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MS Lobbies to Cut DOJ Antitrust Budget
Forward The Light Br sent us a washington post article that talks about (no I'm not kidding) Microsoft Lobbying the Government to cut funding to the DOJs Antitrust department. I'm pretty amazed by this one.
Good for you guys.
I still wouldn't move to Holland or practically any other place in Europe with possible exeption of GB or Switzerland.
It is nice and dandy now there but who knows when 1940s will repeat all over again.
This is typical corporate-speak, if something isn't performing according to management's arbitrary standards, cut the budget! That'll teach them to work harder!!
"the $51,000 is the amount Micros~1 has donated to the Senator's re-election campaign. Quite different from direct payments into the Senator's personal account (or is it, really?). Often in the U.S. elections, whichever side spends the most cash (advertisements on TV are expensive), wins most of the time."
Still sounds like corruption to me. The only reason companies like MS give money to politicians is because they expect something in return. Though the money is spent on elections, the senator has a clear interest in it since he will be reelected and receive the status and salary that is part of the job of a senator.
"Also, the U.S. has campaign contribution limits"
Yeah right, if there's one law with holes in it its probably that law.
"it will take twenty years"
It will take forever because no politician has any interest in changing the system. It will probably get worse.
Jilles
What are you saying exactly? You can't complain about your senator unless you run yourself? That anybody who disagrees with you must not have voted? where do you get this from?
War is necrophilia.
Just too stupid to believe. This is a blood feud, folks. It's personal. That's the only logical explanation.
Microsoft is merely taking the time-proven approach of cutting competition's - in this case the US Department of Justice's - air supply. "What makes them tick? Let's see... I can gov't funding..."
I'm no Freud (nor Marx, Engels or Jung), but I'd bet days' wages that both Ballmer and Gates have gone through a very traumatic circumcision...
Look at what has been done to the tobacco industry. Do you think Microsoft has reason to fear an "activist" antitrust division at the Justice department?
When did I claim to be a Libertarian? I respect the movement, true, but I'd never follow it.
And yeah; I don't like big, intrusive governments. But sometimes there are things that only a government has the resources to do. Keeping juggernauts like Microsoft in line is one of them.
YEAH...FIRST POST
Considering that the Gov't is very likely a major customer, and one with very particular procedures at that, why not?
Various parts of the Gov't are, no doubt, major customers. It makes sense to take that into account. {shrug}
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Just to so there is no misunderstanding, I'm specifically refering to the photo radar van issuing tickets where I-270 and I-70 merge going east-bound. You have two lanes of I-270 merge into one, and then that lane is "exit only" no more than a mile past the legal merge point. (Some drivers jump across the solid strip, but I try to avoid it.) Traffic is always heavy and is usually going 70 mph. (Posted speed limit on both interstates is 55, although much of my commute is actually in a 65 zone.)
This is exactly the type of situation the cop at my driver's ed class described as the only *legal* reason to drive in an unlawful manner. To merge into heavy traffic you must be traveling at the speed of the traffic, and *then* you should show down to the SL. The alternative is a clear cut case of violating right-of-way to say nothing of extraordinarily risky. What makes the situation even more incredible is that if I *did* try to merge at the posted speed limit the Colorado HP would issue me a warning, if not a real, ticket for "aggressive" driving. According to the news reports deliberately going under the traffic flow speed - *even if everyone is speeding* - is considered a form of "passive-aggressive" behavior and drivers are being ticketed for it on the interstates.
As for the "can't you wait," the only possible answer is Hell NO! There simply aren't breaks in traffic on I-70, and if you slow down you'll probably get rear ended by the interstate behind you. Nobody has a problem with the interstates merging at 70 MPH except the city of Denver which very clearly sees it as a way to collect a "toll" from people traveling between the northern and eastern suburbs.
Anyway, the reason I gave this as an example is it's something where any reasonable person could stand on the ramp and realize that ticketing drivers for acting in the only reasonable and prudent manner was insane... and in fact the state passed laws restricting the use of photo radar units in response to complaints about how some cities were clearly using the vans to as a cash cow instead of a bona fide traffic monitoring device. The fact that I've been ticketed doesn't mean that I can't speak out against the program... but if I were repeatedly pulled over by a trooper for speeding above traffic flow my real motives could be reasonably questioned.
Coyote-san on soon
here in austria political partys get their money
according to their votes at the last election, from the state. this means they are to a large degree independent of corporate money. as far as i know this is the case
in most european countries..
the US would be wise in establishing a similar system.. but of course all the companys that are bribing the government there now would not find that nice.. and since i think their influence is already too strong this will not happen.
conclusion: the U.S. is not a democracy but already owend by big corporations..
greetings from vienna,
mond.
What are "free market principles?" A truly "free market" would be one in which I could simply kill my business competitors, break in and blatantly steal their inventions, and burn down their factories. All without fear of some pesky government and its "anti-business/anti-competition" laws. I suspect that you, like Microsoft, likes government regulation when it helps them and calls it "anti free market" when it doesnt. greg
"The necessary precondition of a coercive monopoly is closed entry--the barring of all competing producers form a given field. THis can be accomplised only by an act of government intervention, in the form of special regulations, subsidies or franchises."
I'm confused. Suppose Microsoft were to simply refuse to sell Microsoft products to anyone that sold non-Microsoft software? Where is the government intervention in that? Do you argue that with a desktop share of over 90 percent that such an action would quickly result in a closed entry market? Do you think anything but the threat of anti-trust is keeping Microsoft from doing that?
They tried exactly that already in the pre-installed OS and browser market. With some success I might add.
Words fail to describe just how much I loathe the evil M$ organization. They are uniquely worthy of being despised.
This system was deliberately designed to prevent corruption. It deals with this problem in very unique way. You are allowed to "currupt" politician as long as it is public knowledge.
So Just who the hell does that snivelling little PO faced Goat (billy goat that is ) think he is god or summit . If money can Buy Goverment so easily over there then it's time we all started to get scared Very scared world wide , Cus theres a mad man inb charge
Perhaps framing Bill is the only way to finally get him out of the picture. Perhaps put him in compromising photos with several higher up mob figures? RICO would have more teeth than antitrust legislation. ;-)
Non profit orgs are technically "corporations" so under such a law there would be no way to organize lobbies by "the people" and I can't see individuals flying out to DC to lobby their rep. One could argue that a valid work-around would be to only allow non-profit orgs to lobby. Then all you would get is a bunch of non-profits spawned off and supported mainly by corporations to do their lobbing. There is always a loop hole - the current system has flaws, but lets not throw it all away because it doesn't always work for you - this is like making up the rules to a game as you go. What's better is to know what reps are recieving funds/gifts from what entities - in a way this is a blessing because you can cut through all the crap and see where she/he really stands on issues (money speaks louder than words). Although, I don't know of any sites out there that will give you this info - anyone know?
\forall code \in C, \frac{\Delta readability(code)}{\Delta t} < 0
It's an entertaining diversion to rant about the influence of money on U.S. politics, and even more fun to talk about Utopian schemes of government that would eliminate all such problems - but it accomplishes nothing. Try something concrete. Right now the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill is being debated in the Senate. The House version of this legislation (Shays-Meehan) was finally passed last month - after the Speaker tried every trick in the book to block the House from even voting on it. Call your Senators and tell them that you want this bill passed. The fellow who noted that calling/writing does absolutely nothing unless a million other people do the same thing was absolutely right. Fortunately there are a lot of other people behing this one. It can pass. Money or not if enough people scream loudly enough about an issue the politicians will listen. It's votes that they prostitute themselves for, and the money is only a means to an end. For more information about this issue look at http://www.commoncause.org Read what the folks from Holland and Quebec said about this. Where they come from such blatant bribery is illegal. Let's make it the same way in the U.S. Passage of this bill won't make things perfect, but it's certainly a step in the right direction.
- Win over public favor. - By saying "the governemtn is spending to much. cut government spending!" you win over the marjority of americans. Especially when it's on a subject that most of them don't see as all that useful in their daily lives (flame retardant: I said most).
- MS THinks they'll win the current case, wants to prevent further action down the road by hamstringing the gov't's anti-trust dogs. - Sure. This could be the answer. If you're into the paranoia aspect of MS as a global world power trying to take over everything, then this makes the most sense. But I don't buy it.
- Instead, I think they're trying to turn the attention away from their actual business practices, and on to something less dangerout to their monopoly. - By getting people to talk about the governemtn, it's spending, and why MS is giving them money, you'l divert public attention away from the case at hand, and into the realms of ethics (as in corp's giving gov't money) and maybe eventhe realm of "boy! MS has never really been a strong lobby before...wonder why they started now."
Either way, I don't think it matters much in the big picture....the anti-trust unit of the DOJ is going to be all fine and good for years to come.Werd.
Take some political science classes people! America is not a democracy - its a republic. I don't mean to nit-pick, but this is much the same as the crackers/hackers thing.
\forall code \in C, \frac{\Delta readability(code)}{\Delta t} < 0
So tell us all how a monopoly can be considered a free market, Buttercup?
The market is free from regulatory pressure from the governing body. Governing bodies typically arise from some kind of armed struggle, and then those bodies impose taxes and other restrictions upon the marketplace to suit their invasive purposes.
In the United States, we established our own government through rebellion, so we don't have the yoke of some other people about our necks. Our market has been mostly free to do as it will, and the result has been a country richer than any other in this world.
"Monopoly" is a word invented to describe what some consider to be an unbalanced market phenomenon. Whether or not it is unbalanced, it does not threaten the freedom of the market because it is _inside_ the market and subject to the same conditions, laws, and influences which affect everyone else.
Explain to us how the government cannot be involved when the monopolist relies on the coercive power of that same government to enforce its contracts --those famous anti-competitive exclusionary contracts?
Actually, contracts are entered voluntarily and kept voluntarily. When a contract is breached it's discussed by the involved parties. When a solution cannot be reached, then and only then is the matter elevated to public arbitration through the court system.
Most Americans, these days, make the mistake of thinking that one "goes to court" to win something or get something. When you "go to court" you have publically stated that you cannot reach a compromise and you are submitting the matter to the will of the court. It is the voluntary act of filing a suit that hands the situation over to the government. Until then, it is _your_ responsibility.
No, the gov is always already involved, and if it does not curb monopoly abuses it in effect enforces them, it passively lends its weight to leverage the monopolist's arm-twisting.
I don't know what legal commentary led you to that conclusion, but it's a crock.
You're pretty much all over the place with your argument, so I'll leave the rest until you can sort out what you're trying to say.
MJP
Don't try that "protecting the children" shit you people use to keep the tits and bad words off my TV. --Seanbaby
of course they want it cut! i have to say, it really doesn't surprise me. what do you expect from MS? they'll do anything to get things their way.
Why do you think it's hard as hell to get a brand-name computer without M$/Windows?
I have several of them, all made by a company called "Apple." You can also get machines from Sun, and there are a few vendors that will sell you PC's with Linux preinstalled. At one point there were also machines from NeXT, Be, and several others.
And why do you think it's as hard to get Athlon mobos or why companies like Dell will never sell machines based on the Athlon when it's the fastest (Wintel-class) processor around?
Partly because it's not as fast as it was hyped up to be. Partly because AMD can't produce in the volume and with the reliability that Intel does, and partly because they have pre-existing contracts with Intel. But if AMD continues to do well, they *will* gain market share. Why do you think they're doing it?
Or why isn't FireWire ubiquitous and replacing EIDE as a storage/everything else interface??? (I'd kill to see a mobo using USB for input and FW for mass storage. Our lives would be much more simpler, IMO.)
Again, get a Mac. They still use IDE, but they also have first-class firewire support, and they use USB for input. The main reason people still use IDE is that it's dirt-cheap. As Firewire matures, we may see more people using it.
This is why governemental (sp?) action is required, to reel in those two techno-bullies, to give a chance to the competition. If nothing is done ASAP, we'll soon be stuck using only M$ applications and utilities on top of a M$ OS running on top of an Intel-powered machine using Intel chipsets and God knows what else to browse the M$-Internet to see M$-approved contents. You'll never see another rukus like what Tom Pabst (sp???) made when he found out that Intel was/still is pressuring OEM mobo makers not to make Athlon mobos. Or you'll never see a web site like www.billwatch.net to see Bill G.'s latest antics. And you'll have to pay Bill G. a tax on anything you do on the 'net (buying, viewing, etc.). It can't get more Orwellian than that.
This is complete nonsense. Even if the DoJ drops the case and promises to never bother Microsoft again, Microsoft could not maintain their dominance of the market. Linux and Solaris are eating away at NT's market share. Apple's doing well. Many power users are switching to Linux on their home PC's, Be and OS/2 are available. In short, Microsoft does not have a monopoly. The same is true on the hardware side. Not only do you have two major x86 choices (Intel and AMD) but you have other chip lineages to choose from (Alpha, PPC, SPARC's, ARM, etc.)
