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State Senator Admits Cable Industry Helped Write Pro-Industry Legislation
jamie sends in news of comments by David Hoyle, a State Senator in North Carolina, about recently defeated legislation he sponsored that would have limited the ability of government to develop municipal broadband. Hoyle readily admitted that the cable industry had a hand in writing the bill. We discussed the cable industry's extensive lobbying efforts in that region last year. From the article:
"The veteran state senator says cities should leave broadband to the cable companies. 'It's not fair for any government unit to compete with private enterprise,' he says. In the last legislative session Sen. Hoyle tried to put a moratorium on any more local governments expanding into municipal broadband. When the I-Team asked him if the cable industry drew up the bill, Senator Hoyle responded, 'Yes, along with my help.' When asked about criticism that he was 'carrying water' for the cable companies, Hoyle replied, 'I've carried more water than Gunga Din for the business community — the people who pay the taxes.'"
Yeah, just look at how the Post Office drove UPS and FedEx out of business.
If you don't like corruption in politics, then why do you keep voting for politicians? In the end, they are all the same. Power corrupts. There is no caveat to that axiom.
If you want to get rid of the politicians, then check out what happens when you apply the principles of the free software movement to governance.
'I've carried more water than Gunga Din for the business community -- the people who pay the taxes.'"
So much for the idea, hugely popular with the 'business community,' that taxes are always just passed through to the consumer.
I guess he must be a democrat, right?
PS - it isn't this David Hoyle in case anyone else was wondering...
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
If I were one of his constituents if I would be impressed with his candor or outraged at being sold out. That and I'm fairly certain citizens pay taxes as well.......
Cable companies should not be allowed to have a monopoly on anything. If you ever think that it's a good idea, look at the mess we have in Canada. There's only a handful of companies, none of them competing with the others. They all have their own territories, just like organized crime.
I'm going to start my own mercenary company, and the U.S. Army won't be allowed to compete for national defense!
'It's not fair for any government unit to compete with private enterprise,'
So, time to shut down the postal service, public schools, state universities, libraries, utilities, city buses, ad nauseum...
When the I-Team asked him if the cable industry drew up the bill, Senator Hoyle responded, 'Yes, along with my help.' When asked about criticism that he was 'carrying water' for the cable companies, Hoyle replied, 'I've carried more water than Gunga Din for the business community — the people who pay the taxes.'"
Apparently it's business that pays all the taxes in this country and not the citizens!
Wooohoo! All that tax I've been paying every year around April 15 is an error! There has been some huge oversight and I've been being billed incorrectly.
I'll take a check for the balance Senator. Pay me when you can.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
It is a great US myth that corporations fund the government. The actual facts are that the people pay more.
Also the citizens vote. So why are the politicals doing the behest of the corporations ?
http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/yearrev2009_0.html
2009 Income Taxes
Individual: $915.3B
Corporate: $138.2B
This is not something to be proud of.
Business can only pay tax on income from spending. Consumer spending is direct from citizens. Government spending is indirectly from citizens.
This guy needs to be reminded as to who pays his pay-check - especially since business pays proportionately a lot LESS tax than they did a generation ago, and the soon-to-disappear middle class a lot more!
David Hoyle is my hero.
At least he's puting his money where his mouth is, by handing the legislative process over to the private sector.
Where I live in Western Mass, I live in a city with municipal run power and our bill is always cheaper than the cities around us with the "business" run power.
I'm very tempted to write up a proposal to have:
Wouldn't it be tons cheaper and better for the people of my town if the city could provide the sorta service this would require ? And new jobs would be created IN THE CITY...
What a concept, huh ?
UPS Sucks
Hardly a secret that industry basically writes policy and law at both the state and federal level. As expensive as Congressional campaigns are, and with free reign to donate to (aka "bribe") any politician they choose, is it any real surprise that they're calling all the shots? Hell, Dick Cheney even gave the oil companies their own secret task force to write U.S. energy policy.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
David Hoyle is... a Democrat
Somehow I suspect that if he was a Republican that would have been mentioned once or twice in the /. Story.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
"I've carried more water than Gunga Din for the business community — the people who pay for my reelection campaign."
You mean a business doesn't want itself legislated out of existence?
Whenever there's a discussion about privatizing municipal services, private industry's selling point is always that they can do a far better job than government because government is so inept and inefficient.
