- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
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I still don’t understand how lobbying is legal. Like, it’s straight up bribery.
Because the people who decide what is legal are the people who benefit from it.
Lobbying is supposed to be making your case to a politician, and hoping they vote/propose a bill/etc. With that interest in mind. You yourself are allowed to lobby your congress critters…technically.
We’re allowed, but without a fruit basket stuffed with money they’re not going to listen.
They’re surprisingly not that expensive to buy though, 10k will get you pretty much whatever you want…
$10k will get you access, but you won’t convince a politician to do something that will cost them all of the other $10k checks they get from special interests.
Like if you wanted to buy a senator in order to get some earmarks for your development projects, you could probably get that buying a table at a fundraiser or two. But if you want them to pass legislation supporting unions or reducing the influence of money in politics, you’d basically have to bankroll their whole campaign because they wouldn’t raise another dime.
The majority of Americans don’t have 10k unneeded liquid cash
No, but a bunch of Americans together have 10k, it just so happens that it’s just the conservative ones who figured it out.
The lobbying is not the problem. The donations that sway opinions are the problem. If it was entirely unrelated to donations and the congress person was just hearing out all sides of an issue, that’s a good thing.
How often do companies fund biased or outright falsified studies that are then presented as fact by lobbyists?
I could maybe get more behind lobbying without donations if all data points were required to be peer reviewed. The lawmakers hearing these arguments are not experts (see any tech related legislation ever), it’s real easy to lie to them; basically removing the money then means that the most charismatic and/or best liar ends up winning.
If donations did not affect outcome, no company would donate.
Even when a legislator’s decisions are unaffected by lobbying, companies still control legislation by ensuring legislators who earnestly believe in legislation that favors the corporations over the people get elected.
This is how Biden sided with banks and the prison-industrial complex for half a century yet didn’t have enough money to fund his son’s cancer treatment without selling his house until Obama paid off his medical debt.
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“hearing out all sides” somehow invariably turns into siding with whoever controls the most capital - I wonder how that happens.
Donations aren’t to sway opinion they’re to maintain a stock of dependent politicians who already agree with your position but who also need your funding to stay in office
Which will happen when hell freezes over
Edit- not saying you’re not wrong though
In theory, it’s partially meant to educate politicians who cannot be experts on everything in a world where information exponentially grows, but this system has clearly been intentionally used to abuse power.
Met a dude in 2015 who was a lobbyist for Boeing in DC. I heard he made 750k a year back then. He must be a really good educator!
I used to work for a lobbyist on the hill, doing line standings. I would get paid to stand in line for hearings and committees and then the lawyers would come relieve you right before the hearing. Sometimes they wanted you to camp out the day before the hearing, and usually there were other line standers and it would be a circus, lots of fun.
Cool gig actually
And I know lobbyists who are just regular people who looked up the process and did it. I’m not advocating for it, just giving context.
There are other examples of programs and policies being used in this way. Now, to me, the question is whether or not they are intended to easily abused by design. I don’t have the knowledge to say one way or another. However, as previously stated, it’s obviously being used as a bribery under another name.
That’s the point. It is meant to be legalised bribery.
Exactly. Its legal so they’re not corrupt, but they still get to keep bribes
I think politician should be under 24 hour stream.
id love to see them all going to the bathroom 😁
Read about Citizens United please
If lobbying were illegal, that would mean all of the organizations that fight for justice lose their voices too.
Lobbying isn’t bribery, it’s persuasion
Money ≠ speech. Now go back to bed, Mr. McConnell
No it just means they use their voices not money
Its extremely obvious. “Oh, these? These aren’t bribes. They’re uh, free speech! Yeah! And companies speak in money so this is their free-”
Shut the fuck up.What are bribes? You mean lobbying? Totally different thing, look, the words have totally different letters!
Citizens United is one of the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court.
Its absolute evil. I can’t believe us citizens haven’t burned it to the ground in a fit of rage. Its blatant fucking bribery. I’m seein’ red just typing this post.
“Why are there bribes coming out of your Congress and Supreme Court, Seymour?”
