitch McConell,(R, KY) legalized bribery's best friend in Washington won by a nearly 70 to 30 margin. We have an oligarchy, not a democracy, because people stay home.
How ya like dat?
It is a well known fact that America is controlled by corporations, such as Microsoft. Unfortunately we cannot do much about this, for it is the corporations that have made America what it is. If it wasn't for global corporations such as Microsoft, McDonnalds, Disney, ect... America wouldn't be the richest and most powerful country on the planet. Really, if you don't like it, there are more socialist countries such as Canada who have a living standard almost as high as USA's that you can move to.
Stanley Feinbaum, professional journalist and master debater! God bless the USA!
Personally I find it hilarious that America can still claim to be a democracy, the "Land Of The Free". Only the richest people can get political influence. Surely there should be a cap on how much politicians can spend, and how much can be donated to them? I know its not perfect over here in the UK but its better. American hypocrisy continues...
By the way this isn't a flamebait, just political opinion
Everything sucks except musicandstuff
Someone took POL 101 and realizes how government works, yay for you!
"Developersdevelopersdevelopersdevelopers!"
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Unfortunately, this sort of thing is not new. Remember that before their company self-destructed, Enron executives had repeatedly met with Dick Cheney while the Bush administration's energy policy was being drafted. Details of those meetings still haven't been disclosed, and Cheney refuses to do so, using the defence that forcing politicians to disclose the details of such meetings would stifle politicians from doing their job.
What he actually means by this, of course, is that if politicians aren't allowed to keep their backroom deals with corporations secret, then they won't be able to have secret backroom deals with corporations anymore. Having to behave like honest politicians is clearly unacceptable to the likes of Cheney and Bush.
But we're talking about two institutions (government and corporations) that are generally considered to be somewhat corrupt and untrustworthy. Then you throw in money. Politicians have power... they want money to get more power. Corporations have money... they want power so they can make more money... Seems like there's supply and demand here. Two groups have what each other want, and they're making agreements to facilitate the transfer.
Do I agree with it? No. Do I think it's right? No. But in a society where the acquisition of wealth and power are your primary goals, and things like charity, scholarship, helping others, doing the right thing, etc. are back burnered...what do you really expect? Those organizations are doing exactly what they're expected to do. I'm afraid we need more than a few laws to fix this one.
This is how the system has evolved. The US system may not be perfect, but its still the best out there so far.
This just happens to be the 'dark' side of it.. Political power purchase.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
A business that supports thousands of people should have more access to a politician than you. A politician does not have infinite time. So... A company (or entity with money) that represents you can speak for you and the thousands below it.
If something by Microsoft is going to kill X idea, then a company or smaller companies that support that idea should also speak to the politicians.
This is how it works. I'm sorry, you do not count as much as an entity representing thousands of people.
Suddenly, campaigning gets cheap! No more competition by who can afford the most attack ads during the 6pm news slot.
Then again, Swiss democracy is 500 years older than American democracy. I suppose it could take a while for the U.S., and Canada for that matter, to catch up... *sigh*... (I'm Canadian, but lived in Switzerland for 6 years).
We have a similar thing here in the U.S. The Green Party. Many people would argue that they are a "special interest" group. I would argue that any group can be labeled a "special Interest" the question is really what special interests are on my side?
Just as there is seperation between church and state, there should be seperation of business and state.
Even our President has interests in oil companies at home and abroad. I'm not saying Bush is doing anything wrong, but the potential for abuse is huge.
Politians are supposed to be public servants, yet we have Senators like Kerry (who is BTW running for President in 2004) who have upwards of 600 million in the bank and god only knows how much much in stocks in these companies. They care more about big business than they do us. That's not servicing the public, thats ripping the public off.
All politians are guilty of it too. You can't point at the Dems or the Republicans for this. Both are doing it.
Busines, big or small, needs to stay the hell out of politics and work on their business model for a change. Stop trying to pass legislation when your business model starts to fail (RIAA MPAA). Stop passing laws that benefit businesses to the detriment of the people. Just flat out stop the fucking insanity!!
Politicians wonder why people don't trust them. This is exactly why.
The major political parties thrive on this sort of dishonest practice. There should be NO donations to political parties at all. All election campaigns should be funded from tax-payers money. The people want democracy and the only way to get it is to pay for it. This will not sit well with the major political parties because they know that winning an election at the moment is simply a matter of marketing. The most money and the best marketing means winning the election. That has to stop. No more 'donations' from Israel, Microsoft or the deforestation companies. Write to (or go and see as I am doing on the 16th) your local member and tell them why you are removing support from them, and who is willing to change the system (here in Australia we have the Socialist Alliance and the Green parties who are on the ball on this issue). And write to the companies that make donations and tell them why you don't buy their products - because doing so corrupts you government. This is the only way short of a violent revolution that we can effect change. Do it now or lose the option and watch your country become a police state protecting the interests of those with the most money.
I'm not saying "pay for access" is right, but on the other hand, who should politicians listen to? Someone who controls an industry and affects millions of people (like Microsoft) or Joe L33t who has no perspective beyond his own limited world?
It's kind of like when you advertise a job and get hundreds of resumes back that look basically the same. Personally, anyone who has misspelled words goes straight into the trash can to thin the herd. That may sound unfair to people who send resumes, but you have to use SOME method of thinning since you can't interview hundreds of people.
Politicians need some sort of method to thin the herd of people who give advice. I really think that's at the root of this, rather than simplistic corruption that many make this out to be. They have to choose SOMEBODY to talk to, so they might as well choose people who have been good to them in the past. In other words, it's loyalty at work, not bribery.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Please take not of who has the most lopsided and largest donations. Notice the movie studios at #1 and #3? Care about fair use at all?
I'm certainly not trying to make the Repubs out to be the good guys, but the Dems aren't going to save you from big money influence.
Real election reform
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
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It seems to me that in practice, the USA is a republic not a democracy.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
CFR is probably probably one of the biggest jokes that our government has fooled most of us into believing. CFR isn't going to change ANYTHING! Both the DNC and the GOP have set up 'third party' organizations to funnel their money to. All CFR is doing is opening as many loopholes as it closes so that the money flow is even less visible to the public than it is now.
And the media moguls who hail CFR as a good and necessary thing are the biggest hypocrites in this deal. You don't think all those commercial spots are free, do you?
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Buying a politician: $1.5 million
Dark Grey Suit with bad tie: $1295
Per plate dinner: $500
Being able to sit next to the guy who keeps my company out of the boiler and slip him a "special" christmas perk:
Priceless!
No, they'll have to take second place. First place is reserved for Sirian Cybernetics.
Considering that political contributions are often used to pay for advertising, why don't you geniuses ask yourself how much influence the media has? In other words, the mass media already owns what other industries are trying to buy. And if we carry your logic to its logical conclusion, shouldn't we regulate the media? Oh, wait a minute, that would violate the First Amendment, wouldn't it. Any of you geniuses ever heard of it?
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
You can get more info on this from OpenSecrets.org.
Wow... nice link. It should be noted that most of the top contributors are from labor unions to Democrats, although there appear to be far more corporations making smaller donations to Republicans.
You know though, the thing that scares me most about that list, is the companies or organizations that are listed as "on the fence". Those are the companies that don't really care who is in power - they are hedging their bets to ensure that they can get the support of whoever ends up winning.
Not that voting really means anything any more anyway, with both parties converged on a slightly fuzzy dot far to the right of center.
My favorite moment of political naivete from the original poster had to be this, however:
"How can we fight this? Write letters to the companies saying we won't buy their products because of their undue influence? You think the politicians will actually listen if we write them instead?"
You think the companies will listen any more than the corporations will?
Writing letters stating that you won't buy products doesn't mean a thing if you're at CompUSA tomorrow continuing to buy the products. NO ONE CARES about your letters. They only care about your money. And until you can find a way to actually release yourselves from the corporate teat, you will have no voice.
No voice. None.
There is no war on terror. There is no "government by the people, for the people." There are no elections. There is no "Homeland Security."
There is only money.
Ah but thank god for democracy. Once the voter learns about this they will surely elect better leaders next time. :P
Oh and for the american bashers/defenders if you want a real laugh follow the dutch political circus for the last year. Makes america look like kindergarden. At least americans betray the voter for good old cash. Over here they are just plain incompetent.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
This reprehensible behavior is not a recent phenomenon, nor was it started by Microsoft. If you looked you'd find that this is routine for many or most of the companies whose products you buy every day. It'd be easy for a large chunk of the Slashdot crowd to "stop" buying Microsoft products - but what about Bristol-Meyers-Squibb? What if Dell does this (and they probably do) - Will you stop buying their computers? How about other large companies like Monsanto, Ford, IBM?
This sort of behavior is so pervasive I don't think you could organize an effective boycott without being willing to starve to death. The only way it's likely to change is if we force the laws that allow this to be changed.
#DeleteChrome
The richest man in the Senate right now is Kerry, a democrat, who BTW is running for President in 2004. He has his fingers in more big company tills than half the of the Senate combined. Likewise for Clinton and Daschle.
No one is doing it more than anyone else, and to presume so is detrimental to our progress.
by being appalled by it. by communicating how appalling it is to others in a way that they will understand how apalling it is. by voting. politicians will do what they are allowed to do. if you are appalled by this, you apparently are pretty disconnected, and should take a trip to some inner city schools to see how the foundation of our democracy is being maintained.
welcome to the lethargic US of A! and good luck!
communism socialism(capitalism c){
return(c-greed);
}
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
The occasional individual candidate here in the States has made similar virtuous pledges to deny themselves corporate fundings. It's almost always a sure road to anonymity. If voters have never heard of you or your party, they won't vote for you.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
many private lobbying organizations do this. That is how YOU get YOUR voice heard. Both sides of the aisle do this, from NRA to AARP to the Sierra club. I don't think what they do is wrong any more than it is for a corporation. So there are ways for you joe public to get your voice heard.
