# how to hurt a politician or a CEO of a company?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hurt-a-politician-or-a-ceo-of-a-company/574369
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [March 12, 2011, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hurt-a-politician-or-a-ceo-of-a-company/574369 "2011-03-12T02:44:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 19
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@humanafterall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/humanafterall)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2011, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hurt-a-politician-or-a-ceo-of-a-company/574369/1 "2011-03-12T02:44:54Z")
I would attack their money. Most of them will roll over and show the tender belly if they have less money than they normally do. After all, it’s all about their dollars, isn’t it?
How else might you get one of these power figures to do as you wish?
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2011, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hurt-a-politician-or-a-ceo-of-a-company/574369/2 "2011-03-12T02:48:51Z")
What are we debating here?
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### Author:  [@humanafterall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/humanafterall)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2011, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hurt-a-politician-or-a-ceo-of-a-company/574369/3 "2011-03-12T03:01:36Z")
A means of taking true action against the corruption of the US Government, my Government. I’m not talking about picketing or writing angry letters. I’m talking about real action. these are radical times, which call for equally radical measures.
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### Author:  [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2011, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hurt-a-politician-or-a-ceo-of-a-company/574369/4 "2011-03-12T03:12:45Z")
So you’re inviting people to enter a criminal conspiracy via message board, so there will be lots of evidence to convict? I suggest that such might be a very bad idea.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2011, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hurt-a-politician-or-a-ceo-of-a-company/574369/5 "2011-03-12T03:15:07Z")
And it’s still not a debate.
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### Author:  [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2011, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hurt-a-politician-or-a-ceo-of-a-company/574369/6 "2011-03-12T03:33:58Z")
For the politicians, you can vote.
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### Author:  [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2011, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hurt-a-politician-or-a-ceo-of-a-company/574369/7 "2011-03-12T03:47:18Z")
[http://www.d4md.org/node/162](http://www.d4md.org/node/162)
You can boycott the Koch Bros, products to hurt them But it is not easy.
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### Author:  [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2011, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hurt-a-politician-or-a-ceo-of-a-company/574369/8 "2011-03-12T03:49:28Z")
What leverage do average citizens have against CEOs or politicians who they feel are mistreating them? Is that the debate?
If so, with politicians I’d assume power and dignity are extremely important to them. So primaries to push them out of office, or finding out they engage in very shameful behavior.
For CEOs, jail time if they break the law. Right now the worst they have to worry about is a fine that the company pays for if a law is broken. I think putting very powerful/influential people in jail for breaking the law would send a message. But it won’t happen because the corruption has extended to the point where that isn’t going to happen. The S&L scandal was far smaller in scope but saw far more arrests/prosecutions.
> **[Too Big To Jail? Executives Unscathed As Regulators Let Banks Report Criminal...](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/too-big-to-jail-executive_n_561961)**
>
> Too Big To Jail? Executives Unscathed As Regulators Let Banks Report Criminal fraud
But I really don’t know. We don’t have much leverage to be honest. Many people in this country either actively support or passively support plutocracy and oligarchy.
Obama was elected because a lot of people thought things would be different, now we realize he just duped us and used our desperation and anger for his career benefit.
So all in all, I don’t know. Too many people support plutocracy for political voting to be influential enough to intimidate the plutocrats. The legal system is corrupted when it comes to financial or war crimes. Boycotts? Who knows. I’m not that creative. I will say I admire that O’Keefe guy and how he can use a video camera and clever editing to bring down multi-million dollar institutions.
So no idea. Maybe someone will invent happy pills and we can all pretend life is fine and dandy instead.
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### Author:  [@Agnostic\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agnostic_Pagan)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2011, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hurt-a-politician-or-a-ceo-of-a-company/574369/9 "2011-03-12T04:05:54Z")
> [@Oakminster](#):
>
> So you’re inviting people to enter a criminal conspiracy via message board, so there will be lots of evidence to convict? I suggest that such might be a very bad idea.
Why would you assume the OP is advocating criminal actions? Sound pretty prejudicial if you ask me. Attacking their money does not mean taking it through illegal means.
For the OP, exposing their transactions and connections would be a good start. Plenty of websites do that such as [opensecrets.org](http://www.opensecrets.org/) , but they do need much greater publication. Read them and share with your friends. Post links to your websites. Print flyers and pass them out.
