Lawmakers Who Upheld NSA Phone Spying Received Double the Defense Industry Cash 284
An anonymous reader writes "The numbers tell the story — in votes and dollars. On Wednesday, the House voted 217 to 205 not to rein in the NSA's phone-spying dragnet. It turns out that those 217 'no' voters received twice as much campaign financing from the defense and intelligence industry as the 205 'yes' voters."
*Sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:*Sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:*Sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)
Tha'ts pretty much what has happened everywhere else too. That doesn't make it right of course, but it's hardly a problem that is centric to America.
Re:*Sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)
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So you think that, "It's too bad I have to interrupt your two minute hate here". Is an apropos response to, "It's the American influence, indeed the US is central to the global unrestricted power of corporations"?
Yes, I think it's an appropriate response to any 1984-style vilifying of a suitably unpopular scapegoat.
How about you show where the hate is coming from here?
It's something of a fad on the internet right now to blame "corporations" for the ills of society.
Re:*Sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)
Please enlighten us as to how the US is responsible for the existence of corporations in other countries. All it would take is one law to make corporations illegal. Any country could do it. Remember that these scumbag corporations are just acting in their own self-interest as everyone expects them to. Without the corrupt congressmen willing to accept bribes they would not be able to influence politics at all. And without a government which was abusing its power that vote wouldn't have been necessary. So don't let the government off the hook here. They are the ones who are actually doing the spying and the killing. The corporations are just getting rich off it. Which isn't a crime, but probably should be.
Re:*Sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)
Please enlighten us as to how the US is responsible for the existence of corporations in other countries.
You are either joking or young and ignorant of your history. From WWI on, the US and UK have lead the world in "defeating communism" and installing puppet rulers, influencing dictators, and generally installing huge corporations into every nation possible. The strength of the US post WWII forced most "free" nations to play along with the US's market driven economics or else dwindle. Look at the rebuilding of Japan and Germany. Look at the fall of the Soviet Union. Look at the oil industries in the middle east. These corporations did not spring up from local resources. They were funded and guided by American corporations, often through the work of their benefactor, the US government.
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but it seems much more sane to me than allowing politicians to be legally bought.
Sanity in politics? Be still, my heart.
I realise that being cynical is so much easier: no chance to be disappointed, easy to look down on other people, feel smug about your oh so original snarky comments. However, you'll never achieve anything of worth (unless you only think in terms of monetary outcomes) on the given subject with that attitude.
I was involved in the fight against the fight against the software patent directive in the EU, and the only reason basically a bunch of students won the fight about that particular directive against a mul
Re:*Sigh* (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you not aware that the construct of limited liability corporations predates the existence of the United States? Mercantilism, a European doctrine, was responsible for horrible acts by corporations, including outright wars waged by corporations. Some of the most heinous companies that have ever existed, such as the East India Company and the South Sea Company predate the US as an entity or an economic power. Other more modern atrocities were carried out non-US oil and chemical companies. To conclude that too-powerful corporations are a result of US influence is to be disturbingly ignorant of world history.
But anyway, your country is really your own affair. You can't blame your elected government's policies on the actions of foreign governments. If you don't like the way the US operates, you should stop your government from emulating them.
Ecuador (Score:5, Interesting)
The media has done their job well, that is they have actively assisted in the dumbing down of america.
You are correct, but lets be clear: "The Media" is overwhelmingly dominated by corporations, and it is not just Americas problem. Those corporations are overwhelmingly interconnected with the interests of a vast array of other unrelated businesses, be it just advertising revenue or outright arms of the same corporation. The mass corporate media is using FUD/muddying the waters/dumbing down just enough to make the majority of voters for political reasons, they are doing so because it is good business for other arms of their corporation and their partners.
This is also the reason the mass worldwide corporate media react so violently, distort the facts as far as to turn them upside down, make unfounded extreme accusations when any country or individual calls out the massive, obviously society destroying conflicts of interest that we have today in corporate media. Imagine what the worlds media combined do when a country starts to pass media and airspace legislation to even up the playing field with more to share the space with social organizations (say 33% government channels, 33% private companies with no other business interests in country, 33% to social groups and organizations)? Well no need to imagine, we have a good example: Ecuador [zcommunications.org]. If your first reaction to naming Ecuador as a shining example is that you start frothing at the mouth, wanting to post AC to educate me on "the human rights abuses", "censorship", "repression"... etc etc of Ecuador - then you are knee-jerk reacting, a product of the pervasive mass media dumbing down we are talking about here. There are even " international press freedom organizations" lining up to condemn the country - all of them with dubious shady origins when you look into the details and all of them making claims that dont add up when you look critically into the facts. If your one of those then you owe it to yourself to read the link provided and do a bit of searching outside of mass media channels on this topic. Ecuador is the only country I know of that is attempting to tackle front on the conflict of interest that dominates mass media today (Apart from some organizations - Wiklleaks Party is trying to make it part of their election campaign in Australia, see "Can we trust the media" [kellietranter.com]).
For example Rafael Correa told a well known Spanish interviewer Anita Pastor, and a paraphrase, "How could we reform the banking system when 80% of the countries media was owned by banks". As an aside, Anita Pastor during the course of the interview claimed that the worlds press was free and independent. In a stroke of irony she was fired shortly after by an incoming government due to asking the ministers uncomfortable questions during the election campaign. The same government and the other major party in Spain has now passed decrees in true American style,that all election interviews will be controlled, with controlled questions in a controlled marketing directed act. They have even changed the government controlled media so that all stories pass by them before being published. Just like nearly every other western country now. Free press, indeed.