If this is indeed the case, then shouldn't a municipal broadband should be no threat at all to private industry, and therefore there should be nothing at all for them to worry about.
Only one problem: most municipalities contemplating running their own broadband Internet service are doing it precisely because the cable and phone companies aren't providing the service. It's time to stop thinking about Internet access as a service and start thinking about it as a utility, with the changes in mindset that implies (eg. you don't want parts of your city to be without water or electricity just because the utility companies think it won't be cost-effective to serve them).
Apparently this guy has never heard of Exxon!
Once any business gets large enough, they do creative accounting or move all their "official" offices offshore (do you kow how many businesses are incorporated in Bermuda as a tax haven?) to avoid taxes.
http://blogs.forbes.com/energysource/2010/04/07/exxon-says-it-does-pay-u-s-income-taxes/
If the USA could actually collect what it is owed by big business, we wouldn't *have* a national debt!
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
in letting Senator hoyle know exactly what they think of his ideas. Office: 300-A Legislative Office Building Phone: (919) 733-5734 Email: David.Hoyle@ncleg.net Legislative Mailing Address: NC Senate 300 N. Salisbury Street, Room 300-A Raleigh, NC 27603-5925 Terms in Senate: 9 (0 in House) District: 43 Counties Represented: Gaston Occupation: Real Estate Developer/Investor Address: P.O. Box 2567, Gastonia, NC 28053 Phone: (704) 867-0822
Politicians serve the money.
America has died.
You probably voted for it, too.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Should all the people who contributed to the process that led to the passage of health care reform also be tarred with the same brush being weilded here?
Seems to me the process worked here.
Heck, the reason everyone tries to influence different parts of the US government is because of all the power it's accumulated over the years. If we keep giving the government more and more power, there will be more and more incentive for EVERYONE to try and influence that government.
Notice how when a Democrat is accused of something less than honest, the story summary conveniently excludes party affiliation. However if a Republican is implicated, you'll be sure to see "Republican Senator So-And-So" in the summary. Cause you know how only Republicans are corrupted by "big business"
Can't make a decision until we learn if/what subsidies are being paid to the municipal power arm.
Translation: I get lots of great kickbacks from these guys, so fuck you, consumer!!!!
Hopefully his constituents aren't asleep and give him the appropriate treatment when his name shows up on the ballot. Business may pay the taxes, but it's the voter that gets to mark the ballot.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I've given up with "Party affiliation" as if *that* matters anymore. They are all crooks, regardless of which side they claim to be on. There is only one "side" in Washington DC, the side that represents yourself, and how much you can take from the country.
There's no politician actually representing "the people", without fail, all these guys are elite, wealthy, went-to-the-right-school, skull and bones club, lawyers or businessmen who only wanted to get elected so they could become part of the corruption process.
And they will do or say whatever it takes to "get in", they will promise you the world, hawk wedge issues, and destroy their opponent, all so that they can get in and take as much of the pie as they can get their hands on. It's all a power game.
None of it is about doing anything for the American People.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Everything else is small potatoes.
Deleted
Because politicians are not really living breathing people, they are just automatons that do exactly what their party platforms tell them to do?
This senator for some reason seems to have forgotten that the sole reason privately owned services are often preferable to public ones is competition. In every instance that I've seen, a private monopoly is always a disaster. Given that private telco's stop at nothing to avoid competing - a public monopoly is the lesser evil. Free market fans like this guy should spend their energy ensuring that private industry keeps competing rather that trying to raise legal fences around markets that are no longer free because they have degenerated into monopolies. Granted there are many telco's - but if it's anything like here (in Denmark), their broadband cable networks are meticulously dug into the ground without any overlap at all, efectively leaving each customer without any choice. And when a municipal broadband appears - the previous local monopoly is always suddenly able to sell a much better product.
Run with the lemmings, and you'll get your feet wet.
Check out Saskatchewan. With our government owned Telco we are able to reinvest the money made into infrastucture. We have high speed available in 282 communities. My home town (over 100km away from any city) of less than three hundred has 5Mbs service for around $45/mnth (without bundling) and in the same area people out of town have access to 2Mbs wireless internet for $60/mnth.
Right now they are working on upgrading their cellular network to 3G across the province. With a population of just over 1 million that is pretty impressive.
