what a surprise to find that there are lobbyists who would, well, do anything for the almighty dollar.

let's change that.

corporate "citizenship"? NFW.
why should the CEO get more votes than you or I?

campaign fund raising? yeah right.
why aren't these folks doing the job they were elected to do?
so they can raise more money from their corporate sponsors?
public funding would help.

and the idea that this has blossomed because of this administration?
of course it has. there has never been a more corrupt group of partisans than we have now.

what are you going to do?

let's take them down.

now.

let's make this a nation worth being proud of again.

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Thank you, despite the hopelessness and despair i feel through reading this article, for bringing it to light. We have surmised as much. Now we know. Keep on turning on the light.

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"Today, we spend the hour with a man who claims to have worked deep inside the forces driving corporate globalization. In his first book, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”, John Perkins ---Amy Goodman's Democracy Now
June 5th.

The concept of generic class corruption is gaining ground, in spite of all the class liberals, who dismiss these issues on Alternet, who do not even recognize that their own ideology is tied historically to a class transformation and betrayal, corruption of revolutionary liberals, into class appeasers, and denial a generic historical class mechanism. These class liberals, and all other class thugs do not want to discuss the betrayal of all Western democracies, democratic revolutions, between the Enlightenment and collapse into Napoleonism, class laws, and Empire.

The rise of the commercial and industrial classes into oligarchies, meant that its "new middle classes", would not be fully developed, and also transformed into corrupting agents for class rule. Revolutionary liberals had as their goal a fully functioning middle class mechanism, a middle layer, without class masters, that in fact would be the social mechanism for democracy and social wealth principle. A fully devoloped middle layer, inherently has the moral and democratic center, that in fact can claim this social and democratic principle, which alll class societies falsely claim. A crippled deformed middle layer, partially developed, as it strangles economically, limits its full social potential, in the same way throughout the world, by an oligarchy, becomes the economic hit men, corrupted class elites, and the mechanism, which reproduces this generic class rot, both internally and externally through Empire.

This generic class mechanism and corruption, has revolutionary implications that go beyond the present class form of Late capitalism. The ancient Greeks described cvil societies though this degenerative class process and mechanism which reproduces, tyrants, oligarchies, plutocracies, and Empires. What this means to all of us, if we are to have any real control of our lives, democracy and social wealth, is that we must dismantle both the oligarchies, and its crippled middle layers, hierarchies, which reproduces this class rot and wholesale slaughter through imperial Empires. Also we do not even realize, that this deformation, corrupts all ideologies, and therefore, the need to break, to be truly independent, of corporate and class interests. In principle, all class thuggish rogue states, should be registered not as "foreign" agencies, but as economic hit men, corrupted elites serving American Empire and Corporate tyranny.

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... are sub-human by every standard of behavior we try to uphold.

They waste our air and water.

An almost demonic evil.

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Ask any American outside D.C. if they would lobby on behalf of a bloodthirsty dictatorship and the answer would be instant and unequivocal: “Hell, NO!”

Inside the Beltway, the reply would be longer in coming, with patriotism never a consideration.

Enough said about Washington lobbyists.

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Alternet keeps running these articles...this is broken..that is broken..this is corrupt...that is corrupt...

THE ENTIRE AMERICAN SYSTEM IS BROKEN. The elections-the press-the men in power-the 40 hour/commute work week-the profit for the rich system-the banking system-the military-the educational system-the industrial pollution-
The only real question is- What are we going to do about it?

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Umdercover tactic to expose crime, I hardly think this could qualify as a lie. Mr. Silverstein is brilliant in his reprisal of lobbying firms whose members demonstrate disregard for humanitarian principles globally. They seem like actors brandishing success on the world stage at the expense of "oh well who cares." Academics, wasted due to lack of compunction in the savvy corporate wasteland still described as democracy.

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This story shows how unethical practices run rampant in Washington D.C.. I am very much discouraged by the lack of ethical decision making demonstrated by the nation's highest elected office holders.