Now you might say that Microsoft has a near-monopoly on the home Intel market, but that's a pretty silly market definition. Of course if you define "market" narrowly enough you can prove that anyone has a monopoly on anything. But if you look at the actual choices available today, there are a *lot* of them. I haven't touched a Microsoft product in a week, and I use computers on a daily basis. They simply don't have a monopoly.
The real shame is not that M$ and Intel have accumulated that much power, it's that they've done it in front of everyone else and no one did anything before it was too late. Oh, well.
Too late for what? Is the government going to break into my house and confiscate my Mac? Is it going to shut down Linux-only PC vendors? Is it going to drive Sun or SGI out of business? What is this great catastrophe that you are dreading if the government doesn't do something?
Given the ability to modify the Constitution this seems a pointless distinction. "I have to do what X says but I can change X to let it allow me to do what I want."
If government and law are separate then who enforces the law if there is no government? Who makes the law if there is no government? Who adjudicates law if there is no government? To enforce law requires so-called "coercive" power. I thought only government had "coercive" power -- everything else being free association? If someone other than "government" says you broke a law and they use coercive power to punish you how are they not government? If they have no power to punish you how is it a law?
I guess I'm just confused and hope you can explain things to me.
The $51,000 to Slade Gorton does look very bad and he may regret this during election time. However, I'll bet this has more to do with the fact that Sen. Gorton is from Wash (same as MS) and if MS were to get broken up it would probably cause a bit of an economic problem in his state. So I don't think it's as corrupt as it looks (BTW - it was 51,000 to his campain fund - not personal account, which would be illegal). In any case, it still looks bad - I just don't think its really as bad as it looks.
\forall code \in C, \frac{\Delta readability(code)}{\Delta t} < 0
I am trying to snow the conversation? You are the one who spuriously throws in the comment about what "Countless scholars and professionals" think knowing full well that much of that is simple Microsoft propaganda. By using such ambiguous terms like "Countless scholars" you give the impression that many or most scholars are in agreement with your rather minority position that antitrust laws are oppressive.
You also were careful not to address my gibe about the benefits of antitrust legislation. It appears you seem to think that nothing was wrong with Rockefeller's Standard Oil or that the breakup of AT&T hasn't actually benefitted consumers and the economy. Isn't only picking out the points you want to address in an argument a way to "snow" the conversation?
"Manipulate the government into leaving them alone", now that is expert spin control. The ironic thing is, I totally agree. I would love to "manipulate the government into leaving me alone".
Criminals bribing judges are manipulating the government into leaving them alone, Chinese agents close to the Clinton administration apparently manipulated the government into leaving an agent at Los Alamos alone and Microsoft attempts to manipulate the legislature to change the law to leave them alone.
Microsoft is not a victim here. They signed a consent decree in 1995 agreeing that they would change their business practices and they didn't, in fact they committed even worse offenses. If they didn't agree with the consent decree, they shouldn't have signed it. Had they took a principled stand in 1995, maybe you would have an argument. As it stands, they were caught in the act, they can't win in a court of law, so they try to influence the legislature to wiggle out from under the consequences of their actions.
Oh yes, Microsoft is a bastion of principle here.
Microsoft makes no secret of the fact that it takes antitrust legislation to be a breach of free-market principles. Countless scholars and professionals have weighed in with agreement, and even Scott McNealy -- outside of his vested interest in the downfall of Microsoft -- holds to strong free-market principles.
Funny how principles change when you realize that the government can be manipulated into doing your dirty work...
MJP
Don't try that "protecting the children" shit you people use to keep the tits and bad words off my TV. --Seanbaby
One difference is that I haven't seen any evidence that the other companies resorted to paying huge donations to politicians in order to get the DOJ to take action against Microsoft. I also haven't seen any evidence that the other companies used politicians that they had funded to try to influence the budgets of agencies that were doing things that would influence their businesses.
There is a difference here in which companies are doing lobbying in a way that is ethical, and what Microsoft is doing. I am continually surprised by the lengths that Microsoft apologists will go to bend over far enough to make it look like what Microsoft is doing is no different than what other companies do. Even though it is sometimes true that individual actions by Microsoft may not be that much further than what other companies have done, I can't think of any company who so consistantly and determinedly pushes the boundaries of ethical behavior in so many ways. Even the IBM of the 70's and 80's who also found itself involved with anti-trust proceedings in general seemed to conduct themselves in a less ethically challenged way than Microsoft does. IBM has gone a long way towards cleaning up their kitchen, and lets hope that Microsoft can and will follow their example and work towards becoming a good, clean corporate citizen.
he could start looking for another job
That would be futile. He would never find a decent job again after a jail sentence for corruption
No, really, c'mon. You have to say this for M$, they are patient. Like being run over by a glacier (Ask any OS/2 developer). They are just plannning ahead for the next phase, when whatever exists after the end of the current antitrust litigation moves on to dominate another market. They just mean to win next time, and since they have 90% of all the money in the world it can't hurt to spread some more around DC -- might help? This is why I'm not to hot on the comprehensive test-ban treaty: without reliable nuclear weapons how can the United States defend itself against Redmond?
--
I am quite civilized, and I should be brought a beer immediately. -- Bruce Sterling
...guess who would take the Gold medal about now? ;-) Silly Billy... Kicks are for Trids!
I agree. Here in Sweden no politican would get away with that.... The media watches VERY closely on finacial matters... indeed. Lobbyig = big bribes
Everybody knows that we are the evil boys, making noise with deadly toys.
MS Has set the standard for arrogance since the days of "Pirates..". They have ABSOLUTLY no shame!
I'd rather be under the control of the Government than control of Microsoft. Microsoft is an evil institution, no doubt about it.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
What does China have to do with anything? For the record, China is not anywhere close to a free market. That's one of the reasons they are so poor.
This is an example of Microsoft's long range planning: gut the department now, then start acting up again.
More "astroturf" style grassroots marketing.
Well, all I can say is write your Congressdrones and complain.
www.eFax.com are spammers
And the US has a higher GNP and higher population than most if not all other "first world" nations; do we contribute more financial aid as a percentage of GNP than any other developed country in the world - or are we, as I've seen claimed, closer to the bottom of that list?
Probably not the chain reaction they wanted.
--
So long as the "authors" can remain unbiased (rare on Slashdot) and leave the bias to the comments and posts, I think a medium like that would be a great way to disseminate information about candidates and legislation.
We desperately need a place where people can go to get ALL of the information about election candidates (instead of just the biased advertising we see on TV) in one easy place. Nobody watches debates anymore because they tend to be long-winded and full of BS and evasion. Have standardized templates for describing candidates as unbiased as is possible.
Likewise with upcoming legislation. On Slashdot whenever we see an "alert" about some evil piece of legislation, it's usually the result of somebody reading a biased/uninformed take on the legislation, reporting it to Slashdot, which then takes it and posts an "article" with at least as much bias as the original report. Only in the comments do we see people say, "Uhh, this isn't as bad as you guys seem to make it out to be. Why don't you read the legislation first?" Ideally, a site like this would eliminate such confusion by providing a clear, concise plain-english description of the legislation. Phrases like "big brother" would be forbidden. Let the subsequent threads of comments be the bias.
Have the site pay for itself via non-political advertising.
I've been playing with this idea for a while, but nobody seems to think it's worth pursuing.. Unfortunately something like this is very difficult to just "start up" due to the fact that it would need to cover a lot of stuff in as much depth as possible (which means we'd need legal and political experts behind us in some fashion (NOT for the purpose of editorializing or making predictions, but for understanding what it is we're seeing, etc.)).
One wonders at what level in their subconscious these "first post" idiots get gratification. My god, what horrendously dull lives they must lead. These are the probably same idiots who wave at the camera like imbeciles whenever it is pointed in their general direction at a sporting event. "Now, more than just my immediate family and friends knows I am a complete loser!" Hoorah. At least the "John 3:16" boneheads have an agenda to push.
-----------------------------------
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin
I'm pretty amazed too...
;)
How could they (MS) believe that this wouldn't get out to the public?
This can only do more damage to the company than this case has done allready...
First posts sucks
And it's a good thing that the liberals in Seattle are consistantly out voted by everybody else in the state. Better Gorton than the bitch in tennis shoes who knows what's best for you regardless of what you think.
Anyway, on a more serious note, I am a Libertarian, and we are also quite in support of less government intervention and greater freedom within markets.
I don't understand where you come up with this junk that the U.S. would be in the Stone Age if we had totally free markets. Don't you understand that its the free market that facilitates progress, and the government that hinders it? ( remember when everything related to telephones had to be bought from AT&T? How about Network Solutions?). Lets take a look at the opposite extreme of free-markets and take a look at Socialism... doesn't quite give you the warm and fuzzies does it?
--
PanDuh!
And anti-MS zealots have it in spades :)
Actually South Park is made with Alias's PowerAnimator on SGI's running IRIX, last I heard, so its probably M$oft free. I think M$oft got bored with the entertainment business and are currently trying to take over the Internet and Ecommerce. It was an interesting tactic on Bill's part to buy Softimage and force them to port to NT. He legitimized NT as a serious film and video platform when he did this. After the film and video market was bent to NT he threw Softimage away(sold them to Avid). M$oft had used their monopoly based wealth to steal another market.
At least, none of the Americans here should be surprised.
For those of you who do not live in the USA, most of you probably live in countries where companies and wealthy individuals are either forbidden or restricted in their contributions to politicians and their parties (assuming you live a nation with a partisan democracy.) In the US, this was once half true. Until 1974, there were some very heavy restrictions on giving to American politicians. Most campaigns - even those of big, wealthy, well-known candidates - ran on a shoestring. Many American politicians were wealthy, but running for Federal office frequently cost them everything they had. Other people and companies found it very difficult to directly, or even indirectly, give to parties or candidates.
In 1974, the elections law changed and a very big loophole was created: anyone could give as much money as they wanted to political parties (but not candidates) and organisations interested in particular issues could make nearly unlimited gifts to particular candidates who supported their cause. During the Reagan administration (81-89, and 89-93 if you count the uninspiring Bush administration), many of the remaining restraints on lobbying (cutting deals directly with elected politicians) and campaign funding (buying political favours in advance) were loosened, and a Supreme Court ruling in the early 90's (the year eludes me right now) determined that political contributions were a form of free speech and could not be denied under the law.
The result was a near complete takeover of the government by well funded interests. Many of these were corporations and wealthy individuals, but some were large pressure groups like AARP (the lobby for the interests of the elderly.) In this political climate, it became necessary, if any kind of functioning government was to exist, to displace the centres of power to unelected officials, and state and local governments. Most civil servants have far greater restrictions on what kinds of favours they can receive, and are require to make public disclosures of the gifts they get.
That is part of why the Federal Reserve Bank has come to act in the same capacity that, in most countries, an elected minister of commerce or industry might act. It is also part of the reason why the military and law enforcement agencies are so frequently able to act without legal restraint.
This system makes no sense to most outsiders. I will tell the non-Americans here that what is amazing is not that the systems works so badly, but that it works at all. However, American government is a lot like American football (the one with the egg-shaped ball): if you read the rules on paper, they will make no sense, but once you start to watch it in action, the logic begins to appear.
America is, quite simply, a place where money is usually the only thing that counts in governance. If you have money, you can lobby government, contribute to campaigns, get your ideas heard, and if all else fails, mount a media campaign to get the public riled up. As a last ditch effort, you can always use the courts to try to block enforcement of whatever policies you oppose.
And if you are poor, few media will cover your interests in any depth, your access to government is minimal, and you have little genuine legal recourse.
Now, many of you will say, "But it's no different here." Trust me, it is different. This kind of activity is far more common in the US than anywhere else in the world.
This process takes years to run to completion or to create stable policies, but eventually, it does - after a fashion - work. Americans have undertaken a political experiment as breathtaking and as pervasive the original American revolution: they have created a free market government. If you have the money, and a policy is worth enough time and trouble to you, you can make it happen. Government policy has become a market average of all those campaign contributions, expensive lobbying, lawsuits and media campaigns.
In this context, it is hardly surprising when the largest company in the world (in terms of market capitalisation) tries to buy not simply changes in policy, but a weakening of law enforcement when they are in trouble. Defense contractors lobby directly for more guns and fighter planes when they need the orders, regardless of real need for the weapons. Drug companies lobby for weaker enforcement of the food and drug laws. Car companies lobby for weaker gas milage restrictions so they can sell expensive SUV's. None of what Microsoft is trying to do is shocking or unusual.
Microsoft will fail so long as those interests who favour continuing enforcment of anti-trust laws have more money and time to spend on it than Microsoft has. Microsoft will succeed if others facing trust problems (like MCI-Worldcom, AT+T, Boeing, and others) have more money on their side.
