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It Matters Who You Work For |
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Yesterday the Seminal pointed out that top McCain advisor Tom Loeffler, founder of the lobbying firm the Loeffler Group, spent years lobbying the U.S. Congress on behalf of Saudi Arabia, taking in over $5 million in fees as recently as 2006.
Over the weekend, two other top aides in McCain’s campaign, Douglas Goodyear and Doug Davenport, resigned from their posts because of their connections to the Burmese junta. From the BBC:
Both Mr Goodyear and the second aide to resign this weekend, Doug Davenport, worked for the lobbying firm DCI, the former as its chief executive. Newsweek magazine revealed on Saturday that DCI was paid more than $300,000 (£150,000) by Burma’s military leadership for lobbying work to improve its image in the US… Mr Davenport, a regional campaign manager for Mr McCain, reportedly was directly in charge of the DCI lobbying efforts on behalf of Burma’s authorities in 2002.
So, to be clear, before joining the McCain campaign, Tom Loeffler voluntarily worked for a government that he knew regards women as lesser-humans and that for years has profited from America’s painful addiction to gas; while “the Dougs” willingly lobbied to improve the image of a government that keeps its people in misery, violently suppresses peaceful resistance, and is now blocking humanitarian aid that it knows would prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths.
Personally, I’m not sure how these people sleep at night.
Call me idealistic, but I believe that those of us who are fortunate enough to be able to choose our professions, and moreover our employers and our clients, have a special obligation not to use our gifts in the service of evil. McCain’s aides certainly have the luxury of choosing who they work for, and by lobbying on behalf of certain clients they became complicit in the actions of those clients. Whether they concede it or not Loeffler, Goodyear, and Davenport are accomplices and enablers of two of the world’s most brutal and undemocratic regimes.
More importantly though, if the company he keeps and the staff he employs as a candidate are any indication of the company and staff he would seek as president, we can all be certain John McCain’s voluminous blabbering about ethics reform and reigning in lobbyists is empty bullshit. From his nauseating website:
John McCain has fought the good fight against the practices that alienate the public from their elected leaders. He has fought for public disclosure of those who lobby lawmakers for a living, and to prohibit them from providing gifts to elected officials. He has fought for greater transparency regarding the official activities of lobbyists, disclosure of those who arrange for lawmakers’ travel, and require members to pay full charter rates when using corporate aircraft. He has fought the “revolving door” by which lawmakers and other influential officials leave their posts and become lobbyists for the special interests they have aided. He has fought for an independent ethics office in Congress to help restore the public’s faith in the integrity of the legislative branch.
Right, so McCain has “fought the ‘revolving door’” by employing Tom Loeffler, who after eight years in Congress swung right through it to found his lobbying firm and represent the Saudis. I suppose we are all now to believe that if McCain were elected, Loeffler, Goodyear, and Davenport would return to their lucrative lobbying careers and never ever ever make use of their relationship with John McCain.
I don’t think so. These guys represent the worst of Washington spinelessness — they have money and power, and are happy to sell their services and their influence to the highest-bidding special interest, regardless of whether that interest is a faceless, soulless corporation or a dictatorial foreign government. Now, they have sold their services to the candidate that is most likely to to preserve their right to carry on this type of work, a candidate who calls them friends. I say between them, McCain and his aides have done enough damage to America.
Don’t you know? John McCain doesn’t have lobbyist running his campaign! And for you to insinuate that he does, why do you hate our war heroes! Why do you hate our freedoms! Support our troops by throwing them to fight a war with no evidence of weapons of mass destruction! Deny them benefits for risking their lives while politicians can trade away the the liberties we so desperately fought for! The internets are wrong and you must watch more television! Oh, but be careful, that song you listened to, make sure you buy it and don’t ever play it in a public space or the pirates will come and destroy our economy!
If you want business out of politics, get the government out of business. As long as governments try to control corporations, corporations will try to control governments. The only solution is to separate government and economy.
Anything else will only lead to increasingly totalitarian restrictions on speech - which is exactly the kind of censorship (aka “campaign-finance reform”) that McCain advocates.
“If you want business out of politics, get the government out of business. As long as governments try to control corporations, corporations will try to control governments. The only solution is to separate government and economy.”
Yes, I am sure a dealership who sells cars that break down the second week or a home builder that builds home that had foundation cracks the second year or a fast food train that uses expired rice will gladly agrees with you.
Without regulation you’ll see the ugly face of all corporations.
time to strip the corporate model bare. Government must restrain corporations or the result is…
well we can see the results right here in River City.
Sheesh.
The problem ISNT government regulation; the problem is we have foxes guarding the henhouse. Industry personnel should NEVER EVER be given oversight authority over their pet industries.
getaclue