4 ms·

There's not that many, though. The vast majority of Democrats like corporate employment.

gremlinsinc 8y ago
The key is passing anti-corruption acts that get money out of politics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhe286ky-9A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhe286ky-9A If it's illegal for lobbyists, corporations, etc to donate to politicians, then we can make politics more fair/ethical. This is a bipartisan group working to get these passed. Anti-corruption benefits everyone.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > If it's illegal for lobbyists, corporations, etc to donate to politicians It is illegal for corporations to donate to politicians. But independent expenditures that aren't donated are another matter, which you can't eliminate without taking a big whack to the first amendment and core political speech.
  - gremlinsinc 8y ago
    It is not illegal for corporations to donate to political campaigns. It's also not illegal for corporations and lobbyists to offer jobs, to politicians after they retire from congress. Howard dean once a politician is now a lobbyist. See: https://act.represent.us/sign/the-problem/ https://act.represent.us/sign/the-problem/ Corruption in America is perfectly legal, and the 1% carry a much larger voice than the bottom 90%, if politicians did what voters wanted it'd be a different story, see the video on that link for evidence that politicians vote 0% of the time with what the people want, and follow a more normal curve with the elites/corporations. Money shouldn't = speech. This gives certain people more access to free speech, tips the tables, makes the country an oligarchy not a republic or democracy. Imagine if all federal offices gave each person running $1 million dollars. Media stations gave each person 30 minutes/month during primaries and general elections for ads. No donations were allowed from corporations, and nothing from an individual exceeding 1000. Imagine if lobbying were completely illegal. The anti-corruption laws (see represent.us link above) would fix this. It's a bi-partisan movement to fix corruption on BOTH sides of the aisle.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > It is not illegal for corporations to donate to political campaigns The FEC, who actually enforced election law, disagrees: https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate-taking-receipts/who-can-and-cannot-contribute/ https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate... “Campaigns may not accept contributions from the treasury funds of corporations, labor organizations or national banks. This prohibition applies to any incorporated organization, including a nonstock corporation, a trade association, an incorporated membership organization and an incorporated cooperative.”
      - gremlinsinc 8y ago
        Except there are plenty of 'loopholes'. 1. Superpacs. 2. DNC Fund. (Automatically went to clinton in many cases, so it was another bucket of cash for her campaign. It should've been split evenly in the primary between her and other primary runners. 3. Promises. 'Hey larry, when you're out of congress, let us know if you want to work for our Posh lobby firm. Comfy pay and benefits'. 4. There own interests. Cheney / Haliburton. Anything about Trump. 5. Hillary Victory fund raised: $523.6M -- how many did state parties get of that? 6. There's a lot of ways to hide money. What about speaking engagements.. or other ways to 'pay' the candidate, so they can use their 'own' (but recently acquired) cash on hand? How much do the Clintons or Trumps receive to do a speaking engagement? I don't know the answer to get rid of all corruption, but how is it that ISP's were able to give money to politicians who voted against net neutrality? INAL but here's a list: https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15100620/congress-fcc-isp-web-browsing-privacy-fire-sale https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15100620/congress-fcc-isp... Example: Grassley, Chuck : $135,125. Obviously they can give money, and do to move their political aims. To say they don't means you're living under a box. Maybe if they give it outside an election term when they're not running for office? That money from ISP's should be illegal, but it isn't.
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        > I don't know the answer to get rid of all corruption, but how is it that ISP's were able to give money to politicians who voted against net neutrality? There are four things that are often described by activists and the media as donations by corporations (sometimes combined, sometimes just one or the other—the first and third seem to be the most common where dollar figures are given, because they are most readily available), in roughly decreasing order of the degree to which such descriptions are misleading: (1) donations by employees of the corporation (regular individual donors with reportable donations must disclose their employer, and often donations by employees of a firm or industry are described as donations by the firm or industry.) (2) Donations to “leadership organizations” directed by candidates (this is misleading when described as a campaign donation to the candidate, because such organizations are conduits that allow the candidate to promote other candidates), and (3) Donations to SuperPACs that align to some extent with a particular candidate. (This is a wobbler in terms of how misleading g it is, because some superPACs are essentially focussed on a single candidate, and some are more general.) (4) Donations from a corporate “separate segregated fund” (this money doesn't actually come from the corporation as such—it is separately solicited from managers and shareholders—but is directed by it.) The particular article you refer to expressly combines the first two categories. So, to completely ban the contributions identified in that article, you'd have to prohibit anyone with a job from contributing to a political campaign, and to eliminate everything commonly portrayed as corporate contributions, you'd have to also outlaw independent expenditures (which are what SuperPACs do) on political advocacy.