Maybe it would help... (Score:4, Insightful)
I suppose if we used the same tech they use to paste virtual advertisements during sporting events, that whenever an American politician is speaking in front of cameras, it could help people understand what's going on when the suit the speaker is wearing is emblazoned with the names and/or logos of the corporations who've bribed him or her, like sponsors of a racing team.
Imagine it, the schmuck steps up to a podium, his name appears in front of him, and the phrase "Brought to you by... " and the list of the ten biggest donors. Simultaneously, bumper stickers are digitally edited in on his chest, arms, legs, etc, as long as the cameras are on him and rolling.
Couldn't hurt, dispense a little truth amongst the lies, right?
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Obviously they are trying to be a shining beacon of free speech like their good friends in Venezuela. :p
Correa is a smart guy, but he's also a socialist and has the socialist disdain for freedom of the press. While you may be absolutely right that the press represents corporate interests over the people's interests, passing laws to make it illegal to criticize the president does *not* make him a hero of free speech. He's trying to ban the opposition from speaking and putting party-controlled voices in their
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You say "passing laws to make it illegal to criticize the president". With all due respect that is typical muddy the debate tactics, and not factually correct. The facts is that all countries have defamation laws, just that Ecuador has criminal penalties for defamation which is unusual and extreme by comparison. You imply that this is a law made by Correas government - which it is not. It is a punishment for defamations passed by and left over from previous extreme right wing government. If you read the UNE
Re:Ecuador (Score:5, Insightful)
You are correct, but lets be clear: "The Media" is overwhelmingly dominated by corporations, and it is not just Americas problem.
It's more of a problem in the US than in most countries, because many other countries have state-run media that is relatively free of corporate influence. There is no US version of the BBC, for example: PBS could be that, but because their government funding has been continuously cut back they spend most of their time begging for corporate cash. Now, obviously, state-run media is not free from government influence, but the countries with significant state-run media have at least something that can counter corporate media, whereas the US really doesn't.
Re:Ecuador (Score:4, Interesting)
True, but public media is a thin line of defense that is very quickly being eroded. Saying that state-run media is relatively free of corporate influence is like saying that their politicians and power brokers are relatively free of corporate influence... i.e, not by much if at all.
You do not have to look far to see the cracks. I have already Mentioned Spain governments firing any reporter that steps out of party line - and in Spain the banks own the two main political parties, lock, stock, and barrel. BBCs behavior in the drum beating leading up to all the latest decade plus of middle east wars is worse than shameful - following Tony Blairs US set agenda to the T. In Australia the government cant cut the ABCs budget enough year after year, so now they might as well be a private interconnected company given that they have to go hat in hand to advertisers just to make basic broadcasting costs. New right wing goverment set to win big the next election there will probably be the final nail in the ABCs coffin.
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Re:Ecuador (Score:5, Insightful)
Or rather, does it matter if the company that sells the news is incorporated?
It does matter. It relieves them of any responsibility for their actions. And there is no owner who can be punished for behaving badly. Corporations are sociopaths who care for nothing except money. They do not deserve citizenship or the status of a single entity. Regular companies with an owner that is an individual human being are quite enough of a concentration of power. If society could find a way to reduce even that concentration without completely removing the right of individuals to cooperate with each other, it would be good.
Police brutality shows us what happens when you combine obscene power with an almost complete lack of responsibility for their actions. The same dynamic is at work with corporations. You combine a concentration of power to influence things with money and a complete lack of conscience and very little or diluted responsibility for their actions. This is a recipe for disaster.
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Re: *Sigh* (Score:2)
American idol was months ago
Now it's the Penant race in baseball and football is starting soon. Add some news from the basketball offseason
Well, it is our fault (Score:2)
We keep telling people to follow the money. Our lawmakers took our advice, they are following the money.
Re:*Sigh* (Score:4, Insightful)
"Campaign financing". They misspelled ILLEGAL BRIBERY, AN ACT OF TREASON, and punishable with 10 years of prison!
How the hell do you Americans just go "Oh well, it is financing for their campaign after all. And we know that money if what elections are all about. Everything is Ok over here."
Americans *love* to sue. So why aren't there at least 100 *million* Americans suing those criminals right fucking now?
Come-ON! You're better than this!
And this would be one of the rare occasions, where you all could go "'MERICA, FUCK YEAH!", and we Europeans would consider that awesome! Seriously. Go ahead. Flag waving and rock music blasting from a huge pickup truck; guys with flags around their foreheads blasting Gatling guns and girls with huge gigantic fake tits cheering for them; fatback fried in lard, battered, and fried in lard again; and all that stuff! (-; I'm joking a bit, but seriously, if you're put those bastards in prison, while doing it, and showed the world what the USA is all about, it would be OK.)
It boggles the mind...
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:)
YYYEEEEEEEHHHAAWWWW
The first problem is that the acts arent as illegal as you think, and it would be very difficult to even sure, let alone win. Now, it would make sense that these acts are illegal, but the guys taking the money are the same people that write the laws. And treason here is punishable by death, because we are freaking barbaric!
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Because the President also supported the decision from the Congress.
Re:*Sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe it's time to quit or reorganize this business of a Senate and Congress. Make it corruption proof with life threatening pitfalls for underhanded activity. We would definitely get a different breed of politician. At this point I'd even settle for zealous nuts over the "professionals" we currently have raping us.
