![\"\"](\"http:\/\/occupy.pbworks.com\/f\/1330887525\/corruptPoliticalSystem2.png\")
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We’ve always thought that tens of millions of regular folks like EB and I banding together and contributing to a Lobby to represent our interests would be a good idea. More and more our senators and congressmen and women are being bought by big business. Isn’t it about time we started putting some money in a lobby to represent our interests? Think of it. If just one-sixth of \u00a0U.S. citizens donated $20 a year to The Peoples’ Lobby, each year that lobby would be funded with One billion dollars. Even in Washington, $1 billion buys a lot of influence.<\/p>\n
Of course, the big question is who would you hire to run the Peoples’ Lobby and who would you hire to directly lobby congress. And, more importantly how much of the $1 billion would be eaten up by administrative costs? It would take people a lot smarter politically than I am to figure this all out. And it’s too bad our vote doesn’t buy us anything anymore. It’s all about the money, isn’t it?<\/p>\n
I’m not sure that Amplifyd will succeed in doing much other than make its founder rich – if it even does that. But at least someone else realizes that American Government is no longer a government of the people, for the people, by the people, it’s a government of the wealthy, for the wealthy, and by the wealthy. And unless ordinary citizens become more empowered than they are right now, it’s only going to get worse.<\/p>\n
So read the article below and tell us what you think:<\/p>\n
\nTech Startup Amplifyd Seeks to Bring Lobbying to the People<\/h2>\n
Silicon Valley types have long dreamed of a way to hack the beast of bureaucratic dysfunction known as the U.S. government. Mark Zuckerberg honed in on immigration reform. Sean Parker invested in a mystery venture to attempt improving political engagement. And now a much smaller Bay Area startup with a snazzy name, Amplifyd, is launching with the lofty goal of providing \u201ccrowd-sourced lobbying\u201d services to regular Americans.<\/p>\n
At the core of the project is an untested idea that stretches the definition of lobbying: Provide an app that allows people to pay to create phone call petitions targeting state and federal legislators.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe spend so much money trying to get politicians elected but there\u2019s no real system that can effectively communicate our opinions as constituents,\u201d said Amplifyd founder Scott Blankenship. At the same time, Blankenship says, business interests spend millions to influence politicians.<\/p>\n
Beginning on June 3, Amplifyd hopes to change that imbalance that by allowing activist groups to initiate campaigns aimed at influencing elected officials with telephone campaigns. For around $7\u2014the exact final price has not been determined\u2014a Concerned Citizen can hire another person to call a member of Congress or a state legislator. Blankenship says about 1,000 people have signed up to be callers, with the promise of earning up to $30 per hour.<\/p>\n
The script begins, \u201cHi, I\u2019m calling on behalf of (name of the person who paid), and this call is being recorded so he can review the call later,\u201d and continues with talking points, complaints, suggestions and the like. From the $7 Concerned Citizen paid for the call $1.50 goes to the campaign, between $2 and $3.50 goes to the caller and the remainder goes to Amplifyd…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Source: Time<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We’ve always thought that tens of millions of regular folks like EB and I banding together and contributing to a Lobby to represent our interests would be a good idea. More and more our senators and congressmen and women are being bought by big business. Isn’t it about time we started putting some money in a lobby\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1426],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7465"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7465"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7466,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7465\/revisions\/7466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}