White House Petition To Investigate Dodd For Bribery 596
Walkingshark writes "Chris Dodd's recent statements complaining that congressmen who receive donations from the RIAA and MPAA should toe the line has spawned a firestorm of anger on the internet. Among the bits of fallout: a petition on the White Houses "We the People" site to investigate him, the RIAA, and the MPAA for bribery! This petition gained more than 5000 signatures in 24 hours and is still growing. When the petition reaches 25,000 signatures the White House is obligated to respond to it in an official capacity."
Good fucking luck (Score:5, Insightful)
[comment goes here]
I'm Chris Dodd (Score:5, Insightful)
And I DEMAND that once bought, you STAY bought!
By the way, the law is for you "little people".
Re:I'm Chris Dodd (Score:4, Insightful)
Bwahahaha the *AA should be able to exercise the first sale doctrine on bribed pollies but we, the customers, are increasingly being told that what we have bought is not actually ours to do with what we want.
Re:I'm Chris Dodd (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe we should also tax bribes as income, as the nation seems to be a little short on cash lately.
Re:I'm Chris Dodd (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'm Chris Dodd (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe Teh Interwebz has more money to bribe the guy he bribed since he is cash starved?
Re: (Score:3)
I am never voting again for you, Jeremiah Cornelius.
Perhaps not, but an alternate version of you is bound to do so.
Re:I'm Chris Dodd (Score:4, Funny)
Did we just discover quantum voting?
Re:I'm Chris Dodd (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm Chris Dodd (Score:5, Funny)
that was discovered in the 2000 election.
took a while for the Florida wave function to collapse, lemme tell you.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Its easier to believe in Santa Claus... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course nothing will happen. Since when do crooks convict themselves ?
Re:Its easier to believe in Santa Claus... (Score:5, Insightful)
Dodd isn't going to suffer legal consequences, but if enough stink is made he'll be a less effective mouthpiece. That's a worthwhile goal.
Re:Its easier to believe in Santa Claus... (Score:5, Interesting)
Chris Dodd as bag handler collecting a whack of cream from the top has just made himself unemployed. Being a public idiot when you bought off politicians refuse to obey your orders, will get you fired every time.
He has effectively made a bad situation much worse. Now any attempt to pass those two pieces of legislation will come of as bribery and corruption. Of one industry setting up legislation to competitively destroy another industry for commercial advantage.
Everyone knows it was about old world mass media regaining control of what information the public gets, about shutting down every influential blog, forum and web portal not owned or controlled by mass media. Basically to shut down means by which Obama and quite a few Democrats got elected.
All politicians have now seen which way the wind is blowing, in the battle between the internet and the idiot box, the internet is kicking the idiot box's ass and with it the ability of old world mass media to control the public mind space.
Re:Its easier to believe in Santa Claus... (Score:4, Informative)
No need to be so optimistic.. Old world mass media still owns the pipe... If you don't believe me, just look at the types [freep.com] that are still winning elections. I mean, how is this possible? (That's a rhetorical question, no need to answer)
Re:Its easier to believe in Santa Claus... (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone knows it was about old world mass media regaining control of what information the public gets, about shutting down every influential blog, forum and web portal not owned or controlled by mass media. Basically to shut down means by which Obama and quite a few Democrats got elected.
Hey, so... I just thought of us, but do we have a Plan B?
Let's assume the worst - the United States does some heinous shit and fucks over the entire Internet - either for their country or maybe for the whole world.
After some initial chaos Europe and other countries will probably get a handle on things, but what do us Americans do?
I imagine a bunch of us geeks could probably figure things out on our own - alternate DNS, Tor, whatever. But what about the regular folk? What about the geeks that would love to be able to do something but can't because they don't have that knowledge?
We need to make something like this [topatoco.com], except title it "Let's Say America Fucked Up The Internet" along with a host of possible options to try, and then we need to distribute the shit out of that motherfucker.
Re:Its easier to believe in Santa Claus... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now any attempt to pass those two pieces of legislation will come of as bribery and corruption.
SOPA/PIPA were the decoys and have now become bait for the slavering pack to tear at while the real work is being done.
The real legislation will be quietly passed as riders while you're patting yourselves on the back and preening over your fresh "kill".
Re:Its easier to believe in Santa Claus... (Score:5, Interesting)
"...but if enough stink is made he'll be a less effective mouthpiece."
Better yet, he'll become the political equivalent of tainted meat, fit for not save the rendering tub. He will be effectively removed from circulation, and that is a win, plain and simple.