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These guys are bit closer to zealous nut then professionals. Last time I checked they'd only managed to get both houses to agree to 13 bills. Since they all claim to be convinced the Nation Is In Peril, it strikes me that pros should probably be passing more then one proposal every three weeks. They aren't likely to pass a budget, or a debt ceiling hike without extreme drama. I will be surprised if Federal employees get all their scheduled paychecks on time this year, and won't be stunned if the military ge
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Re:*Sigh* (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you think that the defense industry should support those that oppose them?
I mean, okay if you disagree with people, but the whole correlation / causation thing I think is backwards. I think there is a causation, but the lawmakers thought a certain way -> therefore they were paid money.
No, I don't think the defense industry should support those who oppose them. I also don't think politicians care about the issue at all - they care more about getting elected than about governing. Let's say that the No voters felt that what is being doing is truly necessary - I would consider that better than the alternative (they don't care or don't think it is necessary, but are doing it for the money). Because there might be a way to change their mind into thinking that voting Yes is the better alternative.
Right now, I think that the only way to change their mind is to throw more cash at them than the other side - which is something that is beyond most people's abilities (well, the third option is that people wake up and let the politician know that voting No is something that will bite them the next election, but we all know that isn't going to happen in enough numbers to make a difference. I wish I could be more optimistic about the chance of that happening, but I'm not).
I don't think they were paid because they thought a certain way - I think they were paid because the politician wants the money. No point in preaching to the choir - if the politician already believed it was necessary, there would be no need to pay them. It is those who don't care that need the most persuasion.
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if the politician already believed it was necessary, there would be no need to pay them.
The money is used for their election... if they don't have money, they don't advertise enough, people don't vote for them, someone who has different views ends up in office.
Hmmm
In the UK, the amount that Political Parties can spend on elections, at local and national level, is a fraction of what the US spends on its elections, so we do not get much in the way of Political advertising compared to you in the states. That being said, it is over 30 years since I became old enough to vote in elections, and during that time I have seen quite a few Political advertisements, in all those years, never once has any advertisement caused me to change the way I vote, at most a political a
Re:*Sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)
You are right. But if there is any doubt why lawmakers are making their decisions it should be removed. No lawmaker should be receiving money directly or indirectly from those who their laws affect, it's a recipe for corruption at worst and reasonable doubt at best.
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Re:*Sigh* (Score:4, Interesting)
Laws affect everyone. So, can they receive any money at all?
They should be paid wages by the government and they should be voted in or out by those who have an interest in the issues. They should not be running massive publicity campaigns.
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I meant that each citizen should be able to contribute up to $100 for their candidate of choice and that corporations should not be able to donate anything because corporations are not citizens.
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Great. Taking your rule to its logical conclusion, I look forward to the day when teacher's unions no longer make campaign contributions to local school board members, too.
This notion that we can somehow wall off representatives from their constituents is laughable. And Labor Unions and Teacher's Unions and the NRA are also their constituents.
Re:*Sigh* (Score:4, Insightful)
Bribing a public official is illegal. If you want to support a politician there is a very easy way to do so. Vote for them. And try to convince as many people as you can to vote for them. That is all. Money has no place in this.
And Labor Unions and Teacher's Unions and the NRA are also their constituents.
No. They are not. However the individuals within those groups are free to vote for whoever they wish. That is the power of a representative democracy. The power to vote for politicians. Not the power to bribe them. Campaign contributions more than a certain amount should be illegal as the most obvious form of bribery and only individual citizens should be allowed to make such contributions. Not corporations or any other group.
Re:*Sigh* (Score:5, Informative)
Campaign contributions are not a bribe.
They are when they are sufficiently large. That is why we need a per citizen cap on them. The rich should have no more influence over the outcome of an election than the poor. The rich are not better citizens than the poor and should only get one vote.
People, and groups of people, show support politicians by making contributions to their election campaigns.
The only thing people need to do to show support is to vote for them and to convince as many people as they can to vote for them. That is what is honest and fair. Groups are not citizens and should have no say in politics. For the same reason that they don't get to vote, they shouldn't be allowed to contribute to campaigns.
How else would you fund political campaigns?
From the labor of dedicated volunteers. Also there should be limits on how much a candidate himself can spend on his own campaign. Rich candidates should not have an unfair advantage over poor ones. You could even limit the sorts of things that public money may be spent on.
Public Financing, aka welfare for politicians??
You are assuming that a significant amount of money is needed to "finance" a campaign. If no one has any advertisement money then you have a fair playing field for rich and poor candidates and it may also lower the barrier of entry for third party candidates. You could also have some standard fixed amount paid for by taxpayers to any candidate with a sufficiently large number of signatures to run.
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Do you think that the defense industry should support those that oppose them?
I think the decision makers at these corporations should be prosecuted for bribery. I think they should have their limited liability revoked.
I mean, okay if you disagree with people, but the whole correlation / causation thing I think is backwards. I think there is a causation, but the lawmakers thought a certain way -> therefore they were paid money.
Do you have any evidence for that belief? The problem with it is that the money came first. Then the vote. And the pattern is too clear cut to be random.
Time to chnage (Score:3, Insightful)
And why is it, this type of bribery continues? And where are the Republicans standing up saying how they are out for your rights, while they cut unnecessary government? And the Dems, who continued with the path that the Rep, put into place, that are acting as if they had no idea that surveillance was taking place on non-terrorist citizens..