These lobbying firms wouldn't be as successful if members of Congress, The WH, State Department, et al. were careful about making decisions in an ethical manner.

Changes are in order.

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"... lobby on behalf of a bloodthirsty dictatorship"? They already live under one, don't they?

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Why do we believe that even the most vicious murderer deserves a proper defense? Because we believe in the rule of law.

Unless lobbyists are breaking the law, accusations amount to nothing more than holier-than-thou pontificating. And it's not that our legislators are so dumbed down that they need to be protected from evil lobbyists.

The POV of the writer of this piece, that the advocacy from the lobbyists has no justification, amounts to pathetic moralizing. And the lack of information about the lobbyists on the other side--in every case--amounts to pathetic journalism.

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Ths right to petition our government is guaranteed by our Constitution. It is similar to our right to free speech.

As long as it's legal for foreign governments and corporations to lobby, a lobbyist has an implied duty to lobby for anyone who hires him. This is similar to the duty of a defense lawyer to defend anyone who hires him. Lobbyists and lawyers can refuse clients but do we want some people to keep others from exercising their legal rights? I don't think so.

Lobbyists are in business. The only difference between any business and a criminal enterprise is that the business is constrained by laws. We are in the unfortunate predicament that business controls our government and has an undue influence on our laws.

Anyone who is dissatisfied should know that nothing will change until we, the people, take control of our government.
Bob Reichenbach,
Director, The Lincoln Initiative.

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If we put all the crooks who work in or strive to influence our government officials in uniform and equip them with the tools necessary for a fully functioning army, there'd be little need for our forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. The BOSS and his suckup toadies could rule the lot from their secure trenches, or "undisclosed locations". We didn't arrive at this sad situation overnight, and we won't get out of it any time soon, either, but the effort must be made, and the sooner, the better. In my perfect world, President Al Gore, Vice President Dennis Kucinich, and Attorney General John Edwards would lead the way to a more ethical and moral way of conducting government affairs and punishing evildoers as well as making it impossible for them to insinuate their way into positions of influence. Well, I can dream, can't I?

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This is somewhat like telling us that a crack whore will do virtually anything to finance her habit. Were you really expecting anybody to be shocked?

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American culture reveres the "look prosperous, attain POWER, screw EVERYBODY" ethics model. The US invented television & film... & the entire culture is abscessed with self-awareness & image over substance.

Its been around forever... but the US has turned it into an art form:
debt, corruption, cruelty... anything goes as long as you LOOK like you could tear somebody's ears off & get paid for doing it.

Take a LONG look at some 'Brocklehurst' CHARITIES & your hair will fall out.
(what? you don't know what I mean? )

What charities? well, the ones all those Trophy Brides & daughters get into for something to do with themselves & give jobs to each other.

Sure, undermining governments is lucrative, but a good bottle blonde knows the secret to real power is indebting the daughters & wives of the uber-riche.

its one incestuous melting pot & we're encouraging by giving them 'respectability' & esteem.

Why is it that a DOCTOR can still have social respectability if they spend 1/2 their time taking free trips for prescribing more BigPharm 'cures' than their counterparts?

WE are the problem. Why? Because nobody looks ANYBODY in the face anymore & says, "are you fucking kidding me?"


Spread Love...
... but wear the Glove!

BlueBerry Pick'n
can be found @
ThisCanadian
"We, two, form a multitude" ~ Ovid
==
"Silent Freedom is Freedom Silenced"

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Gee Mr Silverstein I don't see AIPAC, the most powerful foreign lobby in the US on your list? I wonder why?

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Extracted from the Internet:

Over about two decades of lobbying (during which he also acted and practiced law), Thompson made nearly $1.3 million and represented clients including a British reinsurance company facing billions of dollars in asbestos claims, Canadian-owned cable companies, and deposed Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, according to government documents and media accounts from his first run for the Senate in 1994…

“There’s nothing wrong with lobbying. It’s an honorable profession,” said Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Thompson

A year after stepping down [from the Senate in January 2003], Fred registered to lobby for British reinsurance company Equitas Ltd. The company paid him $760,000 to guard its interests against several bills seeking to protect businesses from asbestos lawsuits.