Instead, I have to read this thread full of knee jerk us/republican/bush/cheney bashing that gets modded up as insightful. Think a little before you bitch. Corporations do this, but guess what, you can too. I know bush doesnt have time to have dinner at my place to discuss my views on the environment, but if I were to join the Sierra club it would help, no? Okay, go ahead and mod me down now cause I didn't slam bush...
Because we can't all come together on the vi vs. Emacs debate, let alone campaign finance reform.
Simple. Stop voting for the people who accept donations from people you do not want influence from in the government. Narrows down your voting choices alot, but remember. No vote is thrown away. Every vote is a message. If everyone votes the same way, then their message is the one heard. So, if you vote for the person who is not as bad in your opinion and might actually win, and so does everyone else, then the cycle continues. But when EVERYONE begins to vote their conscience, and doesn't just vote for the major candidates then things might begin to change.
Derek Greene
Hey Cauce!
Bought a good senator lately? What, no you say?? You need to. This grass roots thing isn't owning your own senator. Buy your US congressperson today!
cluge
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Their called Pollsters. They advise politians on public opinion, which is supposed to dictate policy. With the corporations lining their greedy pockets however this doesn't happen.
Corporations don't speak for millions of people, they speak for their stock holders and their bottomline.
A business that supports thousands of people should have more access to a politician than you. A politician does not have infinite time. So... A company (or entity with money) that represents you can speak for you and the thousands below it.
Every one of the thousands of people that Microsoft Supports is a citizen--a rather well-paid citizen, to boot--and is fully capable of conributing their own money towards a contribution.
Money simply should not have an impact on politics. It slants it towards the filthy rich, and makes the lazy bastards who live off their grandparent's efforts mroe valuable than the hardworking people who keep this company going--and who, since they're actually working, and more prone to notice issues that need government involvement.
Which, of course, is beside the point that Microsoft is a corporation and not a PAC. They are not a political party, nor a club, nor anything more than a money-making machine. If they want to organize one, then great, more power to them--but it should not ever be assumed that a company is working for the political interests of those who work for it or who happen to hold a small portion of stock.
(The way to sort out a politician's time, btw, should probably be through representation of citizens, measured in citizens and not dollars. MS's lobbyist with twenty million dollars and five thousand citizens should be behind the EMT rep with twenty dollars and a million citizens, and before the billionare who's just there for himself.)
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What can we do about it? Nothing! What do you think you're going to do, overthrow the system or something? Force policicians to be honest?
In a market system the market rules. I agree that we should try to stop this sort of thing of course, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
The good thing about corruption is that it accelerates the internal collapse and degradation of the system. Just give it time, it'll all fall apart eventually.
My site: Free Nature Pictures
Now, I know that's not going to happen so what I personally advocate is no limits but *FULL* disclosure of who gave the funds.
Pollsters have the job of polling citizens for the sole purpose of guiding government policy. All your corporate influence does is muddy the waters.
The number of people in this country working for a fortune 500 company is dwarfed in comparison to the number of people who work for themseleves or small business or do consulting work of some kind.
Everyone has a say in the goings on of this country, not just your big companies. Sorry but this is how it works.
All or nearly all country from the western block says they are republic/democracy but in reality they are all Plutocracy (money has more power than vote).
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I disagree. Although we cannot, or do not, donate money on the same scale and microsoft, BillG is not, yet, in a position to buy our votes. All of the donations in the world can't guarantee that they will be elected if enough of us are actually paying attention.
/. petitions then they would notice, and fear, because that's enough people to tip the balance in an election.
If a million of us went over the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, Moveon.org or started our own
Money or not, they still need votes to get elected and if they think their jobs are at stake, they'll kowtow so fast its not even funny. What we have to do is show them that we are paying attention, and that we do care. We also have to show that we won't be bought off with false talk of compromise.
---
Taken the Eff Challenge yet?
You don't want a pure democracy. That's the equivalent of mob rule, where the majority rules and the minority and dissenting opinion is effectively squelched. The founders of the US of A went through great lengths to protect the minority opinion and, if I remember correctly, it wasn't until Woodrow Wilson that the nation was referred to as a democracy.
A republic on the other hand, insists that the law rules regardless of what the majority wants. This is not popular a lot of times. For example, the majority of people in the USA want to give up freedoms for security, but the Constitution is effectively slowing down, if not preventing, the complete elimination of our freedoms in favor of security. The times that you do see the Constitution being ignored, you're seeing a great example of true democracy in action.
This feels a bit impolite, I'm not American so perhaps I shouldn't mix in these discussions, but whatever :).
I think it should be like this: you are allowed to put money into campaigns if you are allowed to vote. Otherwise, the election is none of your business. Corporations are not allowed to vote.
Of course, corporations will then give money to individuals, who can give it to campaigns, etc. Outlaw that too.
Then, you get the problem that rich citizens will have more influence than poor citizens. That isn't right, they are equal, one isn't better than the other. So put a low cap on the allowed contributions (I believe that is already in place, though it could be lower).
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
I can see it now:
The Million Troll March
Although it is a nice idea. To let *foreign* countries have a say in what the U.S. does in the future, instead of the other way round :)
Actually part of MS trouble in the beginning is they didn't play the political game enough, and the anti-trust trial force them to start playing the game more.
The the article mentions Orin Hatch and MS not wanting to sit next to him. Well maybe because he was already in the pocket of Ray Noorda of Novell and Caldera fame. Bottom line politians represent their voters interest. Some just let
voters with fists full of money grab their attention more than others. Republications have a more obvsious bias towards money/business, but they all are guilty.
Its always been that way, it always will and it all governments around the world. So I say...
Oh duh!
Is it the people which made what america is , with their Spirit of discovery and free enterprise, or is it the corporation ? Corporation are not "that" old, and they are only a result of the "free enterprise" spirit. Corporation are formed by the people. Don't give more credit to corporation than they really should get.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Politicans are bought and sold like condoms. Once their usefulness is up, they're thrown away. But before that happens, the corperations who bought said politican nearly always finds a way to impregnate a bill with their agenda. In the end, it's us that have to deal with it. These types of bills and laws are like second hand EULAS, passed down from corp, to legislation to us.
This is the major reason why I don't vote for senators/house representivies. Why bother? At 22 years old i have enough apathy for the government as it is (unless there's a rally for something everyone's bitching about, like DMCA, et al) Then i'll do my part and chip in to the EFF, etc.
Back to the question: why bother? Even if the guy you wanted in won, he's still going to have his ear cocked to his biggest corperate bidder. This is exactly why we need a *REAL* campaign reform that actually cuts out the corperations.
Why is this so hard? Why can't they just take money from private donors and individuals and be done with it. So they won't have millions and millions to spend like they used to. Big deal, If everything was done grassroots, ala Ralph Nader, the elections would be very interesting.
How do we the people, plan to stop this? I'd suggest a site that's set up, and able to fax letters to congress, a site similar to digitalconsumer.org for example. And tell everyone you know, your mother, grandmother, E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E you know to go there, get the info, and do their part. I can get at least 10-15 people off the top of my head who'd be happy to do this. Hell, why not a typed up printed petition and just get signatures from around your area and send it to your congressmen?
There's so many ideas one could try out. One person can't do squat, a few people can turn a congressmen's head, a shitload can put his job on the line in the next election. But it all has to start somewhere.
I think a website along those lines would greatly help in the fight to stop this.
This is soapbox 1, signing off.
A Penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off!
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The editors are only interested in bitching about the government, not in working to affect change.
"And like that
Open Secrets is absolutely the BEST source of information on who has bought who in our political system.
KNOW WHO OWNS YOUR CONGRESSMAN.
The soft money Laundromat over at CommonCause.org also has a good deal of information for the would-be informed citizen.
(please note I have yet to see anyone from the green party or green party US say they do not agree with what follows)
http://web.greens.org/s-r/09/09-18.html
Synthesis/Regeneration 9 (Winter 1996)
The Guaranteed Minimum Income and the Maximum Income
by Howie Hawkins, Syracuse Green Party
In August 1995, the US Senate voted 87 to 12 to end the federal government's 60-year commitment to provide cash assistance to indigent single mothers and their children. Known as "Aid to Families with Dependent Children" (AFDC), this program cost the federal government $18 billion in 1995, or about 1% of the federal budget. Clinton indicated he would sign the bill if some of the House Republicans' "harsher" measures were not included in the final bill. This bill to end welfare is such an extreme right-wing measure that Ronald Reagan never even dared to propose it. But in today's political climate, 35 of 46 Democratic US Senators vote for the bill.
Meanwhile, Congress has refused to cut some $125 billion in corporate welfare in the form of subsidies and tax breaks to large corporations. Congress is adding $7 billion more to the military budget than the Pentagon requested. And proposals to replace the nominally progressive income tax with a flat income tax or a national sales tax are under serious consideration.
The inequality of wealth and income in the US is greater than at any time since the 1920s.
As Congress enacts public policy to cut taxes and raise welfare for the rich while it raises taxes and cuts welfare for the working class, the inequality in wealth and income in the United States is the greatest of any industrialized country. The income of the bottom 60% has declined for 20 years. Only the top 20% has seen their income and wealth grow in the last two decades, but most of this has been taken by the top 1%, whose after-tax incomes more than doubled in the 1980s. The US used to be first in wage levels. Today it is 13th.
Why Is Inequality Growing?
