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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".
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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.
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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?
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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"?
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.