When he is reduced to scraps from the tables of the corrupt, then it is time to focus on the next corrupt politician/lobbyist. Maybe a regular petition campaign, that draws attention to specific examples of corruption, would be picked up by more media (independent, I'm guessing) and this might have some real, positive benefit/results. The White House took a stand against SOPA/PIPA--signing this petition is a way of backing them up on that decision, of standing behind the President. I suppose that the President could interpret every petition signature as a vote next election, and I am guessing he would be correct in that assumption, especially if he takes action in response to that petition.
I'm refreshing that petition in my browser, and see people signing it at about one signature every 4-5 seconds, less time then it takes to read the petition, yet when I Google "Chris Dodd", there are only a couple of news articles that relate to the comments he made (although I am watching that change quickly. Snowball effect?), so I think it safe to say that people are not reacting to something in mainstream media, but the content of the petition itself. Yay. Perhaps those signatures will come in faster then the dollars from lobbyists.
Email a link to a friend or family. We all have a stake in this. Maybe it will get enough signatures that the mainstream media can no longer ignore it.
Re:Its easier to believe in Santa Claus... (Score:5, Funny)
Official White House response...
Well, we talked to Chris and he said that it was nothing like it sounded, so we are satisfied.
Re:Its easier to believe in Santa Claus... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you tell the executive branch, "Hey a whole bunch of D-bags in Congress are being bought and paid for," I'd bet they'd be willing to at least take a look.
Re:Its easier to believe in Santa Claus... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, Obama will take a look to make sure he is bought and paid for by the same people. If so, he'll say he looked and everything checks out. Otherwise, he'll make a big stink about it until he receives just as much money from the same people.
Re:Its easier to believe in Santa Claus... (Score:4, Funny)
Of course, this could turn into a MAD type of scenario...
You make it sound like that's a bad thing.
Lobbying vs Bribery (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Lobbying vs Bribery (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously, what's the difference between lobbying and bribery?
Bribery is honest, lobbying is dishonest.
Re:Lobbying vs Bribery (Score:5, Insightful)
Lobbying has some legitimate uses.
Let's Congress wants to open up part of a national forest for logging, oil drilling, or whatever because Congressman Joe Schmoe or his buddy happens to own a logging company. The Sierra Club and other environmentalist groups can lobby against it and point out the conflict of interest to other Congressmen.
Or we can lobby against corporate interests ourselves - grass roots lobbying - like with the SOPA and PIPA stuff.
OR we can lobby for something, like single payer health insurance. Because they millionaires on Capital Hill with their Congressional perks would never think of such a thing.
Or lobby for more national parks.
Or lobby for reduction in taxes.
Or ......
Because just having the Congress people left to their own devices would lead us down an even worse path that we are on now.
But what I think we should outlaw is corporate lobbying. A corporation should have no political voice at all.Neither should government employees lobbying to make their jobs easier - like law enforcement lobbying for our Civil Liberties to be taken away because they're too lazy to do their job or because they want more power: the wars on terror and drugs and child porn excuses have eroded our liberties too much. And keep in mind "law and order" conservatives, those will be used as an excuse to take our guns away so don't go for the lie of "if you do nothing wrong; you have nothing to worry about" bullshit.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I know I'm replying to an AC but I would like to think that corporate lobbying was allowed because sometimes, a corporation made up of specialists in a field would know better how things in their expertise work as opposed to politicians (e.g. technology, education, environment, etc.). I am not a lawyer nor someone versed in law history so I'm not familiar with corporate lobbying's history but I would like to think that there was something good about it (as opposed to a shallow reason like the thinkofthechil
Yeah, I'm an AC - so what. (Score:5, Informative)
a corporation made up of specialists in a field would know better how things in their expertise work as opposed to politicians (e.g. technology, education, environment, etc.).
The experts really think that an issue is important, then they can lobby as individuals for that issue - whatever it may be.
If only there was a line that can be easily identified between "Corporation that knows what it's doing for the greater good" and "Corporation that is trying to abuse the hell out of the system and/or doing something stupid".
Yes there is a line.
Corporations always do what's necessary to bolster their bottom line and it is always at the expense of people.
By all means, post an example - just one would be more than sufficient since I stated an absolute - of a corporation lobbying on the behalf of the public good AND that is detrimental to their profits.
Just one to blow me out of the water and I'll kiss goatse on the ass.
JUST lobbying is fine (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:JUST lobbying is fine (Score:5, Insightful)
The lobbyists trying to do something underhanded, against the better interest of the public, though (i.e. bribery). They will be running scared from this idea.
Re:Yeah, I'm an AC - so what. (Score:5, Informative)
Posting here because this at the top so far.
http://wh.gov/KiE [wh.gov]
That is the direct link to sign the petition at the White House website. Still needs 14,000 signatures to go.
Slashdot that petition please :)
Re:Yeah, I'm an AC - so what. (Score:5, Informative)
Why not?