Ya, like with health insurance. Wait. Why isn't it "fair" again?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
What city, specifically? Are they paying subisidies to the power companies to provide citizens with "cheap" energy?
No matter how you slice it, taxes are money taken out of private hands by the government. As such, private citizens are the ones who ultimately pay those taxes. If you tax a company, well that tax is then a part of their cost and will be structured in as such. It will manifest as increased prices, decreased compensation, etc. If you don't tax the company but instead tax the purchase, again it shows as a higher price to the consumer. Maybe it is listed on a separate line, but the consumer still pays. If you don't tax that at all but instead tax a person's income, then they just have less to spend, and lower prices are a larger part of their total disposable income.
There just isn't any way around it. So trying to say something like "Businesses pay the taxes," is stupid even were it true (which as you pointed out it isn't). Businesses are made up of, and shopped at by, regular people. Those people are the ones who pay the taxes in the end. Now there's nothing wrong with that, the government needs to collect taxes to provide the services we want, but let's be straight about who's paying.
http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/yearrev2009_0.html
Where is the 'Democrats' tag? Where is the party affiliation in the summary? And where is the donkey icon? If he was a Republican can anyone here seriously say that there would not be a 'Republicans' tag, the word 'republican' in the summary and the elephant icon?
This part:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Corporations are not people. Giving corporations the right to influence the political process skews the will of the people.
I totally never seen this coming! Here I thought that they were supporting these corporations for absolutely no reason at all.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
That will never happen on most issues. You'd have permanent grid lock, if applied at the national level.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
If you really believe Slashdot is naming party affiliation of Republicans and not Democrats, you should be able to provide a few examples.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
FTFY Mr. Hoyle
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Legally they *ARE* people. This is the major problem in the U.S. today. They get all the advantages of "personhood" without any of the disadvantages plus a whole pool of money, so making corps. people legally essentially gives them more rights than anyone else.
I am really confused... why am I the only one that thinks we should have a constitutional amendment to end Corporate Personhood? No one ever mentions this... especially not in our media. Hmmm... I wonder why.
I think they should rename Senators to Senatwhores
They should give SenatWhores 30 Day Terms and put them in charge of pandering to the lobbyists.
Every Senatwhore can be bought for 50 million dollars and will sign their name on 1 bill in any way shape or form per term.
Every vote from a Senatwhore costs 100 million dollars and will only cast 1 vote per term.
This allows common tax payers to compete against large megalobbyists.
if 100 million tax payers contribute $77 to the fund we could effectively write and pass our own laws that we the people decide.
And pay taxes as well and raise 7.5 billion in taxes as well. We should of course give a total of 1% to be split amongst the senatwhores for all their hard work. (or $750k max each)
It has nothing to do with subsidies; it has to do with regulated business delivering service at cost + 10% profit rather than at market price. Properly regulated utilities produce cheaper products than their unregulated ('competitive') counterparts.
I just can't get over the fact that a state senator (or a US one, really) knows that Gunga Din was a water bearer. Maybe US education is better than I thought.
The bought and the for sale.
Pretty hard to say that's not the case without actually knowing the city in Western Mass he's talking about, which is why I'm curious.
Your assertions provide no data to support them, so I'd be interested to see any case studies you have to support your argument, too.
I am not arguing it is impossible, I am actually asking for information out of genuine curiosity as to how the local governments make it work.
David Hoyle: 'It's not fair for any government unit to compete with private enterprise,' -
But its not fair that private enterprises are not delivering internet access at reasonable prices (otherwise local governments wouldn't dream of
getting into providing broadband).
I think the keyword is FCC
Stephan
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
Is that business taxes can end up being unfair. For one, businesses can avoid them more easily, like all the off shore companies we deal with these days. Also those that can't be avoided will generally be handed down as price increases. That of course hurts the poor more than the rich.
I'm not saying businesses should face no taxes, land usage (property tax) is a pretty well established tax and one that is really hard to avoid and makes sense as the more property you have, the more resources you use. However income wise it seems to make more sense to tax individuals than businesses. You can have a more progressive tax structure, and it is harder to avoid.
Public education, I'll grant you, is a bit of a dog's breakfast in the US -- school quality can go from stellar to fecal. I was one of the lucky bastards, and went to a public school that was actually pretty damned good, but I know hellholes exist.
