First, I would like to retract a statement I made in class a few days ago. I guess this only applies to H block folk, unless there were people from other blocks spying in class who I did not see. I made an incorrect statement that I had not seen the Armenian Genocide bill debate on the front page of the New York Times. After rushing home to make sure my claim was correct I realized it was not. The bill debate has been on the front page numerous times over the past week or so. The stories seem to be on the right hand column and are not close to the main picture, which is what I usually look at first. My apologies...
But as I was looking in the NYT I read a very interesting article about former Representative Robert L. Livingston that appeared on Wed. Oct 17th. (This is the website: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/washington/17lobby.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)
In brief the article talks about this man who has become the main lobbyist for Turkey in blocking the many congressional attempts at a Armenian Genocide bill. He has received more than 12 million dollars for his work from the Turkish government.
Up until 1999 he was a Louisiana congressman and was elected House speaker in late 1998 only to leave office because having "extramarital" affairs during a time when a main news headline was the Clinton sex scandal. (In the spirit of citations I got this info from another NYT times article that can be found at: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A06E1DC173CF935A15751C0A96F9582
60&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/L/Livingston,%20Robert%20L.)
Anyway, on the topic of lobbyists. Some questions: Do you think it is okay to have so much money surrounding legislation? Are lobbyists good for the political system? For democracy? Should representatives be listening to lobbyists? Does any sum of money taint the democratic process?
Please respond to these or any other topics of your own.
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I think that lobbysists and monetary donations to any congressman do taint the spirit of democracy. If the objective of a democracy in which people vote is meant to represent the interests of the majority of those people, then how can one say that the objective is still maintained while bending to the will of a minority of people with huge amounts of money at their disposal?
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