With the Patriot Act, SOPA, domestic UAVs for surveillance, TSA monitoring web activity for dissent, etc. what do you really have to lose?
It's not like you need to give them a full address or social. A name, zip code, and working email address. All of which could be faked and entered via proxy.
Don't let a little proxy work stop you from signing some of these petitions, of which, one of them is also to stop ACTA.
Ohhh, and the White House already has access to the IRS. The IRS has access to my bank, VISA, MC, etc. So whatever they want to find out about me, they certainly have the ability to do so already.
Re:Yeah, I'm an AC - so what. (Score:4, Interesting)
"By all means, post an example - just one would be more than sufficient since I stated an absolute - of a corporation lobbying on the behalf of the public good AND that is detrimental to their profits."
My company, lobbying to get rid of SOPA and PIPA (and probably pissing off a lot of government people which hurts my chances at any sort of gov't contract.)
Get to kissing.
Re:Lobbying vs Bribery (Score:5, Insightful)
You would like to think that? Well, go right ahead and think it. That won't make it true, but it might make you feel better.
CLUE: The corporates don't send their specialists to explain the real facts of life to congress critters. Instead, they send PR/HR/marketdroids with deep pockets. The specialists are kept at their desks, or in the shop, or out in the field, where facts are actually useful.
I invite you to read Allen Greenspan's recent remarks about banking legislation. Words to the effect, "We thought the banks could make decisions that were best for them - how wrong we were!"
Corporations never do anything "for the greater good". Today, they don't even do things for their own good. The zombies only have eyes for quarterly profit statements, totally unaware that those statements are full of lies.
Re:Lobbying vs Bribery (Score:5, Insightful)
They most definitely DID NOT make decisions that were best for them. Some of the largest banks in America were on the verge of bankruptcy. Were you not paying attention to current events just before the last election? The banks were FAILING. The only thing that saved many of them, was a special handout from the government.
Re:Lobbying vs Bribery (Score:5, Insightful)
The banks didn't do what was best for them long-term, but they definitely did what was best for the people managing them. If the bank posted a higher quarterly profit by engaging in stupid credit default swaps, the CEO did well, the manager who ran that division did well, and probably the people much further down who actually made the deals did well for as long as the music kept playing. Once the music stopped, the CEO, managers, etc could just take their $millions and retire very comfortably, or they could probably fairly easily find work elsewhere.
Consider a bank executive with this choice:
(A) don't approve a dumb deal - piss off those who wanted to make a deal, not make as much money now as possible, have a tough time convincing the boss / shareholders it was the right move, but it might make the company more sound so long as nobody else in the company approves similar deals.
(B) approve the dumb deal - rake in nice bonuses now, and it's conceivable that it might bust up the company some time in the future, but then you can always go with the old standby excuses of "nobody could have predicted..." and "I understand this better than you, so you need to keep me on board to fix it."
Suddenly it doesn't seem surprising at all.
Re:Lobbying vs Bribery (Score:5, Insightful)
The people running the banks most definitely did make decisions that were best for the people running the banks.
Re:Lobbying vs Bribery (Score:5, Insightful)
Lobbying = Right to Petition.
Contributing to a campaign = Free Speech.
Quid Pro Quo ( for contributing to a campaign ) = Bribery.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Lobbying vs Bribery (Score:5, Informative)
That's what lobbying pretends to be. What lobbying really IS, at least in the case of the RIAA and MPAA, is that the lobbyists write legislation, which they then hand over to said staffers along with a check and promise for future campaign help if the congresspeople pass that legislation.
They also get future high paying jobs (Score:5, Informative)
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Street_Project [wikipedia.org]
Re:Lobbying vs Bribery (Score:5, Insightful)
+1.
Lobbying just means asking a legislator to do something. At a basic level, lobbying is part of the process of having a republic with representatives. When you mail your representative about SOPA or some other issue, you are lobbying. If enough people do it, that's a grass roots lobbying effort, and could be successful. That's a good thing. It's how the system is supposed to work.
Of course, some people have more influence than others. When you, as an individual, mail your representative and say "this bill is bad for the computer business", the representative is probably not going to pay that much attention. If a major business person who lives in the representative's district/state -- say, Bill Gates calls Senator Murray -- the business person is much more likely to be listened to.
Another common type of lobbying is the professional. Various organizations hire lawyer specialists, former politicians/staffers, and other folks whose job it is to figure out how to get access to legislators or their staff and buttonhole them on the sponsoring company's issues. It's awfully hard to legally distinguish between private citizen lobbying and paid lobbyists. And it's not clear that paid lobbyists are that much of an abuse of the system.
The problem here is that lobbyists -- both paid and private -- can attempt to bribe politicians and staffers in various (legal) ways. These can vary from picking up the lunch tab to donations, and often is equivalent to bribery. But lobbying by itself is not inherently bribery.
