[MLUG - DISCUSSION] RE: [MLUG] An important note on the CBDTPA (SSSCA) bill

[Jonathan King <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

[moved to discussion list]

On Fri, 29 Mar 2002, "(8?»" wrote:

> Ding!
>
> What we have to do now is convince people that corporate ownership of
> politicians is bad for them. This has started, otherwise we wouldn't
> have a campaign finance bill signed into law. (thank you Enron!) The
> bill itself won't do much, but it will give folks a clue that real
> change is needed.

Sorry to be dense, but I have no idea what you really mean by the above.
If you think the bill is ineffective, then shouldn't you have wanted it to
*fail*?  In my experience, most people are more likely to think "Good,
that problem is solved" than to work for anything different or better.

Moreover, there is an interesting aspect of corporate political donations
that you fail to mention, which has both good and bad aspects.  Namely,
many corporate donations are given for incredibly specific things, rather
than a broad range of opinion.  In other words, Disney (say) really only
cares about 6 or fewer votes in any given session of congress, while a
more broadly based (or more ideological) group with money might demand
(relative) loyalty on dozens of votes.  If you are a politician in
fund-raising hell, it's easy to see why one source is more attractive than
another.

> Until a few thousand angry people hit the streets, we will continue to
> get fucked, daily.

Look, that does sound nice and all, but I know that personally the only
way *I* have gotten real attention is not to be angry, but to vote in
every possible election and be informative to the people I could vote for.
There's nothing like a letter that says "Hi, I've been a lifelong
supporter of party X, but in the next election cycle I am giving Y dollars
to your opponent because of your (intended) vote on Z".  If it's not a
form letter, some staffer can then look it up in the voter records, find
I've voted for virtually everything my entire life, then freak out
(especially if you contributed in the past).  Why?  Because people who
always vote are the people most likely to bring them down or push them up
through their votes and their proven influence on the votes of others, and
are simultaneously the ones least likely to care about the glitzy promises
of a campaign.

I make the calculated statement that if as few as 100 people who have
voted in every election (primary and "real") since the dawn of the 1990s
could honestly and independently write something like the above to their
congressmen, they could change a vote more readily than a $10,000 campaign
donation.  $10,000 is a fraction of a serious media buy, but 100 voters
telling their friends that congressman X sold them up the river and now
they can't make fair use copies of their CDs...the bill would never see
the light of day.

> But at least they smile at us and pretend to care.

Again, I dispute this particular level of cynicism.  The majority of the
politicians I have met or talked to really do care about some things
fairly strongly, but they do not have any reason to care about other
things *at all*, and it is about those things that there is the greatest
risk of them selling out or the greatest opportunity that they will be
persuaded to vote the way their constituents really want them to.  To put
it another way, your chance of changing a specific vote on gun control,
abortion, or funding for higher education is zero if the politician has a
strong interest in that issue, but pretty high if his or her interests lie
elsewhere.

jking


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