Full disclosure: I am not American, but I've lived here on and off more than half of my life, since I was 9 years old. I speak the language, I went to school here and I've worked here. I have no great love for the US government, but I do have a great deal of love for the fat paycheck I get working here. I know America as well as most Americans do. Nonetheless, it's their country and if they want free market government, that's their choice. Make no mistake, Americans who are sufficiently aware of poltics to vote all know that their government works this way. Unlike a dictatorship, this is something they have a genuine choice about.
But, do keep what I've said in mind when you next ask yourselves, "Why do Americans allow these things that seem so plainly dumb?" Remember this, the next time a politician in your country tells you that you ought to be more like Americans (and I especially mean you Brits here) just what kind of system they are talking about.
Note how general this is -- he doesn't specifically state he wants DoJ off Microsoft's back; the timing simply happens to be coincidental, I guess. Yeah, right. This Rep Dan Miller smells pretty corrupt.
Excuse me? He takes a position on an issue you disagree with, and now he's "corrupt?" Where does that come from?
If he really believes what he is saying, he should introduce legislation to repeal antitrust laws.
I wish he would. But I don't think there's enough support for that to pass. And government schools have had too many years to drill the antitrust rationale into our heads in "history" class for the voters to be easily persuaded. A poorly enforced law is worse than no law, but a well-enforced bad law is even worse.
Having laws without enforcement is a very bad thing, because they'll just get selectively enforced and used as a tool to suppress whoever doesn't play ball.
Exactly. I don't think it's a coincidence that the strongest Senate supporters for the antitrust action are from the home state of some of Microsoft's competitors. Antitrust law is so vague and overreaching that literally anything a successful company does is a crime. The DoJ only prosecutes what it sees as the worst "abuses," but the legal and political fads change with each new administration, so companies never really know when they'll be the next target.
Does no one remember that Netscape and Sun pulled exactly the same kind of stunts to get this whole thing started? Netscape has been pushing for antitrust action against Microsoft for years. How is that OK, but when Microsoft fights back it's suddenly corruption? Does having more money than anyone else subject them to a different set of rules?
What, like when foreign contributors funnel money into campaigns, and members of the party at all levels (in DoJ, and Congress) block the investigation, by coaching witnesses on when to take the Fifth, and not bothering to look until witnesses have had time to flee the country? That's not a special interest?
Do unions, which spend their dues on donations -- even when the members don't want 'em used that way -- meet your definition, as well?
It's done at all levels, ranging from international (e.g. "recognize that `country` and we'll cut off trade", or "support us in the Sec. Council and we'll give you an oil deal"), to national (you don't give money to candidates who'd go *against* you, after all...), to local...
Fact is, 'tho, it's a drop in the bucket. Even if transferred all of its cash reserves to the Treasury, it wouldn't be *that* much compared to the Federal budget. A donation of $51K is peanuts except at the individual-legislator level, and there are too many that wouldn't be caught dead supporting MS here (like Orrin Hatch, whose motivations are similar to that of Gorton's...) unless they actually agree in principle that anti-trust stuff should be repealed. Money *can't* necessarily buy off somebody who's ready to lop off yer head. Now, if you're dealing with somebody who does not have to uphold any principles, because he hasn't bothered to actually ennunciate any (or because the people already consider him an unethical SOB), that's different...
As for donations in general, most of what's allowed is "soft money"; direct contributions to campaigns are limited, but "soft money" is not; arguably the latter should be regulated far more strongly.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Also, anti-trust issues have been raging for years before Bill Gates was even a gleam in his father's eye.. take my word for it. They are just the latest victim.
PanDuh!
My fuzzy impression is that levels of corruption and competence vary greatly among the many assorted U.S. state and federal legislatures, departments, police forces, etc. Not my field, but I wonder if this has been characterized and measured, what are some of the social / cultural / organizational / etc variables which are correlated, which of these are causal, and which are most economically tweaked. That is - What is really happening? Where is the leverage?
Breadth of participation may indeed be causally correlated with absence of corruption and with competence. Maybe. And cultivating a sense of ownership and responsibility might indeed be an efficient strategy to increase participation. Perhaps.
But it would be nice to have a feel for the range of possible approaches. To see the engineering options discussed. Perhaps there is already a literature somewhere? And if not...
Suppose Microsoft were to simply refuse to sell Microsoft products to anyone that sold non-Microsoft software? Where is the government intervention in that? Do you argue that with a desktop share of over 90 percent that such an action would quickly result in a closed entry market? Do you think anything but the threat of anti-trust is keeping Microsoft from doing that?
No, anyone is free to run an alternative OS (Mac OS, Linux, FreeBSD, Be, NeXT) and run whatever software they like on it. The reason Microsoft doesn't do that is that in non-Microsoft shops, such a policy would prevent them from gaining market share, since it would require extra effort to make other software interoperate with MS software. And such a policy would serve as an impetus to have people switch to those other OS's in protest of MS actions (as happened recently. Both the Mac OS and Linux are gaining market share.)
So no, closing Windows to outside firms would not be coercive, and moreover it would not be good business. OS makers badly need developers, as Apple has been discovering. no company can do everything itself.
Agreed. If you dislike the fact that companies are allowed to buy influence in your representatives, make it clear that you will not vote for somebody that takes the interests of a cash contributor over that of the normal constituents.
Remember: No amount of cash can help an election candidate if nobody will vote for them.
This all goes back to the whole lack of an informed public, which might not make this as effective as you'd hope, but if enough people write letters expressing this sentiment, you can bet your representatives will listen.
And Microsoft and their rabid supporters have a bad case of it.
I hope you're joking. What kind of change are you expecting? OS design has been steadily advancing, and modern Unices have a number of improvements over previous versions. Mac OS has undergone even more dramatic improvements, going from a single-user, feature starved system to a reasonably stable, multitasking, and full-feartured OS. In particular, in the last 10 years we have seen the following changes to the Mac platform.
Color Quickdraw, Quicktime, Quicktime VR, Quickdraw 3D, and OpenGL.
TrueType, Colorsync, and Applescript, text-to-speech, speech recognition.
Steadily improving GUI, including updated "look and feel," elimination of most modal dialog boxes, superior color support even at low pixel depths, contextual menus, kick-ass theme support, improved Finder, etc.
Modern, Open Transport-based networking, AppleShare (soon to be TCP/IP native), Applescript over the internet, vastly improved PPP tools.
Support for USB, 10/100 BT ethernet, firewire, wireless networking, etc.
I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of stuff. In addition to that, Apple will within 6 months be releasing OS X, which will feature a new graphics model, modern, Unix-derived OS internals, improved UI features, a better, object oriented set of API's, and loads of other goodies.
I don't know what you're expecting OS's to do. Today's OS's are light-years ahead of what anyone had 10 years ago, and they show no sign of slowing down. The amount of innovation we've seen in OS's in the last 10 years would take 30 years in the automotive industry.
I never heard about such a 'bid' before.
You wouldn't be engaging in slander or innuendo now, would you?
(wondering how easy it would be to supoena User accounts on Slashdot)
:)
The anti-trust laws that you seem to hate so much are the reason you can call the other side of the planet without taking out a morgage. The baby-Bells are huge *now*, how big would Bell have been if it hadn't been broken up? Would you be paying the rates you are now?
AT&T was a government-enforced monopoly. It was illegal (and still is) to start a competing phone service. That has nothing to do with the free market.
Why move to Europe in the first place? Running from such practices (contributions? errr...) taking place in your own country isn't going to solve anything. Oh, and if you really think GB and CH are safe just because they *were* in the forties, I wish you luck in the unlikely event of a reprise. (When Microsoft buys itself a chunk of NATO, for instance) n.waldman (bustrip@garbage.com)
The problem isn't with the big corporations, or the PACs, or even the corrupt politicians, the problem is with the whole system of campaigning. Right now no candidate can get elected without a major television/radio/newspaper ad blitz. And like any good advertiser they know that to get the most "bang for the buck" they need to hit a large as audience as is possible, which means catering to the lowest common denomater. So we get thousands of hours of very highly hyped, spinn-doctored crap every time there is an election. What, if any, solid beliefs the candidates have about real issues is lost in a storm of BS that even voters who are seriously looking for real info can't find any, much less the average voter. So we get a mix of negative ads (that merely turn voters off from the whole process) and sensational ads speaking passionately about controversial NON-issues (for god's sake we must protect the CHILDERN from, from...err from everything!!)
/. reader wouldn't have a few opinions on every subject ;-> )
;->
How does all of this relate to money you ask? Well as we all know television air time is expesnive, and the more people you reach the more it costs. Politicians, even ones already in office, are always running for office and will do pretty much anything to stay there. Since they arn't paid enough to fund their own campaigns they have to get donations, and most of the really big donations come with certian strings attached. Oh the strings may not be very visible but it is bribery pure and simple.
The only way we can really stop the problem is to change the nature of campaigning itself. I don't know the solution, and it won't be simple, or maybe what we need is a simple solution. I do have a few ideas though (what self respecting
1. Eleminate all ads of every kind. All registered voters will be mailed a packet in which the candidates describe the views and have short bio. Add in several televised, mediated, public debates.
2. The government pays an equal (and small amount) of money so each candidate can have exactly the same resources for their campaign. This is all the money that a candidate can use period. And to discourage people who would defraud the system, it comes in the form of vouchers for the air time used.
3. Eleminate representive democracy as we know it and replace it with a system in which everyone votes on major issues, on a daily or weekly basis via the internet, or a more secure subset of the internet. We would still want to elect a president and a small senate for handeling day to day affairs and so we could have strong leadership during a crisis. There would be alot of details to work out, esp veto power ect...
Regardless of what is done, something very fundamental about the system has to change. If not the whole system of American democracy is going to cave in on itself.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
I find it very amusing that what started out as a small company that had to contend with a large company known as IBM are now trying to corner the market and get rid of the very same pro-competion laws that helped to protect them during their beginings. Can anyone else here see what is wrong?
How sad it is for such a powerful company to forget its roots. I fear that if Microsoft has its way, it would control everything. They need to be reminded of where they came from, and what they went through.
Microsoft should remember the saying : "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutly."
"They told me it was impossible. I replied with maniacal laughter." http://www.mydailyrant.com/
Is there really a lack of information out there? As a Pittsburgher, for instance, I might get news from:
* The _NY Times_, pretty good for in-depth (for a newspaper), and thoughtful even if I don't agree with them,
* The _Pittsburgh Post-Gazette_, a fairly provincial, somewhat lefty/human-interest paper,
* The _Pittsburgh Tribune-Review_, a rightist and extremely anti-Clinton rag,
* The _Militant_, a leftist rag put out by local Socialists,
* The _Wall Street Journal_, for the business side of things,
* The _Economist_, which carries interesting comment online,
and so forth. And that's even w/o mentioning the light-n-fluffy, often remarkably one-sided and superficial (both likely due to time constraints; few want to see the same story in depth for an hour...) drivel that passes for network news.
Overall, that's a pretty broad spectrum.
There's a lot of information out there. Much of it is remarkably biased and frequently incorrect, due to oft-repeated myths... and people tend to have a "confirmatory bias", meaning largely that they notice / accept mostly what they already agree with, which in effect reduces the utility of trying to inform them.
Not to mention the fact that many are not only uninformed (including not having the background to comprehend what's going on, like understanding their own Constitution...), but completely uninterested. That's not a good situation. Short of forcing *far* more analytical thinking, logic, and so forth from a young age, I'm not sure what can be done about that.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
It's a depresssing thing, to keep voting for the lesser of two evils; it can really wear you down. Under the current system, I can hardly blame people who don't vote.
I gave up voting that way some years ago, and now always vote for a candidate whose views I actually like. Such candidates are lucky to get 1% of the votes. I do it because I like to "participate", but in terms of the outcome, it obviously makes no difference whether I go to the polls or not.
I have heard a proposal called instant runoff which would change all that. The way it works is this:
You get to vote for a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice ... excactly how many doesn't affect the general scheme. ...
Everybody's 1st choice is tabulated. If one candidate has a majority at this point, he's the winnner. If not, though
The candidate with the fewest votes is taken off the roster, and the people who voted for him have their votes re-cast to be their 2nd choice.
This process is repeated until their is a majority.
With this scheme, there is suddenly no penalty for voting for the candidate you actully most favor, because you can cast the "lesser of 2 evils" as your second choice!
I suspect if it were ever implimented, minority parties that get typically 1% of the votes or less would suddenly find themselves getting 10%.
This is not the only such scheme, but it's a good one, and considering it makes it really clear how lame our current voting process is.
How is something like the mechanics of the voting process changed within the current system of government?
-- Only unbalanced people can tip the scales.
A well written comment, but I fear you give capitalism too much credit.
Capitalism is a flexible framework on which you can hang pretty much anything. Corporations, after all, publish magazines as diverse as Reason and The Nation. Corporate-run media is best known not for its stalwart defense of the capitalist system, but for its consistent middle-of-the-road nature. Both left and right are consistent in complaining about the media's performance on most issues, which makes me think this "capitalist running-dog lackey" argument is overdone.
