In Which The Author Finally Shows That He Isn't Uber Super Crazy Stupid Liberal Anymore, Or Somethin

[canadianceilidh]

So, here's the latest installment of my political essays for me to work out these things in a coherent form in my head, written mainly because I just drank a Monster and my heart is racing like a pedophile in a preschool

Comments

[leeflower]

I think a distinction needs to be made between lobbies and PACs, though. Granted it's grain of salt time, because I'm sitting at the FCNL reception desk as I type this, but there is a difference. PACs endorse candidates. They raise money to give to parties, candidates, causes, etc. Dirty lobbyists do that too, and have no qualms about bribing people to get what they want. But a vast majority of what groups like FCNL do isn't that. For one, they're legally forbidden to endorse candidates or make donations to same.

FCNL has an agenda. They're a quaker organization. They believe that war is wrong. They believe that the nation has a responsibility to help its poor. They believe that descrimination on the basis of cultural bindings is bad. But what they do with that agenda isn't strong-arm politicians into doing what they want (they couldn't, anyway. They don't have that kind of clout). Most of what they do is provide information to both elected officials and their constituents. I have to go on a lit-drop today about the nuclear deal with India. We're not going into offices and telling congressmen that we'll say horrid things about them if they support this deal, or trying to convince them that nuclear weapons are evil. We're saying "you might want to have your peope check over the language of this bill, because under these terms, India won't have to abide by the Nuclear Non-proliforation Treaty. All the other nuclear powers in the world, US included, have to submit to inspection of their nuclear facilities. Bush is ok with letting India say 'fuck your inspectors.' You ah... might want to consider doing something about that." We're doing it because Representatives don't have huge offices and wads of cash to spend on assistants that stay on top of everything. It's very possible that most of them don't know the details of this deal, and haven't asked because they don't have time. We tell them, they check it, and they can do with that information what they will. We're fairly certain it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that ammendments might be in order to fix this whole 'no one gets to check on them' thing, so we don't have to try to convince them that listening to us is more important than listening to their constituents. They already know their constituents come first-- we don't have money to throw at them.

PACs are another kettle of fish, though. Yaaaay soft-money donations and free vacations to the bahamas! They're what make Washington go 'round!

This comment got really damn long. Sorry.