“Uh! …Ohh, those aren’t bribes! It’s speech! Speech from the free speech we’re having. Mmmm, free speech!”
door slams “Phew”…🏃♂️🎼🎵🎵🎵🎶
clearly he’s old enough to run again.
Man. The guy can grow peanuts, build thousands of houses, kick cancer’s ass, and is brilliantly insightful.
No wonder he lost reelection. He’s competent. I’m kinda shocked he won in the first place. We didn’t deserve him, and we still don’t.
Well, between that and Reagan and Iran Hostage Crisis.
That and his own party turned against him when it became apparent he cared more about the country than their profits
The guy facilitated crimes against humanity in Indonesia and Afghanistan. I’d rather an incompetent war criminal than a cold blooded architect of genocide.
He can also fund and arm the Indonesian government while it commits genocide in East Timor
And he wasn’t competent. He squandered a Democratic majority in both the House and Senate for two years by sitting to the right of both chambers of Congress, and ended up heralding the deregulation and deunionization that we blame Reagan for.
Like all US Presidents, Carter is a piece of shit
I mean he’s right.
Yeah. And…
And the general population should stop accepting it as if we have no choice in the matter.
Fair enough, I’m not refuting this. But I think this is not a new thing rather an open and well known fact. And the incentives for politicians to change this situation aren’t in our favors. So good job Carter. But lets have some results.
And… It shouldn’t be normal.
Thank you, Mr. Last Good American President very likely ever.
We never deserved to be led by this man. We’d rather be lied to by actors.
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I agree with what is being said in the article. However, I have seen an uptick of articles older than 2 years being posted as “recent news” or “breaking news”. This article is from 2015 and while it is pretty accurate, especially in these times, something from 8 years ago should be noted as such.
Seriously. This is political discussion, but not news (current events).
Carter put solar panels on the White House roof. Reagan took them off because he was beholden to the fossil fuel industry. And now look at the planet.
Pretty much everything Regan touched turned to shit
Yeah he helped create it. The first US president to begin to embrace neoliberal ideology and fictitious capital. Set the path for Ronald Reagan to bring in neoliberalism proper. And armed the Mujahideen, which lead to the crisis in Afghanistan. This is equivalent to Eisenhower warning everyone about the military industrial complex.
Had to scroll all the way down for this comment. The only response to this article should be : “Thanks for making this happen”
It’s frustrating. They say good things when they are removed from power. He sounds like a good person, but he was not a good president. Obama will probably gradually come around to this kind of talk when he gets older too. He recently all but admitted middle class decline due to concentration of wealth was responsible for the rise of MAGA. Don’t know if he will ever admit that drone “assassinations” he was in charge of were war crimes (assassinations in quotes because more than half the time the intelligence wasn’t even correct).
Just testing out IDF doctrine
It’s insane to think this guy, who was a pastor, lost the Christian vote to the cheating twice divorced Reagan
It’s very clear what the evangelical vote actually is for. They also largely voted for Trump over Biden, who’s a Catholic.
That one like half makes sense because evangelicals are obviously protestant and Trump is nominally protestant, but he is literally the fakes Chsitian to ever live. He is the kind of fake Christian you would only see in Christian media aimed at kids. I hate orange man bad “humor” but his saying “Two Corinithians” to an audience of Christian university students and faculty will live rent free in my head until I die.
it was a concerted strategy on the part of the republicans who made anti-abortion policy a cornerstone of their platform while convincing pastors to preach about how it was a sin.
Racism do be like that
We know.
It’s a feudal system of corporate lords with a priesthood of economists, politicians, and lawyers.
The initials, the carpentry, the advocations for peace and against extreme wealth. You’d think a certain group would like this guy.
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Jfc I am ashamed of my species
Oligarchy is baked into the U.S. constitution. Only rich (land-owning) White Males had any say. The Senate (mostly wealthy) has a permanent veto over any real power sharing. Oligarchy is nothing new in the USA, they have just added window dressing to make people THINK it ever was a democracy.
Jimmy Carter is a fucking legend
