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Well, under this interpretation all lobbying basically circumvents sovereign democracy, there's nothing out of the ordinary I found out in this article other th

Well, under this interpretation all lobbying basically circumvents sovereign democracy, there's nothing out of the ordinary I found out in this article other than business as usual. And the thing is, lobbying by domestic and foreign interests has been so normalized, that most people are already numb to it. Like Putin was even visiting his Austrian politicians buddies who then got jobs at Russian oil and gas companies after their terms and nobody in EU kicked much fuss about it when it was all done public and in the open and in 2022 we got to experience the consequences. So as long as nobody from politics is going to jail for treason or insurrection, or at least lose their seat and generous pension over such blatant cases of corruption and treason, this will only continue or even grow larger, as those in power have proven to be unaccountable to anyone. I don't know how we(the public) can fix this peacefully an democratically, as any party I can vote for gets captured by lobbyist interests who seek to undermine our interests.

bojan 10mo ago
This _is_ democracy. Europeans don't vote left and green. Those groups have only 235 seats in the EU parliament out of 720.
- jack_tripper 10mo ago
  >Europeans don't vote left and green. Not difficult to see why when both parties have implemented policies that have become very unpopular with the masses. You're not gonna win voters on "let them eat cake" policies when the no. 1 concern of voters is keeping their job and affording the ever increasing bills. Both left and green parties have been writing cheques that the working class had to cash, so now they're experiencing the backlash consequences of their actions. It's just democracy at work. They need to "git gud" and give the people what they want if they want votes. It's really not rocket science, but self reflection seems to be heavily lacking in politics due to how detached the ruling class are from the working class.
  - peer2pay 10mo ago
    Social policies and a clean environment is what I want
    - jack_tripper 10mo ago
      What social and environmental policies are you currently lacking? Be specific please. And we all want many thing in life, like for example I would want my bus to work every 5 minutes instead of every 30 minutes, but everything nice in life has a hefty price, and if you make a large part of the economy bankrupt or leave and workers unemployed or broke from rising costs, in exchange for financially unrealistic environmental targets that only a small part of the population can tolerate("let them eat cake"), then that might not sit well with a large part of the democratic voting population who has to bare the brunt of your wishes. A balance has to be found between what's nice and desirable and what's economically feasible without causing economic hardship on others, otherwise something breaks and you get rising extremism and .
      - sambuccid 10mo ago
        That' true, but now everything depends on "what is economically feasable" and unless we are experts ourselves we can't really know. We need to rely on experts to tell us what is economically feasable, but those experts are the ones under pressure from lobbyists to say one thing or the other. Some parties says that it's economically feasable and that will actually save money, other parties say that it's not feasable and it would cost too much. Oil companies and countries that sell oil will say it's not feasable and companies that produce panels says that it is. We cannot rely on "what is economically feasable" because unless you are and expert you will have to get that info from one side or the other, and even independent bodies will be under lobbying pressures.
    - nsoqm 10mo ago
      Then vote for it. Seems a growing majority disagree with you now. Maybe those policies haven’t worked well for them.
- danielscrubs 10mo ago
  Then no lobbying against the politicians would be needed to be done. It’s easy to reduce it to party lines, but that kind of thinking is just wrong. Details matters. Is there a word for reducing it to something abstract and then attacking the abstraction, even though it is leaky?
- arp242 10mo ago
  It's not only "left and green" that have a policy agenda on climate change. Parties in the centre and centre-right do too. Of course there are disagreements on various trade-offs, but it's only really the far-right that strongly objects to action on climate change.
- 1718627440 10mo ago
  I don't vote left and green, rather the opposite and I still care about "human rights and climate law".
  - saubeidl 10mo ago
    Then you might be voting against your interests.
    - 1718627440 10mo ago
      No. I actually don't want abolishment of private ownership and actions (left) and I also don't want forced adoption of remote polluting energy sources ( aka. renewables) and gender ideologies (green). I want inclusion of exernalities into prices, which is an agenda of liberal and right-wing parties.
      - array_key_first 10mo ago
        But are the people you're voting for doing this, or are they more so just complaining about gender ideology while economically and environmentally fucking you up the ass? Because I'm betting it's the latter.
        cindyllm 10mo ago
        [dead]
        1718627440 10mo ago
        I think they do, otherwise I wouldn't vote for them. But my voting preferences are kind of orthogonal, what I wanted to point out is, that every party, which does not work against the constitution, cares about human rights and the climate. This is not a left/right issue.
mytailorisrich 10mo ago
Lobbying is part of the democratic process. There are many interests in society and it is right that their voices be heard and considered by the government and parliament when deciding on law and policy. It is important that there be rules to keep things transparent but lobbying is not a problem in itself. A simplistic example might be: Let's say that a group calls for a ban on all vehicles then it is right for groups relying on vehicles to make their voice heard to explain what the negative impact would be. Once government and parliament have heard all sides then they can make up their mind. If whole groups are banned from expressing their point of view and from defending their interests then it is no longer a democratic free society. Interference by foreign powers is a different thing altogether. Calls to ban lobbying are the usual "slippery slope" that leads to authoritarianism.
- grafmax 10mo ago
  Your voice being heard is one thing. What we have here is the consequence of huge wealth disparities. Those with the money can influence the “democratic” process in outsized ways. That is the opposite of democratic.
  - jack_tripper 10mo ago
    Yes, the system is "pay to win", always has.
  - mytailorisrich 10mo ago
    The implication of your comment is that "those with money" should be silenced or at least treated differently... slippery slope again. You can limit the amount of money spent on lobbying and/or political activities. That's about it, and that's already not easy to do.
    - grafmax 10mo ago
      No, my point is the root cause is wealth inequality, which is fundamentally undemocratic, and a different issue than free speech. The solution is wealth expropriation, not censorship.

