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Old 01-06-2006, 04:31 PM   #6
Neil Mick
Dojo: Aikido of Santa Cruz
Location: Santa Cruz, CA
Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 225
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Re: Opportunity to Resurrect American

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Mike Sigman wrote:
People suddenly remembered that that evil "Big Business" is also what pays peoples' salaries. It was that drastic return to reality that forced the voters to put in "Ahnold".
Sorry, but this is a myth. Ahnold was put in on a "special election:" begun by an out-of-state Republican attempting an electoral end-run, ultimately won by Ahnold due both to the "wow" factor, to low poll-figures of Grey Davis, and to a slick, media-savvy campaign that was high on style, with almost zero substance.

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I'm amazed at how the bugaboo about "Big Business" is still a rallying cry for the emotionally unrestrained.
Yes, funny how all the folks got so "emotionally unrestrained" about Enron, isn't it?

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Hmmmmm.... so the people whose jobs depend on businesses shouldn't vote in politicians that favor their business employers?
Also funny, how you seem to equate "people whose jobs depend upon business," with "high-priced corporate lobbyists whose payola favors have a clear connection to voting records, in Congress?"

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Or, said another way, do you think that businesses represent aliens from Mars or "constituents"?
I think that corporate lobbyists have entirely too much power in DC, as well as Sacramento. You seem to completely ignore globalization, and the destructive effects of multi-national corporations on 3rd World countries.

Also, I'm wondering why you are treating the obvious corporate favor-machine (that was old in Eisenhower's day...remember the "military-industrial complex?" It didn't go away in the '60's) that runs gov't today as if it were some sort of special-interest group for a local Chamber of Commerce...it just ain't so, Virginia.

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Probably a fairer way to do it would be to give some competitive salary to working politicians and cap what they spend, but the idea of a sort of "barely controlled free market" is the essence of the US.
Hmm...an interesting idea. Needs a little expounding, tho. Where do the campaign finances come in? Or are campaign finances totally verboten, in your model?

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It's why we have the lowest unemployment rate, etc. in the free world and why 5% of the world population (the US) produces 25% of all the manufactured goods in the world.
I'm betting that China now exceeds us, in mfgr'd goods.

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I think other countries should pull their own weight and get rid of their own problems before they focus on the US's 'problems' so much.

Mike
I think that OUR country should pull its own weight and practice what it preaches...establish a REAL, ACTUAL democracy in THIS country...before it goes around the world, preaching its faux gospel of liberty and freedom, ad nauseum...to everyone else.
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