It is time for term limits, and prison time for lobbyists, and politicians that take bribes.
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I hear they took a vote on whether to allow bribery to continue too. Can you guess the result?
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The lawmakers don't benefit. It's essentially an arms race. The "bribery" comes in the form of campaign contibutions. They're committed to spending that money in order to win the election. Their opponents are forced to do the same. The net result is that the lawmakers and any challengers sacrifice some of their own power but the don't gain anything.
If they voted against this, then their ability to fight the election would be reduced but so would that of their opponents.
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This isn't democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Our congress isn't free. Our congress isn't in the best interests of the people. Our congress is bought, and until the people take a stand nothing will ever change.
Re:This isn't democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
but isn't it stranger than that?
1) we get taxed
2) iirc ~20% federal goes towards defense spending.
3) then some fraction of that goes to defense contractors
4) some fraction of that goes to the defense contractors lobbying budget...
5) which they use to buy our lawmakers into purchasing more of their products for use against us...
Re:This isn't democracy (Score:4, Insightful)
True enough, you're paying for your own oppression.
Eisenhower's warning all too true (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This isn't democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, this isn't even a representative democracy, let alone a pure one. All those motherfuckers are representing is the almighty dollar, not We the People as the Constitution states that they are supposed to do. They have basically sold one of our most important amendments that was in our Bill of Rights for a quick personal fix of $$$. George Carlin said it best when he said that the U.S. government has been bought and sold a long time ago. They might as well take that money they obtained through bribery and use it to re-write the entire U.S. Constitution--by now it needs it more than ever, because at this point it's clear that all it is is a fucking joke and everyone in the government is just wiping their ass with it anyway, laughing all the way while everyone watches fucking American Idol or the latest knockoff.
Truly sad and fucking pathetic.
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Our congress isn't free.
Of course not. It takes a lot of money to buy a Representative, and even more to buy a Senator.
Congratulations America (Score:5, Insightful)
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Truly you have achieved the best government that money can buy...
You mean like GM makes the best car money can buy?
The sad thing is we pay top dollar even though we buy substandard value, hardly worth the price. I mean why be the richest guy on the block if you only wanna drive a Cadillac? Talk about low standards. Casting pearls before swine, or putting lipstick on pigs seems to be the extent of benefit we receive as a society from all our surplus wealth .
Whats the point of being the richest nation on earth if it fails to enrich the vast majority of its citizens? Wh
government privatized (Score:2)
good to see free market applied to governments - you go land of the free(market)
Simply the Best (Score:2)
We in the USA are blessed by the Great Invisible Puppeteer in the Sky with the best government money can possibly buy.
As a foreigner (Score:5, Insightful)
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Legalized bribery ain't nothing new: selling indulgences, rent-seeking - hell, there's probably a wikipedia article about it.
What's so awful is that they're pissing on the very things which were supposed to make America different and "better". Certain tenets were supposed to remain inviolate, and if they were violated it was with the understanding that it was just that: a violation, an illegal act. But no more. That's what's so disturbing: that this shit is apparently completely legal. It's horribly ironic
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Lawyers care about what they can justify under their flexible interpretation of letter of the law. They are not concerned about the spirit or intent of the law.
Most lawyers are game players with no morals because that's exactly what it takes to be a successful lawyer.
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Somehow, I don't think even the Republicans would have the stomach for the open slaughter of US citizens in the streets, were such a revolution to be initiated.
800 FEMA concentration camps tell me you are wrong. You have a gun or two. They have a well trained and equipped paramilitary police force, a well trained and equipped military, drones, signals interceptions, the media, and an unshakable belief that anyone who uses force against them must be destroyed at any cost.
If you and a hundred thousand friends armed yourselves and marched on the white house you would never get there and you would all be dead or imprisoned within the week. The media would be running s
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Revolution? Sounds like terrorist words. Better get you under surveillance so we can... oh wait, no need, you already were.
Just another regular Joe railing at 'freedom'? Look, we will let you off with a warning, this time.
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Keep in mind that the difference between $41k from the defense industry and $18k isn't actually that big a deal to a Congressman. A Congressman whose doing it right raises the $23k difference every month. Since only 205 of them voted against the bill, as long as Civil Libertarians pony up $5 million they'll actually turn a profit.
So you've basically got it backwards. They got $41k because they were going after the tough-on-terror voters who actually like the NSA program (support goes up from 30%ish to 40%is
Wedge issue (Score:2)
From a purely political perspective, the surveillance-against-citizens promises to be an important wedge issue in the next election cycle. Voters are divided on it, even the politicians are divided on it. We'll just have to wait and see, as unsatisfying as that sounds: in a representative democracy that's how these things are "corrected"... or not.
I hope they just pound the hell out of the people who voted against this bill, be they R or D. I fear that it will all be forgotten one year from now.
This is ho
No shit... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Defense Industry lobbyists were smart enough to know which candidates actually liked them, therefore they gave twice the money to those candidates. It's almost like the articles is saying they actually ask candidates what they think BEFORE they cut a bunch of checks.
