Re: [MLUG] Oh, look, Hulshof voted against net neutrality

["Jonathan King" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On 6/10/06, Phillip Kelchen <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
> Because the midterm elections are upcoming and *everything* becomes partisan.
> That and the Democrats are likely upset that the telcos and cable co's. paid
> the Republicans more.

I would put it another way.  Telecom firms paid the Republicans
massive amounts of money to pass this.  The reason why they don't also
pay Democrats massive amounts of money to pass this is the fact that
the current GOP leadership insists that corporate sponsors and
lobbyists choose sides, and specifically their side.

> Neither party is really all that great when it comes to
> tech issues as mother of all crap bills, the DMCA, was passed on Clinton's
> watch.

Yes, that was a fascinating one.  The reason this happened was also
due to money.  The "only give money to us" discipline of the GOP was
not nearly as strong in the mid-90s, and a lot of Democrats were quite
beholden in contributions from Hollywood industries.  Politically,
Clinton couldn't have vetoed that even if he wanted to (I don't know
what his real opinion was) because there would have been too many
pissed off congressmen in his party *and* because his veto would
likely have been over-ridden in any case.

> So was Carnivore.

Another losing battle. I agree that it was lame, and that Clinton
could have done a better  in fighting the good fight, but in the mid
90s, Clinton definitely had to pick his fights, and that wasn't one of
them.

> Since both parties tend to be rotten on these issues,
> I think that we just need to have a "cleaning of the house" and vote the bums
> out. Even if the new ones aren't that much better than the old ones, there
> will be enough disruption that not much will be passed, and that will be a
> good thing as far as we're concerned.

I think we'd be better off enacting the Jon King plan.  Get a
constitutional ammendment that simultaneously bans corporate income
taxes and does away with the status of corporations to do *anything*
political, and which further provides that only individual citizens of
the US are allowed to make any political contributions, in any amount
they choose.  By and large, I don't think politicians are better or
worse than anybody else, but they are uniquely dependent on a corrupt
system of financing for their careers, so that's the problem you need
to attack.

jking

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