🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <5p1c87$j6b$1@news.cis.ohio-state.edu>,
carroll@hammond.cis.ohio-state.edu (mark carroll) wrote:

> Why? Politicians generally go for whatever they think will get them
> elected - elections keep them on their toes.

Yes.  And financial backing gets them elected ... which means that
politicians typically need to get in bed with businesses.  So Corporate
Will takes precedence over General Will.

> If the public has any
> difficulty in getting laws changed, it's because it's too stupid to
> use the vote properly.

Partially that, partially because the media backs business at every turn
and shapes public opinion.  Case in point: in Clinton's first year as
President, his budget was condemned by the Republicans and the media as
a "tax plan", where it was claimed that Clinton was raising everyone's
taxes.  And people *believed* this, without bothering to take out their
tax forms and do the math.  If you made $48,000 or less a year, you
almost certainly paid less in taxes under Clinton than you did under
Bush; this was, and is, verifiable by anyone who cares to perform even a
cursory inspection of the documents in his own home.

No, I'm not trying to turn this into a "Crats are better than Pubs"
debate -- I'm disappointed with *both* parties -- but I can't think of a
clearer example of how easy it is to fool the public.  If most people
won't take three minutes to analyze something in their own homes, it's a
cinch they won't be investigating claims about what happens three states
away.  It's also illustrative of how far you can trust the media, i.e.,
only as far as their pocketbooks.