Meanwhile, private schools are not necessarily much better. There are certain structural issues when it comes to the education marketplace that can get in the way of free market ideals -- two of the most obvious are simple geography, and capital expense. I've seen and worked in, and my wife has seen and worked in, private schools of varying quality. Just because it's private doesn't guarantee that it's good.
Many of the entrenched issues I've seen in any particular school seem to have much more to do with the local community -- be it the municipality for public schools, or simply the community of employees, parents, and other involved parties for private schools. Public schools in big cities seem the most likely to be bad, as education policy gets caught in the crossfire of city politicking, and any sense of "community" on a more human and personal scale gets lost.
But the USPS seems to do a pretty good job -- YMMV and all that aside, I've had FedEx and UPS both lose packages on the one hand and fail to deliver in the stated time on the other, whereas anything I've sent or had sent to me via the good ol' Post Office has made it to its destination in a timely fashion. And the regular mail tends to be cheaper for most purposes to boot.
And as an aside about utilities in general, I was living in California during the whole Enron debacle and saw my electricity bill more than double for unchanged usage, with rolling black/brownouts included. The one place in CA that rode through the whole mess with equanimity was Los Angeles -- largely because the city had never privatized its power plant.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
When asked about criticism that he was 'carrying water' for the cable companies, Hoyle replied, 'I've carried more water than Gunga Din for the business community — the people who pay the taxes.
You can call me Naive but, isn't it the responsibility of the government to protect the people. Not the industries...
Here in Wisconsin, two years ago ATT came to the Capitol with more than a dozen lobbyists and started handing out campaign contributions. They picked a conservative Democrat and a Republican from the Senate and Assembly who would play ball. They handed them a "bill mill" draft of how they'd like to revamp Wisconsin's cable television laws. They did not invite anyone else to the meetings. They didn't invite the over-the-air broadcasters, they didn't invite the cable industry, they didn't invite the community television stations. They listened to ATT. They removed local city control and oversight of cable franchises and replaced it with a state-level franchise system with little to no oversight. They assigned minimal regulatory powers to the department of financial institutions - not the existing Public Service Commission that handles all other telecom. The only powers they assigned were to accept the annual $5,000 franchise application. They were not given any powers to reject any applications. They sunset the ability of cities to assign a surcharge on bills to fund their community television operations. All this, in the name of allowing ATT to be able to cherry-pick which neighborhoods would get U-Verse, without having to offer it to entire communities.
Curator of the Jefferson Computer Museum http://www.threedee.com/jcm
With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans?
Big business owns them all - the only difference is the stuff that makes them feign outrage.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
Agreed. I'm drawing the distinction between fact (Corporations are NOT people) and the legal treatment, which as you point out is that they get a lot of benefits people should, and not all the drawbacks. I suppose we do need something. I was tempted to say we just need competent judges and legislators who recognize this, but if it were that simple, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
You mean our government is dominated by corporate entities? In other news, the oceans are still wet!
Seriously, why is this news?
Know how I now David Hoyle is a Democrat? Because the summary didn't mention his party. If he'd been a Republican, it'd have been noted at least twice in the summary.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Flash!!!!!
Senator admits [Industry of Choice] Industry helped write Pro-Industry Legislation.
Film at 11
God... what morons we are....
Your two points contradict each other. Gridlock from consensus, but tyranny of the majority? Consensus-rule does not equal majority-rule. So we can safely ignore your second comment, since majority rule is not in any way part of the idea.
Now concerning gridlock, you make numerous assumptions which are not appropriate.
1. Open governance is not about the united states. It is about community governance for any community of any size anywhere in the world. It is quite obvious that this is likely to take place in small communities at first, but over time it will probably scale upward. The point is not to directly replace the politicians with software but rather to build up an alternate system of governance that makes the politicians obsolete. You gotta start somewhere. It is either that, or just keep eternally bending over and letting the politicians rape us like they continue to do so very well.