The inequality of wealth and income in the US is greater than at any time since the 1920s. While the before-tax income of the top 1% of income earners increased 78% from 1977 to 1989, their after-tax income increased 102%. This transfer of income from workers to the super-rich through the tax system was accomplished by cuts in income tax rates for high income earners, cuts in tax rates for unearned income from investments, increases in workers' payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, and cuts in federal revenue-sharing out of progressive income taxes coupled to increases in regressive local property, sales, and sin taxes. Though many of these changes were legislated during the Republican Reagan administration, it was the Democratic Congress that voted for them.
Though many of these changes were legislated during the Republican Reagan administration, it was the Democratic Congress that voted for them.
The decreased bargaining power of the working class is often said to be due to the globalization of the economy, which has increased international competition and forced capital to move to regions with cheap labor, low taxes, and minimal regulation. But I think the causation is more the other way. Corporations have used blackmail, the threat of moving, to force concessions from labor and the government. The fact is that the economy is still 80% domestic. Globalization can be overblown. The capitalist market has been global since the slave trade. And countries with much higher dependence on trade, such as Sweden, Germany, and Holland, pay much higher wages and maintain much higher levels of social services, such as free medical care, than the US.
The real story is not so much globalization of the economy as the political defeat of labor and social movements since the 1960s. With no pressure from below, the Democrats have become an echo of the Republican Party as government enacts the corporate agenda of lowering the social wage of the working class in order to restore higher profitability. In 1960, CEOs made 41 times what the average factory worker did. In 1993, CEOs made 149 times what the average factory worker did.
By contrast, in the Mondragon cooperative network in the Basque region of Spain, where industrial co-ops in the 1970s and 1980s had productivity increases far surpassing American industrial companies, the highest paid manager received no more than three times more than the lowest paid worker on the shop floor. Anticipating the federal government's destruction of welfare and alarmed by the rising income and wealth inequality in the US, the 1995 congress of The Greens/Green Party USA adopted into its national platform planks calling for a Guaranteed Minimum Income and a Maximum Income.
Guaranteed Minimum Income
The Green Program calls for a guaranteed minimum income structured into a progressive federal income tax as a negative income tax for those below the poverty line. The guaranteed minimum income should be sufficient to lift every American above a realistic poverty line, which would be 50-70% higher than today if it was readjusted to the real cost of living. This yields a guaranteed minimum income of $20,000 for a family of four in 1995 (with $2500 adjustments for more or fewer family members). Two-thirds of those who lost their right to assistance are children and most of the rest are their mothers. In calling for a Guaranteed Minimum Income, the Greens are calling for the restoration of the right of poor people to income assistance. But the Greens are not calling for a restoration of the old welfare system, which was intrusive, punitive, and stingy, never providing sufficient income to lift families from poverty.
Middle income workers were made to feel by the capitalist parties' propaganda (despite the fact that corporate welfare costs us six times more than people's welfare) that they were being squeezed economically by programs for the poor. The rich mobilized a backlash of the middle against the poor. The problem with universal programs like a universal basic income grant to all citizens is fiscal. If it is given to all citizens whether they need it or not, it is also high enough to drive the government into bankruptcy. The way out of this problem of benefit universalism is tax universalism--build a guaranteed minimum income into a progressive income tax. Everyone would get a basic income grant, received in monthly installments like social security. But the income benefits for those who don't need them would be recaptured for the public treasury through progressive taxation. This would recapture the political support of the middle-income working class for welfare and other social programs such as socialized health insurance.
This yields a guaranteed minimum income of $20,000 for a family of four in 1995.
Maximum Income
The Green Program calls for a "Maximum Income" of ten times the minimum wage, incorporated into a progressive federal income tax. With this "Ten Times Rule" in effect under today's extremely unequal distribution of income in the US, a 100% tax on income above ten times the minimum wage would allow income tax reductions for the bottom 99% and yet generate enough revenues to balance the federal budget without cutting spending. A progressive tax system should not only provide a guaranteed minimum income, but also a maximum cap on income. French Green Party activist and economist, Alain Lipietz, cites European studies to suggest that the minimum wage should be about 50% more than the minimum income to provide adequate incentive to work. That would make the minimum wage $30,000 a year (or $14.42 for a 40 hour week, or $19.23 for a 30 hour week). The maximum income would then be $300,000 a year. The Ten Times Rule still allows plenty of room for market incentives (wouldn't you prefer to make $300,000 a year instead of $30,000?), but it restrains winner-take-all markets where the winners get extraordinary levels of income not because of the value they contribute but simply because of the shear power they exert in the market.
Can we afford the Maximum Wage? Sam Pizzagatti's The Maximum Wage calculates what would have happened in 1990 if the Ten Times Rule had been in effect. Even though taxes would have been reduced for the bottom 99%, federal revenues would have been $175 billion higher. That $175 billion would have erased most of the federal deficit in that recession year--or could have been spent to help balance America's more dangerously growing social deficit, the erosion of our schools, roads, rails, water systems, and environment.
A 100% tax on income above ten times the minimum wage would allow income tax reductions for the bottom 99% and yet generate enough revenues to balance the federal budget without cutting spending.
Ownership of productive assets would also transfer under the Ten Times Rule. After a certain level of wealth, there is no economic incentive to accumulate more wealth under the Ten Times Rule. As fortunes splintered, ownership of companies would fall into more hands, opening up the possibilities of economic democracy at the firm level, through municipal and other public agencies, and through cooperatives. Greater productivity and innovation is another probable outcome of the Maximum Income. With income incentives not so strong in encouraging corporate hierarchies that stifle the free flow of information and undermine talented innovators who are competitors in the corporate hierarchy, some of the strongest barriers to innovation would fall. If you don't want to take the word of a radical libertarian-socialist Green about this, let me just note that Peter Drucker, corporate America's favorite business commentator, says the same thing in The Changing World of the Executive (New York: Times Books, 1982, pp. 23-24).
Another salutary effect on the economy of the Maximum Income would be a dramatic shift in the structure of demand. The low income sectors of our population who have demands, but not the money to express their demand in the market, would now have money to demand many basic goods and services, stimulating economic activity to supply the demand. Instead of a relative few rich people buying a relative few luxurious mansions, Rolls-Royces, and ski trips to the Swiss Alps, money would be spent by the many on many family homes, Fords, and evenings out in the local community.
So why would a radical libertarian-socialist Green be so enthusiastic about demands that would make the market economy work better? I'm enthusiastic about the Guaranteed Minimum and Maximum Income not because they make the market work better, but because they unite the many in the working (and wanna-be-working) classes against the rich few. The Guaranteed Minimum and Maximum Income are not in themselves make a rational, democratic society; but fighting for them and winning them can be steps toward that goal.
Further Reading:
Sam Pizzagatti, The Maximum Wage: A Common-Sense Prescription for Revitalizing American-by Taxing the Very Rich (New York: Apex Press, 1992). $15 from Apex Press, 777 United Nations Plaza, New York NY 10017 (212-953-6920). Very readable, persuasive case for the maximum wage. Calculates the impact on tax rates and government revenues. Includes history of the income tax rates: today's rates on the rich are the lowest in US history.
Lawrence Mishel and Jared Bernstein, The State of Working America, 1994-95, Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1994. Comprehensive source of statistics and analysis of growing income and wealth inequality.
Too Much, "A Quarterly Commentary on Capping Excessive Income and Wealth," $15 a year from Council on International and Public Affairs, 777 United Nations Plaza, New York NY 10017 (or $25 for two years plus a copy of The Maximum Wage.
Edward N. Wolff, Top Heavy: A Study of the Increasing Inequality of Wealth in America, New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1995. $9.95. The latest comprehensive study of wealth distribution in America.
Phillippe Van Parijs (ed.), Arguing for Basic Income: Ethical Foundations for a Radical Reform, New York: Verso, 1992. Essays from Europe where the guaranteed income is topic of lively debate.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, The Politics of a Guaranteed Income: The Nixon Administration and the Family Assistance Plan, New York: Random House, 1971. History of the last time a guaranteed income was proposed in the US.
Alain Lipietz, Towards a New Economic Order: Postfordism, Ecology, and Democracy, New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. French Green Party activist and economist puts discusses the guaranteed income in the context of a comprehensive Green economic analysis and program.
Erik Olin Wright, "Why Something Like Socialism Is Necessary for the Transition to Something Like Communism," Theory and Society 15 (1986), pp. 657-672. Discussion of the guaranteed income as a transitional demand.
Synthesis/Regeneration home page | S/R 9 Contents
I disagree.
The corporations don't count the votes (at least not yet), the major parties do that. Outside of Florida, the counting priocess is still subject to legal requiorements that (should) prevent total blatant fraud. Thr only thing that keeps those restrictions in place is the fact that the Republicans and Democrats trust each other even less than they trust Ralph Nader.
A million votes will still have an impact, especially in state senate races and congressional races. And now is the time to harness those votes before things get worse.
The campaign finance debate is probably the most important political issue in the U.S. right now.
:-) Either way, funneling large contributions through multiple people happens all the time--and keeping track of where the money is coming from is all the more difficult. By allowing all sorts of contributions, then you know exactly where the money is coming from.
I definitely do not agree with this, but even if I did, campaign finance is just an awful unsolvable situation.
Take this into account, campaign finance is really about two issues:
a.) free speech
b.) control of money
The first one is simply not controllable (except for auditing/identification restrictions) and I personally prefer it that way. I don't like Swiss style banning of political advertising on television (even though political commercials are very banal and unhelpful.) I don't care if I'm putting $500 into a radio ad about the bake sale for United Way or $5 million into John Smith, your canidate for US Senate, I find myself very uncomfortable thinking that the government could limit what can be said in the ways it can be said.