Re:Lobbying vs Bribery (Score:4, Insightful)
But lobbying by itself is not inherently bribery.
When does it become inherently bribery?
Let me put it another way. Let's say we had no technology for contraception, and that men and women were so fertile that the act of fucking resulted in pregnancy 100% of the time.
At what point will the word fucking not become synonymous with the word impregnation?
While I understand your point, I would say right now that lobbying *is* inherently bribery in practice. In fact calling it lobbying is just disingenuous. It is in fact bribery.
Re:Lobbying vs Bribery (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lobbying vs Bribery (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lobbying vs Bribery (Score:5, Interesting)
We also have private citizens, with no law background, writing our laws. One of the biggest employers in my hometown didn't like the exact wording of a law being considered in the city council, so he sent a letter to a councilman with a suggested replacement that had the same effect in spirit, but with better side effects. That's lobbying. That's also shady and underhanded in some opinions, because the councilman was already an acquaintance of the employer. That's also corrupt in some opinions, because the letter eventually led to a lunch meeting (the employer bought) where they discussed the impact of the new wording and how it would affect local business. The end result was that neither the original nor the employer's wording was eventually passed, but the employer's concerns were addressed anyway.
All this for the width of a sidewalk.
This is exactly what the US was founded on. The people with interest in the laws should be represented by the lawmakers. They should be free to petition their representatives for what they want, but have no guarantee of getting their way.
If you want to gather a group of friends to work out a proposal for a law, and review existing history to determine the issue's precedent, and get the legal education to use the correct words to express the intended meaning, and make the phone calls and connections to get the representative's attention, you are absolutely free to do so. Good luck. You could, of course, also just hire a professional lobbyist who already knows the representatives personally, and has already scheduled meetings well in advance, and can do the work for you.
Re:Lobbying vs Bribery (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:must be nice living in fairy land (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you have the money to rent an appropriate space inside the Beltway? To essentially purchase the Congressperson's time? Or even their staffers time? Getting the resources in place to do an extended (more than 2-5 day) lobbying effort requires a great deal of investment in both time and cash. And lets face it, do you pay more attention to your co-worker who you see every day, a friend you go drinking with, or to the person behind you at the grocery checkout line (who you will probably never see again)? Getting serious consideration (not just a wave in the distance) in that world is an entirely different level of action that requires a full-time job with a huge expense account just to get in the door. After that, the real bidding wars for the actual votes begin.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
There's a fine line. It's usually OK to make a sizable donation to a candidate and give them a wink, wink nudge, nudge about what you want. It's not OK to pay for them to take specific positions and vote in specific ways.
Re:Lobbying vs Bribery (Score:5, Insightful)
It's usually OK to make a sizable donation to a candidate and give them a wink, wink nudge, nudge about what you want.
True but this should not be ok any more that it should be ok for lawyers to make sizeable donations to jurors in a court case and then give them a wink, wink, nudge, nudge about the verdict they should return. In both circumstances evidence and verbal arguments should be the only means of persuasion allowed. I'm not suggesting that lobbying should become as restricted and formalized as a court but some basic, ethical ground rules need to be enforced.
Re:Lobbying vs Bribery (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way around that is to ban campaign contributions completely and require candidates to only use government provided funds for campaigning. Not that I disagree with that, I think it's the way it should be done.
Re:Lobbying vs Bribery (Score:5, Informative)
In theory, when a politician is bribed, he is paid to hold a particular opinion. When he is lobbied, he is paid (indirectly) for someone to be allowed to present their case. In practice, when you have two sides to an argument and one is paying to make its case and the other is not, then the politician does not hear from the other side and so ends up holding whatever opinion the lobbyist presents.
Lobbying wouldn't be such a problem if politicians were less lazy. If they heard from lobbyists and then did some real research on the topic, then lobbying would just do what it was meant to: bring issues to the attention of elected representatives.
Re:Lobbying vs Bribery (Score:5, Insightful)
Lobbying wouldn't be such a problem if politicians were less lazy. If they heard from lobbyists and then did some real research on the topic, then lobbying would just do what it was meant to: bring issues to the attention of elected representatives.
- oh, the innocent naivety!
Do you know that the members of Senate/Congress can receive legal bribes in form of company shares but not as cash? Do you know that information on who is going to receive an approval on a new medical procedure/drug/device and who will not get that approval can flow from FDA office to a third party legally?
You think lobbyists will keep coming to a Senator/Congressman/White House occupant who will take their money and will not deliver?
You think Dodd would have been hired as a lobbyist (after explicitly saying he won't lobby) by MPAA/RIAA if he didn't play ball while back in Senate?