If you look at the actual numbers the ridiculousness of the "campaign contributions as bribes" theory gets even clearer. A House race costs at least $500k. In extreme cases (ie: Bachman) they cost millions. That's $700 a day for a cheap race. You'd rather have $40k from defense contractors then $18k, but the difference is only 32 days of fundraising for the guy with the cheap $500k race. Somebody like Bachman brings in $22k in under a week. Note that by international standards $500k is a really cheap election for the 750,000-person districts we have. Canadian pols spend in the $50k-$100k range, but a) there are generally three serious candidates in every riding so that works out to $150k-$300k per riding, and each riding only has 100,000 people in it.
In other words if you're a Congressman you pick a side. If you pick the anti-NSA side you get geek donations, grassroots buzz from Civil Libertarians, and a little defense industry cash (Honeywell et al. want to maintain a relationship with you, so you do get that $18k). If you pick the pro-NSA-side you get to be tough on bad guys on TV, and you get a little more defense industry cash. You do not change a side just because somebody offers you a lot of money, because that would look terrible on TV ("He's an EVIL FLIP-FLOPPER"), the new voters you were appealing to wouldn't actually vote for you because they wouldn't trust you, and the ones you stabbed in the back are gonna hate your guts.
Since the GOP won the last go-round tough-on-bad-guys got more votes then Civil Libertarians.
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"If you pick the anti-NSA side you get geek donations, grassroots buzz from Civil Libertarians, and a little defense industry cash (Honeywell et al. want to maintain a relationship with you, so you do get that $18k)."
In 2008 wasn't there a bunch of buzz about how Obama's campaign was funded far and away by individual donations over corporate donations? It was the little guy that funded Obama's campaign IIRC. Shame it doesn't seem to help much but I'd wager it's because Obama told people what they wanted to
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2008 was a new generation of voters on both sides that thought their idealism would carry the day and wipe opposing views out of the way. Then the Tea Party and President Obama got into office, and their supporters found out how the real world works. Those that had been around a while (including Obama himself), seemed less surprised.
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I don't think Obama broke any records last year, but he still had an awful lot of money from small individual donations.
Small individual donations are actually the way all the biggest-money pols make their targets. Personal donations max out at $2,600, and both corporations and PACs are limited to $5,000. SuperPACs can spend unlimited amounts, but they are banned from actually talking to a campaign about strategy, and tend to be run by political novices; so dollar-for-dollar they have so far been extremely
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So essentially your politicians are a bunch of money-grubbing whores who try to get all the cash they can to ensure they keep their jobs. Moreover, because you have very frequent elections, they probably spend a lot of their time engaged in turning another lobby-group/corporate trick in order to keep the money flowing in so they can stay in power.
Does this leave them any time to actually try to do the things they were ostensibly elected to do?
Re:No shit... (Score:4, Informative)
Depends.
According to the Founders the federal government's job was to be exactly centralized enough to keep other countries out, therefore it's designed to include an intricate set of Checks and Balances that make it virtually impossible to actually do anything. Constant fundraising is an excellent additional check because it requires they talk to "the people" (aka: that set of people interested in politics, and with sufficient disposal income to donate) instead of law-making.
According to the voters Congressman are magically endowed with a super-human understanding of the intricacies of both Federal law and public policy, therefore they not only have the time to read every bill they vote on (including all bills and amendments for everything that comes before their committee), they also magically understand all it's implications without help from their staffs. They are also able to instantly process any request that comes into their office, and respond with exactly the right combination of information, humor, and grace instantaneously. Which leaves them plenty of time to hammer out budget deals on reasonable terms that don't entirely please anyone, but give everyone a little of what they want. If half of Congress wants to fire all federal employees, and the other half wants to hire thousand more; not to worry Congressman have been granted the wisdom to square the circle by some clause of the Constitution or other. The $2 Billion we spend on staffers to do all this for the MBAs and Lawyers who dominate the Congress is just wasted money and if only we got rid of it there would never be a deficit ever again, everyone could get a tax cut, and we could triple Social Security.
Back in the real world, there's no way in hell an MBA understands a law even until a staffer explains it to him with powerpoint. There's no way a lawyer understands how a law will work in the real world (as opposed to the glorified debating societies we call "courts") until a staffer explains it to him using a bizarre combination of very small words and Latin. Since the country is polarized, almost all of them are in districts where representing the district means mindlessly parroting an ideological line. In practical terms the only thing the constant fundraising actually does is force them to end their conversations with the phrase "And I need money. My staff thinks you can give $500, so make the check out to..."
Empires fall (Score:3, Insightful)
Dear americans, your empire is going to fall. Not today or tomorrow. But - younger of you may live to see it. Those of you who visited history lessons about not-america (also called "rest of the world") may notice the pattern: Roman Empire, British Empire, Russian Empire and so on.
Yes, your country have lot of weapons. Guess what - romans had it too, russians still have. And yes, there are still many scientists live in US. Guess what - it may not matter that match.
It may end in bloody conflict (see fall of Rome) or as peaceful dismount (see fall of Soviet Union) or as something in-between (British Empire). But - it will end. If history teaches us something, it's "too big army is bad for you".
You guessed right - US military (and NSA is also considered military by us in "rest of the world") is way too big for US economy to support. Since US have not a single border with enemy states, it's army supposed to be about 1/1000 of current size. Yep, you read right: one hundredth. No, you don't need carriers. And no, you don't need that many nuclear submarines. And no, you probably don't need tanks AT ALL, nobody going to invade you any time soon.
And finally - no, world don't need you as policemen.
