Everyday I lose more faith in government. I mean, I knew in the back of my mind that most of these people were liars, thieves and cheats, but I still had a solid tinge of patriotism and faith in human nature that told me that maybe, just maybe, some of our elected officials were really here for the public good.
Today’s story in the Los Angeles Times feels like the final straw. You have this Republican moralist, Michael Duvall–a guy who fought against gay marriage because it “destroys conventional marriage”–talking on a microphone he didn’t know was live about having kinky sex with two women who weren’t his wife, including a lobbyist who worked for a company his committee oversaw. Then, he changed his tune, trying to say he never really had sex with that woman (which maybe worked on his wife, but post Bill Clinton, it’s not a line that works).
But that’s not what disturbs me the most. What gets me in this story is that through lobbyists California legislators have inside access to free concert tickets and used it for hundreds of thousands of dollars….and no one seems to care.
They had special phone numbers to get the tickets, paid for by the likes of the BP oil company, according to the LA Times story. I can’t believe that the public accepts this.
Having been to more than 250 concerts a year for a decade, I was always bothered by the people I saw in the front rows. So many didn’t look or act like real fans. They looked like rich people at a ball who took the privilege of being up front as a right. I would sometimes, as a reporter, go up and ask how they scored those great seats, and they would brush me off carefully. Even if they pretended to be a fan, you could tell they weren’t. They wouldn’t wait on line for a ticket; they wouldn’t wear the band’s T-shirt; they didn’t know anything but the radio hits.
And now I see who they were in some cases: our government bought off by lobbyists.
For me, this puts the visceral choke hold on what’s wrong with our government and why it isn’t ever fixed. But it doesn’t tell me why people aren’t angrier about it.
I can handle the fact that these people will sleep with who they want lie to the public and lie to their wives. But it drives me crazy that they and their families are sitting in front of me at the concert I spent a fortune on and still couldn’t get the great seats.
What do you think?
I so agree with you. But you still have confidence in our legislators whereas I have lost most of my trust in them. When they say they want health reform but have blatantly said they would never give up what they have to take what they’re trying to sell tells me everything I need to know. They have stopped working for the people who put them in office and only work for the lobbyists who give them the mosts. It’s sad to sound so cynical but I’ve written many a letter to our politicians with no response except maybe from the late Senator Kennedy (or a worker of his) and even then, it was all political rhetoric.
“Family Values†California state assemblyman representing Orange County, Republican Michael D. Duvall, resigns for apparently not cheating on his wife with a lobbyist. Well you have to take his word for it, or maybe believe that hypocrisy has been bred in. In my opinion the Republican Party has been taken over the most extreme religious right (people who love to push their beliefs on others while trying to take away rights of those they just hate) and that’s who they need to extract from their party if they real want to win. Good Luck, because as they said in WACO, “We Ain’t Coming Outâ€. He is just another name that can be added to the list of “Republican 2009 Summer of Love”: Senator John Ensign (NV), Senator Paul Stanley (TN), Governor Mark Stanford (SC), SC Board of Ed Chair, Kristin Maguire (AKA Bridget Keeney).
An interesting thing to consider here, is that a perk, or a bribe, or whatever you want to call it, always takes more than just the public official who takes it. It requires someone else to offer it. Legislators cannot get tickets to shows, that promoters don’t make available to them.
Concert promoters’ poor ethics … e.g. shunting online ticket buyers to scalping subsidiaries when they think they’re buying first-sale tickets, reserving comps for God-knows-who and preventing ordinary folks from getting seats, and more … are all actions that Ticketmaster and the promoters are engaging in. And they’re doing so of their own volition. No one is making them do any of it.
The entire concert industry is a moral and legal cesspool. Legislators getting freebies is only part of it … an important and unacceptable part, to be sure, but in the end, only part. Clearly the Ticketmaster monopoly needs to be dismantled, just as the AT&T monopoly was many years ago. They also need to whole divest themselves of scalping operations and more clearly designate exactly what it is they’re selling. They also need to ensure that a majority of seats to a show are made available to general ticket buyers rather than being given to “insiders.”
But let’s get back to the real problem of political corruption, does anyone think this will get investigated and that things he voted on will need to be affirmed by the remaining members or will nothing happen? Do I hear Tammy Wynette, “Stand By Your Man†playing in the background? I remember not so long ago that other Orange County song favorite, “Stand By Your Tan†(for Tan Nguyen). But that’s another Orange County fool.