No, the only real solution is to take the power of regulating individual business activity, taxing income/payroll/corporations away from government and return the power to run businesses as they see fit to the people.
The real solution is to make the government uphold the Constitution for a change and not do what they are not authorised to do there. Only when you take away their power to steal your power, they will stop selling it, because they won't have it ready to be sold.
Re:Lobbying vs Bribery (Score:5, Insightful)
I could spend $1 on my own campaign, or you could spend $1 for me. If you spend it, you have $1 less and I have $1 more. It's true you didn't pay me $1 directly, but the net effect is pretty similar.
It doesn't always work exactly like that, but hopefully you get the general idea - well, unless you're really, really fantastically stupid (which I imagine you'll demonstrate very clearly in a response).
Re: (Score:3)
How is he indirectly paid?
Jobs for family members and positions on the board once he retires from politics are the two big ones.
what kind of 'auditing' are you talking about? (Score:5, Informative)
a true 'audit' would be combing through every piece of legislation the congressman voted for, and determining whether or not the $500,000 worth of campaign donations that helped him and his party over the past 5 years were from people who benefited from line items in the bills he sponsored or passed.
and in case you didnt notice, congressman have sweet jobs - massive salaries, free health care, pensions, and, on top of that, after they get through, they get jobs as ---- lobbyists, making untold fortunes using their contacts in washington to keep the gravy train going.
these objections people are raising here about the legitimate uses of lobbying are like someone arguing about the legitimate uses of dynamite in a banking environment.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Lobbying vs Bribery (Score:5, Funny)
Lobbying is you giving money to someone who is already in line with your thinking and you want to help.
Bribery is giving someone money to do what you tell them to.
Very clear difference. I mean it is piratically ketchup and catsup clear. Basically that is what happened here. Dodd stating "we gave you money, you better listen!" may have crossed that very fine line. Otherwise, he could have just been supporting people he agreed with.
Yeah right (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Yeah right (Score:5, Insightful)
Investigating Dodd is a good place to start. Even just getting Obama to refuse to investigate Dodd is a start. You're insisting on never starting.
Re:Yeah right (Score:5, Insightful)
We need to start voting for different people -- people who are not connected with big business, people who will work for the benefit of their constituents. Would you ask a mafia boss to crack down on organized crime?
They've already ignored one qualified petition (Score:5, Informative)
The petition to take the petitions seriously (AKA the "calling shenanigans on "representation" petition) gained the required number of signatures already and was subsequently completely ignored.
Link: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#%21/petition/actually-take-these-petitions-seriously-instead-just-using-them-excuse-pretend-you-are-listening/grQ9mNkN
Re:They've already ignored one qualified petition (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, this is exactly the way petitions in the UK worked when they were interested years ago, and still largely work today.
They were sold as a way of using the internet to help get people involved in democracy.
But what they really were was a way of using the internet to allow politicians to pretend they give a fuck about democracy.
Things like the Digital Economy Act were some of the most voted against, but just got pretty much entirely ignored, now the new government has revamped the petitions barely a couple of thousand people have voted, despite I think hundreds of thousands, possibly even millions having voted on a petition about that the first time around.
The petitions are just another way of pretending politicians care about the general populace, whilst doing quite the fucking opposite. The Whitehouse has obviously learnt from our successive governments what a useful tool they are for distracting people from the real situation.
What for will the response take? (Score:5, Insightful)
When the petition reaches 25,000 signatures the White House is obligated to respond to it in an official capacity.
Will this response be of a similar nature to how the UK government response to its equivalent petition site? i.e. the official response is to make it clear they are officially ignoring the petition?
Re:What for will the response take? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What for will the response take? (Score:4, Insightful)
The media are not picking up on it but the "social media" is. The White House thought these petition were a good way to hoodwink the public into thinking someone cared but for the most part the serious ones like this one have been met with either "no comment" or some tired old saw we have been hearing for the last twenty years. No new arguments, no recognition times have perhaps changed, no attempt to justify why the old arguments still apply. Its all status quo, forever.
I think people are seeing it. My guess is they'd pull this We the People thing down in a hot second if they thought that it would do anything other than make them look even worse. Its backfired big. "Hope and Change" was a vapid and empty promise; the trouble the other major political machine is churning out equally empty and hypocritical pandering.
Ron Paul is nearly 80 years old and he is the youth candidate this year! I tend to agree with him on philosophical level for the most part myself but I think he actually is getting quite allot of support this year from those who don't. Why would people support a candidate they don't agree with? I will tell you they recognize the system is broken, the nation is in serious trouble, and something has to change. What Washington is doing is not working, better to take chance on ideas they don't necessarily agree with than to simply continue, what they see failing all over the place each and every day.