Now, it's true that corporate-run media tends to emphasize personalities and de-emphasize issues. I think there are a couple of reasons for this.
First, people tend to be entertained by personality stories, and the more of them that exist, the better the paper sells. This is an imperative of capitalism that cannot be ignored -- but note that it's in no way ideological; a paper would call for the complete and utter overthrow of the capitalist system if market research showed that was what the readers wanted to hear.
Second, the issues in our modern society are horrendously complex and difficult to explain. In the amount of time the media has before our attention wanders, I'd say they do a credible job. The problem is more with our contemporary impatience than anything specific with the media.
Finally, not only is NPR a poor marketer, they are distinctly biased against capitalism. I would no more expect to get the whole story through NPR then I would by reading the Wall Street Journal. Both publications look at the news from a totally different perspective, and - like it or not - they tailor the news to what their audience wants to hear.
If money and big corporate interests really controlled the system, there wouldn't be any talk at all about national health care. More than anything, labour unions support that particular cause, and they serve as a counterbalance for big corporations.
D
----
Sounds more like an attempt to do something about corruption for the public while leaving plenty opportunity for receiving money. The system was designed in such a way that it would leave plenty of room for funding (otherwise it would not have been accepted). As I understand it, the contribution limit is on an individual basis. I.e. two people working for the same company may donate to the same politicians. About donations being public, I don't think it makes much difference. Neither the democratic or the republican party has any interest in donation money scandals since they are both guilty of being corrupted. So, it usually is a non issue for the media also.
To prevent corruption, we have very strict rules in holland. Politicians are not allowed to accept gifts over 50$ or something like that. Generally it works reasonably well (we've had some small cases in local politics). At least I would be very much surprised if our prime minister would be involved in this sort of stuff.
Jilles
In that context, who can blame MS for believing they're being picked on by a Department of Justice that is willing to go well beyond its statutory authority? And who can blame them for wanting laws changed to prevent future abuses?
My Blog. Sela Ward can sell me long distanc
Here I copied the article for ya guys so you don't have to follow the link, sorry if I made a few mistakes...
Microsoft Targets Antitrust Office
Microsoft Corp. lobbyists and allies are aggressively pressing Congress to reduce the Justice Department's antitrust division to a pile of rubble. The giant software company's accuser has been winning in a storied court battle up to this point, but experts predict that the upcoming intensive bombing campaign funded by Microsoft may slow the DoJ's progress.
"I haven't had this much freedom to innovate in a long time!" said General Jon "Adolf" Strangelove in a press conference earlier today. "I've chosen some very innovative flight paths over Justice Department headquarters for the lead bombers, and the 200lbs. HE's should really open it up for the incendiardaries. Expect quite a show!"
Microsoft representatives have urged House and Senate members to pass a comprehensive air/land attack plan against the the Department of Justice for some time.
"We needed Microsoft to really show us the money..er the motivation for this attack" said Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.). "It's important for Americans to have the freedom to innovate after they buy their copies of Windows. But how can they do that if the Department of 'Justice' keeps Microsoft from making the Windows that keep everyone so happy? This raid is just common sense."
Bill Gates was unavailable for comment, but the following press release was handed out by his personal spokesperson early this morning:
"Prepare to witness the power of this fully operational battle station"
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
I wrote a piece on this kind of thing a while ago and submitted it to Slashdot. Seems that whoever reviewed it didn't think it was meaningfull. Well it fits directly with this.
... in the US that is) there are other politicians who have been bought by other giants. And there are far more powerfull giants than MS, if not because of their historical existence and support to some politicians and because of MS's uncertain future.
Essentially, it said that Linux' success was due to the System's willingness to get rid of MS, who is far too powerfull (>90% of the OS market is, whatever your point of view, pure power. Social, Economic and Political). The DOJs case is only one of other weapons against MS. The fact that MS "retaliates" isn't very important. They are greatly outnumbered. I don't care how many politicians they buy (and do not be fooled, campaign contributions is essentially a legal way of buying a candidate. More so, as the dutch man noted, this is a very corrupt system. But hey, it's legal
Other than the political arena, there is the media arena, where MS is loosing and fast. However you do the math, the media is pushing for linux. Not without reason, the powerfull elements of society (i.e. the system) don't want MS. Point. The means aren't important and as it stands now, MS is fighting the symptoms and not the roots of it's problems. And it's problem isn't it's monopoly, per se, it's what they do with it. Forcing people to upgrade and stopping to support old products (win3.1) even when the market demands it is a big mistake. Playing with the system isn't permitted (unless you are a group of powerfull people, which isn't MS's case). Nixon tried it, and the system took good care of him. The system will take care of MS, no matter how much they spend.
So you have this enormous volume of people that have been elected (with at least 1 vote). Will these people "rule" from their homes, or will they be required to live in DC? How are they made accountable for their votes and actions if they are not physically present?
Your proposal begins to sound an awful lot like a direct democracy (with people being able to exercise the option of proxy by "voting" for somebody else to vote for them). One of the main strengths of the representative nature of our government is that we effectively *pay* our representatives to educate themselves on legislation and to act with our interests in mind. If you require all of our representatives to hold "day jobs," how can you ensure that even our more highly-voted-for representatives can find the time to devote to legislating?
A possible answer would be to allow people to change their votes at any time. When a representative does something against the wishes of those who have voted for him, votes would shift, decreasing the value of that representative (or removing him from office altogether).
It sounds like this idea would be horribly complex no matter how you managed to do it.
To be honest, it sounds like this style of governing might be more appropriate at a more local level (community, city, county or (at most) state), where the sheer bulk of people with votes will be manageable.
>But Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), whose campaign has received about
>$51,000 from Microsoft or its employees since 1997, has been an
>outspoken supporter of a cut in the antitrust budget.
Maybe the real message is how disgustingly cheap it is to get politicians to shill for you.
D
----
Part of the reason why people don't get more invovled is because we've let the system get so complex, that no one understands it. Legislation is so hard to read people really do need a lawyer to explain what the law says. We need to take the concept of law down to the level of the average educated person, to where the average /. reader could read an understand the law the way it is written. I for one have problems understanding what most legislation says when i try to read it as written with out an explanation. Part of the reason why laws are so complex is because the various lobbies representing the legal profession like it that way, having the law elevated to the point where the common citizen doesn't understand it, and can't defend him/herself is their lifeblood, so they give heavily whenever someone tries to reform the way the law is written.
Maybe we should, at the local and state level at least, replace our current form of democracy with something similar to the Athenian model, in which the lower house is made up of randomly selected people who would serve for one year. A senate that is elected by the lower house (who will be well informed, much better so than the general public) and a mayor/governor type that is elected by the general public, out of a pool of candidates picked by the lower and upper houses. I know this isn't exactly how it was done in ancient Athens, but it was a good model and I think that we could do well by using a few peices of their system in our own. Whatever else you can about Athenian Greeks, they were involved in politics and understood the laws which they lived by. They had to, there was no "legal profession" at them time, if you had to go to court you defended yourself, and if you had a beef with a neighbor you procecuted.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
Bzzzzt, wrong. We live in a Plutocracy.
Am I the only one that sees a third option "Wait for the Semi to pass"? How is it the governments fault that you or Mr. Smith were impatient? Even though your example isn't one there are cases of unjust tickets sure, but that doesn't mean that we should slack off. I'm sure that crack dealers want the government to slash the DEA's budget too, but should we? Let me ask you another question, if your son/daughter/wife was killed by Mr. Smith in an accident caused by one of his several other speeding tickets would you still be sympathetic to his cause?
You would 'kill to manipulate the government into leaving you alone'. If M$ gets it's way, soon you would kill to manipulate M$ to leave you alone! Do you really think a free market is possible with only one party in it?? Or 1.000001 party, as M$ might complain about competition from this 0.0000001 party? I think not! Or are you paid bij M$ too ;-) ?
What person will donate an airborne act of love?
Not a polisci person at all, but why (other than campaigning) should politicians be allowed to take anything at all?
And as for campaigning, I kind of like the idea of giving X dollars to every candidate who's collected Y signatures of support, and ending it there. I'm sure there are logistical and Constitutional complications, but I find it far more palatable to remove the incentive for politicians to seek money than to (as suggested by the true ideologues among us) remove the ability of the government to fund things.
This is not a case of Microsoft arrogantly Challenging The System but is actually the exact opposite. We're seeing Microsoft meekly accept the way things are and increase its lobbying presence accordingly.
Once Microsoft is seen to be giving "enough" money and clout to both major parties, we'll see the DOJ move on to attack some other players in the industry.
And don't think we're immune; one of the cornerstones of modern antitrust law is the notion of "predatory pricing". Microsoft was once attacked for charging too little for IE in order to drive Netscape out of business, just as Standard Oil was attacked mostly for charging too little for oil. If Red Hat and VA Research ever become phenomenally successful on the basis of selling a product that is too cheap to compete with, they too will be forced to pay protection money in the form of a large lobbying budget or suffer the legal consequences.
Glen Raphael
P.S.: Read _The Myth Of The Robber Barons_ for another take on the Standard Oil case.
I play Nerd-Folk!
Ideally a free market represents total absence of any government control. You seem to be of the opinion that this is a two-way street, and that as good capitalists, businessmen should fold over and stay out of politics. This is flawed, because America clearly isn't an ideal free market. The government is already doing a great deal of 'dabbling.' Separation of economics and politics is a fiction, and has been since Alexander Hamilton created the Bank. I don't find it contradictory that a good capitalist would try to control politics - he's merely trying to restore his own control over the market by reducing the role of government.
As far as American individualism goes, you seem to be living in some sort of dream-world. You can take your enlightened self-interest to the American Indians, amongst others.
Second, as with any generalization, I don't apply it to individuals. Your insinuation that I am being bigoted by making any sort of generalization is, frankly, stupid. There most certainly is such a thing as national character, and from my experience with the people of this and other nations, this is a fair assessment of America in general. You may take issue with it, but don't call me bigoted until I start judging individuals based on my generalizations. Or learn what bigoted means.
As far as so-called American humanitarianism, you are again living in a dream world. I suggest you read some American post-WWII history on the activities of the US State Department. Americans police the world only to maintain their own vested interests. To suggest otherwise is naive in the extreme. Please inform yourself a little further about how American foreign policy really works. It's not motivated by any such thing as 'noble sentiment,' as is befitting of a superpower. US policy clearly states maintenance of the appearance of nobility and morality for the sake of public sentiment, but never the exercise of such in foreign policy except where American interests are protected. This is why we ignore Rwandas and East Timors.
SA
Seems like fighting the enforcement of a law is the wrong way to go about doing things. The police exist to enforce the laws. Making it harder for them to do so just makes their job more dangerous than it already is. Getting the laws changed seems like a better way to fix the problem. Then the perhaps the police funding could be reduced since their will probably be fewer criminals to worry about.
There's also the fact that anti-trust laws don't seem to be any more unjust than the laws that exist to protect Microsoft and other corporations. If they're going to accept the privileges and protections from the government, they should accept the limitations and regulations as well.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
How is letting a company that you are prosecuting "buy" their way out of it equal a less corrupt government? I think people fail to realize that this country was founded on the principle that small businesses should be allowed to thrive and that those who go out of there way to stop them should be stopped. What once was the land of opportunity for the entrepreneur is now the land of opportunity for those that actually want to be bought by Microsoft. You compete with them, they stomp you, is this how the country should be ran? If you think so then for the good of all Americans, please leave the country and go to Siberia or some place, frankly I still want the little man to have a chance at chasing his dreams.
although this is way off topic, the bottomline is the the US Supreme Court has held that spending money is an expression of free speech. This is why self funded candidates can spend infinite amounts of money. Although McCain Feingold makes many good advances, true campaign finance reform cannot occur unless a SC decision was reached the other way. Europeans have a hard time imagining a country without a national news media. The US has two semi national papers, the NY Times and USA Today, with the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal somewhere behind. Local newspapers and television are very important. Due to the incredible size of the US, the cost of television ads vary dramatically. In Texas, there are places where one can get prime time ads that cover an entire distrcit for 500. In New Jersey, there are districts without their own television stations, and therefore candidates have to advertise on both the Philadelphia and NYC channels to hit their district, in addition to hundreds of thousands of irrelevant voters. It is nearly impossible to imagine how a workable government funded campaign system would work in the US. Although flawed, our current disclosure system works decently. matt
and it didn't fucking work. SCREW THE SYSTEM; DONT VOTE. WHY CHOOSE THE LESSER OF TWO EVILES?
Actually, this is pretty common. I worked for a lobbying organization for a while and "Government Affairs" is the polite term for "lobbying". So "Director of Federal Government Affairs" is really the polite way of saying "Head Lobbyist for Congress". Lots of big corporations and corporate special interest organizations have "Government Affairs" offices to watch out for their interests.
