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Google's Science Fellows Challenge the Company's Fund-Raising For Senator Inhofe
Lasrick writes "At the Dot Earth blog in the NY Times, 'Big companies have many, and sometimes conflicting, interests, as a spokesperson for Google tried to explain to the environmental blogger Brian Merchant this way: “[W]hile we disagree on climate change policy, we share an interest with Senator Inhofe in the employees and data center we have in Oklahoma.” Now the Web giant is facing fresh criticism, this time in an open letter from 17 scientists and policy researchers who were invited to Google’s Silicon Valley headquarters back in 2011 to explore ways to improve climate science communication....'"
Corporations and their funds should not be allowed to give or fundraise for politicians period. Only private citizens should be allowed to do either. It should not be a tax deduction either. It would fix a lot of problems.
"Corporations are voluntary grouping of people"
This is a lie on so many levels it's heard to know where to begin.
You make it sound like they're all of one mind WRT politics. They're a "voluntary grouping" , right? But they're not. They're just there to work and pay the bills; they haven't "voluntarily grouped " for political reasons at all.
Yet you force them to accept what the corporation does and use their presence in the corporation are a a kind of justification, hey,. they're there as a voluntary group! They can leave if they don't like it!
Of course they could leave their job. As if. I love it when this argument finally gets down to "if you don't like it , you are free to leave your job / state / nation" part . It's a joke and factually as untrue as "if you don't like it, you can leave your job, lose your house, wreck your credit and live on the street" . Only in an adolescent fantasy world does this kind of logic exist.
What's more, it puts unwarranted amount of political power into the hands of a tiny minority of people merely because they're rich. That's the real world effect. It's no different than 18th century England with a king and the various barons. They wield the real power. But this is what democracy was invented to prevent. You seem to overlook that basic fact. Democracy is a means to an end- the opportunity for citizens to participated as equals in government. You turn it into a circus of perverts, gleefully shaking their packages at the whole POINT of democracy through some fucking "voluntary group" horseshit.
People should be limited in how much they can give candidates. Candidates elections should be publicly funded. Elections should be of by and for the people, not of by and for corporations. and the tiny sliver of people who run them.
Nothing could be simpler to understand.