The Conservative Cave
Current Events => The DUmpster => Topic started by: franksolich on July 31, 2009, 05:22:21 AM
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http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6190849
Oh my.
This is the longest "intellectual" piece I've ever seen the silly primitive write.
Everybody wants to be a Bostonian Drunkard on Skins's island, and get quoted by some long-dead newspaper columnist.
SoCalDem (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-31-09 05:14 AM
Original message
Imagine no Insurance lobby..no banking lobby..no Pharma lobby.. no Oil lobby
With the fantastic communication system we have, there is NO need to do much more than to create "political channels", and fire them up before elections.
Any viable candidate could have "access" (in equal doses, of course, with the other ones). They could lay out their agenda, without screaming heads interrupting them every 7 seconds. there could be actual debates too..real debates.
Election season would last 6 months..and 6 months only.
No paid tv ads would be allowed..only print ads..and ads that were proven false would be pulled.
This would be at no cost to the candidates. The only out-of-pocket expenses they would have, would be for a modest staff and print materials. With a 6 month campaign, there would be a lot less needed. With the internet everywhere these days, they could use it, and for a lot less money.
Lobbyist money should be illegal. It's quid pro quo, any way you slice it. There is NO way that a corporation "gives" a person the bazillions of dollars they do now , to "win a job" that pays under $200K, unless there are mega-returns on the horizon. Lobbyists are to politics, what steroids are to baseball. Cheating.
Public funding is ultimately cheaper than paying bribes dressed up as bad legislation, to billionaire business people.
SCOTUS made a huge error when they allowed "personhood" to corporations. Corporations "are" people, but each one of the people making up that corporation already HAS a vote. The only justification for giving corporate personhood, is to negate all those individual votes, in the form of massive campaign donations. Why would a corporation want to do that?
Take Walmart for example. Do all those downtrodden workers at walmart really NOT want health care, higher wages, better hours & working conditions? They don't have a chance against the all-powerful corporation that owns them.
Candidates we should be voting for, cannot compete, with things the way they are now. There are people "out there", from whom we will never hear, because their good ideas will never make it into the electoral arena. Corporatists like the legislators they currently own and operate.
By opting in to the "service economy", we have tied ourselves to the corporatists, like never before. Someone wondered aloud the other day, about why we don't have millions of people taking to the streets over the health care issue.
We don't have them because the jobs-situation is so bleak, that most people cannot afford to miss work to protest. They are hopelessly indentured. People are in debt, they have mortgages, they have kids who need health insurance, they have car payments, college tuition... they cannot afford to be seen "making waves".
Long ago, the powers that be decided that the welfare, comfort & personal security of the people were nowhere near as important as the balance sheets of a few powerful tycoons, and with the exception of a few rare times in history, it's probably always been that way, and always will be that way.
We all spend the first 2 decades under the influence of our parents & family, the next 3 decades under the thumb of our employers, and the remaining decades, at the mercy of our government. We are led to believe that we have freedom, but without the security to elect fair-minded, honest people to do our bidding, those freedoms are very limited.
Hannah Bell (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-31-09 05:22 AM
Response to Original message
1. succinct & too true.
and-justice-for-all (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-31-09 05:29 AM
Response to Original message
2. Lobbying should be banned and corporations should lose their "person hood"
Coffee and Cake (138 posts) Fri Jul-31-09 05:33 AM
Response to Original message
3. I am a libertarian and I agree with you on the ills of crony capitalism and buying our politicians, but I do not agree with you on censorship.
SoCalDem (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-31-09 05:44 AM
Response to Reply #3
5. I am not advocating censorship. Just PAID ads on MY public airwaves
The candidates whould have FREE access on the political channels..hell even give each party a couple of them to use, and a combination channel for debates.
They can talk their little voiceboxes hoarse..andf it would even BE "free speech", since they would not have to pay for it.
That gives OTHER PEOPLE a chance to tell us about their good ideas too..
The corporate boss has free speech, and so do his/her employees, and they should have ONE vote per HUMAN..and NO Money-vote that trumps all the others.
In the "Animal Farm" scenario we have now, the pigs that are MORE equal than others (because of their money) , also have most/all of the public airwaves at their beck and call, and everyone else has virtually NONE. The lobbyists shovel money into the coffers of the chosen-ones, who in turn, shovel it into the coffers of big-media ..it's just one big circle and the money all ends up back in the same coffers where it started...but with EXTRA from the taxpayers..through all the shitty legislation that robs us blind, and does not help us at all.
