Slashdot Mirror
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.
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?
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
There are limits on what individuals or Political Action Committees(PACS) can give to candidates directly. Firthermore, Unions and Corporations are expressly FORBIDDEN from direct donations. However, until recently, there was a loophole. Corporations, unions, and individuals were able to give unlimited donations of so-called 'Soft Money' by channeling the money through donations to Political Parties instead of directly to candidates. As of election day, a new law is in effect, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (better known to many as McCain-Feingold or Shays-Meehan) which BANS soft money contributions at the federal level. However, many critics have observed, correctly, that the money is now being funneled to the states as the parties search for new loopholes. Furthermore, over the summer the FEC (Federal Election Comission) In the rulemaking process for the new law, Gutted many of the restrictions originally present. The law is a shell of what it could have been. There is also the standing court challenge against the BCRA that is currently in Federal appeals court. It WILL go to the supreme court as soon as this formality is through. More information on this and more can be found at http://www.commoncause.org http://www.opensecrets.org http://www.democracy21.org and http://www.publiccampaign.org
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.
Indeed a quick google of contribution limits lead me to the following info:
Individual Citizens may contribute the following per year (at maximum)
1) $1,000 to any Canidate or Canidate comittee
2) $20,000 to any National Party
3) $5,000 to any other political comitee
4) A cap of $25,000 per year between all combined contributions.
So, while you and I can "Buy" $25,000 of senator, Microsoft is not limited in it's ability to buy shares of a political-whore?
Not only do they have an effective monopoly on operating systems, they (along with other corporations) have been able to make the $25,000 shares of your average citizen look like pennies that get discarded on the city street because they're not worth the effort to pick up after they fall from your pocket.
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
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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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!
I'm sorry that you believe your employer shapes your beliefs for you. My employer does NOT represent me, nor should they ever say they do.
Smaller companies often do not have the money, because of larger companies, to buy themselves politicians. Microsoft may support thousands of people, but this country contains MILLIONS of people and there's no reason a company that supports only thousands should have enough sway to negatively affect the MILLIONS it doesn't support.
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"
Because we can't all come together on the vi vs. Emacs debate, let alone campaign finance reform.
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 :)
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.
Even in New Zealand, where we don't generally have this problem, corruption of the process is creeping in. The local rich peoples' part, called ACT, regularly gets the most money (despite having generally poor electoral results: oddly enough, most people are underwhelmed by a manifesto that would only be good for a narrow range of the population).
However, many of the wealthy people who give money to ACT are apparently afraid of having their donations being published for reasons that are unclear to me; since there's a $5000 disclosure limit, a local law firm whose partners are pro-ACT helped people around this by taking donors' money, and then having the staff of the company make $4999 donations.
(Ironically enough a number of people who support ACT whine about more socially oriented companies such as Stephen Tindell's Warehouse chain getting involved in philanthropy; supporters such as economist Gareth Morgan trot out the line that companies becoming involved in social/political action are "stealing from owners"; Mr Morgan was rather silent on this little trick).
One of the problems with these sorts of regulations is that the unscrupulous will go to considerable lengths to evade the law and have the resources to help them: consider the aforementioned example, where secretaries, junior lawyers, and other employees are press-ganged into evading the law and supporting their bosses' favourite party.
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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.
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.
This is a fairly common misconception that political parties "reward" those that supported them financially.
You'll probably find that the reason that a group gives donations to a party is because they feel that the party thinks in a similar way to they do.
Did you read the linked article? They quote documents that damn-near say they'll let you write your own laws for a quarter million. For example:
Nicholson enclosed a copy of the RNC's health care proposals and asked Heimbold for his suggestions to improve it. He also included an outline of GOP lawmakers were doing involving health care legislation.
In the next paragraph, Nicholson encouraged Bristol-Myers -- already a GOP donor -- to give $250,000
Guess what? Bristol-Myers gave $291,200
READ IT! The letters and internal memos are disgusting! We're not talking about corporations supporting parties and candidates that they happen to agree with, we are talking about selling political influence. Why else would all these companies hand equal amounts of soft money to BOTH parties?
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
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.
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!
That was before the dark time, before the Supreme Court decided that bribery was protected by the first amendment.
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