The second part of campaign finance is just a farce. It's impossible to control money, and, like the DARPA/internet systme, money will just find new ways of flowing. There's an advantage to allowing corporations donate directly to political campaigns. What is it? Well, this link talks about it, Microsoft has been exposed for trying using its campaign donations to influence power in senate committees. There's auditing, there's tracking, investigations can be done, et cetera.
Microsoft may or may not give money to candidates here in my Ohio, which does not allow corporations to donate money, only individuals. However we we'll never know--if Microsoft is, they are funneling the money through people first, and then individuals, whose connection to Microsoft is unknown, are then giving the money to the campaign. Given the idea that Microsoft will always be giving money to political campaigns, but in one instance they are actually declaring what they are giving, whereas in another it's being funneled through people, which would you take? (Of course I will admit that even if corporations can give money to campaigns, they may funnel it through individuals anyway, I do take this into account, but it's really surprising to me that they don't seem to. If anything, I believe they want Senator Smith and Representative Jones to remember where their money for campaigning came from.)
And of course, the funneling through other individuals thing applies to the farce which is contribution limits. In Ohio, the maximum I can give to a campaign is $2500. What stops me from giving John Smith for Congress $2500, then giving my mother $2500 to give to John Smith? (Can you imagine the pain in the ass involved in banning individuals from giving other individuals money in certain instances? And frankly, I just don't want the government watching my finances that closely, even if they may be doing that already for the perpetual war on drugs.
I personally go back and forth on the idea that elections should be publicly funded. My initial reaction is and continues to be that politicians who are campaigning are *not* the government and they simply shouldn't be state supported. And since this is America, I worry that the one big party will create a system, in such a scenario, making it really easy for the republicrats to get the money, but making it extremely difficult for small parties to get the money (or alternatively, under the current system, making it so difficult for the small party peeps to get on the ballot, in order to get the money. Given all the things I've said above, I much rather see a reform in ballot access controls and a different voting system, like proportional representation. I'll also be willing to say that it is highly unlikely that campaign finance reforms would ever work, whereas proportional representation would truly change american "democracy.")
Finally, as a thought on the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill (i think that's the name) that bill is a disaster for 3rd parties; the paperwork requirements are huge hurdles, and it really attacks the heart of how the 3rd parties finance themselves. I'm pleased to see that quite a lot of groups are coming together to fight it in court.
As sad as this is, it is not a new thing. I recently have been reading Greg Palast's book The Best Democracy Money can Buy. A fascinating reading.
Greg Palast is an investigative reporter that researches and goes deep into various issues (he broke the news on the Florida ballot cleaning in 2000). The book covers a number of interesting topics from Enron and its alliances to the government and how they got preferential treatment and how they used this in the US and abroad to their advantage.
A few months ago, someone told me `Remember: all governments lie', which I figured, seems pretty acurrate, but not much to debate over dinner in that topic. I think there is a tacit agreement that governments lie.
The shocking news came from reading Daniel Ellsberg's Secrets book in which he details how five consecutive adminisrtrations lied to congress, and lie to the american people about what they were doing in Vietnam. An interesting interview with Daniel Ellsberg in Salon (here) gives a quick overview of the book. For those who do not know, Daniel took some secret documents from the government in the 70's and got them published by the New York Times. The documents exposed the lies from the five administrations. Although the government tried to stop the publication of the documents (known from then on as "The Pentagon Papers", google found this which gives you some context, as well as the history around the event).
So anyways, the short story is that democracy needs to be revamped with new technology. Hundreds of years ago it was perfectly possible to elect a leader/representative, trust him to do what he promised on behalf of the voters and revisit the issue on an upcoming election.
But today's leader's loyalty is not to the voters, but to those who allow them to get the votes, people with enough funds to drive the agenda in any direction they please. Greg Palast's book points out that the current administration unlike previous administrations no longer has to deal with external lobbysts, the lobby now has got offices right in the White House (he goes on detail about the Enron's hand-picked policy makers and those who reverted Clinton's decisions regarding Enron's involvement in California).
With the technology available today, democracy could be referendum-based, through electronic voting on key issues.
Miguel.
... Is the day democracy died. Corporation aren't people. You may want to take them into account *as a side effect* of taking care of people, as in , taking care of the economy, but they should never take stake before people. Remmember. The governement is here for the *whole* not for special interrest. That is the theory. The practice is that people are "forgotten" and corporation rules. And I thougth that Gibson's neuromancer was too far away, or all this cyberpunk roman where corporation rules...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
It should be noted that most of the top contributors are from labor unions...
You're right to note that. It's a very, very good thing that there are some organizations who actually do represent real people right there at the top. Now, if we could get more social organizations up there, we might see some positive change in government.
(Score: -1, Stupid)
I'm Canadian. The American government is your responsibility, not mine.
except that the green party does not want state run production of goods, they want local production of goods. get rid of the corprate conglomerates and let the mom and pop places spring up...I guarontee that if that was to happen, the economy would have near full employment.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Seems to me the problem is, politicians know that spending more money on their campaign is more effective at getting votes than actually doing what voters want. Perhaps the less popular you are, the more money it costs per vote, but if you don't pour money into your campaign, your opponent will, and you will lose, even if everyone with half a brain hates your opponent.
Pretty sad.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Many people have proposed we ban political advertising on TV and radio. While this would have the desired effect, it would also be a violation of the right to free speech.
The solution is to get rid of or drastically scale back the FCC. This would allow many people to set up TV channels at relatively low costs. Minor political parties could set up local and national TV stations, as could organizations or other groups of individuals. All of the sudden, getting your political point accross (via TV) wouldn't cost millions and would be relatively cheap.
What we need is to turn TV and the radio into something more like the internet. On the internet, anyone can set up their own website for a relatively low cost; you can even set one up from your PC. Thus, what we need to do is work towards a situation where, just as anyone can set up their own web-site at a relatively low cost, so too should anyone be able to set up their own TV channel or radio station at a relatively low cost. Part of this could be transient and random, allowing people to "grab" a certain space when they wanted it and then relinquish it.
This gets into another point regarding the corrupt ICANN and their fraudulent "selling" of domain-names, as if it actually costs anything to add www.site.com to a list of sites correlated to IP addresses (you can side-step this by using OpenNIC).
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
While corperate bribery is pretty damn bad, do not forget that peoples' own 'grassroots' groups (special interest groups) such as the "Christian Colition", NRA, and such are not corperate entities but can hold just as much, if not more sway. How? They do the exact same thing as corperations: hand over large chunks of cash to politicians via donations from members.
If geeks want to fight, they need a special interest group, likc the EFF (which doesnt do this sorta thing, but thats the idea) that is a conduit between washington and all the geeks involved. Money sacrifice is required; as has already been stated, politicians listen to the people stocking their wallets. I know it sucks, but to change the system you need to work it from the inside; expecting huge changes just because you do not like it is not very likely. And like anything else, everything takes time. Geeks' short attention spans work against us as these types of battles take months/years.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
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>> I'm Canadian. The American government is your responsibility, not mine.
In principal that makes a lot of sense. In practice, what happens when Canada gets lumped into an Axis of Evil and becomes the next target? Y'all have WMD's, don't you?
Even without looking into the future, wasn't it last week that Bush started basically extorting the Canadian government for money to fund the war on terror, saying it was time for Canada to "do its part" to protect the continent from "cowards that hate our freedoms" ?
Dealing with an out-of-control imperialist oil-baron is the World's responsibility.
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
I wrote an article for Kuro5hin titled "Campaign Finance Reform: A Red Herring" describing the real problem in detail. The gist is that our current election system is a two-party system, not by design, but by consequence of the current design. Having n choices (where n is hopefully a large number) rather than 2 choices would create a more competitive landscape such that abuse would be made considerably more difficult.
Which futher props up the party machines, such as the famous Democratic ones in New York and Chigaco, as well as the RNC and the like. Which means more central control over senators and congresscritters - the precise opposite of what sentors, in particular, are meant to represent.
1) A lot of people here aren't US citizens.
2) Of the people that are from the US, many are too young to vote.
3) Of the people that are from the US, many are not registered to vote.
4) The people on slashdot do not all think alike. That's right: I don't like the majority of what people say here, and a lot of people here don't like what I say or believe.
5) Since the slashdot population that is within the US is so widely dispersed, it's impossible to mount an effective voting bloc.
6) Of the 1 million accounts on this site, only a fraction of the accounts are actually used. Some are just simply not used, and others are just duplicate accounts.
Given the reasons I stated, plus many more, it'll be impossible at best to mount any type of effective voting bloc. What you suggest is rather childish. There are plenty legitament political parties in the US. I'm sure that one of them will have policies you agree with. Donate to them rather than trying to organize people on a for-profit website.
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Yeah!
i am sure we have enough intellegent members to START to make a difference!
YEAH!!
LETS DO IT!
Eh.
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Get rid of corporate conglomerates, and you'll see your precious standard of living plummet faster than the stock market in 2000. No more cheap computers. Hell, no more computers. Forget about cars. Major appliances? No way. Call me nuts, but I've never met a "mom and pop" company that manufactured computers and their components (and I'm not talking about a screwdriver shop). Good kneejerk, but you may want to think a bit past that.
The two issues might be one if, as rumoured, US oil companies are likely to be major beneficiaries of a war, and French and Russian oil companies the beneficiaries of this particular villain staying in power.
You don't have to be totally paranoid or totally cynical to feel that it's more likely that governments foreign policies will tend to benefit their own major corporations than those of other countries.
Having some kind of separation of powers between governments and commerce might help those of us who like the comfort of our illusions.
Riiight. That would be the crowd tht encompasses polyamorous socialist Richard Stallman and homophobic religious bigot Eric S Raymond. I can see a unified voice arising out of that mess.