Coffee and Cake (138 posts) Fri Jul-31-09 06:07 AM
Response to Reply #5
11. They can have free acces on "political channels"?
What does that mean? Before you digress into "Animal Farm", can you please state what restriction you will put on people running for public office?
dhpgetsit (888 posts) Fri Jul-31-09 05:54 AM
Response to Reply #3
8. There is no censorship in banning corporations from their lobbying efforts.
The CEO or any board member would still have the right to contact representatives and address grievances.
Banning corporate lobbying (and true campaign finance reform) would put the government back in the hands of We the People.
Psst. Planned Parenthood is a corporation.
bridgit (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-31-09 05:42 AM
Response to Original message
4. bugger them all, it says 'right to redress' and that includes we the people
**** them! then push grover norquist into a ****ed up mud puddle
Enthusiast (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-31-09 05:48 AM
Response to Reply #4
6. Grover Norquist is as despicable as Richard the dick Cheney.
Hmmm. franksolich detects a certain Freudian envy there.
SoCalDem (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-31-09 05:53 AM
Response to Reply #6
7. People like him are the result of electing republicans.. they NEVER LEAVE the scene
Democrats know how to exit gracefully. They go off and do something else, and rarely try to rule from the "out-of-power" seats.
republicans just recycle into lobbyist spots, think tanks & FoxNews.. They are zombies..vampires & werewolves, all rolled into one.. They feel they must always "be there" , defending their miserable policies, and running down any effort at putting decent ones in place.
Enthusiast (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-31-09 05:59 AM
Response to Reply #7
10. Wish I had an answer for this dilemma.
nightrain (652 posts) Fri Jul-31-09 05:57 AM
Response to Original message
9. K&R We could certainly limit length of elections and types of advertising. I'm there. These long and expensive elections mostly assure that only those with deep pockets get elected. Lobbying is destroying our representative gov't. Yes, ban corporations as "individuals".
Whose pocket was deeper in the 2008 presidential election?
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"Imagine no Insurance lobby..no banking lobby..no Pharma lobby.. no Oil lobby"
I can see it all now.....the environmentalist have finally won....we're all back in the stone age......the DUmmies are beating rocks together expecting an arrow head to just fall out....rubbing sticks together trying to make fire.....eating grass and discussing how healthy it all is......while all those evil conservatives who have occupied all the available caves are just sitting around warm fires doing nothing, drinking beer, eating fresh roasted meat and not sharing with them.
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Given her age, and that her life has been spent in pampered utter uselessness, what with all of these "imagine" bonfires lit by the silly primitive, I suspect she's to where she spends much time thinking about things that could have been.
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Given her age, and that her life has been spent in pampered utter uselessness, what with all of these "imagine" bonfires lit by the silly primitive, I suspect she's to where she spends much time thinking about things that could have been.
Yeah, hindsight is 20/20.....and mine is improving dailey. :rotf:
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Yeah, hindsight is 20/20.....and mine is improving dailey. :rotf:
Oh, I dunno, John, sir.
You know I have a problem with hot weather, and so have never been down south.
No problem with the people of the south, some of the finest examples of humanity, grace, class, intellect, virtue, one can hope to meet; it's just the weather.
But if the opportunity came up, I'd make an exception and head down to South Carolina to sit on your front porch with you. In mid-winter, of course, to ameliorate the effects of the weather there.
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Oh, I dunno, John, sir.
You know I have a problem with hot weather, and so have never been down south.
No problem with the people of the south, some of the finest examples of humanity, grace, class, intellect, virtue, one can hope to meet; it's just the weather.
But if the opportunity came up, I'd make an exception and head down to South Carolina to sit on your front porch with you. In mid-winter, of course, to ameliorate the effects of the weather there.
Hey Frank, a mild winters day up there would probably be like one of our worst winter days down here.....and I hate the cold. Come on down, we'll sit on the porch. But if it's one of our worst days, you can sit on the front porch enjoying our mild (to you) winter weather and I'll sit inside by an open livingroom window. We'll sit and chat that way and when you get hot, I'll hand you ice tea out the front window. Don't worry about how that might look....most people around here know I ain't quite right anyway..... :-)
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<<looking for an opportunity to arise now, but it would have to be in winter.
<<not saying it will happen, but one never knows.