Letters to the Editor
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I’m Shocked, Shocked to Discover Politics Here
So Google now wants to join every other media corporation in the world and pick up some of the billions spent on political advertising. You’re surprised by this?
And money has an affect on political discourse? I never would have believed such a thing possible.
Sorry the sense of outrage here just makes little sense. Political advertising is a fact of life. Google is a company based entirely on ad revenue. The fact that Google wants people to buy adds and that the people with the most money buy the most ads is nothing different than TV or Radio spots. You want to rail against money in politics attacking Google makes about as much sense as attacking my local cable company for running ads for the mayoral candidates.
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"Don't Be Evil"
I'd type something lucid, but I'm laughing too hard.
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Democracy of the Marketplace
This just highlights the fundamental problem with the "democracy of the marketplace"--the market is the sort of democracy where one dollar equals one vote. Those with deep pockets get their "free speech" amplified; those with nothing basically have no voice. For about a century now, we have no longer accepted such a "weighted" system in our political life--no one suggests anymore that only the landed gentry out to have the right to vote, or that voting rights and income be correlated--but for some reason we still accept this sort of tyranny in our economic life. ('Cause we all know that economics and politics are completely different, right--no overlap whatsoever?)
Seriously folks, the naked hypocrisy of Google's "anti-anti" ad-policy, and its clear pro-corporate--and, frankly, anti-democratic--bias is staggering, but not at all surprising. That's what happens when a company goes public and relies primarily on advertising for its revenue; it becomes accountable not to people but to its market overlords. More to the point, this is all perfectly rational on Google's part--given its legal obligations to its shareholders, it's acting entirely in a rational manner. It couldn't behave differently even if it wanted to.
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you'd have to be...
...deaf, dumb, blind and stupid not to know, instinctively, that our "health care system" is created to make profits, not health. Otherwise, it would not exist in the form it does.
Moore is right. Insurers and HMOs go to great lengths to hide what they're doing--making a profit from health-care--because they too understand that if the public really, fully comprehended how these companies are robbing the public blind, there would be consequences.
I dunno if Moore talks about it, but here in California, Kaiser Permanente bought itself immunity from most lawsuits for malpractice and negligence, by simply *buying* that immunity from the state legislature. This was at a time when Kaiser was being sued left, right, and center because of blatant incompetence, malpractice, and negligence in a host of patient-related injuries and deaths.
The company went to the legislature and, in essence, said "if you don't protect us from suit, we'll go out of business and then *you'll* have to pay for all this.." And the legislature complied. Now, if Kaiser hurts you in California, you can't do shit... unless they kill you in a really idiotic and obvious way, you cannot sue Kaiser for anything patient-related.
and THAT is how our system works, folks.
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Aren't Google employees supposed to be the smartest people in the world?
I was under the impression that the Googlers are all Stanford Ph. Ds who float several inches above the ground, never sullying their feet with the touch of the coarse earth--who voice only the most profound pearls of wisdom in dulcet tones--who dine on (free) ambrosia and honey in the Google cafeteria, excreting the byproducts as small, perfect spheres of gold.
This chick sounds like your average sheeple with subpar reasoning skills. Who hired her?
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Well, if they really want Yahoo or whomever to take them down, they're sure going about it the right way
Google is valuable ONLY as a dispassionate, objective, strictly factual, and non-judgmental search engine.
If they want to use the ethical standards of the Bush administration, i.e., "Pay us and we'll turn reality inside out to dance to your tune rather than uphold ANY principle and give the public any results you want," fine -- until now I didn't really care to find another search engine.
I do NOT call them whores, because, as one San Francisco prostitute said in an interview "We're not selling anything that doesn't belong to us."
If you present yourself as an honest broker (i.e., a search engine) you're selling something that doesn't belong to you -- and as such, you HAVE to be absolutely fair and even or otherwise (all together now) "Go Fuck yourselves, Google. We admired and enjoyed the use of you and now you show us you're nothing but a tool for the highest bidder to warp reality however the money says. Wither on the vine and die off like so many other companies who sold their principles out from under themselves. I'm doing one more search -- to find OTHER search engines."
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Google is not neutral...
and their keeping track of an awful lot of stuff.
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I'm feeling a little "sico"...
I tried to send the following email to the address given, but apparently the address is now invalid.
"Dear Lauren,
Reading your latest bit of ideological pablum just makes me feel, well, sicko. Along with the privacy issues being debated in the context of search engines, particularly Google, do you think the company you purport to work for is getting enough bad press?
I used to like Google, but my home page now sports a different search engine. Yahoo!"
M.
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Very "Sicko" in Fort Wayne
I have been waiting for 2 weeks for "Sicko" to come here so I could see it. I was sickened by the Google account of the movie.
When the new movie listings came out I checked on the internet. Not showing anywhere near my hometown. So I put Indianapolis IN in the location slot. And lo and behold found a theater in Indianapolis showing "Sicko". On Sunday we made the 220 mile round trip to Indy to see the movie. It was GREAT! This morning my husband heard on the news they will not be showing the movie in Fort Wayne as it is too controversial!
My how lucky we are that "they" are watching out for our well being and we are protected. And we are so lucky to live in the USA where we have freedom of speech and the freedom to choose what movies we can see!