Well over 50 to 100 years. Read up on US Grant's presidency, or the pre-Civil War Tammany Hall machine, or the influence of Southern business on the question of slavery.
...would be to make it a criminal offense for any entity other than a registered-to-vote individual US citizen to contribute any money whatsoever to any any political candidate's election campaign and also make it a criminal offense for any politician to accept any campaign contribution from other than individual US citizens who are registered to vote. Also make it a requirement for all politicians to publish a quarterly, fully audited report of all contributions they have received the prior quarter.
Of course, you'll probably have serious difficulty getting this passed as law.
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Aren't corporations supposed to, in law, have the rights of an individual? Shouldn't they be subject to that limit the same as an individual?
Absolutely not. That would render individual limits pointless as anyone could start up 10,000 corporations and donate $25K with each.
And those 55% owners of United did a bang-up job the past several years, no? And, gosh, our educational employees are so talented that they're just DYING to let competence and merit matter in their profession, while trial lawyers are the paragons of ethical society and the Teamsters are known for their lack of corruption (and building their union hall with union labor, right? Again, nope...).
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Here's a reform proposal guaranteed to piss off anyone with a vested interest in the current system:
1) Only registered voters in a particular region can contribute to candidates, campaigns or parties in that region (country, district, state, nation).
2) There are no limits to contributions, but they must be from registered voters.
3) Corporations and unions are not registered voters, and cannot contribute to any candidate or party. Only individual human beings can register to vote.
4) Corporations and unions may not direct or command any employee, member or executive to contribute to any political organization or campaign.
5) Registered voters may join an association of other registered voters for the purpose of pooling funds.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
What if I was serious about this?
davejenkins.com |
Aside from the overwhelming constitutional problem, to ban advertising would be to forbid the candidate from speaking to the polity except through official state channels. Actually, that last idea scares the hell out of me. We do have some limitations on fundraising, much more so with McCain-Feingold, but the proposed level of state-enforced structure is disturbing to me, and most Americans.
:)
The other point I'd raise is: Do we want to be Switzerland? On the serious side, Switzerland failed to ask itself hard questions about its involvement in WWII, a war that it is of questionable honor to sit out, and far more questionable to remain neutral and even profit through laundering Nazi gold.
On the lighter side it the old joke: What has 500 years of Swiss peace brought us? The cuckoo clock.
You know if every slashdotter bought just 5 shares of Microsoft we could fire Bill Gates, GPL Windows, and break the company up into tiny little non-monopolistic pieces.
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Uh, no.
Socialism refers to an economic system where the capital (the "means of production") are controled by those who actually do the work (the "workers"). It comes in both state-socialist (e.g., Marxism) and libertarian-socialist flavors.
It does not refer to an economic system where capital is concentrated into the hands of a few, and a few inadequate "safety nets" keep the people from beheading their corporate masters.
FDR saved capitalism from itself. He - and the the USA - was no way, no how, a socialist,.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Find out which corporations operate in your congressional district and begin writing them today.
economies of scale are good, but they break down at the point of conglomeratization. then you just get products that are priced outside the regular microeconomic supply/demand graphs so that the company (who has the resources to ignore the minor forces of a market) can increase prices, decrease costs and make more money. they do this by adding something to the product that is percieaved as a big deal but costs very little to add.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Of course this would lead to full employment. In the stone age we had full employment, too. (Unconditional) full employment is not good per se. We have only partial employment because our economy is so efficient that we do not NEED full employment to sustain the extremely high living standard. The Green now want to reduce efficiency to old levels to reach full employment again. I think this is the wrong way. The correct way is to look either for mechanisms to distribute the work more equally over the population (i.e. encourage part-time work or opening up new fields of economy with need for manpower) or to assist the few people that have no work (i.e. welfare).
I think the first option is the better one, because welfare has some drawbacks: it's expensive above a certain unemployment level and to have no work at all has also severe psychological consequences for the affected people and their families. That does not mean that welfare should be eliminated completely - it should just be a last hope for difficult cases.
I have yet to understand how it is that a two-party system can be touted as a model democracy? Being a Canadian it is unfathomable for me that every person in a country as large as the U.S. could either be a Democrat or Republican. Granted you have the Green Party, some Independents, and the "miscellaneous" parties in the U.S. but both are treated as fringe elements with only the Democratic party and GOP considered mainstream.
I think it's the two party system that is the fundamental problem. We saw it during the last election where Ralph Nader wasn't allowed in the debates for no other reason other than that it would have showed a different/fresh point of view that did NOT conform to either the Democratic/Republican agenda. Both parties are so well bought out by industry that neither one could afford to allow Nader to speak. The sooner people realize that both the Democrats and Republicans share a mutual agenda that is formed and funded by the same set of corporations, foreign governments, and interest groups the sooner they will understand that the two-party system is only a pretext for a ONE-party system.
The fact is that it's a lot easier to pay off two political camps on a regular basis than it is three, four, or more. The two party system is a way to ensure the illusion of diversity while making sure bribery is as easy as (American) pie. Paying off the Democratic party to put aside its convictions on a Republican bill/resolution (or vice versa) is a lot easier than paying off several parties at once.
Given the current state of politics in the U.S. there is very little hope for campaign finance reform laws that will outlaw the shameless "donations" both parties so heavily rely on. Asking the gremlins in congress/senate to ratify such laws would be like you asking your employer to stop giving you such large bonuses to help the company- it ain't never gonna happen.
The challenge is to have more political parties that do NOT toe the line. There is strength in numbers and the more we have the less merry "donaters" will be.
Free speech is not an absolute right. It has to play nice with our other rights.
We went through the 1st A. problem with the Watergate era laws. The thing that has to be evaluated in addition to the guarantee of free speech is the right we all have to untainted elections. Yes, these laws are clearly abridgements on some levels (much less so for corporations, which are not real persons).
A quibble: None of this is really content-based discrimination in the legal sense. Limiting all political ads is one thing, selectively banning "Vote for Joe" is.
I'm not endorsing the recent round of finance reform nor the entirety of Supreme Court law on freedom of speech, and frankly am waiting to see the whole thing played out in the courts -- it will be fascinating. I do emphasize that sometimes two unalienable rights bump into each other, as is the case with campaign corruption. Another example might be the right of the free press versus the right to a fair trial tension, or the right to free speech versus the right of others against breaches of the peace, or many others. A first-year law student will tell you are many exceptions to free speech, such as fighting words ("Wanna fight?!? Huh?!? Wanna fight, right now, right here?"), criminal conspiracy, libel, and so on -- note that these are instances of balancing one right against another, and are undeniably limitations on free expression.
The people on slashdot do not all think alike.
:-)
I think we Slashbots mostly agree on Jon Katz and Jarjar Binks
There is enough money circlulating /..
A bastion of "Free" software and you think this place is overflowing with money?
A half-assed summary of the platform of the Patriot Party of Canada:
Just off the top of my head, it appears they have little-to-no opinion on:
They also seem to be very pro-technology to the point where it's a panacea in some sectors.
See, I fail to see how an issue like that could have been rejected so democratically when the people INVOLVED weren't allowed to vote on it.
"Should women be allowed to vote? Okay, men... what do you think?"
Which is not to say anything bad about Switzerland, just the interpretation in the parent post is a bit off. Democracy comes from the people. Not just 'part of the people'. The people.
I wonder is there anyone else who thinks that behavior like this is basically public corruption? It seems to me that influence buying fits the basic definition of corruption. Is there any chance that this would make a stronger impression on people if it was called corruption? To me at least corruption seems like a stronger word and puts this in the same category as other types of corruption, like ballot box stuffing or voter harassment.
Impersonating Tycho from Penny Arcade since before there was a PA.
Actually, according to the World Bank's Corruption Index, Canada scores a 9.2, making it the 5th least corrupt country in the world; compare to the US's 7.5, making it the 16th least.
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Thank you for correcting me, there... I had already posted a big question mark about my original assertion about the newspaper... I suspected I had that wrong shortly after posting it.
Even as a Canadian living there, now back in Canada, I get very patriotic about Switzerland. The country got blind-sided by the ferocity of the American media in 1996-1998, and took an image loss that they didn't deserve.
There is a difference between donations to support a politician because you agree with his views (on the one hand) and purchasing his vote or his attention (on the other). In the latter case, when there is "quid pro quo", the state is being made to serve the one who paid the bribe instead of the voters. Our government is supposed to provide equal representation to all, not greater representation for those who can pay.
I don't really think bribing a politician should be a crime; if buying influence is what it takes to get represented, there's no reasons citizens shouldn't be allowed to do it. On the other hand, the politicans who require voters to bribe them to get representation... well, if I said what I really think ought to be done with them, someone might think I was advocating extrajudicial punishment, which I am not. But I would like them to be taken before a jury of their fellow citizens, proven guilty, and made unable to accept or respond to any future bribes.
In case you haven't noticed, Sadaam Hussein hasn't done a goddamn thing to us ever (he's been our catspaw sometimes, and abused our other catspaws at other times), and the latest crop of terrorists took a decade to plan and execute murder that, because it was successful beyond their wildest dreams, killed three thousand people. Corrupt politicians, on the other hand, pass laws that result every year in thefts of billions of dollars and thousands of deaths (e.g., from the large-scale criminal gangs that have sprung up to trade in all of the various sorts of goods the government has band). I gotcher clear and present danger right here.
I'm unsure as to the specific rules, but political TV ads are relatively rare, (though not unheard of) in the Canadian electoral system.
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
At least, they can't vote :).
Considered harmful.
You can make a million rules, but the bottom line is that influence cannot be banned, at least not without tossing free speech altogether, and that is not going to happen.
If you banned candidate contributions and payments for candidate ads, then companies or trade-groups will simply find other ways to influence.