Critics point out that Thompson’s aw-shucks, shit-kicker populism is more than a little bit phony in that he spent 18 years as a registered Washington lobbyist, doing the bidding of such high-powered clients as General Electric and Westinghouse, pushing for the passage of the deregulatory legislation that led to the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s.

End of extract.

What say you, AlterNet trolls and stealth Bushies?

P.S.: Don't forgot William "NAFTA" Clinton who got $500,000 to lobby for a Dubai company during the U.S. ports takeover fiasco, making more money in one weekend than my self-employed, single mom daughter will in 20 years.

What say you, Senator Clinton for president fans?

Is it okay that Bill betray America to increase Hillary's personal wealth (she gets half of his blood money) while my patriotic daughter works her butt off with no retirement plan or affordable health insurance?

That's called a rhetorical question.

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I can't believe that someone could write such an extensive article purporting to expose the underbelly of lobbying and not even mention AIPAC.
Sorry - the the ommission renders your article and expose totally meaningless.

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The great myth that those American people who get their news from the corporate outlets suffer from is that of 'America: the world's benevolent cop'.

The myth goes something like this: "We, the United States, are the hardest-working, most vibrant economy on the face of the planet, and that means that we have a responsibility to the rest of the planet to keep the peace by dealing with bad guys like Saddam Hussein."

The reality is that much of the wealth in the United States has been captured at low cost from foreign nations using covert and overt military force. This has been so successful that US corporations now can get their raw materials and labor in foreign countries for pennies, usually via arrangments with a variety of corrupt anti-democratic puppet governments.

In turn, the US relies on those corrupt governments to ensure good profits for US and British arms manufacturering interests. We give the Saudis US dollars in exchange for their oil, and then most of those US dollars are reinvested in US corporations (like Murdoch's Fox) or used to finance big arms sales by Lockheed, Boeing or the Carlyle Group.

The recent scandal involving British finance, the Saudi lobby and Prince Bandar are another shining example of how this works, as the recent $2 billion bribery scandal involving BAE Systems revealed. The whole story behind that goes right back to US arms sales to the Saudis:

“Although Al-Yamamah constitutes a highly unconventional way of doing business, its lucrative spin-offs are the by-product of a wholly political objective: a Saudi political objective and a British political objective. Al-Yamamah is, first and foremost, a political contract. Negotiated at the height of the Cold War, its unique structure has enabled the Saudis to purchase weapons from around the globe to fund the fight against Communism. Al-Yamamah money can be found in the clandestine purchase of Russian ordnance used in the expulsion of Qaddafi’s troops from Chad. It can also be traced to arms bought from Egypt and other countries, and sent to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan fighting the Soviet occupying forces.”

Now, why is it that all the 911truthers are so reluctant to discuss the Saudi lobby? Why all the unhappiness over AIPAC? This is how all corrupt foreign governments interact with the US-British corporatocracy. Commentors like HughScott who focus on AIPAC are just more of the usual 'international conspiracy of Jews and Communists' types who were so popular in the 1930's.

The real question of interest is just who else was supplied by Al-Yamamah's 'unconventional' methods? In the years leading up to 9/11, Osama and Al Queda were financed by the Saudis using covert means, weren't they?

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Just this past week (no kidding) I was hoping Michael Moore's next documentary would be an under cover peice on (political crack whores) lobbyists. The work by this journalist would be a good place to start. Thank you!

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I am very saddened,depressed what ever to read this article.
I knew Washington was corrupt but not to this extent.
Bush & Cheney should be tried as War Criminals same as the Nazis.
So far 655,000 Iraqs have been killed. When does it stop?
In the 2,008 Election for President the only person who stands out is Ron Paul
If U haven't heard of him you're not by yourself as the media is trying to ignore him.
Go to Google & put in Ron Paul & U will find out all U need to know.
Only Presidential contender who refers to the Constitution & how we have strayed from it.
Take a look & see what U think.
GARY

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