2. You say "gridlock" as if there is some inherent necessity that we be passing laws all the time. How many laws does any current government pass that are truly useful? Particularly the government you seem to be focusing on: the American legislature. Is it really necessary that we have Congress passing appropriation bills for building bridges in individual counties so that the politicians there can claim they brought home the bacon? Shouldn't that county build its own damn bridge? But more generally, what would be the big catastrophe if we had less legislation being passed? Consensus government ensures that we only pass laws that we really believe we need. If the large entity can't pass the law, then maybe smaller ones can: that is, if something the scale of the US can't pass a law, perhaps it should be passed down to smaller and smaller governments until it finds a scale where it can find consensus.
3. You talk about the American federal government as if it is somehow inherently necessary. What is the use of a gigantic monolith like the US? What would be so bad about a slow, long-term groundswell movement that had the eventual result of decentralizing governance? Of making government about communities of people instead of faceless, bigoted, war-prone, corrupt nation-states? You point out how awful the health care bill is. That is what you get from gigantic government. If you want something better, two things MUST happen: get rid of the politicians and reduce the focus/scale of government. Read the link more carefully and you will see how these are already coming to pass.
Ah, yes, but now the Supremes have made it all the clearer that corporations are people (enshrining in law the principle that "money talks"), so really, the government is just doing it's job here. </cynicism>
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Since when were we under any obligation to be fair to private enterprise?
In the first one, the Democrat was named but her 14 cosigners were not. Many were Republicans.
In the second case, there was no malfeasance by Alan Grayson.
In the third case, again, no malfeasance.
In the last case, we have a legitimately bad law proposed by a Democrat.
Congratulations! Your job is now half done. All you have to do is show a similar story where a Republican's affiliation is mentioned. Otherwise, all we have is evidence that Slashdot does not usually name anyone's party affiliation.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Isn't the real problem that a State Senator wants to take away the right of municipal governments to decide for themselves if they want to get into the broadband business or not? Surely the residents of a particular locality should be the ones deciding this on a case by case basis, not someone in the state senate.
Is your municipal power also provided by a dam on the Connecticut river? That would explain the cheap power, not some municipal vs. private business distinction.
You haven't shown evidence of the second part of your hypothesis: that Republicans' affiliations are mentioned.
Are you really this bad at constructing logical arguments, or do you assume your readers are idiots who won't see through your transparent
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Indeed; here in Springfield, IL we have CWLP, owned and operated by the city. We have the lowest electric rates in the state, and the least amount of outages. And the city makes a tidy profit selling excess power to private power companies.
IMO any necessary infrastructure like water, gas, electricity, roads, bridges, sewers, should be run by local government. Otherwise you're just letting some monopolist steal the citizens' money legally.
Free Martian Whores!
So if you are to be free, that means you need to be free to choose your career path. You need to be able to decide what sorts of things you'd like to do, where you'd like to work, and to be able to change your mind on that. Fine, no problem. However there also needs to be an incentive for you to work, and to do well at work. If you simply pay everyone the same regardless of what they do and if they work, well then many will elect to not work. Also you'd have a problem finding people for some jobs, those that require a lot of effort and training, or are unpleasant. If they paid the same as anything else you'd find it difficult or impossible to get the people you need.
So you discover that you need a system like capitalism. You play people's greed off their laziness. If you want more money, you have to work for it, and generally the higher paying jobs require more effort, more talent, or both.
Even countries that are considered much more socialist than the US still have a capitalism at the heart of their economy. It is just the only economic system we've found so far that works well on a large scale. Doesn't mean it should be unregulated or anything, but the fundamentals are there.
Other systems, well they don't work for a free society. Like say you went with the real hardcore communist idea "From each according to his abilities." You test and determine what people are good at, and then set them to work doing it. Further, you enforce quotas to make sure they are working hard. That could work in theory (though hasn't worked well in practice) but takes away your freedom.
Hoyle replied, 'I've carried more water than Gunga Din for the business community — the people who pay the taxes.'"
So I guess he's not a big believer in democracy. He plainly believes that legislation should go to the highest bidder and feels no obligation whatsoever to the people that government derives it's power from.
The same is true of public utilities here in California. During the deregulation power crisis, it was the publicly-owned utilities that weren't affected. The utilities are not subsidized, but they have no dividends to pay, and no CEOs to pay $20 trillion a year to.