Shame you and I can't afford a "Government Affairs Director" to watch out for our interests, eh?
Read my blog.
Did you write that? ;D That's halarious, especially if you've ever read any other MS press release.
501 c4 groups can lobby and many efforts pair them up with a C3, so a side of the operation can lobby.
matt
Oh comon, I found the post very amusing.
That's it with you Microsoft zealots: you are so busy defending your beloved Company that you've lost your sense of humor.
Cheer up!
Uh huh. You're comparing Microsoft to being drug dealers?
There are degrees of wrong doings you know.
It may be considered free speech to allow people to donate to a political campaign. What is not considered free speech however is the political campaign's right to accept a donation. All we need to do is outlaw political campaigns from having the right to accept money.
My personal opinnion however is that companies should be completely restricted from donating money to political campaigns altogether. Companies are not individuals. I think all political donations should be illegal with the exception of personal donations. Personal donations should also have a small cap like $500 per campaign.
I think this would remove this horrible pleutocracy.
Remember in episode 4 when the Emperor dissolves the Galactic council making him the _one_ ruler? Well, Emperor Bill Gates has taken some steps to dissolving the DoJ (to the point of having less power/money to do their jobs only, though). Soon, MS, the evil Empire will rule the computing universe. Too bad we can't get someone to cross over to the dark side to allie with the emperor and then eventually through him into a large chasm in the ultimate act of redemption... Any ideas?
Because in the first case, you've broken a law that already exists while in the second case you're trying to prevent something from becoming a law. There's a huge difference there.
Not that I think that being able to buy elections is a good thing, but I can't think of any solution that isn't worse than (or as bad as) the problem.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Uhm, you might want to mention who wrote that book. It's part of Ayn Rand's works and your thoughts on monopolies are just more objectivist pablum from the Rand Institute. Using Greenspan's words "rigid and stangant" are two adjectives that I would use to describe Microsoft's anemic operating system products.
In fact in the whole marketplace let's look at how stagnant it is. Unix has been around forever and hasn't really changed. MacOS has been around forever without really changing. Now lets look at a vibrant marketplace, networking. From RS-232, to Arcnet, Token Ring, Ethernet and on and on I can see a robust amount of product growth and benefit and the reason is you don't have the Microsoft monopoly dictating direction.
This is just typical of Microsoft. They go for the throat every time something threatens them. I say Bill is just too blatant this time. Go DOJ! Break 'em up!
"And who will you vote for? A Democrat or Republican? If you elect either, do you think anything will change? And if you don't vote for either, do you think it likely that your choice will win?"
:)
:->
:->
:)
Actually, It's not so much which party you vote for, it's the PERSON you vote for. My respresentative in the House for the last term and was a very outstanding person. Really stood up for the area, and actually listened to the people who he represented. If we voted for more people like him, perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad thing? Would it not? I think that's the point he's trying to make with his last few postings.
It's not so much the Party that's bad, it's the people IN the party. If no one would vote for the bad apples would they still be in the party? No, they'd be working at Micky D's...
Really, it's the people who vote for these people to begin with. You ever hear people complaining about the goverment but then go and vote for the idiots over again? I mean come on now.
Just my two cents...
Microsoft may have done a lot more damage than they thought with this latest snafu.
IANAL, but I spent many years working with nonprofit organizations. Tax exempt nonprofits (501 c3 corporations under US law) are prohibited from political lobbying. By following Microsoft's prodding on this, there is an excellent chance that these nonprofits have just given up their tax exempt status.
Probably not what they had in mind, but an excellent come-uppance for those who mindlessly follow the Evil Empire.
You gotta be joking .. I am from NL myself .. but it wouldn't surprise me for the least if our prime minister had accepted a few hundred thousand from some companies .. the same goes for other ministers here .. especially when you look at defense, it wouldn't surprise me that the decision to buy some AH-64's a few years ago was "funded" ... stuff like that happens everywhere .. politicians are people with power .. and everyone has a price .. everyone can be bought ...
.. it happens here just as much, only more covertly since there are no "legal" ways to bribe someone (like in the US with "campaign funding")
So don't say it doesn't happen here (except in local politics)
--
Ignorance is no excuse
Hey...and maybe the government can use the money to give tax breaks to companies that keep thousands of IT people employed by producing bad software
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity -RAH
It's no secret that Anne Bingaman, appointed in charge of the DOJ anti trust division took the Microsoft case away from the FTC, (which sat on the eveidence for years and did nothing) one month after she was in office. Anne Bingaman was appointed by Janet Reno, next to Clinton, the person most least liked in todays politics.
The big money is on George W, and the establishment already declared him the winner, the real question is will he support the DOJ or will they let things go back to pre- Anne Bingaman days of "business as usual" for Microsoft.
It's ironic that voters will play such an important part in this, yet very few will know any of the facts, rather they will base their decisions on paid advertisements and talk shows, with the the bigest money making the most noise.
Is it just me, or has 'conflict of interest' gone from something to be avoided at all costs (publicly, at least) to standard operating procedure?
Its not a straight line, its a circle. Right beside socialism you'll find the extreme free markets. The only difference is that its the boards of a few huge corporations that set the five year plan economy and dictate the rules, on the merits that nobody will have the resources to compete with them, since they could very easily lock out everyone else from the market. Does that give you the warm fuzzies?
I must say, I see nothing improper about this. It looks to me like a simple self-defense move. They're doing everything they can to avoid getting screwed over. If the DoJ is going to harass them, why shouldn't they fight back?
Ofcourse America always touts itsself as the worlds guardian of democracy, but i have serious doubts. I have trouble calling a bi-partisan system a democracy. Here in the Netherlands there are at least 5 to 10 parties that matter. These parties have very different interests and cater to a specific part of the population. You have a couple of liberal parties, a couple of social-democratic parties, a couple of christian parties etc, and the result of an election is always to have a coalition formed, and compromises are made. The US has this bi-partisan system with 2 parties that have been in power for eternity. You don't see any new parties popping up having any influence, it's always between democrats and republicans, and even they don't really differ. They are both right-of-center conservative parties. I don't think thats a proper democracy, it's more an alternating olicharchy.
> Is it your position that government regulations that prohibit my dumping of toxic chemicals into the aquifier on my property are "anti free market?"
The owner of the land decides what is done with it.
Unless you hold your land in Allodial Title, you DO NOT own it, the government does. You might wish to acquire Black's Law Dictionary, its very informative.
> they're happy to have the government protect their private interests.
The government is just looking after its assets. Makes more sense now that you understand Allodial Title, doesn't it?
IANAL
Cheers
This is exactly the reason that our government should make lobbying illegal. The are many special interest groups and companies who are buying influence in our government, and it's not uncommon at all.
What amazes me is that we as a country allow this to happen everyday, and for issues that are far more important than Anti-trust suits...
Just call it "The buying of America", and Bill is the richest kid on the block...makes ya shudder don't it?
Shaken
Corporations are amassing more and more of the worlds resources, governments are becoming less and less important. Small countries are much smaller than big companies; and big companies and midsize countries negotiate pretty much as equals. (Consider that GEC represents 1% of the US GNP).
Microsoft just happens to be a little bit clumsier in their manipulation than everyone else. When they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar they look guilty--other companies make it look like they're performing a valuable service.
Hey, remember the Gulf War? Remember how GEC build launch pads to launch the rockets they build to fly with the guidance systems they designed using the engines they constructed to hit targets tracked by satellites they launched in order to make the 6pm news on NBC (the TV network they own), all funded by the money they lent to the government (GE Capital Corp.). And they made you like it--now that's a class act.
Microsoft has a long way to go before they'll be able match that.
Homer: "First, son, scream like a woman. Then when they turn away in disgust, kick him in the back."
[All paraphrased, of course.]
Isn't it Yet Another Microsoft's Monopoly Activity to be included in the DOJ vs MS trial?
--
The only problem I've seen with the Tobacco co's (and this is WAY off topic from the whole MS case) case is that they did advertise tobacco as a healthful activity back in the 50's.
When I worked for a grocery store back in high school, I had to open up cartons of smokes and put them in those feed-bins so that customers could get single packs. Inside one of these cartons was a printed statement directed at the smoker, saying that because Tobacco taxes were equal across the board, regardless of the income of the person buying them, this was unfair, and they should call their congress person to have them make Tobacco taxes a sliding scale!!
What BULLSHIT!!
Does that make ANY sense?
If you're poor and can't afford smokes, don't buy them.
Oh, wait, you're addicted, right, sorry.
(I wished I'd kept the damn thing!)
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
And boy, that is unsubtle! Just plain stupidity, or do they really honestly think that they'll get away with it?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The government has seen whores before, so this Washington senator shouldn't get too far. Besides, it's just another case of Microsoft believing that, and behaving like, they outrank the government, the law, and the American people.t or ticket, and totally ignore anything else including party lines to do so, and let other people take care of the other valid concerns of politics. Indeed, I'm almost _forced_ to because of how much money is being spent corrupting the government and my representatives. I'm a vermonter, and I think Bernie Sanders is sound, but I have concerns that Jeffords is getting corrupted. At any rate, I'm definitely going to be a one-issue voter currently- everything else falls by the wayside compared to the destruction of the economy and the country by tech trusts. That's my privilege, and if it stops being such a threat I can think of other issues and pay attention to them a bit more.
We've seen all this before. Hell, at one point it was the President acting like this! (Read up on Watergate!) It just doesn't fly, the Senate and the House of Representatives are there for a reason. It's like a jury- the idea is, if there is anybody who cannot tolerate the 'tyranny of the majority', they get a veto and then the country has to muddle through with a compromise to look after the best interests of _all_ the people, not just those with the loudest voices. In this case, I know there are a couple senators etc. who aren't whores for _this_ special interest, and I personally am quite happy to vote a straight don't-let-corporate-monopolies-wreck-the-tech-sec
Nearly everyone does that. Hell, even /. does that - since it's based on submissions by 'nerds', the probablity lies in the direction that said nerds are going to submit that which they like hearing.
:)
Not that this is inevitable, but it sure looks like it
"I don't believe that there is one, single, perfect spiritual way and, in realizing that, obviously you become a lot more open."
If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.
From this week's DRCNet Week Online, an excellent newsletter on drug policy, the following article:
My best friend's ex-girlfriend has narcolepsy and it's a disorder that I wouldn't wish upon my enemies. Here's a drug which is giving narcolepsy suffers their first hope in years of a treatment that might actually work well, and they're taking it away from doctors due to mass hysteria over one highly publicized incident (neglecting the fact that club-hoppers will be able to get GHB no matter what its legality is)! Note also the inflammatory name of the bill ("Date Rape Prevention Act") and the fact that only 1 Congressman was brave enough to go against the tide on this one (I guess the others figured that their opponents would claim they were "for date rape" if they didn't vote for it).
Keeping this in mind, I propose a new bill which we should try to find a representative to sponsor pronto:
Nobody would dare to vote against it, it'll be great!
--
Jake
Aw crap, you're right. I guess I'll give up after all. ;-)
Look, I don't care how systemic the problems are. They are there and they are systemic because we, the people have almost totally abrogated our social responsibility . I see no value whatsoever in sitting on our duffs whining about it (I don't mean to abuse you personally, although it seems like it).
You can make a difference. It is still a democracy. That the task is difficult is no reason not to undertake it. Hell, you heave a brick out a window and hit ten people who will readily take on an easy job. Take on the hard job!
By thunder, I'm going to my precinct caucuses this year, come hell or high water. If we all did the same the system would change literally overnight. The popular will cannot be overwhelmed by all the money and power in the world because IT IS OUR POWER. They do, at the end of the day, need the votes.
These "implacable forces" hold sway because disillusionen citizens have given up on our democracy.
"Deep in our craven souls we know that Democracy is a dying giant, a relic breathing its last. I don't mean that America is finished as a world power, America is the wealthiest; the most powerful country in the world; and I don't mean the Communists are going to take over the world, the Communists are even deader than we are. No, what's finished is the notion that this great country is dedicated to the freedom and flourishing of every single individual in it. It's the individual that's finished. It's every single solitary one of you out there listening to me now who's finished. The entire world is becoming humanoid, creatures that look human but aren't. We are nation of 200 million deodorized, transistorized, whiter-than-white, steel-belted creatures, totally unnecessary as human beings and as replacable as piston rods."
That quote (as best I can remember it, I'm writing from memory here) is from Paddy Chayefsky's magnificent screenplay for the movie "Network" (a movie I urge you all to see, by the way).
I think that nightmare vision of America is here and real. But I don't have to accept it. Nihilistic despair has no room in my life. I choose to live deliberately. I'm going to my precinct caucus and I'm going to fight for a new software patent law and I'll probably fail. Where were you when I needed you?