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Well of course this and all other empires will fall. It's basically the second law of thermodynamics applied to societies. The more relevant question is whether the empire which replaces it will also have panopticon spying on its citizens. And my confidence in answering 'yes' is at least 99%. Spying is the future.
I'm not saying I like it, but I think we must focus on the next question, the question of what the state may do with the information they gather. Will we criminalize certain thoughts, opinions and
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Openness/transparency (like the article) and facts is the only thing that could still help.
I guess we'll never see this facts on US TV.
OK, they are going to fail.
Military industrial complex (Score:5, Insightful)
We were warned about the dangers of the military industrial complex by one of our best presidents. Eisenhower kept this nation out of trouble (pointless wars and political suicide pacts) and allowed us to enjoy our peace dividends. We should have listened and remembered.
Re:Military industrial complex (Score:4, Insightful)
I didn't have any mod points for this, but if I did, I would have voted you up.
This is exactly what I was thinking about too.
Many US politicians even presidents (or their family) are involved in oil/energy, guns, medicine for example.
Before they are a politician, they work at these companies and after they've been a politician, they go back working for the same companies.
Anyone hear of the phrase "conflict of interest" ?
You get what you pay for.... (Score:4, Insightful)
....that still doesn't make it a democracy.
As long as our "representational" government is hijacked to represent the majority of dollars instead of people and of free speech, then we've completely strayed away from any sort of democracy at all. I don't know what you call it, but it ain't democracy.
Clearly our voices no longer equate to a level democratic process. Though we may be born equal, our influence under the law extends with our wealth, regardless of its source or of the massive disparity among the citizens.
Whats the point of voting in an auction that always goes to the highest bidder? Nostalgia or denial? We might as well still have royalty because it sure works like a nobility.
Re:You get what you pay for.... (Score:5, Insightful)
....that still doesn't make it a democracy.
As long as our "representational" government is hijacked to represent the majority of dollars instead of people and of free speech, then we've completely strayed away from any sort of democracy at all. I don't know what you call it, but it ain't democracy.
Clearly our voices no longer equate to a level democratic process. Though we may be born equal, our influence under the law extends with our wealth, regardless of its source or of the massive disparity among the citizens.
Whats the point of voting in an auction that always goes to the highest bidder? Nostalgia or denial? We might as well still have royalty because it sure works like a nobility.
The problem with Citizens United is that the court failed to recognize 2 key facts:
1. The law is not "one dollar, one vote", it's one person one vote. Corporations don't get extra votes per se, but they can afford much bigger megaphones to speak at their representatives with.
2. Giving corporations a "vote" is un-democratic. The corporation is comprised of individuals. Thus, the individuals who control the corporation effectively have an extra vote beyond their individual vote. As a corollary, 98% of the employees of a corporation may oppose a certain piece of legislation, but corporations are not in the least democratic, so the "corporate vote" can be - and often is - directly counter to the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the individuals employed there.
there is a name for that (Score:2)
Re:there is a name for that (Score:4, Insightful)
they should all be hanging from lamp-posts like Benito Mussolini was
It is time for real change (Score:3)
I'm just going to repeat this until either it starts or someone makes a valid argument against it. The states need to call a constitutional convention and fix problems like these. Imagine term limits for Congress - the state reps would pass that because it would mean more churn and a chance for them to get there. Problem one solved. That's just for starters. Fixing problems like what this post is about would be on the table too.
In this day and age of social media and groups who have nothing better to do this should be easy to push right to the front. Just have to work hard to not have it be subverted. Just imagine how pissed off this would make Congress & the President. The founding fathers would be cheering! The world would see how it's really done right.
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You're incredibly] naive.
Term limits don't help. The reason the current Congress is dysfunctional is that most of it's guys got elected in the past six years, and they don't have any experience in the herculean task of getting Texas and California to agree. They honestly think that getting nothing done is better for their political futures then reforming the immigration system and passing a budget because all their political experience is from the last three elections, and in those elections a lot more peop
They're ALL whores, on every issue (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not just 'secret NSA spying'.
Tort reform? You'll find the naysayers got at LEAST 2x from the legal community PACs and lobbyists.
More loans and grants for education, or student loan forgiveness? You'll find that the ones in favor got piles of money from Teacher Unions.
Minimum wage? Unionization? Defense spending?
As the old saying goes: Follow the Money.
opensecrets.org.
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Tort reform has actually been passed in every state. Frequently more then once. It's an idea that sounds great, but as long as it's possible to spend millions on medical treatment from a single injury (for example: if you're 15, and you need a full-time nurse for life), it doesn't actually do much. Either you have to let that 15-year-old kid die when his maximum $50k settlement runs out, or you have to allow him to win his $3 Million. And if he can win $3 Million the benefits of tort reform do not exist.
Stu
Not bribery in the obvious sense (Score:2)
Politicians are simply being reward for having the 'right' beliefs. It's not about buying someone's vote once; it's a long-term investment. Lobbies know that it is not necessary to find someone willing to vote against their conscience - they find the politician who already *wants* to vote the 'right' way because they are ideological or misinformed or, in extreme cases, outright mentally ill, and shower that person with so much money that a reasonable or patriotic candidate can't compete. By the time that
Paging Captain Obvious (Score:2)
How is this even a story?
Relevant film scene: The Distinguished Gentleman (Score:5, Insightful)
Lobbyist: Listen, I'd like to do more money for you -- I just need to know your positions on a few issues. For instance, where are you on sugar price supports?