Jonathan Aitken 18 Months
Jeffrey Archer 4 years
for considerabley less dodgy stuff
What he meant is that he can get mnore money and legally corrupt himself by licking the boot of corporation, than any individual tax payer. As such he is right. Campagn contribution by industry are higher by contribution in average than the average campaign contribution of the tax payer. So naturally he pander to his "master". Democraty is a fine things, but after the next revolution we should write an amendement on company having no right at all, and campaign contribution coming from firm being considered corruption and bribe, and industry being banned to lobby/push law/advise if it can be demonstrated they are bound to increase earning with such a law.
if a companys in limbo bit dificult to sue yoru employer
Excuse me, but if my property/sale/income tax rise, if I go to my employer and ask for a raise ("as individuals pass on the expense of taxes to their employer") he cana ccept or laugh me to the door. Where the heck do you get this "individual pass the expense of tax on employer" ?? That is neither insightful nor even remotely near reality. Now OTOH *ALL* expense of a business writing a profit, must be covered by sale. *ALL* of them. And that will indeed include tax (property, job, business, sales). So if a tax rise, or a new tax come, what happens ? Either the business pass the tax to the consumer, or it lower its profit, potentially even going into the red. Guess what happens ? You guessed right. All increase of cost, and that include tax, get passed onto the clients. Jeez who the heck modded you as insightful ?
Most water systems are run by municipalities. Try not paying your water bill and see how long your "free" water service lasts. Not all city services are paid for by taxes, but that meme always gets trotted out in any discussion about municipal anything.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Cities and counties often give exclusives to cable companies causing death off all competition. Since cities will not allow dozens of companies to be available to every address it is fair enough that cities provide free net services.
The roads work great - everybody has some complaints but they WORK and they are everywhere and benefit the communities that have them beyond their cost. Business wouldn't go to a city without roads. The argument for citywide internet is GREATER than a football or baseball stadium - although those have plenty of corrupt power pushing them forward at the expense of the citizens.
I can't imagine comcast managing and building roads even half as good as government. We have officials get into trouble over roads and something happens we also sometimes have an actual VOTE on some aspect of it-- with a monopoly we get no input and there is no accountability at all.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The US system was based around the concept of dividing powers; not only the isolation of government power into separate but equal branches but also in terms of representation, where location and population were separate but mostly equal (the senate has a little more power - but then it used to represent state government; therefore, it should have lost its edge when it stopped representing the states.) Then we had state and federal separations. They broke up power to keep it from its naturally corrupting nature to a minimum. Term cycles and later on term limits also are a result of this thinking. The 4th branch was defined as being nearly immune from government to the point of not structuring it or properly defining it (if they had kept going it may have been) - they even went so far as to put 3% of the GDP into subsidizing the press and the post office was used to deliver the media as well.
The reason power limitation was so central to their design philosophy was due to a dictator with near absolute power they just had a war with.
Inheritance tax was created on the SAME BASIS in order to prevent an elite class who owned everything creating Feudalism (which was enforced by military and not literally by land rights not that a variation based upon land rights indirectly enforced wouldn't amount to the same thing.)
Corporations had no real power and individuals were more susceptible to accountability. The civil war is when the system broke down and it has never recovered and power has accumulated in the shadows --- ever since creating new loopholes and growing to be more powerful. Until we have today where the democracy functionally powerless and the republic exploited by the plutocracy. Its been going on rather brashly since Nixon but until Bush 2 most people were ignorant of it. Possibly a majority still are...
Anyhow, high taxes on the wealthy were put in place to limit individual power and corporate regulations and taxes attempted to do the same but neither was strong enough after the civil war so like a leak in a dam -- it grew bigger and bigger; the outcome is easily predictable. In fact, Ben Franklin understood this well and gave a great ending speech at the constitutional convention (the end part is usually left out because its too realistic.)
We stopped learning civils in any form in the USA. Don't think this was for any other reason than the powerful found it troublesome and convinced people it was not needed. You see the problem is when you let power accumulate some of those people are clever enough to leverage that power in ways that are not obvious to the public so a majority does not get upset enough to oppose it. Power is worse than money - you never have enough.
Democratic systems always fail when the majority starts letting things slip bye and then fester over time corrupting the system and the populace itself; we don't have the Roman distractions for voters - we have so much more powerful distractions we don't need their primitive entertainment and terrorism. We also have well studied methods from history and psychology on how to manipulate the masses - not that we need to excel over what was done in history - the public isn't any less susceptible now than back then.