Re: (Score:3)
I can't help but thing of when there were demands for removing the prohibition of cannabis brought up on the site. The official response [norml.org] wasn't anything of honestly leveling with the people so much as basically telling everyone that they didn't care what we think and everyone should just piss off, with a heaping helping of vacuous crap. I highly doubt this will be any different. Sure they'll respond, but odds are it will be with some hollow & meaningless response, and in the end no action will be ta
Re: (Score:3)
I'm calling it now: the response will be "the White House is not permitted to comment on individual cases (See: "Why We Can't Comment on Bradley Manning", "Why We Can't Comment on this Petition about the Church of Scientology", etc.
Best-case, we get something saying "the case has been referred to the Justice Department and the Attorney General, and the White House is pushing for an indictment".
Carlin - The Real Owners Of America (Score:5, Insightful)
Carlin - The Real Owners Of America
"The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They've got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying  lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else."
"But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.
"You know what they want? Obedient workers  people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club."
"This country is finished."
Re:Carlin - The Real Owners Of America (Score:5, Interesting)
The question is, are you going to sit there and take it, or are you going to educate yourself and fight back? I'm afraid Carlin fell for an old trick: a tiny minority of powerful people telling the vast majority that they don't have any power. The term that has been coined for this is "antipolitics." Yes it is pervasive, and the message contained in the media and the whole platform of right wing anti-government and left-wing anarchist philosophies.
The truth is that we have (compared with the rest of the world) relatively free and fair elections, relatively uncorrupted government, and the capability to change our government however we want to if we are willing to sacrifice some time and money to make the change happen. The truth is that most Americans have the government they deserve. We have achieved the technical definition of democracy, but we are letting new forms of aristocracy corrupt it.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."
--Plato
Re:Carlin - The Real Owners Of America (Score:4, Interesting)
BBC.com has an article entitled "Congress Halts Anti-Piracy bills" that discusses it.
USAToday.com has a short article about it. It seems that most news agencies are bundling it as a blurb in articles about the bills being pulled.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention (Score:5, Interesting)
Sincerely,
Signature # 7,023
Losers (Score:5, Insightful)
As I post this comment, every comment posted in this thread before mine was an apathetic "signing the petition will do nothing". It would have taken just a few seconds longer to sign the petition, even if also creating an account to do so.
Signing the petition might indeed do nothing. But posting a comment here saying so is absolutely guaranteed to do nothing. The corrupt politicos like Dodd absolutely count on people insisting on doing nothing. Just as bribery is the oxygen for their corruption, cynical apathy is the 78% nitrogen that makes the air they breathe.
Sign the petition [whitehouse.gov], and at least have done something to strangle these parasites. Even if that's just being a small part of forcing the president to defend or deny them. It's better than nothing - certainly better than a loudly committed nothing.
Re:Losers (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry I don't have any mod points for you.
Re:Losers (Score:4, Insightful)
That is what we should be spending our energy on: getting rid of the Democrats and the Republicans, and replacing them with politicians who work for the benefit of their constituents. Asking the Obama administration to investigate Chris Dodd for bribery is like asking Billy the Kid to head a posse to catch bank robbers. The Obama administration already accepted bribes for Dodd and co.; now they have backed off a bit and Hollywood is saying that the bribes will be withheld. It will take "new blood," politicians who are untainted by a history of bribery, to end the cycle of lobbying.
Re: (Score:3)
It would have taken just a few seconds longer to sign the petition, even if also creating an account to do so.
Bingo. Heck, with Chrome autofill, it took less time to register and sign than it did to type out this reply.
Re:Losers (Score:5, Informative)
Really, there are a lot of petitions on there I would think everyone on Slashdot would support. Consider these:
Restore democracy by ending corporate personhood [whitehouse.gov]
Reduce the term of copyrights to a maximum of 56 years [whitehouse.gov]
End ACTA and Protect our right to privacy on the Internet [whitehouse.gov]
You can register and sign all of them in about two minutes. There's absolutely no excuse not to, except apathy. Signing a petition may not change anything, but not signing it is guaranteed not to.
High hopes, for sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Audit Them All (Score:5, Insightful)
Every single conversation, in person or over media (phone, email, etc) that any elected official has with anyone should be recorded and archived in the Library of Congress. And noted in a public schedule, except meetings a subcommittee in the House or Senate votes can be hidden. Any investigation should be able to subpoena any recording. With no expiration or statue of limitations.
That kind of evidence generation would protect the honest conversations from the corrupt ones, and steadily improve the ratio.
Re: (Score:3)
Do you really want the Venn diagram for our political representatives to include a circle that says "People Willing to Appear on a Reality Show"?
