Mike, I don't know how's the political landscape is in the USA, but you would say that there is few significative corruption and collusion?
Le 22/01/2012 21:16, Mike Godwin a écrit : > Theo10011 <[email protected]> writes: > > On Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 3:32 PM, Theo10011 <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Am I wrong to assume, that lobbying involves approaching a registered, >> professional consulting/lobbying firm in Washington who in turn, refer the >> client to politicians and then facilitate meetings and discussions in >> private, client are expected to pay expenses and other fees incurred in the >> process, usually a pretty hefty sum. > Yes, you're wrong. > >> Are those discussions and arrangements >> made in private, facilitated by lobbying firms, what is needed to get our >> voice heard? > No. It can be helpful to have an experienced Washington > government-relations specialist to facilitate meetings, and to advise > you on how to be effective, but the word "private" is inappropriate > here. (The very fact that Politico was able to publicize WMF's > engagement with such a specialist ought to be an indicator of this -- > in the USA, especially for the last 40 years, there have been vastly > increased requirements for public reporting and accountability, both > for nonprofits and for traditional corporate lobbyists.) When I > represented the Center for Democracy and Technology or Public > Knowledge at the FCC or on Capitol Hill, for example, the first thing > I had to do when getting back from a meeting was write up a report of > whom I met and what was discussed. The reports became part of the > public record, and part of these nonprofits' public disclosures as > well. > >> You mentioned the protest, and how proud you were to have been associated >> with it, so were most of us. That was the right thing to do - open, direct >> and public. All of which this doesn't seem to be. > You'd be wrong about meetings with policymakers not being public. > They're required be law to be reported and accounted for. As I have > noted, many people have stereotypical notions about what it means > to "lobby" in Washington. Too many movies and TV, I imagine. > >> Again, these might be stereotypes, but the general realities aren't that far >> off either. > Hugely far off, actually. > > To compare: it's a little bit as if you took your understanding of > police work from watching American police action films. It's not wrong > to say that sometimes police rough people up, for example, but it > would be wrong to say that is the norm. Most police work is dull and > routine, and the sheer amount of paperwork an average policeman has to > do is so astounding that nobody ever even tries to depict it in film > or TV drama. You'd switch channels or walk out of the theater in boredom. > > If you really think that (for example) the American Library > Association's Office for Information Technology Policy > (http://www.ala.org/offices/oitp) is having secret meetings with > senators and writing big checks, then the American entertainment > industry has done a huge disservice in educating people about all the > ways public policy can be shaped. Not that this should come as any > surprise. > > (I'd love it, of course, if the American Library Association were > capable of writing big checks, but that's another story.) > > > --Mike > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