Obviously I left out a bunch from this posting... there is a lot going on over a long span of time; some is planned and most is emerging patterns based upon the environmental conditions of the time. I can easily predict the next crash like I did the previous one, because the groundwork is all there and I'm not a believer in the preaching that goes on or entertained by the distractions. Both parties for the most part are distractions on top of distractions.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
No mention of party affiliation in the title or summery.
That is a REQUIREMENT if the person is a conservative, republican, or a republicrat.
No brain, no pain.
Go against the powerful forces who are benefiting from the system they manipulate results in the whole sphere of their influence going against you! The only way to have a lot of power is to do what the powerful want and want to continue to do it-- as long as you don't go against the flow in any major way they will let you along for the ride. This is why Bush appeared to have so much power and why Obama has so little but can get some work done because he is tacking against the wind (arguably he is still losing ground overall) and people like Alan Grayson get popular and that is about the extent of it.... unless they run for president and get shut down like Howard Dean did.
Ever notice how Dean seemed to get pushed out of his DNC spot? They had a push against him even getting the position and I doubt he could get it again today - his timing was perfect for when he squeaked in. The new guy has been influenced in the past to break from the law so I don't trust him any more than Steele over at the GOP (who's not as much of an idiot as he appears. Some of his plans will prove to be successful long term.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Dear Senator Hoyle, Both businesses and voters pay taxes but businesses don't vote. Your focus should be on satisfying your constituents, not the businesses you sold out to.
I highly recommend it. My small business is able to connect to a county run fiber optic network. We pay $60 a month for uncapped 10m/bit service. I couldn't quite justify the $450 month for 100m/bit...
Do it. Please. The more success stories like yours, the more likely it is for the rest of us to benefit from someone doing the same.
(Former NEsterner here, shipped to the Mid-West. Do it up!)
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Can't we trust our legislators to have the wisdom to craft their own laws and bills without using someone else's cheat sheet? Didn't they pick up the business ethics and anti-plagiarism in high school?
So cities shouldn't provide water and sewer then?
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
President Abraham Lincoln - Gettysburg address
Someone send this corporation guy back to school..
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
Forget the running of fiber. Just run the conduit. Cities already have experience running pipes to every home. Ours runs sewer and water to the home, and storm drains to most neighborhoods. They work in concert with PG&E who runs pipes for gas. By running the conduit to the homes, they can rent out the space to all comers, they don't have to be worried about being sued for competing in the broadband industry, they can foster competition, they can stay out of a technology that they are inexperienced at, and they won't have to dig up the roads when the next big thing in data transmission comes along.
Unfortunatly, many cities are like mine and think that wifi is the future.
Why is it possible for companies to donate to political parties?
That is the source of most of the political corruption in the US.
The US has become a legalized oligarchy where the people doing the bidding on behalf of the oligarchs are elected by the general population.
In no few ocassions companies donate to both parties (it is quite convenient for corporations to have only 2 parties, that way the amount of contributions is minimized while maintain a modicum of democratic accountability in issues that don;t affect corporation's interests).
As long as the US populace don't dismantle this system of patronage they will alwys be recepients of legislation that is not on thei best interests when the interests of big conglomarates are affected.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
So what else is new? The oil industry prepares policy for the oil industry, to the peoples expense, the banking industry writes policy for the banking industry, and the people pay for that to the tune of trillions of dollars. The auto industry ensures its incompetency is rewarded, once again to support its own interests. Should I continue with big pharma or conglomerate farming? I would like to know when the voters and their taxes will be heard? All politicians should serve three terms , two in office, one in prison which has a time length twice as long as both political terms in office. This is the only way to break the unending cycle of - office - lobbyist group - special interest group - office.
Bought dogs need to be put to sleep.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
http://wizbangblue.com/2009/06/24/fox-news-lies-and-calls-republican-gov-sanford-a-democrat.php
Or you could google for 'fox news calls republicans democrats,' there are a ton of cases. In fact, it seems your phrase actually refers to one single solitary instance, blown out of proportion in order to provide a false sense of balance to the phenomenon of Right Wingers doing this for the last decade or so. In the case of Faux News, it has happened literally dozens of times. But only when the Repug in question has done something heinous.
Now back under the troll bridge with you, fascist.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton