4 ms·

Lobbying is legal corruption. The represent.us group do a great video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig& https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t

Lobbying is legal corruption. The represent.us group do a great video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig& https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig& The US government doesn't represent the people. It only represents about 10% of the people; those who are the top income earners and whose view happen to align with the interests that represent the top industry groups.

rayiner 9y ago
How about we base our views on something substantive, not YouTube propaganda?
- alsetmusic 9y ago
  > How about we base our views on something substantive, not YouTube propaganda? YT may host content from any number of sources of varying quality. It would be more useful to address why the video itself is propaganda.
- djsumdog 9y ago
  I've read the study referenced in the video, specifically the Gilens and Page, "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens" published in 2014. It's a really good study and worth reading. I've used the same study in a video I later made: https://fightthefuture.org/videos/does-voting-make-a-difference/ https://fightthefuture.org/videos/does-voting-make-a-differe...
  - rayiner 9y ago
    The problem with the Gilens and Page study is that it shows the elites and regular people agree about 90% of policies: https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-study https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-.... They look at the situations where the elite and regular people disagree, and conclude that because the rich win those areas of disagreement, we live in an “oligarchy.” But it does almost no analysis of those issues. Without that analysis, it’s hard to tell whether that’s oligarchy, or just republican democracy doing the “republican” part. The paper also makes the huge mistake of using survey data without systematically accounting for whether respondents are likely voters. It is well known that voters are not representative of the population as a whole. They skew older, whiter, and more conservative.

rayiner 9y ago

How about we base our views on something substantive, not YouTube propaganda?

alsetmusic 9y ago
> How about we base our views on something substantive, not YouTube propaganda? YT may host content from any number of sources of varying quality. It would be more useful to address why the video itself is propaganda.
djsumdog 9y ago
I've read the study referenced in the video, specifically the Gilens and Page, "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens" published in 2014. It's a really good study and worth reading. I've used the same study in a video I later made: https://fightthefuture.org/videos/does-voting-make-a-difference/ https://fightthefuture.org/videos/does-voting-make-a-differe...
- rayiner 9y ago
  The problem with the Gilens and Page study is that it shows the elites and regular people agree about 90% of policies: https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-study https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-.... They look at the situations where the elite and regular people disagree, and conclude that because the rich win those areas of disagreement, we live in an “oligarchy.” But it does almost no analysis of those issues. Without that analysis, it’s hard to tell whether that’s oligarchy, or just republican democracy doing the “republican” part. The paper also makes the huge mistake of using survey data without systematically accounting for whether respondents are likely voters. It is well known that voters are not representative of the population as a whole. They skew older, whiter, and more conservative.