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Following Bill Gates' Linux Attack Money
UnderScan writes "After researching this material for about three years, Tom Adelstein tracks Microsoft's anti-Linux lobbying money: "Microsoft has unparalleled influence throughout the Federal government. On the cover of a recent edition of VarBusiness Magazine dated June 26, 2005 the editors presented a large headline which read: 'It's A Microsoft World. Five years after running afoul of the Feds, Microsoft is as powerful as ever. Pushing a platform instead of products could make it stronger still. Why nothing seems to stop it.'""
Microsoft has unparalleled influence throughout the Federal government.
Oh puh-lease. There are plenty of companies with that kind of clout; there are plenty with a hell of a lot more. Compared to Halliburton or McDonnell-Douglas or Boeing, Microsoft is strictly amateur hour.
I don't mean to discourage the notion that our leaders sell out cheaply, they certainly do. But documented campaign contributions are the tip of this iceberg, dive down below the surface with me.
There are golf trips, and trips to las vegas, or other places this senator needs to check out for him to be able to properly understand Microsoft and the plight of the industry regarding the federal government.
There are the neices and nephews with a different last name, that need a job out of college, that Microsoft hires.
There are the flights on corporate jets. The introductions to other powerful industry people, that both junior and senior senators need.
There's the promise of a cushy job if and when they do retire out of Congress.
The promise of indirect contributions come next election.
And once you consider that the $5000 is more like roughly $100,000 all things considered, and that it only required an hour here, and hour there throughout the year, never interfering with others giving him more or less the same benefits... would you pass over one more free grab at $100,000, when you're already selling out 5 times a day, and #6 won't be all that more difficult?
"Better yet, you idealists should all just die now. The world has no room for people who strive to make it a better place."
No thanks. At the end of my life, I'd like to not be remembered as a back-stabbing cheat, but as someone who strove to make the world better. And today you're in luck: I can take your ridicule. My heart is full of love.
How2 this is rated as a troll is a mystery. here in the US companies and Special Interest Groups have politicians on their payroll. Any person who don't see that is truly blind.
And to all people who claim I have never been outside USA, I can only say I'm not an American, but come from a Scandinavian country. I have lived in USA since 1999. I've lived in several countries around the wolrd and travelled extensively in East-Europe too, both before and after the fall of communism. Nowhere have I seen politicans so blatantly ignoring the common peoples interest as here in the US while beeing in the pockets of corporations. You can mod me troll as much as you like, but it doesn't change the facts.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!