Congressman Johnson: Sugar price supports. Where do you think I should be, Tommy?
Lobbyist: Shit -- makes no difference to me. If you're for 'em, I got money for you from my sugar producers in Louisiana and Hawaii. If you're against 'em, I got money for you from the candy manufacturers.
Congressman: You pick.
Lobbyist: Let's put you down as for. Now what about putting limits on malpractice awards?
Congressman: You tell me.
Lobbyist: Well, if you're for 'em, I got money from the doctors and insurance companies. If you're against 'em, I got money from the trial lawyers. Tell you what, let's say against. Now how about pizza?
Congressman (gestures to plate): I'll stick with the salad.
Lobbyist: Not for lunch, shmuck, for PAC money. A lot of the frozen pizzas use phony cheese. There's a law pending requiring them to disclose it on their labels. Where do you stand?
Congressman: If I vote for the labels...then I get money from the dairy industry...
Lobbyist: Good...
Congressman: And if I vote against the labels, I get money from the frozen food guys.
Lobbyist: Excellent! And don't forget the ranchers, because they get hurt if pepperoni sales go down!
Congressman: A pepperoni lobby. I love this town.
Lobbyist: So which is it?
Congressman: Fuck the cheese people. Thanks to them my office smelled like smelt for a week.
Lobbyist: All right. For.
Congressman: So Tommy, tell me -- with all this money on every side, how does anything get done?
Lobbyist: It doesn't! That's the genius of the system!
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not *being*
i fail at english
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It's about time that the Western world was liberated from them. With force.
Force is the very worst way to do that. If you can get what you want without killing or dying it's better.
How about stop agreeing to let them put their military bases all over the place and stop giving them all our information? They have no business having records of every bank transfer and every phone call made in the rest of the world. They have no business abducting people from the streets of Europe and flying them around the world for water boarding whilst insisting that water boarding isn't actually to
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It is very unlikely that the US would engage in hostile action against Australia or New Zealand, but if another country decided to their not helping would be just as bad. Also that would require us to rein in our own governments, (which might be slightly better then yours but that doesn't mean much these da
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thank you for showing how deep the corruption goes.
I don't think the corruption here is any deeper than anywhere else on average. The problem is that the dollar amounts and resulting influence are so much larger, and thats because fucking idiots keep finding excuses to forgive politicians that make the government bigger (hell, some even see a larger government as something to strive for.. fucking retards)
When you allow a bigger government, you get corruption on a larger scale. Every. Single. Fucking. Time. Ever. In. All. Of. History.
Re:I must thank the NSA (Score:5, Interesting)
What's so shocking here is that the corruption is so blatant. There's no attempt to hide it. It is, apparently, completely ok in America for politicians to vote based on financial support so why hide it?
There are downsides to 'big government' but to some extent strong government can control or limit corruption. It was recently a big story in the UK that a strategy advisor for the government had worked with a tobacco firm and thus might be behind the governments decision not to push for plain packaging. There was no evidence of anything improper but the possibility was a story. In the US you'd have, actually you have, tobacco firms etc funnelling large sums to your elected representatives directly to stop that kind of thing. The UK definitely isn't close to perfect but businesses appear to have considerably less influence here than in the US and we have far stronger government.
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Re:I must thank the NSA (Score:5, Interesting)
You have things really backwards.
These guys got financial support because they were pro-NSA from 2010-2012. Nobody should be surprised that they were still pro-NSA in 2013. It's not like you can send a Congressman $50k and buy his vote. He'll take your $50k, vote his heart, and if he voted against you he'll use your money to buy an ad trumpeting how uncorrupt he is.
In the US you can't actually get large sums from a tobacco firm. You can get $5k. If they have a PAC you can get another $5k. Per PAC. The reason these NSA guys are up to the $40k range isn't that NSASpySoft cut a $40k check, it's that people working for NSASpySoft cut checks adding up to $40k. The pro-NSA guys got basically a month's fundraising from these folks, so it's not like anybody is worried about losing his next election bid if he pisses the NSA. They're worried that voting against the NSA would look weak on terror, which would piss of a certain segment of voters.
SuperPACs complicate things because their donations are unlimited, but a) they can't co-ordinate with a candidate, b) they tend to be run by ideologues who don't understand how they sound to normal people, and c) they get charged commercial rates for ads (candidates get the lowest rate charged). So SuperPAC money didn't have much practical effect on last cycle's elections. They might fix that in 2014, but who knows.
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So a large, for-profit, private sector is less corrupt then the government?
I believe you need to check a dictionary for the definition of the word "corrupt."
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No, "corrupt" means doing unethical things for personal gain. Businessman frequently get off on the technicality that they are allowed to define the word "ethical" as it relates to their own jobs, therefore anything that be a terrible fireable, never-work-in-the-sector again sin for the government is just how it's done in private industry.
Any manager who manages to figure out a way to fire the pregnant chick before she starts costing the company money due to a) maternity leave, b) expensive health costs of
Re:Correlation and causality (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the surprise?
The surprise is that "Campaign financing" is legal in a democracy. There are parts of the world where this sort of thing is outlawed. Politicians are paid - and paid well - from the tax money. They are not allowed to take money from others - that makes them criminals.
Less campaign financing is not a problem, because that works the same way for all politicians. And we get less 'campaigning' to put up with too. :-)
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Exactly. Politicians should be civil servants, they should serve the people who voted for them not the private interests that funded their campaign.
