Only shows on Current TV has covered it. That is a channel. Other than that, its blacked out on everything else. Just like NDAA and anything OWS does. As they are owned by the people who would want stuff like this to pass. Its not a conspiracy theory, its just how shit works in this fucked up country.
To make it easier, faster, cheaper, etc.
pshh, be quite people may think that you are crazy
Funny how people still firmly believe lobbyin isn’t a bad thing.
Should the govt legislate in a vacuum?
The urge to legislate, is really the bad thing.
Lobbyin on paper isn’t bad, because like you said. It gives some focus to politicians, for who the most part, practice politics out of the need and desire to attain power and self gratification. But when it evolves into a shit storm where the only people with umbrella’s are the billion dollar companies. Well, it ensures that lobbying in practice, in a psuedo-capatilistic society, is a very bad idea.
Hey guys I’ve got a throbbing urge to legislate. What should I do?
Watch Nailin Palin? 
How would you differentiate ‘grassroots’ lobbying from ‘corporate’ lobbying without chipping away at the 1st amendment?
The only solution to what you see as inherently ‘a very bad idea’ (which definitely has more than its share of scandal) is to have well informed, principled voters who are willing to let their career representatives (who respond to votes as well as they do $$/power) know that they arent going to stand for it, just like what has happened and turned the tide in this SOPA outcome. Of course, this is also lobbyying. And this solution I speak of is generally the only way one that can solve most of the problems that people associate with society, and it is the one and only thing that can save the republic.
In a republic such as ours, the power that is vested in the inevitably corrupt legislators/govt ultimately rests in the hands of the citizens. In a perfectly ignorant republic, those with the most $$$ (corporations, etc…) have all the influence; in a perfectly informed republic the influence lies in the individual (or there is no influence).
I understand the need for caution. But here’s what happened with SOPA: the will of the people was utterly, diametrically opposed to the interest of a major lobbying organization. That lobbying organization attempted to cajole our elected officials with potentially limitless donations and simultaneously attempted to strong-arm them by threatening to cut them off without a cent. At the risk of stating the obvious, the vast majority of people do not have this power. And the idea that everybody is going to rise up with one voice and demand to be heard every single time, while possible and ideal, is a bit pie-in-the-sky. By the time the information gets out and the great bell curve of regular people get wise, the bamboozling will have already taken place. Unless we’re lucky.
Our government isn’t in place to represent only the major lobbying organizations. It’s in place to represent all of us. Those organizations either don’t understand that or don’t care about it, and they’ve just revealed to us the kind of mafia thuggery they’re willing to stoop to in order to get their way.
I think it’s sparkling damn clear that we are in dire need of a limit–and a very tight one–on the level of influence, particularly monetary influence, that lobbying groups are allowed to have upon the government. I’m all for whatever precautions need to be taken to prevent such measures from overreaching, but something needs to be done. The alternative is what we have now, and that isn’t acceptable.
The obvious fact is that citizens have something that corporate lobbying organizations dont; they can take away votes (read: politicians’ careers).
If the citizens of a republic insist on remaining ignorant the govt will step in and take care of it. This will only further atrophy the survival instinct of the republic and the govt will play a greater and greater role until the republic has evaporated. Of course you can never have a perfectly informed citizenry, but I was trying to illustrate a point. We will get the govt we deserve. If we drag an ignorant republic through the motions, its not going to last, no matter how innocuous the new powers given to the govt seem.
If anything is sparkling clear, it is that even the miserably half assedly informed, terminally distracted, lazy republic of ours is capable of thwarting the most powerful and driven lobbying organizations in the country/world, even if it was only temporarily. Imagine if people actually cared for real.
That would be great. I say that sincerely. But I don’t want to count on that every time the shit is about to hit the fan. I also think that simply living with a bought-and-paid-for-government is not the only alternative.
I hope people appreciate what we were able to do with SOPA, but that must go hand in hand with the appreciation of what a perfect storm it was. This particular conflict happened to be, in a sense, old media (TV/movie/music companies) versus new media (user-generated content, social media, etc.). And new media was willing to talk about this stuff whereas old media just swept it under the rug. When Facebook and Wikipedia take a stand in response to a threat, people are going to notice. What happens when the issue is something that doesn’t directly concern these prominent platforms of communal information?
If Srk people could sign this,
https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/
hopefully it’ll help. Maybe if it gets front page then it’ll help get signatures for the petition!
hahaa
Maybe Im no optimist
Maybe Im paranoid the US is circling the drain/transitioning
Its great the internet was saved and all, but not for long
Only so many bandaids you can treat the symptoms with, but only one thing can change all of this garbage going on
No extra governmental lobbyist orgs put NDAA/etc up for consideration
Anti-lobbying measures would not address NDAA. That is quite true.
I understand the purpose of the band-aid metaphor. Yes, there is a bigger problem, but why don’t we at least stop some of the bleeding until we get it figured out? If the public is going to be informed and active, there needs to be a free exchange of information–the very thing that was jeopardized when the entertainment industry essentially paid to have SOPA put on the table. Band-aids aren’t a solution in and of themselves, but they have their use.
How many people here learned about NDAA from media other than the web, and how much did they learn about it? I’m guessing not many, and not much.
Chris Dodd speaks in regards to SOPA. He expresses regret over his pro-SOPA strategy: http://theverge.com/2012/1/20/2720660/mpaa-chairman-former-senator-chris-dodd-sopa-strategy-compromise
“Dodd blames the bills’ reduced support on a slow timeline that allowed opposition to mobilize” can be roughly translated to:
“Dodd would like the next version of the bills to be shoved through so fast that we have no time to complain.” :lol:
Protect Intellectual Property Act vote postponed: http://judiciary.house.gov/news/01202012.html
Why do we still have representatives? I thought the excuse was that it was unrealistic for every single person to take time to go to DC to vote on every bill in the horse and carriage era. With the internet, it seems like we could have something closer to a real democracy. If everybody had a say in every piece of legislation, lobbying would be almost impossible. It’s a lot easier to line the pockets of a handful of congressmen and senators than it is to bribe millions of citizens. Obviously, there are a lot of issues to address before something like that is realistic, but I guess that’s why bills like SOPA exist: to make sure that never happens.
We win! For the time being atleast. http://news.yahoo.com/house-backer-anti-piracy-act-withdraw-bill-163705199.html
I would eat a hot, sticky, twinkie out of Lisa Ann’s asshole and I fucking hate twinkies.
MSNBC also put this up-