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Former Senator Chris Dodd Set To Head MPAA
Hugh Pickens writes writes "The Hill reports that former Democratic Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut is set to become the new chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, taking over the $1.2 million position and the job of coordinating the policy goals of the various member studios. Interim CEO and president Bob Pisano says the organization's unwavering focus on its top priority will remain: increasing the federal government's efforts to stop online film piracy. The MPAA is optimistic about its legislative prospects this Congress, thanks to the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee (headed by Dodd's close friend Senator Patrick Leahy) last year before stalling in the full Senate. The bipartisan bill would make it easier for the Justice Department to shut down websites that traffic pirated music, movies and counterfeit goods. While a member of the Senate, Dodd was an adamant opponent of the FISA bill that granted retroactive immunity to telecoms who engaged in warrantless wiretapping."
Interlocks allow for upper class cohesion, coordinated action, and unified political-economic power[3]. They allow corporations to increase their influence by exerting power as a group, and to work together towards common goals.[4] They help the upper class maintain a class advantage, and gain more power over workers and consumers, by reducing intra-class competition and increasing cooperation.[2][5] In the words of Scott R. Bowman, interlocks "facilitate a community of interest among the elite of the corporate world that supplants the competitive and socially divisive ethos of an earlier stage of capitalism with an ethic of cooperation and a sense of shared values and goals."[6]
You're just jealous because *you* can't afford to buy your very own government officials.
The Revolving Door is always bad. It's a major tool for vested interests to bribe law makers and regulators to be nice to them. Play nice while you're in office and you get a lucrative gig afterwards. This is why Wall St. isn't in jail, because SEC regulators know they will get million dollar jobs later on. It's why Europe's regulators kowtow to large foreign businesses, over the heads of the economic majority of small-to-medium European firms, because it's how they get lucrative consultancy work afterwards.
So it's bad, yes. Even if this particular appointment isn't worse than any other, it's the signal it sends. "$1.2 per year, be nice and you too could get this".
That pays for a whole lot of college fees for the kids or grandkids.
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"Corporatism" for short. Government leaders and Corporate leaders working together. (whispers) It's also what Mussolini created in his country. (normal voice). Anyway this comes as no surprise to me. Democrats are just like Republicans, but instead of military they work with Hollywood, recording studios, and celebrities.
Democrats have sold-out to the Authors Guild, SAG, MPAA, and RIAA.
And this is why I feel no guilt taking product from these corporations. They bought special privileges from government that they don't deserve to get, rarely pay any taxes on their profit ("what profit? Avatar lost money"), screw the writers/actors that work for them by not paying residuals, and eat-out at the substance of our citizens in onerous life-destroying lawsuits. If they produce a DVD or CD that's good, I'll buy it, but I feel no qualms about downloading everything else for free.
If it were up to me, every corporate license would be immediately revoked. Let them operate as regular companies without the immunity (aka golden parachutes) afforded by limited liability.
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
What I want to know is this: At what point, exactly, did it become lawful for all of the largest corporations of an industry to organize in their collective best interests? How is it that Anti-Trust laws don't take organizations such as the MPAA and RIAA into account? Is it not a tenant of Capitalism, that entities offering the same type of product in an industry are meant to compete with one another, rather than band together to bully their consumer base into making purchases they might not otherwise?
Learning about brewing beer, by brewing beer.
At what point, exactly, did it become lawful for all of the largest corporations of an industry to organize in their collective best interests
At the same time the democracy became merely formal, and not real. We have a democracy mostly as a formality. The campaign, elections, and changes in government are carried out. Nobody cares because the results matter little, change little. The parties, candidates, proposals and the policies are fixed outside of elections, in various channels. Real decisions, of things that matter, are made in these various "associations", some publicly known, some secretive, some open meetings that are limited or manipulated, some closed meetings, and so on. The more you want real democratic decisions in a merely formal democracy, the more you will find yourself being pushed towards the side of powerless, parallel, unofficial, or underground organizations. There is really only one principle - whatever the goal, to get real democracy, you *must* get millions of participants. Otherwise you have some small, formal or unrepresentative group. If we'd have a "day of copyright rage", getting millions of civil-disobedience copyright-breakers in public squares, with (logically) police trying to break them up, we'd get real policy debate.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-20110216
It just goes to show, those who make the rules benefit the most by them and every administration is in the pocket of Wall Street.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
So, from his wikipedia page, I find out that Senator Chris Dodd was in office from January 3, 1981 – January 3, 2011. That's just over 7 weeks ago, and his successor took over the same day.
If I go to the Office of Government Ethics website, I see that they only oversee the Executive Branch, and that in the Legislative Branch, the Senate is overseen by The Senate Select Committee on Ethics.
A that site, I notice a series of postings about proper behavior regarding gifts, training, and Job Negotiations, Post-employment and Influencing Hiring.
Two documents in particular are of interest. First, we have a Feb 4 2008 Memo on Employment Negotiations and Arrangements [PDF]. Second, further down the page we have a Sept 25 2007 bulletin regarding New Ethics Rules regarding Job Negotiations, Post-employment and Influencing Hiring [PDF].
In the Bulletin, it states that "If Senators want to engage in negotiations or make any arrangements for jobs involving lobbying, they must wait to do so until their successors have been elected. There are no exceptions to this rule... What about for other types of private employment that don’t involve lobbying? The same
rule applies unless the Senator files a signed statement with the Secretary of the Senate within three days of beginning such negotiations or arrangements. This statement, which is public, must include the name of the entities involved in these job discussions and the date they began."
Also, "For two years after leaving office, Senators cannot contact any Member, officer, or employee of the Congress on someone else’s behalf (except the United States) in order to influence their official activities."
In the memo, it reiterates the first item, stating that official notice must be given to the secretary of the senate. Of course, there is no nice web searchable index that I found for the Secretary of the Senate or the Office of Public Records. Those might require FOIA requests from anyone who would care to really dig.