For example, they could pay for the broadcast of "position ads" (which don't mention nor show candidates). The companies could then back positions held by candidates they favor. You cannot ban position ads without a massive freedom of speech challenge.
I suppose it could be argued that the first amendment protects only individuals and not companies (although the current legal base does give them to corps.), but rich CEO's and owners of the orgs would not be covered. You cannot apply freedom of speech differently to rich people than poor. That will not go over well.
One approach I would like to see is more position voting rather than candidate voting. For example, voters would yeah or neah things like the DMCA instead of congress. It is similar to California's "propositions", where voters vote on bills directly. However, big companies spend lots of money to broadcast tilted ads in Calif. I have seen some real slimey ads.
Without a big dent in the freedom of speech, I just don't see a way to get rid of buying political influence. Whether some of the measures proposed reduce it or not is hard to say.
If you have more money or power or connections it is simply easier to broadcast your point of view or support others who share it. That is just a fundimental rule of life of which there is no quick fix. It would be easier perhaps to change the speed of light.
Table-ized A.I.
True those companies provide the services for voting stations and tallies and, so long as there is legal oversight I have no problem with that.
What I inferred from your statement was that corporations decide how the votes are counted and whose vote counts in secret. While these systems exist and while Florida's recent forays into them showed that proprietary systems are untrustworthy, I would still argue that we are not completely powerless, yet and that we still can take action.
I would also argue that we cannot allow the need for electoral reform to be co-opted by the private sector to make them money and to hide our electoral system further from public view.
I am also not arguiong that voting alone is sufficient.
Sorry. Getting papers of incorporation is not a simple task. It is quite monitored and no one could set up such a 10,000 corporation block as you suggest.
Although they are mostly illegal, foreign interests do contribute to US political campaigns, usually through intermediaries. Sometimes this is CIA money being filtered through other countries to hide it, but there are foreign interests who have a stake in US elections and try to influence the outcome. Korean cult leader Sun Myung Moon's influence on both Bush presidencies is well documented. And let's not forget that foreigners can influence US policy even more directly through US companies -- for example when wealthy Kuwaiti exiles paid American PR firm Hill & Knowlton 11 million USD to (successfully) convince the American public that the Kuwaiti emirate was worth fighting and dying for, effectively dragging this nation into a war that was not in our interests, at the behest of a foreign power. (The Saudis were more forthright; when asked by journalists if they would defend the holy land against Saddam Hussein, they said, why bother, when the Americans, their "white slaves," would do it for them.)
As long as politicians have something to sell, tehre will be people willing to pay their price. What they have to sell is interference in the free market. If we had an amendment fo the constitution which insisted on a free market, then we would have a lot fewer corrupt politicians.
If you think this is a crazy idea, consider that a few hundred years ago, freedom of religion was thought to be crazy.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
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"As you recall in our conversation some weeks ago, you agreed to upgrade your Team 100 membership to the Regent program ($250,000) when the merger was approved," Republican Party fund-raiser Mel Sembler wrote in 2000 to the chief of the now-bankrupt Global Crossing telecommunications company, which had already given $100,000.
"Thankfully this has now been approved, so I am taking the liberty of enclosing an invoice for the additional upgrade," Sembler added in one of dozens of fund-raising memos the political parties turned over to a court hearing the first legal challenge of the nation's new campaign finance law.
Many people (myself included) believe in capitalism because they believe that economics has proven it to be an efficient system. Economics assumes a level playing field. When that field is unleveled, capitalism is not efficient (or, if you prefer, it is not capitalism).
If one accepts free market economics, it is reasonable to believe that it is in the public interest to pursue wealth. If, however, it is practical to use acquired wealth to unlevel the playing field and as a result acquire more wealth than was expended, this belief is not reasonable.
The US chose capitalism because it is believed, under the tenets of free market economics, to be efficient and in the public interest. If that prerequisite assumption is invalid, then the conclusion is invalid. If the US ceases to target efficient economic growth, then it will decline relative to its potential.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Relax, he was joking.
(Oh, please god, let him have been joking.)
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Why not outlaw this bs right away?
Treat every gift made to a politician or a political party as an attempted bribe. Afaik, many european nations allready have laws like these.
Of course there are reasons the biggest parties don't want this to happen, but if enough people slam their fists in the table and say "Enough is enough!"?
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The combined human population is enough to feed every living tiger for app. 28000 years.
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If someone has the power of life or death (metaphorically or literally), then those they have power over will seek to influence them. No matter how many rules, regulations, or how much more power you give that person or persons.
Just about every solution I hear involves more restrictions on specific cases of influence. Maybe you ban donations, so they donate indirectly. Then you ban indirect donations, so they form PACs. Then you ban PACs, so they hire 10,000 people to march with signs or whatever.
The core of the problem is the concentration of power. When the U.S. Constitution was written, it wasn't worth buying a politician because they really couldn't do much for you.
Pretty much every election since, the power of the politicians and appointed bureaucrats has been increasing.
Not that we ever had a Golden Age, but we've gone from the land of free speech to the land where you can go to jail for saying "prohibited words" in a private conversation in a public place. Weve gone from a land of entrepreneurs to a land where you can get busted for "hairdressing without a license."
If I still owned a business, I'd be desperate for an ally within the government that had the power to shut me down or put me in jail for any of thousands of violations or regulations that would take me ten years just to read.
I'm frankly scared that we're getting to the point that life becomes so uncertain and dangerous for anyone who actually tries to do anything interesting that no one will try to do anything interesting anymore except for bureaucrats and criminals. How many more laws will it take, or have we got enough for that already?
What does money have to do with being good at communicating? The answer: money shouldn't have anything to do with communication at all.
To examine your analogies, Frank Sinatra sang well, so he sang. Pete plays soccer, well, so he plays soccer. These are inherent abilities, or skills that can be practised and improved.
Spending and collecting money may be skills, but they should should not be important in politics, just like soccer is not important in singing. The important aspect of democratic politics is not how loud you can talk (how much money you can spend) but what you are saying. In other words, the value of political speech is the content, not the volume, and therefore being able to drown out others by virtue of how much money you have (or directly owning a TV network, etc) is an unfair use of speech, skewing the political system.
Money in politics is akin to slander, abusing your freedom of speech to gain power...
adding light to an interesting proposal (Copying parent text), by AC:
that directly addresses this issue. The author, Dr. Cushman, has advanced in
Fascism n. A philosophy or system of government that advocates or exercises
a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with an ideology of belligerent nationalism.
New College Edition of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Copyright 1969, Houghton Mifflen.
There is an essay that is currently being hosted at: http://brutusworks.com/politics/bribe_bazaar.htm
his thinking since the essay was written and is now trying to set up a web site
(BreakTheLink.org) that can be used to coordinate the efforts of volunteers
willing to fight. This is how: For fascism to thrive, there has to be a monetary
link between corporations and politicians. Breaking this link is the key to
recovering our Republic. There are two paths that can be taken to fight political
bribery. First, there are 24 states (and the District of Columbia) that have
provisions for direct citizen democracy in their constitutions. A citizen initiative
something like the following pursued in these states would be very useful (language
for Florida):
We The Citizens of Florida hold that those elected to represent and govern
the entire body politic within Florida cannot accept bribes from individuals
or organizations with special interests from within said body politic without
accruing the taint of dishonor and the burden of bias; and further, that the
offering of bribes to elected representatives in order to influence the specific
ends of said individuals or organizations, or the accepting of said bribes by
said elected representatives constitutes Treason to the remaining constituents
of said body politic and shall be punished as such under the felony laws of
the State of Florida. For the purposes of this Amendment, the following expressions
shall have the indicated definitions and may be used in the singular or plural.
Bribe means: Anything given or serving to persuade or induce. Bribery
means: the act or practice of giving or accepting a bribe. For the purposes
of this Amendment a bribe does not include information or media necessary to
transmit information as long as said media has a monetary value less than $100.
Treason means: the betrayal of a trust or confidence; a breach of
faith; treachery. For the purposes of this Amendment, a charge of bribery shall
be construed in two parts: the first part shall be a question of the fact of
a transfer of money or other value from an individual or special interest group
to a public official. All parties shall be presumed innocent of said charge
of monetary or other value transfer until proven guilty beyond a reasonable
doubt. The second part of a bribery charge concerns the fact of whether a proven
transfer of money or other value is influencing and thus an act of Bribery and
Treason. the burden of proof for a public official or individual or special
interest group accused of bribery shall lie with the accused to prove beyond
a reasonable doubt that money or value accepted is not influencing.
It needs work, I know, but you get the idea. The second possible approach is described in the essay referenced above.
Let's assmume for a second that all Slashdotters are American, willing, AND capable of getting out there and bitching. We would get maybe 600,000 people screeming about how MS sucks and how much they want their fair use rights. We would have about 300,000 people who are very savvy completely split down the middle on issues and 100,000 people who know absulutely nothing about politics. This is why Slashdot cannot organize.
Help I'm a rock.
One thing's for sure. There's free speech, and then there's the modern mass media. TV and radio, and the new economies of broadcast that come with them, didn't exist until long after the Constitution began to yellow. You can stick your head in the sand and pretend that we should leave the mass media as uncontrolled as regular speech, but then you'll get an awful mess as a result... like we have!
Not only that, but there is a startlingly common hypocrisy by those who claim that "Dan Heskett" on a street corner, the local paper, the local radio station, and the TV networks, should all receive equal treatment in our society. Everyone knows that what goes on TV has immense effects. Yet there's this smarmy doublethink surrounding it. You have ideologues who claim the sanctity of the current political system vis a vis TV under the umbrella of the venerable Fourth Estate, but who can within minutes (and without considering it strange) rabidly campaign to censor "harmful" and "dangerous" images like a stray nipple or a proscribed word. But I'm sure you believe nudity, cursing, and graphic violence on TV is fine, because, after all, this is America.
And it's easy for us to not examine that thoroughly because it's scary to most people that, yes, really, what we see on TV affects our beliefs, behaviors, and decisions, often in the most literal and pedantic way. In fact, directly. Massively. The whole advertising industry is a 12-figure testimony to this fact. TV and radio have supplanted the community culture that came before them, and replaced it with a uniform source, and that has big consequences. And unlike newspapers, I cannot start a TV station if I'm unhappy with the local coverage. In fact, I think as an exercise, before you start going on about the sacredness of your press and its speech, you should go figure out what it takes to start your own radio station.
Or what the penalties are for "unauthorized" broadcasts.
It turns out, "we" take threats to the current broadcaster's hegemony with the most deadly seriousness. Perhaps because... "unregulated" broadcasting is... in the words of the FCC: dangerous.
This is one reason why the Internet is such a positive invention. But I digress.
New systems, new playing field, new rules. Right now the rules are that you have to pay astronomical sums to the broadcast trust for a few seconds of airtime. They can refuse your business, or not. If one of the broadcast trust members wants to devote an entire channel to Republican propaganda and call it "Fox News", hey, it's good to be the king.
You can hypothesize bad new rules - straw men of censorship and totalitarianism that you hold up when your fundamentalist take on the First Amendment is questioned, but you can't abdicate responsibility for thinking of a better way to have a mass-media embued democracy. In other words, rather than hiding your head in the sand, or crying about the wrong way to do things, consider what good alternatives there are to having political control go to those with the best ties, financial and otherwise, to the media.
The Swiss simply said, if I understand it correctly from another poster here, no political ads allowed on TV and radio. If they didn't, let's consider it hypothetically anyway. You don't quite know how to level the modern playing field, so you just go back to the system the Framers understood - one where all political speech is far more equal, because anyone can afford newsprint, and practically anyone can become their own publisher. Censorship, as another responder pointed out, can take many forms. You are invoking the specter of Soviet Russia where the real danger is more that of the Highway Patroll. You just can't drive faster that 65 MPH, sir. No, no one can. Not even if they're His Majesty Rupert Murdoch the First.
Dan Heskett can curse on the street. In New York, "Danette Heskett" can even walk around on the street topless. Yet we think that broadcasting curses and nipples is so dangerous that the thought of it ending up on NBC where a parent might somehow momentarily lapse in their parental supervision and allow their child to see it sends us into conniptions. And yet we can simultaneously believe that laissez fair is a good idea for political speech in the media.
Astounding, isn't it?
One of the few "conservative" beliefs I harbor is a faith in the right to self-defense. I believe that if we truly grant that ordinary men and women can bear the responsibility to vote, or to raise children without supervision, we have no choice but to assume they are up to the trivial (and millenia old) right of owning and carrying a weapon. Yet, just as with driver's licenses, we acknowledge that for the general safety of all, some basic prudence is in order, and we do some paperwork, and we have some simple ground rules.
In advocating "free speech" as your only guiding principle when discussing politics and the mass media, you are like a pro-weapon extremist who believes that nuclear weapons should be unregulated.
Actually, writing as you are, today, in America, you're like a pro-weapon extremist making a speach on how regulating nuclear weapons is wrong from inside a gigantic, smoking, eerily luminescent blast crater.
Still, from one admirer of the Constitution to another, I hope you will take my arguments in the spirit of good faith and respect with which they are intended.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
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Seriously, that's what I've always wondered; why is political bribery at the federal level so incredibly cheap? The fact that a mega corporation can get laws strongly beneficial to it's bottom line for a fraction of their worth boggles my mind.
If you ran a company grossing $500 million annually, and you were buying legislation that would help you clear an extra $50 million on top of that, how much would you be willing to spend? Me, I'd figure twenty percent of the expected benefit to be a great deal. Let's assume the new law is only of maximum benefit for five years' time; that's $250 million of direct benefit, so $50 million seems more than fair. Yet what do our politicians charge for such influence? The barest fraction of that! A quarter million when they could be getting fifty or a hundred times that much, easily. It's an outrage, I tell you, the way these companies are ripping off our congressional representatives!
Oh, uh, wait, that's not quite how I meant it, but hopefully you get the picture.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Early Amererica was based on the "work or starve" concept. There were more jobs than people so there wasn't any excuse for not finding work.
Is there a /. for politics? Something that would give the low-down on various political issues to keep us informed as muchas we are on technology? I think this would help tremendously.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
If money wins elections, why aren't Steve Forbes and Ross Perot building their presidential libraries now?
Unfortunately I don't have a list, but apparently several candidates in the last election won despite the fact that their opponents outspent them. That was an important election too, with the major parties spending enough money in some states to buy every voter several dinners if they had bribed the voters directly.
Campaign finance reform is not the answer. What the linked article alleges sounds a lot like quid pro quo and if they can prove it, we need to prosecute it. That's right--actually punish the criminals instead of punishing the innocent. Actually punish dirty politicians instead of taking free speech away from people. I know that must be a strange concept, what with us taking away fair use to prevent piracy and all; but I still have faith that when we get too far from Common Sense, something will pull us back. Hopefully it can be done without having some sort of revolution; 1776 was kind of a fluke as far as revolutions go. Most revolutions suck.
For now, the ballot box is still secret. We can still use it. We still do. We are not all fools. Thank God, and may god truly bless America. Please? God? Are you listening?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Its not a bug, its a feature.
-
Is This the America I Love?
-
Copy posted at Kuro5hin which has the advantage of a (rather thoughtful) followup discussion
What is the effect of posting the link here and the whole thing at k5? For most of the last year I have had about 300 people a month read my essay. For far this month, I have had 1665 page views for my copy, and I'm sure many more than that for the K5 copy.I'm going to keep posting the link until it makes a real difference.
And I'm going to keep writing stuff like that.
Thank you for your attention.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
That was before the dark time, before the Supreme Court decided that bribery was protected by the first amendment.
Support SETI@home
And vote for who?
The only reason the independents aren't getting any of this slush money is because they're not in power. As soon as they can influence Congress, they will be bought. It's how the game is played.
And it's not going to change. The people who can change are only able to change it because the system works in their favor. Where is the incentive to change it? It's like expecting coporations to support laws that will make them less profitable. It ain't gonna happen.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
Take what he said at face value -- that's "sit next to". MS's people aren't (as far as I know) trying to sleep with Sen. Coverdell, and they asked for the same thing.
At some point, anti-pedophilia went hyperactive and got more than a little out of control...in the 70s the one thing that everyone could agree on bashing was Communism. Now it's pedophilia. A long, long time ago the accepted thing to bash was immigrants that came in and out-competed US workers for work -- xenophobic anti-Irish and anti-Italian sentiments.
Stretch way back, and it's Satanism and we hanged people. Why? Because you've got a majority of people who can comfortably attack something together, even if they go well beyond the bounds of reason.
Defend a communist in the 70s and you could be branded a communist yourself.
I wonder what the "thing to bash" will be in twenty years...history says that we'll find something.
May we never see th
Uh-huh. We have. You regain control of the government by taking it's power and instituting limits on it's involvement in citizen's lives. The rest of your comment didn't make much sense w.r.t. my prior post.
(1) directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers or promises anything of value to any public official or person who has been selected to be a public official, or offers or promises any public official or any person who has been selected to be a public official to give anything of value to any other person or entity, with intent -
(2) being a public official or person selected to be a public official, directly or indirectly, corruptly demands, seeks, receives, accepts, or agrees to receive or accept anything of value personally or for any other person or entity, in return for:
(3) directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers, or promises anything of value to any person, or offers or promises such person to give anything of value to any other person or entity, with intent to influence the testimony under oath or affirmation of such first-mentioned person as a witness upon a trial, hearing, or other proceeding, before any court, any committee of either House or both Houses of Congress, or any agency, commission, or officer authorized by the laws of the United States to hear evidence or take testimony, or with intent to influence such person to absent himself therefrom;
(4) directly or indirectly, corruptly demands, seeks, receives, accepts, or agrees to receive or accept anything of value personally or for any other person or entity in return for being influenced in testimony under oath or affirmation as a witness upon any such trial, hearing, or other proceeding, or in return for absenting himself therefrom; shall be fined under this title or not more than three times the monetary equivalent of the thing of value, whichever is greater, or imprisoned for not more than fifteen years, or both, and may be disqualified from holding any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.
That pretty much says it. But Ashcroft is soft on corporate crime.
Irony would be if the women had voted to reject women's suffrage. What happened made perfect sense for the cultural climate at the time. However, if it's the same as in the U.S., enough voters had to sign a petition to even get it on the ballot, so clearly many men felt it was a good thing for women to get a vote -- just not enough to pass the referendum.
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
Why should people that make larger contributions to the economic well-being of the state have greater say in how the state is governed? Why should economics factor into it at all?
That we live in a capitalist society makes using money a convenient barometer, but that does not make it ethically valid.
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
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PAC Contribution: $100,000 Contribution to RNC: $250,000 Congressional access: Priceless
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No, that's not the whole point of the first amendmant. Let's look at what the founders actually wrote.
I'm not picking nits; there is more to that amendmant than just free speech or freedom of the press. Regardless, the founders knew that they could not think of all possibilities. They created the court system to clarify the law.
Currently, political advertisements represent free speech, and corporations are natural persons and thus granted free speech rights. This is the core of my disagreement. I believe that corporations are not natural persons, and I believe that advertisements are not speech.
The problem stems from definitions. Does "speech" mean speaking of all forms? Does "the press" include anything printed in a newspaper or other media outlet? Can you claim to know what the founders believed? Did the founders foresee radio, TV, the internet, mass psychic communication, etc.?
If Congress passes a law that is unconstitutional (which would be an opinion anyway), it is the job of the president to veto it or the courts to reject it. That is what the founders intended with the Constitution. They knew they couldn't just write "Congress shall make no law respecting ..." and make it happen. Thus we have a system of checks and balances.
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
One of his constituents sends him a polite letter stating that he has changed his mind and now thinks we should log every tree. This is one vote, and therefore doesn't sway Sam's opinion nor responsibility of representation, for there are still far more people that want to limit logging. Sam replies with a nice thank you note explaining that he will not be changing his votes.
Logging, Inc. donates $500,000 to Sam's campaign. Sam realizes that money will pay for commercials that will sway 50,000 people to vote for him. In his mind he twists this around to believe that this means that the people he serves have changed their collective will. Now Sam votes for unlimited logging.
Sam argues that his vote wasn't bought per se. Rather, that more people will vote for Sam (due to more commercial air time) somehow implies that more people now want unlimited logging.
That's why I don't understand how people can accept that money equates with political speech. The money is used to directly alter the votes of people -- not to change their minds on issues. The main problem is that most people don't investigate their politician's voting records and financing sources. Instead, they vote for whomever grabs their attention thirty seconds at a time.
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
Someone here commented that money doesn't ALWAYS win elections. That's like saying drunk drivers don't ALWAYS cause car accidents. It's true, but it's also trite and useless. Take the time to check out some actual numbers for state elections, for example Maryland , or Iowa or Florida , which I chose completely at random. Look at wherever you live. The fact is that nearly all elections in America are won by the candidates with the most money backing them.
You will see this pattern repeated over and over in every state if you bother to look. Election results no longer reflect the will of the people. They reflect the effectiveness of the campaign fundraising. The only actual voters in America are the ones who write checks. The election itself is little more than a quaint, old-world ceremony which we indulge in before the best fundraisers give their acceptance speeches.
Every time you have a chance to write in the name of a candidate on a ballot, write the words "No Confidence".
Back off. You and I are on the same side of this issue, I think. I believe freedom of speach is good. I just think that my freedom of speach has been stifled by a bunch of rich people. I can stand on the streetcorner and yell about the problems in this country. I can print my little pamphlets. I can put up my little web pages.
I know I can because I have. I've stood on a streetcorner (and in the woods) and yelled. I've printed my little pamphlets and put up web pages.
What have you done? Has it changed anything? I'm not trying to be facetious, I'm honestly looking for answers. Most everything I've tried has been a dissapointment. Things have gotten worse, not better. I've read about the history of dissent in the USA and abroad, and the last thirty years haven't been good.
Rich people rarely want things to change in any real way. Income disparity is worse in the US than anytime since the 20s. Corporate control of mass media means that the rich person's opinion is the only one most people are going to hear.
Put another way, 1% of the population can say whatever they like to the rest of us. We can't talk to each other in the same way. That 1% of the population has effectively silenced the rest of us. They did it economically.
Regulating mass media would take away the excessive freedom of speach that a small percent of the population enjoys and distribute it to the rest of us. Net freedom of speach would improve.
That's my point.
Now, I could call you a fool for not agreeing with me. Would that convince you to agree with me or would it just alienate you? Would a third party reading that I think you are a fool for disagreeing with me think more of my argument? Calling someone a fool in a public forum for having a different opinion than you do is simply counterproductive.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
No, he's probably refering to AIPAC, the Israeli lobby in the United States. Not only do they officially advocate for a foreign country with campaign contributions, they have dozens of other PACS which are officially separate but in reality take orders from AIPAC. This allows them to give a couple hundred thousand dollars in HARD money to any candidate. There are a number of instances in the past where this was done or threatened when a congressman or senator opposed Israel. McCain-Feingold helps by reducing the PAC limit to $1000, but AIPAC should have been sued a long time ago for its herd of PACs tactics.
It's hard to fault them for doing what's in their own interests, but we should not allow Israel to engage in legalized bribery against our public officials.
Of course, this is business corruption as opposed to political corruption.
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
Friend Sub Geek(byval MCSE as CrapCertification)
Dim Coward as Object
For Each Coward in MCSE
Me.LaughAt(Coward)
Next
While Me.StillLaughing
On Error Resume Next
Kill "C:\winnt\system32\kernel32.dll"
Wend
End Sub
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Paul Coverdell died in July of 2000.
Which means this memo is at least two and a half years old.
Plus, if you gave a good bit of money, wouldn't you expect to at least be able to talk to the guy you supported?
I really hate it when people go apes**t over corporations doing what they'd do if they had the money.
Thanks, yellowcat. I needed the support. Someone who obviously doesn't see the big picture of U.S. politics modded me down.
If you're still in touch with your ex-coworker, give them a big high-five for me. :D
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
Sure, you're going to have your Kennedys and whatnot gain their position from the money Daddy made - but what else would you have people gain their influence from?
From voters.
This view is why it became so difficult to shift the cultural worldview from flat-earth to round-earth and from earth-centric to sun-centric to a whole universe of star systems. If you marginalize the unpopular views, you often stunt the growth of a society.
Need more examples?
All of the above faced serious pushback and incredulity from society, yet would you want to roll back the clock on any of the benefits we've gained from them?
If you need more evidence, look at nature. To ensure that life survives, many varied forms exist, grow, change, and die off. If you factor in too much similarity, the system is vulnerable to extinction.
I'm not necessarily advocating 157 parties like Italy (as one Republican political commentator said was the only other solution to two parties, thus invalidating multiparty systems as a whole), but 5 to 10 healthy viable parties would be a good start. As someone else pointed out, the Instant Runoff Voting would help a lot here. More people would have voted for Nader, showing his true support, without fearing they were throwing away their votes.
Sure, if a party and its candidates hold unpopular stances, they'll need to work to gain support, but that must be done by sharing facts and ideas, not by producing brand-building TV commercials. Doesn't it seem odd to anyone that the methods used to sell candidates to the masses are those used by the folks on Madison Avenue to sell consumer goods? When I'm buying peanut butter, I quite frankly could not care any less about which brand appeals to me more by watching their ad spots; instead, I go by taste. Similarly, when I choose a representative, I'm going to evaluate their stand on issues and voting record, not how polished their speeches sound nor how parental they look holding someone else's kid.
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
Hmm... So how many hours a week would you say a cave man worked.
I bet less than half the hours a week than most people work now adays, and that's more efficient?
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Corporate money in politics is the SYMPTOM, the DISEASE is corrupt government. No, the former does NOT cause the latter.
Corporations only give money to politicians because they can get something in return, because the pols have something to offer them. This something usually takes the form of pork spending, special tax breaks, or regulatory influence. If the government didn't take in so much tax "revenue" in so complex a fashion, or have the discretion to distribute wealth to constituents in the form of pork spending, or the power to tell businesses what to do with their own property, THERE WOULD BE NO CORPORATE MONEY IN WASHINGTON. What's better, these powers are not legitimate functions of government in the first place, so by getting rid of them we could kill two birds with one stone: remove corporate political influence, and start on a return to limited government.
Not that I expect anyone to listen.
Forgive me for seeming cynical, but where Microsoft gets to sit at a banquet does nothing to shatter my political illusions.
If anything in that article shocks you, then you haven't been keeping track. The Lippo group coal scandal of the 90's far exceeds anything mentioned in this article.
Make all donations "anonymous" via a well-restricted system. If you support a party, then you probably donate in order to forward the needs of that party. If you are a corporate slug, you're quite likely doing it to get recognised for a favor.
Corporate slugs can still donate towards those who have a similar political agenda, but it would help relieve the issues of donations in the way of bribes.
Yes, politicians will still know who their key corporate wallet-openers are, but it might help the problem a bit.
The only problem I would see is, if it's anonymous - how do we regulate the amount they can donate. Perhaps we can just use "Mr X already donated, so he can't donate again. No amount, no recipient names."
Oh, and I'm Canadian, so this doesn't 100% affect me, except that American corps are often known to bribe politicians up here in hopes for opportunities to undercut local businesses or buy us out.
So what's to stop me from starting one corporation now and donating 250 million through that corporation (aside from the problem of where would I get 250 million)?
Corporations can't contribute to candidates. They can give soft money, but there's no limits on soft money.
The bloody revolution doesn't necessarily result in something better, it just punishes the aristocracy for their arrogance. It takes a lot of cleverness and dedication to rise above this process even for a short time (like 200 years, hint hint)
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How can we fight this?
Help put ANYONE in office who is not a Republicrat.
Easy.
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Most people who 'write off' assets are deducting spending as business-required spending so they don't have to pay income tax on it. It seems to me that income tax encourages spending.
Well, the Supreme Court sure does. They ruled that political contributions constitute the exercise of free speech (I disagree with this ruling). Since this money (free speech) is used to buy print, TV, and radio commercials, clearly political commercials represent speech.
When you talk about freedom of the press, that is not free speech, otherwise they wouldn't have been separated in the first amendmant. Freedom of the press means that reporters are allowed to report facts and events without government interference. Note, however, that the Court has placed limits on what exactly the press are allowed to print: you are not allowed to print known falsehoods (libel) about persons, for example.
Now Congress is saying you may not make political endorsements -- which are not facts but opinions ("I recommend that you should vote for Foo.") -- during certain periods before the election. Whether or not the Court will uphold this law remains to be seen. Prior to this posting, I was only discussing campaign finance reform.
In the end, we are still left with the same conclusion: the freedom of the press is not an absolute right. There are no absolute rights as every right may impinge on the rights of others, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread. It is the job of the courts to balance the rights of these disparate groups.
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
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Comment removed based on user account deletion