378
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2023
378 points (95.0% liked)
politics
19089 readers
2128 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Because lobbying does have its place. When your local charity that advocates for better mental health sends someone to speak to a senator about how a program could be improved, or where it is causing issues, that's lobbying.
The corruption comes when the senator expects a three course meal experience as the cost of having that talk with they lobbyist, or the lobbyist has connections to people who will totally not base their donations on what the senator agrees to during the meeting. Sure, we could make that sort of lobbying illegal, but who is going to investigate 400+ individuals having several meetings a day with people wanting to advocate for various agendas? The IRS is already getting the shaft, and they're the ones who freaking bring in the money! Do you think congress will ever agree to pay money to set up something to investigate themselves?
That's why lobbying should be okay, but excepting money and/or goods or even a cookie is corrupt. There should be an ethics code or something and every prosecutor in the country should go after every single one of them.
I used to work for the government here in Europe. It was really emphasized that accepting gifts from the public is never acceptable.
Then I worked for a nonprofit that had 1 person who had ties to the government in our board and even there, when a client brought me wine because I helped house them (my job), I had to decline and explain why.
It was harder, because they were refugees and didn't understand. I said the gesture was appreciated and I gladly helped them, but it could be seen as corruption and would jeopardize the funding of my organisation.
Afterwards I was laughingly bitching at my boss and colleagues about how I had to say no to good wine and it was blasphemy. So I got a few bottles of wine every year for my birthday from then on.
That's worlds apart from profit-based corporations and rich people sending money, hosting high dollar fundraisers and bundling hundreds if not thousands of maximum "individual" donations. Not even the same UNIVERSE as unlimited dark money.
That it isn't already is extremely embarrassing to anyone who claims that corruption isn't rampant in American politics. It already IS illegal for doctors to do that and, while there's a lot of people exploiting loopholes, it's nothing compared to the number of politicians doing it like it's the most natural thing in the world.
Mainly BECAUSE of the rich and powerful being the de facto deciders of most laws
They will if they're forced to. I'm thinking a general strike and just 1/1000 of the people dissatisfied with the corruption protesting in front of their offices every day for a few weeks or months ought to do it. Could even do it in shifts so no one person has to go more than a couple times a month and still have plenty enough to make the status quo that's needlessly killing hundreds of thousands of people people unbearable to the corrupt demagogues maintaining it too.
If you want a general strike to happen en masse, you need to create an organization to coordinate it. If Occupy Wall Street showed anything, it's that you need leadership to provide organization and coordination.
One of the things this organization will need to be able to do is put food on the table for someone who's striking but living paycheck to paycheck. It'll need to be able to take care of people that are fired.
It would effectively need to brand itself as a citizen's union, and ask for dues and donations so it can build a war chest for the strike itself.
Shits tough to do. For that much effort, people would rather just go into politics and try to make a difference there. And that is actually something that we need more people to do.