Bribery? (Score:5, Insightful)
How is this any different than a thousand donors to, say, Obama's last campaign saying, "We don't think you still care about [topic x] the way you did in 2008 when we supported you with cash, and if we still feel that way, we may not support your campaign next time around."
Saying that - because you don't like a politician's posture/policy on a topiuc - you won't give a campaign donation next time doesn't mean that when you did support their campaign in the past, you were bribing them. If that were true, then every dollar donated by every person or organization is always bribery. Which is ridiculous.
I dislke Dodd. He's an ass. But he's perfectly within his (and his employers') rights to say the same thing we can all say: "Mr. Politician: you're not committed to what I think is important, and so I'm probably not going to help your campaign fund next time."
Anger "on the internet" about him being that straightforward is just the usual anger at the fact that a trade association made of up people who run studios and labels puts a priority on protecting their members' works. Shocking, I say! But thousands of people calling it "bribery" is just an adolescent display of ignorance or a disingenuous display of pandering rhetoric aimed at uninformed people.
Re:Bribery? (Score:5, Insightful)
"If that were true, then every dollar donated by every person or organization is always bribery. Which is ridiculous."
I don't think it is ridiculous at all.
Re: (Score:3)
Let's be honest, the entire American political system operates on a system of borderline bribery at all times, it's just that most people have the common decency to be subtle about it. Dodd has just come out and said "We've been paying you money for years to do what we want you to and now that for once you've decided that what the voters want might be more important (out of you own self-interest rather than actually caring, of course) don't expect us to keep paying you" and in doing so has made explicit wha
Re: (Score:3)
Corporations (and unions, for that matter) shouldn't be able to "give campaign support" to them in the first place. That's what makes the system exactly equal to bribery, regardless of your semantic nit-picking.
Chris Dodd (Score:3, Informative)
The same Chris Dodd who, along with Barney Frank (you remember him, his lover ran a gay brothel out of his house a few years back), are the very crooks behind the housing crisis that started this whole recession.
At least these two won't be able to do actual damage in Congress anymore.
i wont give you a break, but how about some books? (Score:3)
"On the brink" by hank paulson
"the sellout" by charles gasparino
"the big short" by michael lewis
"econned" by yves smith
"confidence game" by christine s richard
"house of cards" by william a cohan
"and then the roof caved in" by david faber
"the trillion dollar meltdown" by charles morris
"diary of a very bad year" by anonymous hedge fund manager + keith gessen
"lost trust" by lang gibson
"a colossal failure of common sense" by lawrence mcdonald + patrick robinson
"all the devils are here" by joe nocera and bethany
yeah. except that you are wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
dodd was on the fucking senate banking committee through the whole recession. he was part of the machine that pumped more and more money into fannie and freddie, and refused to look at the banks when they started acting like private versions of fannie and freddie, and he was asleep at the wheel through the whole subprime thing, the CLO thing, the CDO thing, the hedge funds inside of banks, etc etc etc. it was his job to regulate the banking system. the banking system collapsed. we all payed for it. trillions of dollars. we still pay for it.
and you and the moron apologists for these ass clowns have the nerve to lecture us about how they had nothing to do with the recession.
Cracked just did an article on these petitions (Score:3, Interesting)
It's pretty insightful at how pretty pointless they are.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-online-petitions-that-prove-democracy-broken/
Re: (Score:3)
It's pretty insightful at how pretty pointless they are.
If this petition hits 25,000, it will give non-compromised journalists an additional talking point that deserves to be brought up: that this legislation was bought.
Re:Cracked just did an article on these petitions (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a stupid article because any government petition system will always get 4 types of submission on a regular basis:
Show us the aliens
Legalize drugs
Bring back the death penalty (where appropriate)
Kick out all the foreigners
The problem with these types of submissions is that they're utterly unrealistic; anyone with half a brain (and probably even those submitting them) knows that no democratic government is going to do any of those things on the strength of a petition, irrespective of the level of support (for various reasons) and so they're a complete waste of time. The fact that this happens doesn't make the system any less useful, it just alters the SNR slightly.
Too corrupt to care (Score:3)
I'm reminded of Blagavitch. The man so corrupt he didn't think it was against the law to sell a senatorial seat.
Don't be offended. (Score:3)
Don't be offended that Dodd is telling the politicians that took money from his employers to favor their interests and vote to the advantage of their benefactors.
Be offended that:
Our politicians take money from corporate interests that can NEVER be to the advantage of the nation or the people.
Our politicians, having the power to ingratiate themselves to the corporations, also have the power to benefit from their positions by making investments based on the confidential and advance information they receive as a result of their work in Congress.
It is legal that our Congress can take advantage of this information to make investments based on that information.
It is illegal for us, even corporate officials, to make similar investments based on this information. Entirely illegal.