The key is passing anti-corruption acts that get money out of politics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhe286ky-9A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhe286ky-9A If it's illegal for lobbyists, corporations, etc to donate to politicians, then we can make politics more fair/ethical. This is a bipartisan group working to get these passed. Anti-corruption benefits everyone.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> If it's illegal for lobbyists, corporations, etc to donate to politicians It is illegal for corporations to donate to politicians. But independent expenditures that aren't donated are another matter, which you can't eliminate without taking a big whack to the first amendment and core political speech.
- gremlinsinc 8y ago
  It is not illegal for corporations to donate to political campaigns. It's also not illegal for corporations and lobbyists to offer jobs, to politicians after they retire from congress. Howard dean once a politician is now a lobbyist. See: https://act.represent.us/sign/the-problem/ https://act.represent.us/sign/the-problem/ Corruption in America is perfectly legal, and the 1% carry a much larger voice than the bottom 90%, if politicians did what voters wanted it'd be a different story, see the video on that link for evidence that politicians vote 0% of the time with what the people want, and follow a more normal curve with the elites/corporations. Money shouldn't = speech. This gives certain people more access to free speech, tips the tables, makes the country an oligarchy not a republic or democracy. Imagine if all federal offices gave each person running $1 million dollars. Media stations gave each person 30 minutes/month during primaries and general elections for ads. No donations were allowed from corporations, and nothing from an individual exceeding 1000. Imagine if lobbying were completely illegal. The anti-corruption laws (see represent.us link above) would fix this. It's a bi-partisan movement to fix corruption on BOTH sides of the aisle.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > It is not illegal for corporations to donate to political campaigns The FEC, who actually enforced election law, disagrees: https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate-taking-receipts/who-can-and-cannot-contribute/ https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate... “Campaigns may not accept contributions from the treasury funds of corporations, labor organizations or national banks. This prohibition applies to any incorporated organization, including a nonstock corporation, a trade association, an incorporated membership organization and an incorporated cooperative.”
    - gremlinsinc 8y ago
      Except there are plenty of 'loopholes'. 1. Superpacs. 2. DNC Fund. (Automatically went to clinton in many cases, so it was another bucket of cash for her campaign. It should've been split evenly in the primary between her and other primary runners. 3. Promises. 'Hey larry, when you're out of congress, let us know if you want to work for our Posh lobby firm. Comfy pay and benefits'. 4. There own interests. Cheney / Haliburton. Anything about Trump. 5. Hillary Victory fund raised: $523.6M -- how many did state parties get of that? 6. There's a lot of ways to hide money. What about speaking engagements.. or other ways to 'pay' the candidate, so they can use their 'own' (but recently acquired) cash on hand? How much do the Clintons or Trumps receive to do a speaking engagement? I don't know the answer to get rid of all corruption, but how is it that ISP's were able to give money to politicians who voted against net neutrality? INAL but here's a list: https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15100620/congress-fcc-isp-web-browsing-privacy-fire-sale https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15100620/congress-fcc-isp... Example: Grassley, Chuck : $135,125. Obviously they can give money, and do to move their political aims. To say they don't means you're living under a box. Maybe if they give it outside an election term when they're not running for office? That money from ISP's should be illegal, but it isn't.
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        > I don't know the answer to get rid of all corruption, but how is it that ISP's were able to give money to politicians who voted against net neutrality? There are four things that are often described by activists and the media as donations by corporations (sometimes combined, sometimes just one or the other—the first and third seem to be the most common where dollar figures are given, because they are most readily available), in roughly decreasing order of the degree to which such descriptions are misleading: (1) donations by employees of the corporation (regular individual donors with reportable donations must disclose their employer, and often donations by employees of a firm or industry are described as donations by the firm or industry.) (2) Donations to “leadership organizations” directed by candidates (this is misleading when described as a campaign donation to the candidate, because such organizations are conduits that allow the candidate to promote other candidates), and (3) Donations to SuperPACs that align to some extent with a particular candidate. (This is a wobbler in terms of how misleading g it is, because some superPACs are essentially focussed on a single candidate, and some are more general.) (4) Donations from a corporate “separate segregated fund” (this money doesn't actually come from the corporation as such—it is separately solicited from managers and shareholders—but is directed by it.) The particular article you refer to expressly combines the first two categories. So, to completely ban the contributions identified in that article, you'd have to prohibit anyone with a job from contributing to a political campaign, and to eliminate everything commonly portrayed as corporate contributions, you'd have to also outlaw independent expenditures (which are what SuperPACs do) on political advocacy.