AT&T enlists employees to oppose Net neutrality

[gabester]

M A V I C wrote:
It is not very often that those running corporations "exhibit sociopathic behavior and use the power of their corporation to hire lobbyists to act directly against the healthy interests of human beings." ... Based on the facts, corporations aren't the problem.

Corporations' pursuit of profit in an environment that lacks regulation to address externalities such as pollution (which, while very challenging to document and clean up, is relatively easy to understand and develop regulation for) is absolutely the problem. That a corporation is granted a right to "free speech" equivalent to an individual thereby allowing the corporation to blast my community with advertising that not only is deductible from their profit as a cost but also misleads human beings into acting directly against their interest is absolutely the problem.

I suspect your counterargument is that people have to take it upon themselves to empower themselves and act in their best interests and that they're the problem. People have lives with an absolute expiration date and moreover do not always make their decisions in the most rational, factual way possible. Many corporations prey on that for their marketing, and it is wholly sociopathic.
g=

[SteveO]

Mavic, your arguing the points made in this thread is, as was mentioned above, purely semantics. It is clear from the original post and from follow-ups that what is being criticized is not every corporation or every lobbyist, but those that are destructive to the well-being of our society.

Your main points seem not to be grounded in reality, but simply argumentative. I'm not saying that as a personal attack, so please don't take it that way.

>It is not very often that those running corporations "exhibit sociopathic behavior and use the power of their corporation to hire lobbyists to act directly against the healthy interests of human beings."

I'm not sure if you're wearing blinders or simply ignorant. (Or again, just being argumentative.) The behavior mentioned above happens every single day on a vast and extremely costly (in lives and dollars) scale in [to name but a few] the financial, chemical, pharmaceutical and agricultural industries, made up of corporate giants (run by CEOs that are obviously more concerned with earnings than the greater good) that collude with one another to change and even create laws allowing them to pollute at great human and environmental cost, to scam average Americans (and the Treasury) out of OUR money, and to bring unsafe products to market. And it happens to such a large extent that to say "it is not very often" is a simply outrageous, preposterous and ridiculous statement.

That's not to say that all corporations (or lobbyists for that matter) are degenerate citizens. Clearly they are not, and clearly that was not the point of the discussion here.

I apologize in advance, and I suspect it will be lost on you (though I sincerely hope I'm dead wrong and this was all just a big misunderstanding), but I cannot engage in further discussion on this with you until you update your current events intake.

[M A V I C]

SteveO, thank you for your response.

SteveO wrote:
Mavic, your arguing the points made in this thread is, as was mentioned above, purely semantics. It is clear from the original post and from follow-ups that what is being criticized is not every corporation or every lobbyist, but those that are destructive to the well-being of our society.

Your main points seem not to be grounded in reality, but simply argumentative. I'm not saying that as a personal attack, so please don't take it that way.

I just want people to be clear on what it is they don't like and what the root cause is. I am surprised by how many people thinking all corporations are bad. Many people use such generalization to build other opinions on. I just want people to dig a little deeper and look at the root cause.

I do disagree that my main points are not grounded in reality. They're extremely basic logic. If not all corporations or lobbyists are bad, then the problem cannot be that corporations and lobbyists are bad. Since those statements are generalizations, they're extremely easy to debunk. I'm simply pointing out that people should look past false generalizations and to the root of the problems.

>It is not very often that those running corporations "exhibit sociopathic behavior and use the power of their corporation to hire lobbyists to act directly against the healthy interests of human beings."

I'm not sure if you're wearing blinders or simply ignorant. (Or again, just being argumentative.) The behavior mentioned above happens every single day on a vast and extremely costly (in lives and dollars) scale in [to name but a few] the financial, chemical, pharmaceutical and agricultural industries, made up of corporate giants (run by CEOs that are obviously more concerned with earnings than the greater good) that collude with one another to change and even create laws allowing them to pollute at great human and environmental cost, to scam average Americans (and the Treasury) out of OUR money, and to bring unsafe products to market. And it happens to such a large extent that to say "it is not very often" is a simply outrageous, preposterous and ridiculous statement.

I don't disagree with anything you wrote (well, except the first sentence.) Before I wrote the statement you quoted, I looked it up. The vast majority of corporations do not do any of that. The vast majority of corporations are small businesses. Some of the larger ones do, and I don't disagree with that. However, comparatively speaking, the majority of corporations aren't involved in any of that.

That's not to say that all corporations (or lobbyists for that matter) are degenerate citizens. Clearly they are not, and clearly that was not the point of the discussion here.

