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Conflict of interests
By Ned | July 21, 2008
A convention swag bag with the AT&T logo? For real, Democrats?
Here’s a tip from the folks at the Republican Party, who have been doing this whole “corporate sellout” thing a lot longer and are a hell of a lot better at it: When accepting corporate sponsors who happen to have lobbied for reprehensible legislation which you in turn supported, sometime it’s a good idea to exert the smallest amount of restraint and not plaster their logo on your shit.
Come on, guys. There’s a reason why even President Bush manages to stop just short of delivering his speeches in a KBR baseball cap.
Topics: Corruption, Elections |
July 21st, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Interview Request
Hello Dear and Respected,
I hope you are fine and carrying on the great work you have been doing for the Internet surfers. I am Ghazala Khan from The Pakistani Spectator (TPS), We at TPS throw a candid look on everything happening in and for Pakistan in the world. We are trying to contribute our humble share in the webosphere. Our aim is to foster peace, progress and harmony with passion.
We at TPS are carrying out a new series of interviews with the notable passionate bloggers, writers, and webmasters. In that regard, we would like to interview you, if you don’t mind. Please send us your approval for your interview at my email address “ghazala.khi at gmail.com”, so that I could send you the Interview questions. We would be extremely grateful.
regards.
Ghazala Khan
The Pakistani Spectator
http://www.pakspectator.com
July 21st, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Really the best answer is to take money (or corporate sponsorship) and do what you want regardless. But taking it after cutting a deal for telecom immunity is just bad PR work.
I just like the idea of cheerfully accepting money and then pretending as if it wasn’t a donation to buy some influence.
July 21st, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Corey - The problem with that, as Lawrence Lessig would point out, is that accepting corporate sponsorship at all undermines the public’s trust in you as long as it’s possible that the appearance of that sponsorship influencing legislation still exists.
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:53 am
OMG! How completely stupid are they at the DNC? Is that a joke?
Yeah, with the whole FISA thing it really reeks. I would rather they skip the convention and all that wasted money and give people things like, I don’t know, healthcare!
They could easily get progressive sponsors. No reason to sell out like corporate W’s.
I heard in one session that the Congress critters who voted against FISA the first time but for it the second got larger campaign donations from the Telecoms. Maybe AT &T was just securing the support of the sellout democrats in the future, you know, for other legislation where they will take away our constitutional rights.