But how do you get from here to there? Do enough people believe that the system is wrong in order to vote in people that will change it? Even though the vast majority are easily distracted and don't understand or care about the issues? Even though most will vote out of fear of the other side of the Democrat/Republican alliance getting in?
Re:Correlation and causality (Score:5, Interesting)
So as a private person I want to buy an ad for a cause I believe in.
And I want a pony.
It happens to be that there are 2 major candidates, and the cause I believe in is also the main cause championed by one of those candidates. Will I be allowed to run the ad, even though in effect it is an ad for one of the candidates, even if that's not my intention?
I would argue against being able to run such an ad because it appears to be an attempt to influence an election even if that was not the true intent. It is indistinguishable from an attempt to influence an election.
How will you possibly define in law what kinds of ads indirectly benefit one candidate over another? If you can't, this is a huge loophole.
With the duck test. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it's a duck. How about: "Any advertisement that would appear to a reasonable person to be an attempt to influence the outcome of an election shall be punishable by a fine of up to one milliion dollars and up to one year in prison." It's generally pretty obvious what sort of thing an advertisement is intended to sell.
What if I run a news organization and I decide to give more favorable and extensive coverage of my favorite candidate, in effect contributing to him the equivalent of millions of dollars in ads? It's hard for me to see how you can define a law to get around such things without also seriously impacting the freedom of the press to report on political stories.
Coverage is not the same as advertising. I think your example would be acceptable. As you say you cannot realistically get around this sort of thing. I don't think it is all that harmful. The one thing I would do is make it illegal for anyone else to pay the news organization to favor one side over another. If large sums of money are changing hands then that should be investigated as a possible attempt to influence an election.
Suppose I want to volunteer to help one campaign over another.
That's fine. You are free to use your time as you wish.
That's equivalent to giving them my salary,
No it isn't. There is a limit to how much you can influence an election with just your time. Donating money should be limited to a fair amount such that the rich do not have any significant advantage over the poor in terms of influencing the outcome of an election. I think somewhere between $50 and $250 per person would be a reasonable amount.
since my salary is what my labor would normally cost.
Your labor is only worth that in your own field. If you get a job bagging groceries you would not get paid more than anyone else. Besides it is irrelevant what your salary is. That doesn't give you the right to exercise undue influence over an election. One man one vote. That is what a representative democracy stands for. Any attempt to corrupt that voting process or to corrupt the politicians who make the decisions should be illegal.
Is volunteering like that then allowed?
Volunteering your time should be allowed. Contributing more than say $250 to a compaign should not be. The latter can unfairly influence the outcome of an election in a way that the former cannot.
What if I'm a CEO and my salary is $30 million dollars?
Then you will be annoyed when you discover that using your money to attempt to exercise an unfair influence over the outcome of an election is against the law. You will be allowed to contribute up to the per citizen cap however.
Can I use my own car while helping the campaign, in effect giving the campaign a contribution in the form of gas and wear-and-tear?
Yes. And you will also be able to wear your clothes. Neither is realistically able to affect the outcome of an election.
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Forward bribery vs backwards bribery:
"Vote for this bill and we'll give you money." - illegal.
"We donate to politicians that support us. So if you vote for this bill, you'll get a contribution next election cycle. If you vote against it, we'll donate to your rival." - Perfectly legal.
It's still effectively bribery, but it's a 'polite' form that stays on the right side of the law.
One solution would be to place a cap on the donations that one company of individual could make, but then you'd soon see dodgy acc
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"One solution would be to place a cap on the donations that one company of individual could make, but then you'd soon see dodgy accounting being used to work around it - things like companies giving a few thousand employees 'bonuses' on the implicit understanding they must donate to a certain candidate, or creating lots of semi-independent front companies who can each make the maximum donation."
There's really no way to enforce such a law effectively across the board. In order to have any deterrent value, th
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One solution would be to place a cap on the donations that one company of individual could make, but then you'd soon see dodgy accounting being used to work around it - things like companies giving a few thousand employees 'bonuses' on the implicit understanding they must donate to a certain candidate, or creating lots of semi-independent front companies who can each make the maximum donation.
Here's another thought; place a cap on the amount of campaign contributions a candidate can accept. Something like a total of $50,000 from all sources - personal and contributed - combined. A candidate is not permitted to spend more than that amount on their campaign and they are not permitted to run a profit. Any contributed funds beyond the $50,000 are returned to the contributor at the end of the campaign. Finances for a period of 1 year after running for state or higher office are automatically audi
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One solution would be to place a cap on the donations that one company of individual could make, but then you'd soon see dodgy accounting being used to work around it - things like companies giving a few thousand employees 'bonuses' on the implicit understanding they must donate to a certain candidate, or creating lots of semi-independent front companies who can each make the maximum donation.
You do realize that this is what John Edwards was charged with? A law firm apparently gave it's employees money on condition that much of it end up with Edwards' campaign.
So contrary to Slashdot theory this system is entirely possible to implement in the real world. the trouble is the Courts have ruled that donation limit infringes speech rights, so you also have the right to donate to a SuperPAC, which has no donation limits (or, in some cases, reporting requirements), but cannot take advantage of cheap ca
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That said: if democracy is so bad (and it is), get rid of it. What are you so scared of?
The US did. It has a Democrat/Republican alliance that acts as a permanent government coupled with a military who can't get voted out.
The thing they got right was the illusion of choice.
Sure they will (Score:3)