bojan 10mo ago

This _is_ democracy. Europeans don't vote left and green. Those groups have only 235 seats in the EU parliament out of 720.

jack_tripper 10mo ago
>Europeans don't vote left and green. Not difficult to see why when both parties have implemented policies that have become very unpopular with the masses. You're not gonna win voters on "let them eat cake" policies when the no. 1 concern of voters is keeping their job and affording the ever increasing bills. Both left and green parties have been writing cheques that the working class had to cash, so now they're experiencing the backlash consequences of their actions. It's just democracy at work. They need to "git gud" and give the people what they want if they want votes. It's really not rocket science, but self reflection seems to be heavily lacking in politics due to how detached the ruling class are from the working class.
- peer2pay 10mo ago
  Social policies and a clean environment is what I want
  - jack_tripper 10mo ago
    What social and environmental policies are you currently lacking? Be specific please. And we all want many thing in life, like for example I would want my bus to work every 5 minutes instead of every 30 minutes, but everything nice in life has a hefty price, and if you make a large part of the economy bankrupt or leave and workers unemployed or broke from rising costs, in exchange for financially unrealistic environmental targets that only a small part of the population can tolerate("let them eat cake"), then that might not sit well with a large part of the democratic voting population who has to bare the brunt of your wishes. A balance has to be found between what's nice and desirable and what's economically feasible without causing economic hardship on others, otherwise something breaks and you get rising extremism and .
    - sambuccid 10mo ago
      That' true, but now everything depends on "what is economically feasable" and unless we are experts ourselves we can't really know. We need to rely on experts to tell us what is economically feasable, but those experts are the ones under pressure from lobbyists to say one thing or the other. Some parties says that it's economically feasable and that will actually save money, other parties say that it's not feasable and it would cost too much. Oil companies and countries that sell oil will say it's not feasable and companies that produce panels says that it is. We cannot rely on "what is economically feasable" because unless you are and expert you will have to get that info from one side or the other, and even independent bodies will be under lobbying pressures.
  - nsoqm 10mo ago
    Then vote for it. Seems a growing majority disagree with you now. Maybe those policies haven’t worked well for them.
danielscrubs 10mo ago
Then no lobbying against the politicians would be needed to be done. It’s easy to reduce it to party lines, but that kind of thinking is just wrong. Details matters. Is there a word for reducing it to something abstract and then attacking the abstraction, even though it is leaky?
arp242 10mo ago
It's not only "left and green" that have a policy agenda on climate change. Parties in the centre and centre-right do too. Of course there are disagreements on various trade-offs, but it's only really the far-right that strongly objects to action on climate change.
1718627440 10mo ago
I don't vote left and green, rather the opposite and I still care about "human rights and climate law".
- saubeidl 10mo ago
  Then you might be voting against your interests.
  - 1718627440 10mo ago
    No. I actually don't want abolishment of private ownership and actions (left) and I also don't want forced adoption of remote polluting energy sources ( aka. renewables) and gender ideologies (green). I want inclusion of exernalities into prices, which is an agenda of liberal and right-wing parties.
    - array_key_first 10mo ago
      But are the people you're voting for doing this, or are they more so just complaining about gender ideology while economically and environmentally fucking you up the ass? Because I'm betting it's the latter.
      - cindyllm 10mo ago
        [dead]
      - 1718627440 10mo ago
        I think they do, otherwise I wouldn't vote for them. But my voting preferences are kind of orthogonal, what I wanted to point out is, that every party, which does not work against the constitution, cares about human rights and the climate. This is not a left/right issue.

mytailorisrich 10mo ago

Lobbying is part of the democratic process. There are many interests in society and it is right that their voices be heard and considered by the government and parliament when deciding on law and policy. It is important that there be rules to keep things transparent but lobbying is not a problem in itself. A simplistic example might be: Let's say that a group calls for a ban on all vehicles then it is right for groups relying on vehicles to make their voice heard to explain what the negative impact would be. Once government and parliament have heard all sides then they can make up their mind. If whole groups are banned from expressing their point of view and from defending their interests then it is no longer a democratic free society. Interference by foreign powers is a different thing altogether. Calls to ban lobbying are the usual "slippery slope" that leads to authoritarianism.

grafmax 10mo ago
Your voice being heard is one thing. What we have here is the consequence of huge wealth disparities. Those with the money can influence the “democratic” process in outsized ways. That is the opposite of democratic.
- jack_tripper 10mo ago
  Yes, the system is "pay to win", always has.
- mytailorisrich 10mo ago
  The implication of your comment is that "those with money" should be silenced or at least treated differently... slippery slope again. You can limit the amount of money spent on lobbying and/or political activities. That's about it, and that's already not easy to do.
  - grafmax 10mo ago
    No, my point is the root cause is wealth inequality, which is fundamentally undemocratic, and a different issue than free speech. The solution is wealth expropriation, not censorship.