So far as I have read in this discussion, no one has noted Chris Dodd's political party afilliation, which would not be the case, in my opinion, if his afilliation were different.
Dodd's complaint that Congress took the money and isn't delivering speaks volumes. It is time to require complete and immediate disclosure of contributions. It is time to require membes of Congress be subject to insider trading laws just as corporate officials and private investors are. It is time to re-enact Glass-Steagell. It is time to abandon current campaign finance laws as ineffective. It is time to throw them all out. Every one.
Issues with the whitehose.gov website. (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a valid ID for the website, but whe attempted to sign in to sign the petition, it wouldn't allow it, even after turning off all my blocking add-ons for the site, and restting my password several times. I've left a feedback via their site form. Hopefully, that still works.
Re:Issues with the whitehose.gov website. (Score:4, Informative)
I ran into this a while back, clear your cookies and it should fix the issue.
Money doesn't buy influence? (Score:5, Insightful)
How many people don't think that money in politics is a bad thing? I believe the answer is 541.
435 members of the House of Representatives.
100 members of the Senate.
5 judges on the Supreme Court
1 President of the United States.
It is bribery. (Score:3)
US law on campaign contributions [typepad.com] is very favorable to contributors, but there is a line beyond which a campaign contribution becomes bribery. Dodd probably just crossed it. The relevant Supreme Court decision reads "[A]ccepting a campaign contribution does not equal taking a bribe unless the payment is made in exchange for an explicit promise to perform or not perform an official act." It's one of those laws that requires proving criminal intent. Dodd's statement on national television probably provides that proof.
Congressman shocks nation ... (Score:5, Insightful)
by acknowledging that big time donors are paying for legislation, rather than pretending they get nothing for their investment.
Now people want Dodd investigated. For what? For being candid for once about what *everyone* in *both* parties does?
Fine, but don't stop with Dodd, or the message becomes clear: pretend nobody does it, and be treated like you don't do it. Or tell the truth, and be treated like you're the *only one* doing it.
Waking up. (Score:3)
People waking up is much more important than any petition. For the first time people are openly reacting against corruption.
Such Gall! (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, when is somebody going to admit that the entire two-party system is rigged? Chris, you're on a roll; here's your chance.
I worked with a former deputy counsel at the FEC.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually worked for a period of time with a former deputy counsel at the Federal Election Commission - What most people don't understand is that the definition of "bribery" here implies that the recipient was doing something illegal - which representatives weren't. By the legal standards, absolutely nothing wrong occurred (the ethical part is another matter). The sad fact is that it's perfectly acceptable for someone to tell a congressman that they will "give you X amount of money" if they vote a certain way, introduce a bill, etc.
I know a decent amount about this stuff because I spent a number of months pursuing a concept that was right up this alley - it allowed average people to band together to help influence legislation by providing a way to collectively say something like "20,000 people will give you $10 dollars each if you introduce legislation to save the whales and vote yes". The idea was to balance out corporate and special interests (in an admittedly sort of perverted and crazy way. The money would actually leave donors hands and sit in a pool until some conditions were met to release it). Was serious enough about it for a while, and we actually ended up interviewing as finalists in Las Vegas for TechStars (not 100% sure why they were interested lol, but they invited us out, although we ultimately didn’t get in). I eventually decided the whole thing was probably too crazy and I needed a real job.
I worked with the lawyer to vet the whole thing and make sure we wouldn’t end up getting sued by the FEC. He had concerns, but the idea of holding money over people’s heads in exchange for votes wasn’t one of them. He didn’t even bat an eye about it. I honestly have no idea what actually counts as a “bribe” anymore after working with him. Maybe there are still ethical concerns (violating congressional ethics rules, that is, not general ethics), but legally, I’m pretty sure this isn’t even remotely a concern.
The website is still up as it was when we applied to TechStars and such if you care to look at the concept – http://oltest3.heroku.com was the testing site. The site’s name was OpenLobby (openlobby.com will just bring you to the landing site. ) Shame it didn’t work out. :)
If you want a great read on how fcked up campaign finance is, check out "Unstacking the Deck: A Reporter's Guide To Campaign Finance". A bit outdated now, but I found it hard to read without thinking that half of congress deserves to be thrown in jail.
Re:I worked with a former deputy counsel at the FE (Score:4, Informative)
There may be rare exceptions to this -- your idea might be effective if for example there is no corporate interest on certain topic, and the few thousand $ you raise happens to catch someone's attention enough to make it worth for them to bother spending any amount of time on it, but I think you'll agree that this is pretty rare. Another instance would be if there really is immense popular support for one side of an issue that can actually counterbalance the corporate opposition, but at those levels of popular support I think it really isn't a matter of money anymore, i.e. any reasonable politician would be more worried about public perception at that point than about campaign funding or whatnot.