Based on many local discussions I've seen, that's not always the case and so I wasn't going to assume it. I am absolutely surprised at the number of people who believe all corporations are bad. They stand outside the grocery story and ask people to donate money to their cause of abolishing corporations altogether and going to sole proprietorships only.

There's also many people who think only the big companies doing bad are corporations. So when they hear "corporations are bad" they think all corporations. They may even have a small business themselves but not incorporate because they think it's not for them or that they don't want to become "one of them."

And many people still just target big corporations and say they're all bad - which is also not true.

I'm just asking that people be clear on what it is they don't like. You and a few others seem to be clear on that, great.

[SteveO]

Thanks for your response as well, Mavic. I see. I thought we were all on the same page here. Perhaps we had a bit of miscommunication as you had stated that it's not very often that this [bad stuff[ happens. I gather that you meant to say it was not widespread, or better yet, that the majority of corporations (from small biz to international concern) do not exhibit this kind of behavior. Agreed, surely, yes.

I think we are [all very likely] in total agreement. I also think, in my heart of hearts, that others on this thread meant their remarks to apply to those lobbyists/corps that are harming us all.

I do think that the root of the problem does go back to let's say certain lobbyists or groups of lobbyists (who are backed/funded by these certain wholly self-interested corporations) who grease the Congress to get their interests represented and written into law (and/or a lack of oversight) -- even when those interests are harmful to fair commerce, the people, the environment, etc.

[M A V I C]

SteveO wrote:
Thanks for your response as well, Mavic. I see. I thought we were all on the same page here. Perhaps we had a bit of miscommunication as you had stated that it's not very often that this [bad stuff[ happens. I gather that you meant to say it was not widespread, or better yet, that the majority of corporations (from small biz to international concern) do not exhibit this kind of behavior. Agreed, surely, yes.

Yes, comparatively speaking, it's not that often. As the expression goes "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" - and that's essentially what many want to do by throwing out all corporations altogether.

I do think that the root of the problem does go back to let's say certain lobbyists or groups of lobbyists (who are backed/funded by these certain wholly self-interested corporations) who grease the Congress to get their interests represented and written into law (and/or a lack of oversight) -- even when those interests are harmful to fair commerce, the people, the environment, etc.

I still think the issue is deeper than that. Maybe it's because I spend a lot of time doing studies on human behavior and so I know and it's easy for me to recognize when the root problem has been discovered or not. For me it's as easy as saying "Are all lobbyists bad?" and if the answer is "yes" then there's the root problem. If the answer is "no" then that's not the root problem.

Since some lobbyists are good, and some are bad, the distinguishing characteristics are a level deeper. The reason I make an issue of this is because I've seen many people point their finger at a result of the problem and say we need to change that.

Removing lobbyists wont solve the problem, unfortunately. And that's another way to tell that lobbyists aren't the cause. If lobbyists (as we know them) were blocked and corporations were dissolved, would that stop the problems from occurring? No. And that's because the bad actions of some companies and some lobbyists are just the result of a bigger issue. As long as those root issues are not addressed, we can cover up the symptoms but others will occur.

[SteveO]

I don't know, Frank, I'm very interested to hear more on what then, you think IS the root issue.

I think that some (which of course is a relative term) if not MANY lobbyists (and the corps that sponsor them, and the unethical congresspeople that take their money and do their bidding in the realm of what's been discussed here) are indeed the problem.

Root problem? Maybe it is simply human greed and corruption. We used to have laws that kept this sort of thing (the lobbyists/contributions) somewhat in check. Until the lobbyists, corps and congress and probably in many cases other officials further up the chain, likely all the way to the prez, repub and dem alike -- wiped them out and/or simply looked the other way. One example: Joe Lieberman is a senator. His wife is a Pharma lobbyist. Apparently they see no conflict of interest here. What...the...?

Our system is becoming more and more corrupt. Term limits would probably help. A senator recently said that "Wall Street owns the Senate." From all that we've seen in recent decades and the current state of the economy, I'd be inclined to agree.

[M A V I C]

SteveO wrote:
I don't know, Frank, I'm very interested to hear more on what then, you think IS the root issue.

As I mentioned above and maybe you didn't see it:

I think a big disconnect with those issues is the idea that personal values don't apply to business. Some lobbyists use this as an excuse to do things they know aren't right. "It's not personal, it's just business." Well, businesses end up impacting everyone personally as well, so the actions of a business most certainly need to take personal values into account.

I'd explain more, but don't have time now. Thanks for the discussion, maybe we can strike it up again some other time.

[SteveO]

Aye, yes, thanks for clarifying, somehow i didn't recognize those were your thoughts on the core issue. I do agree with you. Yes, good discussion.