If just these three things were done we would go a long way towards fixing the problem. No plan is perfect and of course the rich and the powerful of this country will not be detered easily after all they benefit from the status quo but we have to start someplace and do something.
War is necrophilia.
This is a problem with our democracy, not just a problem with MS. Most residents of Washington state are aware that Senator Slade Gorton eats out of the hand of not just Microsoft, but also Boeing and Weyerhaueser, the next two largest local companies. Politicians who perhaps are already inclined towards helping business can easily be swayed with strategic "contributions". Microsoft clearly forsees a future in which it has emerged from the current anti-trust battle and continues to practice dubious business tactics. They wish to avoid a repeat of the current finagle. This offers us an interesting insight into their corporate mentality - evidently BillG doesn't believe he is going to lose the DoJ case. Not in the long run, at any rate. The dismaying part is that they are correct. You can own Congress. As I once heard someone say, "A congressman is the best long-term investment of all". Soft money has to go. Disclosure is poor at the moment, but even full disclosure would be ridiculously ineffective. The whole point of representative democracy is that I don't have to monitor every legislative detail that comes down the pike. What then are the chances that I will want to monitor every financial detail? Politicians will "fully disclose" their contributions buried somewhere in the back pages of the classifieds, and nobody will ever read them. The Supreme Court has several times ruled that money is speech. They are right, but they take it to illogical extremes. A contribution to the campaign of my favorite politician is indeed a means of indicating my support for him or her. But does a person with ten times as much disposable cash as myself really have ten times as much to say? Far from it. Let's put some teeth into limits on campaign contributions. Ban soft money and PACs. Microsoft can only do this because the corrupt infrastructure allows it.
-konstant
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
Get a good laugh out of this.
--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
well, you got one thing right. the US isn't a democracy, it's a republic.
Oh, and the US has a nice guarantee of free political activism. This includes the right for Americans to spend money to support candidates and polticians whose views we agree with.
With government funding as you mention, however... How are new parties ever to be formed? How is a, say, Jesse Ventura, ever to be elected? How can things ever change?
So, which members of Congress will get some
of that M$ cash? That's why they started this
in the first place. Old Bill doesn't know how to
"play ball".
Sounds like he is learning fast.
I guess the Mafia (the other M organization) will be asking the goverment to cut the FBI budget as well.
Despite my dislike for crappy MS products, I would applaud any effort on their part to change antitrust laws or reduce their enforcement. They are arbitrary laws which can be used against any business. These laws are written so unclearly that there literally is no defense available.
I would highly suggest reading Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal There is a great article by Alan Greenspan about these horrible anti-trust laws.
While I believe you in saying that non progit organizations are probably barred from lobbying, I don't think writing a letter constitutes official lobbying. That's my understanding of what these "non-profit" orgs did, so they probably won't get dinged for it. I think they should -- at least be forced to explain their actions in court, but doubt they will.
This is what we all assumed would happen at the beginning. Once MS realized it was losing it pulled out the cash. This is where we see the REAL power behind this country, big business. The government needs money to function, big business, especially Microsoft, have LOTS of money. So MS just quietly (or not so quietly) informs the government that they need to pull funding from the DOJ. And I'm sure this is just a friendly request, based on logical reasoning and sound principles. I'm certain that MS isn't threatening to drop the US Gov, remove technical support (such as it is), move its operations over seas, or any other such militaristic business practices.
Now we're going to see just how big a stick MS wields, and how hard they can beat a government superpower with it.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Slashdot source is open, there are places like technocrat.net that use it.
/. political site.
I know I'd go to a
Let's make it happen.
One of the beauties of our form of government is that lobbying can be done from both sides - those of us who don't like M$'s lobbying can lobby other congresslifeforms for our position - maybe a Linux Lobby (Bob Politician today recieved the support of the powerful Linux Lobby, the first major step in his candidacy for president...). As individuals we have the right to choose who to accept money from and who to vote for. The fact that these congresslifeforms accept the money says that either they have no strong principles or are favorable to M$. If they have no strong principles, they should be voted out (or given money by us). If they're favorible to M$, vote them out too - but at least they took the money for a reason. I believe that if enough people lobby in enough directions, the law of very large numbers says that some of them will be lobbying in the right direction (Sun, etc. against M$). Let's just hope that they have the money.
Visit
All I can offer to this is that it was American aid that kept Russian Communists from starving to death after the revolution. So much for 'heartless capitalism'.
Umm we sent troops into Russia after the revolution, and supported the other side. I don't think they were all that grateful.
I'd suggest the book "The Lies my Teacher Told Me", it's very good and covers things that aren't common knowledge(Helen Keller was a socialist, Woodrow Wilson was very racist, etc.)
I'm not sure you are familiar with the caucus system. You don't vote for candidates at a caucus. You vote for delegates out of the people there. You vote on platform. Yes, delegates are generally "bound" to a candidate, but the caucus system is the point of entry to part activism. If you are highly motivated on an issue, it is through the caucus that you get your issue into the party's agenda.
;-)
Caucus attendance is how the religious right got its surprising influence in the Republican party (surprising considering their political agenda is supported by a minority of Americans, a significant minority, but still a minority). They availed themselves of the tools. I'm urging "us" to do the same. By "us," I mean those here on slashdot, the majority of whom, I suspect, have similar views (not the same, but similar) on what I would call the "geek vote:"
1) UCITA and defeating it.
2) Crypto-law reform.
3) Patent law reform as applied to software.
4) Universal high-speed net access
Item 4, I suspect, will have quite a range of views within slashdot and wouldn't be a "party vote," because I see slashdot as having a wide range of political views, from people like me who think the governement ought to just get in there and "Interstate" the network, to radical libertarians who would hold that all government regulation of the communications industry should be torn down to let them build the network, but I think it is fair to say that the goal is shared and we would quibble about the means.
As for the now oft mentioned "slashdot" political site, I think people hesitate because it is likely to descend into flamewar central. I think such a thing could work if the editorial policy on articles kept them strictly confined to technology issues, and never strayed into more general policy questions.
Rob can call me -- I'd be willing to run such a site
This can only be bad for Microsoft, although it is typical of thier tactics: attack, attack, attack
I think this sends a signal to the government, and the signal is "we are bigger than you" and the government won't like at all.
The government response will be to go after microsoft and make sure they get a kill. You can take money from schools, health, the poor and NASA but I've yet to see laywers accepting a pay cut.
Doing this is corporate suicide - they should have spent the lobby funds showing how essential microsoft is to the american and world economy and painting a bleak future of a microsoftless world. This tactic would have been more efficient in getting a ground swell of beneficial public opinion for Microsoft.
Perhaps Microsoft have given up - thier previous attempts at getting the public to back them haven't exactly set the world alight. This is probably because its hard to feel emotional about a company that doesn't care about you or your needs.
The Open Source movement tends to get this kind of emotion because you can take the bit you care about and nurture it; you can get close to the people that actually matter in the open source movement; you can read Alan Cox's diary, see feedback from Linux Torvalds. This doesn't happen with closed source. Its a rare event to see someone who actually matters in Microsoft talking opening about the future.
Microsoft/Gorton claim the DOJ have used illegitimate tactics in their pursuit of their investigation against Microsoft. In an effort to reduce the use of these illegitimate tactics - making no mention of accusations of frivolous over-investigation - they want to cut the budget of this department?
So they're saying "The DOJ does a necessary job badly - we must reduce the amount of money they receive, so they will do a better job." Is that correct?
-=Best Viewed Using [INLINE]=-
As much as I question Microft's monopolistic powers, I question the federal government's MUCH more. This is a step in the right direction towards a much less intrusive and corrupt government.
Have faith in the open-source movement, it will change the industry and Microsoft's power WITHOUT a forced hand from big brother.
Let your representative know how you feel. With this link you don't even have to know who that is
Write Your Representative
If lots of people write and let them know that this is a "BAD THING", maybe the house will act.
I did say maybe.
There is an article on NewsBytes about this. I submitted this this morning to /. and the submission was rejected. Go figure.
Expert Java EE Consulting
I was talking to my fiancee yesterday and the conversation happened to turn to Bill Gates. The thought came into my mind that everyday, no matter what we do, Bill Gates somehow has something to do with it. If we go to the grocery store, the checkout line is probably running some of his software. If we watch TV, MS probably owns part of the station. He owns so much that there isn't any thing he can't make money off of.
What brought this up was the fact that we were talking about the South Park movie and how they picked on him in one particular scene. My fiancee wondered if he took offense to such a scene. Then, it crossed my mind that MS, or some subsidary of theirs, probably owns shares in the studio that made the film. I'm sure they probably used his software in the making of the movie. So, even if they pick on him, he's still making money off of it and loving it.
I wonder if this is healthy for America. Should we give a person the opportunity to control our daily lives? No way! Should we do everything that we can to stop him? Of course! The Linux movement really needs to take on this philosophy. But there is no way that the US could ever file an antitrust suit against Linux because it is free. That would be like them trying to sue God for being the sole provider of life, but making it free.
I've got to go now, my MS Coffee Maker is buzzing. It's either done or locked up now.
Brad Johnson
Advisory Editor
Brad Johnson
Does Smith have a point? Perhaps; I certainly can't see any defense for the city of Denver issuing me a "photo radar" ticket for speeding while attempting to merge into interstate traffic. (Let's see, do I want to get a ticket or killed by the semi? I have 1 second to decide!)
But at the same time Smith has such an obvious interest in cutting the budget of the agency enforcing laws against him that it should take extraordinary events for him to be taken seriously. The Ramseys asking Boulder County to stop funding the investigation if it continues to focus on them exclusively *might* have a case, but MS in the middle of an ongoing trial does not, IMHO.
*sigh* At least I can ask my congressman about the change of crypto policy that allows MS to export Kerberos, but not me to export my Kerberized Debian packages, at the same time I write him about this nonsense. Maybe I'll get lucky and he'll see a connection.
Coyote-san on soon
the DOJ still uses WordPerfect. Vee have vays of making things, um, deeficult eef you do not cooperate, hmmmm?
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Honest.
The illness in American Democracy is not Microsoft. It is not even big money. It is not even the absurd (IMHO) Supreme Court decision that money is speech. The illness is me. The illness is you. The illness is the fact that you didn't go to your precinct caucusses, did you? (Neither did I, I'm not getting holier-than-thou here).
The sickness is the way regard the government as "them" and the people as "us." I've got news for you folks. The government is "us." Why have "evil special interests" taken over the government and made lapdogs of legislators? Because we were not there.
This government is ours. It is structured to do what we want it to do. But we are not there saying what we want!
Instead, we participate in focus groups where the same researches who figure out why we buy one brand of toothpaste over another ask us a series of provocative questions and measure our emotional responses. They are not looking for what we think, they are after what we feel because they know a dirty little secret. People are not motivated by intellect, they are motivated by emotion.
This system allows our political discourse to descend from open discussion of matters of vital interest to us (like anti-trust and patent law, like tax policy and welfare reform) to grainy black-and-white advertisements showing a prison with a reveloving door and that scary black man! (I'm referring to the George Bush "Willie Horton" ad here, but both parties do this -- I'm not being partisan, I just think the Willie Horton ad was the most despicable example of this.)
Now, your intellect knows full well that if you vote for Dukakis, you wife will not autmatically be raped and murdered by a black man. But it, along with the rest of the scientific marketing research, designed to find your emotional hot buttons, creates an "emotional aura" around the candidate that is pervasive and insiduous, hard to identify and reason with, difficult to resist.
So what do we do? We aren't totally blind. We aren't robots. These ads don't MAKE us vote in a particular way in and of themselves, but they do make us digusted and fed up. We feel in our guts that this ISN'T democracy, so we turn off. The political diet is empty calories and we go looking elsewhere for nourishment.
I think this empty, mindless, constant appeal to emotion is why we stay away from the polls in droves.
Well-funded interests are all too happy to step in and take what they can from the carcass of our freedoms. What the hell? We don't want it.
We CAN stop this. While our government may seem to be totally out of control, and that we are powerless, our government still retains the FORM of democracy. Call your local library. Find out where your party caucus is held. Go. Talk. Question. Discuss. There will be organizers there for candidates. They will have a platform. They will have votes and positions. They will try to pressure you to keep your mouth shut. They will try to control the election of delegates. Don't let them. Speak up. Go. See how it works. It will make you mad, but don't knuckle under. Bring some friends. Insist on talking about what bothers you.
I've seen it here. Slashdotters have some definite opinions on real matters of law and commerce. Don't settle for the way things are. All the tools needed to take back our government are there. Make the next Congress an "open source" Congress (forgive me for such a weak and strained linkage, but I think the same kind of spirit that imbues open source/free software can be tapped to bring reality back to politics).
Think of it like exercise, or, yes, open source programming. I get paid to write software at work. I set aside a little time every week to work on my free software project. This year, I've decided to set aside a little time to work on my "software patent" idea. I'm going to my caucus and I'm going to get a vote on a platform plank. A platform that patents on software be limited to no more than 24 months. I know that many would like no patents on software, but other forces will want patents to stay just as they are. I'm going for a compromise.
