161–170 of 251 posts
This is really US taking down strategic competitors. It's nothing new. It's foreign policy, america first, double standard or whatever you want to name it.
journaliasts are bored by Boeing topics?
Airbus might well be paying them to appear so...
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While lobbyists have sometimes bribed officials through gifts and perks, which is illegal, lobbying is not bribery. Say you're interesting in promoting renewable energy. You and like minded people put together resources to promote renewable energy to politicians, explaining its benefits. This activity is lobbying for renewable energy.
This breaks down when politicians get some kind of personal benefit such as campaign contributions or a consulting job. This is a conflict of interest and should exclude them from any vote about the interests of the lobbyist.
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If you convince their constituents to whom they are beholden, sure. Behind closed doors, not at all, I very much agree with GP, there's a lot of pernicious shit going on that is actively harming democracies across the globe. Corporate lobbying is for the most part a well-funded, knowledgeable adversary generally in opposition to a bunch of people who at best can sign some petitions or march in the streets. It's an as…
Sure, bad things happen. We have chosen a non-direct, representative political system and lobbying is a direct causal result of this chosen system. It is not a side-effect. We intentionally wanted to create a group of people who could spend their time educating themselves on the issues at hand better than people as whole ever could. Lobbying is what we wanted as a result of this system. Unfortunately this sometimes l…
In most other democratic countries this is illegal.
It's intellectually dishonest to pretend that lobbying just means "reaching out to politicians about an issue and educating them about it."
Lobbying wouldn't be such a problem and corporations wouldn't have such unshaken influence on politicians compared to the People, if that was all there was to it.
But it's not just that - it's about those companies making "donations" to politicians that will then be much easier to "convince" to vote their way.
Watch this video if you aren't convinced, which is just a nice visual presentation of a study that was done and found out that what People want doesn't matter, but what corporations want has a direct correlation to how politicians vote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig
Also, I remember when one Congressman said post-SOPA that the anti-SOPA petitions made by people and all the calls were nice and all, but it wasn't until Google and other big companies got involved that politicians started really listening and many changed their minds on the vote.
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This breaks down when politicians get some kind of personal benefit such as campaign contributions or a consulting job. This is a conflict of interest and should exclude them from any vote about the interests of the lobbyist.
Lobbyist help politicians accomplish what they already wanted to do. Whenever politicians enact policy some interests inevitably benefit from it, and other interest's goals are frustrated by it. So of course there are going to be lobbyists (or activists) who want to argue their case on both sides, and good lobbyists are very well prepared and very persuasive. It's soft influence, and no quid pro quo is necessary for…
Do hearings, have technical staff to consult you on issues, etc, instead.
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It's true, but it's also true that many things that are considered corruption/illegal when you do it for the government, they are not when it's inside a company. If a business owner hires his nephew, that's not illegal and many people wouldn't consider it corruption. If a government official appoints his nephew, that's frowned upon to say the least. But going back to your argument, if an employee uses his position an…
> government official appoints his nephew, that's frowned upon to say the least What about when a President appoints his daughter and son-in-law?
(feels like sarcasm just experienced an integer overflow, or perhaps not)
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This breaks down when politicians get some kind of personal benefit such as campaign contributions or a consulting job. This is a conflict of interest and should exclude them from any vote about the interests of the lobbyist.
Lobbyist help politicians accomplish what they already wanted to do. Whenever politicians enact policy some interests inevitably benefit from it, and other interest's goals are frustrated by it. So of course there are going to be lobbyists (or activists) who want to argue their case on both sides, and good lobbyists are very well prepared and very persuasive. It's soft influence, and no quid pro quo is necessary for…
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>> You and like minded people put together resources to promote renewable energy to politicians Unlike corporations and their biggest shareholders, regular people don't have resources to influence politicians. Any lobbying attempt backed by non-corporate interests will not be able to reach politicians' ears. Politicians have no time for groups/think thanks which don't have a track record of paying up after politician…
As a regular person, I've spent $400 to travel to DC and walk in and meet with 12 senators and congressmen. No donations required and I got to spend an hour with each as and even got treated to lunch by one of my states US reps. Got the policy change,too. So many people are way to cynical. Lobbyists show up and citizens do not. When a citizen shows up (and is rational) legislators listen.
Also, without know the specific details of the policy change we can't know how to value this approach.
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Money isn't even the worst of it at this level. It's about networking, and what you can ask for. A top politician doesn't need to be bribed when they understand perfectly well that if they happen to need a little pocket money, they can just come and hold a speech for six figures. If the money will be there when you need it, there's only risk in letting it lie in your bank account. Likewise, blackmail. People imagine…
Careful, you might get censored.
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Lobbyist help politicians accomplish what they already wanted to do. Whenever politicians enact policy some interests inevitably benefit from it, and other interest's goals are frustrated by it. So of course there are going to be lobbyists (or activists) who want to argue their case on both sides, and good lobbyists are very well prepared and very persuasive. It's soft influence, and no quid pro quo is necessary for…
You haven’t explained why lobbyists are necessary, or even a good thing. Why is a system allowing lobbying better than one that bans it in favor of politicians independently making decisions based on the will expressed by and likely benefits for their constituents? And please don’t say it’s hard for them to understand all the issues. That’s literally their job and the reason they have a staff.
Because in many situations there's a very fine line between "lobbying" and "making decisions based on the will expressed by constituents". An organized group of concerned citizens is a lobby.
When it comes to outright bribing politicians, that's easy (and illegal). But there's a ton of grey-area in there. In fact, I'm not sure how you even could remove lobbying from the political process.