this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
1207 points (99.3% liked)

BrainWorms

1214 readers
444 users here now

Hey, welcome to BrainWorms.

This is a place where I post interesting things that I find and cant categorize into one of the main subs I follow. Enjoy a front seat as i descend into madness

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] floppade@lemm.ee 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In theory, it's partially meant to educate politicians who cannot be experts on everything in a world where information exponentially grows, but this system has clearly been intentionally used to abuse power.

[–] pigup@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Met a dude in 2015 who was a lobbyist for Boeing in DC. I heard he made 750k a year back then. He must be a really good educator!

[–] mx_smith@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I used to work for a lobbyist on the hill, doing line standings. I would get paid to stand in line for hearings and committees and then the lawyers would come relieve you right before the hearing. Sometimes they wanted you to camp out the day before the hearing, and usually there were other line standers and it would be a circus, lots of fun.

[–] pigup@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Cool gig actually

[–] floppade@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

And I know lobbyists who are just regular people who looked up the process and did it. I’m not advocating for it, just giving context.

There are other examples of programs and policies being used in this way. Now, to me, the question is whether or not they are intended to easily abused by design. I don’t have the knowledge to say one way or another. However, as previously stated, it’s obviously being used as a bribery under another name.