Whatever it is that upsets you, go. Make your voice heard. Write your congretional delegation.
You must not wait for others to give you your freedom. You must take it for yourself. It is yours, but if you leave it lying on the ground, don't be surprised when someone (maybe Microsoft) picks it up and says, "hey, I could use this!"
It is you country. Take it.
and Gorton is a disgrace. Not only is he an M$ whore, he's a racist, native american treaty-breakin, environment-destroyin, nuclear-proliferatin moron. If it were up to Seattle (King County) he'd have been dismissed years ago.
And so the meta-complaints begin...
What is really interesting to me is how MS is portraying themselves as the underdog through this whole ordeal. Visit their site and look at the "Freedom to Innovate" section. Read their pres releases on the matter and check out Mr. Gates' comments on the whole thing. They make it seem like they're being bullied around when in reality, MS has more capital to invest in a legal staff than the DoJ does. Additionally, MS is on trial for being a bully in the first place and now it's the pot calling the kettle black. They can dish it out but they can't take it.- -------------
--------------------------------------------
Hmm, Gates is now using his billions to influence the Federal government. Funny how something similar started this in the first place, like using his billions to influence or bully competitors and distributors.
This is a really stupid idea. Like people *won't notice*. Well, then again, if they become immune from procecution, we may be screwed anyway. What's next? Senator Gates? I'm not liking this patern.
Fear any company who can influence the outcome of a trial by draining the Procecuter's budget.
Fight the future.
"your honor opposing council's client is attempting to get the prosecuting attornys fired"
"what! - I find M$ in contempt .... bang that Gates guy's ass in jail untill he relents ...."
And we'll kill anyone who says there is!
Democratic Republic not Constitutional Republic. We have an indirect democracy because direct democracy doesn't work yet.
Noble sentiment. I agree with a lot of what you're saying. Unfortunately I think you're being a bit naive about the way democracy works in this country. The reason it fails is because the main avenues of control are corrupted. Observe:
/. is one such example - reporting of things the public (or one segment of it) wants to hear about, not what a corporation feels will market well. I.e., no Diana or Junior stories here.
i. Informationbr> Any good democracy requires a well-informed public. If the public is going to decide what's right and what's wrong, they need to know all the facts from an unbiased source. This is impossible in America, because media is a big business. The media outlets that will succeed best are those that are most corporate in nature. Everyone won't listen to NPR, because NPR is a poor marketer.
Therefore everyone will get the tainted information peddled by the bastard child of GE, NBC, and the bastard child of tabloid merchant Rupert Murdoch, Fox, and the bastard child of Disney, ABC, and the bastard child of Warner Brothers, Time/Newsweek/CNN. Reporting is not objective or interested in disseminating relevant information. Information flow is fundamentally flawed.
The internet has the power to change such things. Maybe
ii. Expertise
The public no longer has anywhere near the expertise necessary to know what's in their best interest. Even basic economic principles like flat-taxes have to be digested by commentators and explained to the masses to tell them what the effects are. Forget about complex issues like research biology funding/free speech and censorship/separation of church and state. The public is wholly unable to, for the most part, comprehend all the factors involved.
Before you go jumping in about how you disagree, recognize that you are a select minority and you're not representative of how most people think.
iii. Capitalism
Not to fault free markets in general, but when you have a society built on money, as ours is, it's inevitable that those with more money will control everything. I don't find it surprising that someone like GE can have such an influence on politics, or that health care reform is so difficult to move along, because damnit, we created the beast that's controlling us. We allow a free market to develop giant corporations with tons of resources and very strong vested interest. Isn't it inevitable that they attempt to exercise their considerable power to protect those vested interests? Certainly. Especially since capitalism is probably good at getting unscrupulous people on top. No one got rich feeding orphans.
The solution, of course, is put in controls on how much corporations can influence government, via controlling contributions, etc. Of course, since they're the puppetmasters right now, this is somewhat more difficult than saying "Let's change it."
iv. Individualism
Fundamentally American culture is selfish and egocentric. Few individuals are motivated by notions of higher societal good, as is quite common in other nations (like our close neighbor Canada). It's inevitable that in such a situation corruption develops. Until such a fundamental aspect of Americana changes, we'll always be fucked.
Solutions are not simple. They require big-time revolution and reform. Thomas Jefferson was of the opinion that a government needs to be knocked down every twenty to fifty years to prevent stagnation. I think we're overdue for one of these.
SA
No time is better than the present than to drop your elected official a line. Express your views. Make your voice heard.
You have the tools at your finger tips now.Write like a suit from marketing.
The address you need can be found here. http://thomas.loc.gov/
Dennis LeeWho owns your data?
If you go strictly by the Constitution only MALE, LAND OWNERS would be able to vote.
"Lend your ear while I call you a fool" Ian Anderson
While I'm not a business-type, I guess I can see the rationale behind this move on MS's part - a nice little "Well, fuck you very much" message to the DoJ.
But I'm wondering here. This just might piss the lawyers in the DoJ off and who knows, they just might decide to make it a bit more personal with ol' Billy boy. How about a nice IRS anal probe for starters? INS spot checks on the Redmond campus to make sure all those H1(?) visas are in order, you know, real subtle stuff.
I can see it now: Gov't pressure blamed for techie stand-off in Redmond!
Feeling more and more persecuted by relentless government probes, programmers and management - even Bill Gates himself - barracaded themselves in their Redmond, Wash, campus today, vowing to create another Waco rather than put up with the alleged goverment harrassment.
"It's spite, pure and simple," President Steve "The Enforcer" Ballmer is quoted as saying. "The DoJ is mean-spirited and vengeful. They started this whole thing because they didn't have a case. Sure, we spent some money to get their funding cut, but, hey, that was just business."
State a federal authorities have cordoned off the sprawling tech campus, and have posted sharp-shooters in strategic locations. Said one FBI specialist, "They told us to be on the look-out for the bald guy and the goofy looking guy in glasses."
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
I guess it must be cheaper to buy a few congressmen than a lot of lawyers. Whatever happened to the M$ bid to buy the DOJ a few years ago?
The US is Constitutional Republic. NOT a democracy. Some may call it hair splitting, but I think it is a vital detail. (If you don't understand the difference, PLEASE look it up) By the wording of the Constitution, there should be NO LIMIT on contributions. Some say that would just make it worse but has it gotten better or worse since contribution limits were introduced? These attempts just make things more corrupt. Let anyone who wants contribute as much as they want. Simply make every penny trackable. NO anonomys money!
(Note how general this is -- he doesn't specifically state he wants DoJ off Microsoft's back; the timing simply happens to be coincidental, I guess. Yeah, right. This Rep Dan Miller smells pretty corrupt.)
Er, anyway... if this guy doesn't want regulation, that's fine. But trying to cut the funding (when DoJ just happens to be prosecuting MS) is the wrong way to do it. If he really believes what he is saying, he should introduce legislation to repeal antitrust laws.
Having laws without enforcement is a very bad thing, because they'll just get selectively enforced and used as a tool to suppress whoever doesn't play ball. If you don't want DoJ going after companies that break the law, then change the law, not DoJ. It isn't their fault.
And about this "devastating blow to the high-tech industry" bullshit... This whole case was caused by the blow that Microsoft delivered to the industry. Whenever anyone tells you that this is somehow "bad for the economy" remember that they really just mean "bad for MS stockholders".
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
..you don't have to be smart to succeed in business, just lucky and mean as hell! M$ may be lothesome, but you have to admire (a little) anyone with the balls to attempt something like this!
utterly. this is absolutely disgusting.
>Microsoft Corp. lobbyists and allies are aggressively pressing Congress to
>reduce next year's proposed funding for the Justice Department's antitrust
>division, the giant software company's accuser in a storied court battle.
>Microsoft representatives have urged House and Senate members to cut
>President Clinton's proposed funding for the division by about $9 million
>this year.
Doesn't Microsoft about that in a day or something? $9 Million is about
10% of DOJ Budget!
>And nonprofit organizations that receive financial support from
>the company have also urged key congressional appropriators to limit
>spending for the division when they begin their final negotiations on the
>Justice Department budget, possibly as early as Monday.
>The nonprofit groups made their request in a letter last month after an
>all-expenses-paid trip to Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Wash.,
>where they were entertained and briefed on an array of issues facing the
>company.
YEAH! What's up with the DOJ attacking these non-profit's source of revenue?
>But company officials said they want to send a strong message to the
>antitrust division.
Hello... DOJ? Bill is not happy with you.
>But Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), whose campaign has received about
>$51,000 from Microsoft or its employees since 1997, has been an
>outspoken supporter of a cut in the antitrust budget.
Surprise... surprise!
>Such an action would "express total dissatisfaction with the way Justice is
>handling the case against Microsoft," said a spokeswoman for Gorton.
>She added that Gorton, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations
>Committee, is "pretty confident he will be able to get [the Senate] number
>lowered closer to the House number."
How dare the DOJ mishandle the case with expert testimony, revealing interviews,
competant courtroom demonstrations, professionalism, and supported facts?
Microsoft with it's BILLIONS is NOT SUPPOSED TO LOSE! What a terrible
precedent it would be if that were true.
Bill will make you an offer you can't refuse. Not.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
Well, you've got to admit, they've got guts.
It appears, though, that they've misplaced their brains. This move is simply too obvious. While the diehard Microslaves will be taken in by this trick, I think M$ is probably going to alienate a lot more people (particularly the politicians) with this move. Unless, of course, they can find enough corrupt politicians (heck, Billy himself could throw several million bucks at every single politician in Congress, so I suppose it's possible).
Microsoft wouldn't be nearly as big as it is today if it weren't for its ability to corner technology markets. Disabling them to do this is like cutting off their leg. How are they supposed to compete in an environment where they have to, er... compete? What are they supposed to do, just turn around and pull superior software out of their Back Orifice? Getting the DOJ off their back is the only way they have a chance to continue their past success.
numb
Speaking as one who voted for Mike Dukakis in '88, I'd just like to point out the fact that it was Al Gore's campaign that came up with the original Willie Horton ads.
Anyone else pay more attention to the new ad banner and try to steer the car with the mouse? That's fun. heh
A free market can only work when all competitors have about the same power and no one has a virtual monopoly with everyone else fighting for whatever scrap of market share left.
When about everyone is equal in power, the competition is more on technical merit, and more often the better technology wins. Better, cheaper technology can come out and displace older ones: that's called evolution.
In the current overall (micro) computing market, we are not facing a free market, weither in software or hardware. Why do you think it's hard as hell to get a brand-name computer without M$/Windows? And why do you think it's as hard to get Athlon mobos or why companies like Dell will never sell machines based on the Athlon when it's the fastest (Wintel-class) processor around?
Or why isn't FireWire ubiquitous and replacing EIDE as a storage/everything else interface??? (I'd kill to see a mobo using USB for input and FW for mass storage. Our lives would be much more simpler, IMO.)
We are only seing what M$ and Intel want us to see. Period.
This is why governemental (sp?) action is required, to reel in those two techno-bullies, to give a chance to the competition. If nothing is done ASAP, we'll soon be stuck using only M$ applications and utilities on top of a M$ OS running on top of an Intel-powered machine using Intel chipsets and God knows what else to browse the M$-Internet to see M$-approved contents. You'll never see another rukus like what Tom Pabst (sp???) made when he found out that Intel was/still is pressuring OEM mobo makers not to make Athlon mobos. Or you'll never see a web site like www.billwatch.net to see Bill G.'s latest antics. And you'll have to pay Bill G. a tax on anything you do on the 'net (buying, viewing, etc.). It can't get more Orwellian than that.
(Actually, is it me, or did www.billwatch.net really go off the air since this summer??? Something's not kosher, here.)
The real shame is not that M$ and Intel have accumulated that much power, it's that they've done it in front of everyone else and no one did anything before it was too late. Oh, well.
...this is the US. Blow it out your ASS!
Thank you! You could throw out Slade's Microshilling and he'd still be a despicable man. Sorry for redunddancy but you can't stain garbage by piling on more trash --and that is what he is.
Sounded very inspirational...but I think the problems are more systemic than you are portraying.
I don't think that anything short of a major restructuring (probably considered something like a peaceful revolution) is going to fix problems like these.
Just getting people to the voting booth isn't going to do squat. It's a well-known phenomenon that many people don't feel that the problem is with "their guy", it's with the "other guys" - and we can't do anything about the "other guys". So, everybody keeps ending up voting in the same old bastards into office, complaining about the whole government all the time.
Part of this "blindness" is ignorance - people aren't taught "systems analysis" skills & serious critical thinking as a way of life, so they can't figure out WHY their system is broken & what they can do to fix it - all they can do is figure out which bastard is making the right noises & hope said bastard will do something useful. Personally, I think it's in the best interests of the parties in power to make sure the "population" stays dumb (e.g., make sure they don't get too edicat'd & uppity) so that the population doesn't start thinking for themselves.
You can write to your congresscritter all you want - but if you don't have a million people like you writing the same thing, I don't believe your congresscritter is going to think your message is more important than the $10,000 that the industrial PAC just gave him for "looking the other way" when a license-to-pollute bill just went by.
I also think there is a seriously embarrassing lack of idea churn in the Congress. The Republicans & Democrats have the election laws for all the states tied up so completely (and even without Constitutional support!), any third party needs a billionaire supporter to have a CHANCE to get in the door. It's a positive feedback loop - because people don't think anybody but D&R candidates have a chance, nobody will support anybody except for D&R candidates.
If it were possible for other parties besides the D&R to hold seats proportional to their support in the elections, then I bet you'd see lots of interesting discussion going on. Unfortunately, since the D&R have basically rigged every state election so that you end up only getting a choice between D&R candidates, you end up with an almost wholly D&R Congress, even though other parties might have a decent representation as a fraction of the nation as a whole.
Anyway, I wandered off a bit there - I just get a little bit upset when I see a "All it takes is effort" kind of message - when you have a systemic problem, you can work until you kill yourself, but if you're not applying that to changing the system, then you're just spinning your wheels. And when the system is set up to PREVENT you from changing it, then you're going to have to figure out some way to apply your effort in a way that the system can't stop you to be successful.
There's a difference between lobbying for something and actually getting something done. All this means is that Microsoft is trying to convince congress to spend less money on the DOJ. It's their opinion, they certainly have the right to express it. If they've convinced certain organizations to lobby with them, then good for them. Those organizations have a right to their own opinion as well, and they have a right to tell congress about them.
Even you have the right to lobby your congressman about this issue, and if you really care about it, you should do it. People like to sit back and bitch about how the US government is dominated by special interests groups, but nobody makes sure that their opinions are heard as well. If the special interests groups are the only ones that want to take part in American politics, then they should be the ones shaping our policy. But guess what? special interests groups such as MS make up a small minority of the population. If everybody actually took part in politics, they wouldn't have much of an effect.
People who say that special interests play too big a role in our government but don't tell their congressman their views make about as much sense to me as people who don't vote because they don't like the government.
There is a way to prevent (almost totally) that kind of things to happen. I live in the province of Quebec (Canada) and we have a law that forbids conpanies to contribute to a political party (or limit to 1000$, I don't remenber). Also, the maximum total amount of money a party is allowed to spend on a campain. This means that money is not (or almost not) an issue in a campain.
Of course, there's still some lobying, but at least, a company cannot openly pay a candidate to promote its ideas.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
the $51,000 is the amount Micros~1 has donated to the Senator's re-election campaign. Quite different from direct payments into the Senator's personal account (or is it, really?). Often in the U.S. elections, whichever side spends the most cash (advertisements on TV are expensive), wins most of the time. Also, the U.S. has campaign contribution limits, so the amounts paid by corporations to campaigns are often ridiculously low compared to the benefits received (as in this case, a few mil from Micros~1, tops, gets $9 mil cut in Justice, not bad). But still, I agree, it's a rotten system. The U.S. public is trying to make strides away from it, but it will take twenty years, or more, at least, if at all.
-jimbo
And who will you vote for? A Democrat or Republican? If you elect either, do you think anything will change? And if you don't vote for either, do you think it likely that your choice will win?
The only way that power will be taken away from Democrats & Republicans is by ORGANIZING voters - the simple act of voting ain't going to do squat w/o some way of pointing it in the right direction.
Looking for somebody to support who I think will be effective at changing the system (I don't include myself as this type of person).
MS-Senator 1.0
Microsoft Senator, the perfect answer to those, nasty, unpredictable politicians, MS-Senator will follow it's software encoded programing, until corrupted by MS-Money, at which point, MS-BillGates controls it's direction.
..of a worthy cause that would get strangled by a lobbying ban. The tobacco lawsuits were nothing short of a looting by trial lawyers and politicians of tobacco companies and their customers. The idea that tobacco companies "covered up" the dangers of smoking is ludicrous. Even if they lied about it, no one was fooled. After all, every pack of cigarrettes has a warning on it, and has for 20 years. Smokers are not victims of the big bad tobacco companies.
And even if smokers were the victims, I fail to see what these lawsuits helped. The billions of dollars that went to politicians and lawyers are just going to come from higher cigarrette costs, and so are coming from the same people who are ostensibly being "protected." Smokers are getting screwed enough as it is, these lawsuits just make cigarrettes even more expensive.
So I wish the tobacco industry had stuck to its guns and fought it out. I think these lootings were a great injustice, and they only benefitted a handful of politicians and lawyers. Heck, I might have donated to a pro-tabacco lobbying group had one existed that would have taken a principled stand on this issue.
One person's "special interest group" is another man's activist. Yes, there are blatant examples of companies simply seeking handouts or destruction of competitors (say, Netscape and Sun whining about Microsoft) but there are also companies and individuals who lobby to protect their rights, and I think they would get hurt more by lobbying restrictions.
Very well written, and a great analysis.
My only comment is that it may not be as innocent as you depict. Who is in government? A few idealists, and many attracted to money and power. Those attracted to money and power will naturally use their money and power to accumulate more money and power. Result: corruption plus laws and behavior to keep power in the hands of politicians. Positive feedback leads to accumulation of power limited only by the need to be re-elected and to avoid provoking revolution. The means of discouragement are therefore subtle, and not planned so much as left in place as they occur naturally and happen to help the accumulation of power.
It is no accident that people are turned off by politics. The less people pay attention the more the politicians can do as they please.
Political education is poor. Many schools are poor in general, tend to teach history by convenient ommission of ugly details, and have student governments that are complete figureheads for the adminstration as a great practical example of democracy.
There is a two party system that relatively no one cares to pick between. Parties run on emotional ideologies, not critical analyses of issues. Demogogue A, or Demogogue B, let me see... well, B sounds more friendly and dresses better...
The low level details of politics are obscured. When was the last time you saw a public service announcement that a local caucus was taking place soon, be sure to attend? How many people could describe the entire process by which national candidates are selected and elected?
Usually both parents have to work to maintain an approved lifestyle. And work doesn't mean 8 hours a day for many, more like 10 or 12. We get a generous 2-3 week vacation while most of the first world takes 6. Where is the time to get involved in politics?
And presuming you do work hard and get a plank in place, what makes you think it will be implemented? The Christian conservatives have had much more luck getting conservative planks in place than outlawing abortion, using just the grassroots technique you suggest.
Yeah, it's our fault for not being disgusted enough to force ourselves to jump thru their hoops to take power back. But we've had a *lot* of help with that inertia, and if people ever seriously tried, it wouldn't be without very intense opposition. Worth doing, but you need a few major issues to mobilize around, and the powers that be can defeat the movement by giving in on those any time, so pick well -- they have to be truly hated by the powerful and very popular at the same time.
There are some indirect ways to give money to candidates, but the major reason Canada doesn't have the same campaign finance problems is because campaigns are publicly subsidised, and that TV ads aren't usually purchased, the broadcasters are required to air them on a schedule of Elections Canada's choosing (or the provincial equivalent for a local election.)
-P.J O'Rourke
What many of the naive idealists that appear to be in up in arms over this "story" fail to understand is that this sort of thing is the logical outcome of a leviathan federal government that has trillions of dollars and the power of law at its disposal to punish and reward as it sees fit. In the majority of matters that gov't sticks it's nose into there is no such thing as "the good of the American people" because the American people are a widely diverse group with a panoply of wants, desires, fears, hatreds, loves, etc.
The amorphous "special interests" that everyone loves to rail against are YOU! The NRA, the AFL-CIO, Archer-Daniels Midland, the ACLU, the Sierra Club, HCI, Microsoft, PETA, EFF... they're simply the beaurocratic mechanisms that have organized around a set of values and goals shared by a subset of "the people". As long as there is a government possessing the power to punish or reward the interests represented by these organizations on a whim, it is naive to suggest that those with a stake simply sit down, shut up and take their medicine.
The irony I'm finding here is that many of the people who hold views on technology that argue in favor of open standards, avoiding overly complex solutions to problems, and engaging in rigourous review of concepts are many of the same people who speak in favor of adding more regulatory cruft on top of the already tangled web of laws like so much Microsoft bloatware built on top of a buggy OS. Instead of opening up the electoral process to unlimited but fully disclosed campaign contributions, "reformers" speak of public funding of campaigns and silencing the "special interests" through use of campaign finance reforms. What these reforms really wind up doing is adding yet more complications and providing more tools to suppress those who hold contrary views to the current (and temporary) Administration.
http://www.reason.com/
Where to begin?
> If the public is going to decide what's right
> and what's wrong, they need to know all the
> facts from an unbiased source. This is
> impossible in America, because media is a big
> business.
The first part is partially incorrect. The same effect can be had by getting information from a number of sources with different biases. Given the difficulty of objectivity in anything but physical or logical disciplines, this is the only option.
The second part is simply incorrect. There is nothing about media as big business that makes it impossible to be informed. Just the wild exaggeration denoted in the use of the word 'impossible' is telling. While media may often be less than objective, different media sources serve different agendas. Mother Jones and Time-Warner are not going to give the same take on a news story. However, both are available to anyone who searches them out.
Which brings us to the real problem: public apathy. It isn't that it is impossible to be informed, it is that most people don't bother. They either don't have an interest in politics or prefer to take the easy route and ride on their personal prejudices rather than examine a view from all sides.
Intellectual laziness and a lack of critical thinking skills are what makes a person uninformed, not the 'Big Bad Media'.
> The public no longer has anywhere near the
> expertise necessary to know what's in their
> best interest. Even basic economic principles
> like flat-taxes have to be digested by
> commentators and explained to the masses to tell > them what the effects are.
Has it ever been otherwise? Even the most celebrated multidisciplinarians in history have not been able to master every field. Nor should they need to. It is enough that the public know what's its interests are. They don't need to know themselves how to implement them. It is no different than owning a microwave. Odds are, most folks who do don't know how they work. They can still, however, make informed decisions on whether or not to buy them. When more detailed information is needed, they can go to specialists. This is how human society has functioned since cities rose. It isn't anything new.
> Not to fault free markets in general, but when
> you have a society built on money, as ours
> is, it's inevitable that those with more money
> will control everything.
Money basically is a representation of human life. As an indicator of value, it is an abstract of how much of our energy, our labor, something is worth to us. Thus, it represents the basis of all human existence.
The only difference between free markets and other economic systems is that the flow of money is most efficiently distributed to represent the value of goods to individuals. In a free market system, a person gets rich because people highly value the goods or service he provides.
The contrast is to systems of coercion where the flow of capital is determined by the will of a smaller portion of the population (governments, rulers, guilds, etc). Both sorts of systems are based on money, as any economic system is.
> We allow a free market to develop giant
> corporations with tons of resources and very
> strong vested interest. Isn't it inevitable that > they attempt to exercise their considerable
> power to protect those vested interests?
> Certainly.
Often, when business tries to dabble in politics, it is because politics is presenting some sort of threat. Political dabbling in markets is anathema to capitalism, thus your logic is very questionable.
Further, while it may be inevitable that they try to further themselves through dabbling in politics (which happens as well), it is not inevitable that they have avenues to do so. In fact, again, if there are means to have business influence government, this is against capitalist notions of economic-political interaction, and again your attempts to blame it on capitalism fall short.
It always baffles me to see people try to blame an economic system whose defining characteristic is seperation of economics and politics for interaction between economics and politics.
> Fundamentally American culture is selfish and
> egocentric. Few individuals are motivated
> by notions of higher societal good, as is quite > common in other nations (like our close
> neighbor Canada). It's inevitable that in such a > situation corruption develops. Until such a
> fundamental aspect of Americana changes, we'll
> always be fucked.
There's a lot wrong with this statement. First off, the first statement is a gross generalization verging on bigotry, as well as being incredibly inaccurate. Individualism is a basis of American culture and encourages enlightened self-interest, not juvenile egotism. Some of the most rugged individualists in American history have also been some of the most compassionate humanitarians and it is an insult to their memory to make such inaccurate statements.
Second, it again baffles me that America is considered selfish and unconcerned with higher societal good and at the same time be criticized for its 'policing of the world', where American soldiers go to risk their lives around the world in efforts to suppress tyranny and injustice. Also, I might add, America contributes more financial aid to other nations than any other country in the world (including Canada).
I fear, unfortunately, that our general lack of willingness to sacrifice our rights and freedom for the illusion of security that government sponsered humanitarian programs offer is seen as being 'heartless'. All I can offer to this is that it was American aid that kept Russian Communists from starving to death after the revolution. So much for 'heartless capitalism'.