In the US, you have to three primary ways -1) electoral political methods - campaign to remove those leaders you do not like and to elect leaders that will enact legislation to remove the power of plutocrats - which also means learning the law and what effective legislation would entail, and engage in direct political action such registering voters and helping them to the polls. 2) non-electoral political methods such as engaging in legal civil disobedience - not just picketing them, but flooding their meetings with advocates, making posters and flyers with pictures of the factories they use to make their money and place everywhere you can, mocking them, following them paparazzi style and invading their privacy as much as the law allows, etc. 3)judicial methods, if prosecutors won’t bring action, gather evidence and deliver it to the press. Engage in stings a la O’Keefe, but more honestly.
For more ideas, I recommend the books from the [Albert Einstein Institution](http://www.aeinstein.org/). Gene Sharp wrote the playbook they used in Egypt, Serbia and other places.
I think it is certainly worth debating which means have been shown to be the most effective and which would be the most practical in the US.
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### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2011, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hurt-a-politician-or-a-ceo-of-a-company/574369/10 "2011-03-12T05:31:18Z")
> [@humanafterall](#):
>
> I would attack their money. Most of them will roll over and show the tender belly if they have less money than they normally do. After all, it’s all about their dollars, isn’t it?
>
> How else might you get one of these power figures to do as you wish?
WTF does that even mean? How would you “attack their money”?
One answer is that “you” don’t. Because you are nobody. No one gives a shit about what you and your left wing coffee house buddies think about anything. No offense. That’s just the way it is.
However, if one did want to take out a CEO or politician? Well, you would need to align with people who have a great deal more power and influence that yourself. With CEOs, typically you would need evidence of some sort of illegal activity. Something severe enough to bring in the SEC, FBI, or some other regulatory agency. In a sense you have to turn the system against them. Look at Enron or Madoff for example.
Politicians are similar, but in some ways easier. All you need with them is to find examples of them acting in a way embarassingly contrary to their political position.
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### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2011, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hurt-a-politician-or-a-ceo-of-a-company/574369/11 "2011-03-12T05:37:39Z")
Firefighters in Wisconsin are removing their money from Madison’s M&I Bank to protest the bank’s support for Governor Walker.
I do not know if it will be enough to put the bank under but apparently it was enough to prompt the bank to close early today so there was at least some effect. ([cite](http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/515607/awesome%3A_wisconsin_firefighters_shut_down_bank_that_funded_walker/#paragraph3))
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### Author:  [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2011, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hurt-a-politician-or-a-ceo-of-a-company/574369/12 "2011-03-12T05:39:43Z")
> [@Agnostic\_Pagan](#):
>
> Why would you assume the OP is advocating criminal actions? Sound pretty prejudicial if you ask me. Attacking their money does not mean taking it through illegal means.
>
> For the OP, exposing their transactions and connections would be a good start. Plenty of websites do that such as [opensecrets.org](http://www.opensecrets.org/) , but they do need much greater publication. Read them and share with your friends. Post links to your websites. Print flyers and pass them out.
This. OpenSecrets and Wikileaks and the like can be very powerful, and it’s not impossible for normal people to get access to damaging information. Yet they seem strangely underused.
My guess is that most want to stick it to The Man only in fun ways, like talking about injustice with their friends and joining effete but fun rallies. Joining an organization, slowly gaining access to secrets, and then blowing them open, seems too much like _real work_, and almost nobody really cares about injustice enough to do difficult, unfun, effective things to alleviate it.
So now the only folks with access to secrets are people who either support the organizations, or at least are neutral and don’t want to burn their bridges. Someone who’s not planning a long career, who has no incentive _not_ to burn bridges, could do some serious damage.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2011, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hurt-a-politician-or-a-ceo-of-a-company/574369/13 "2011-03-12T05:42:53Z")
Politicians aren’t in it for the money. They’re in it for the power. A United States Senator makes $174,000 a year - any one of them could jump over to the private sector and make ten times that. Most politicians spend more getting into office than they’ll ever make there.
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### Author:  [@Agnostic\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agnostic_Pagan)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2011, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hurt-a-politician-or-a-ceo-of-a-company/574369/14 "2011-03-12T06:05:57Z")
[QUOTE=athelas]
My guess is that most want to stick it to The Man only in fun ways, like talking about injustice with their friends and joining effete but fun rallies. Joining an organization, slowly gaining access to secrets, and then blowing them open, seems too much like real work, and almost nobody really cares about injustice enough to do difficult, unfun, effective things to alleviate it.
[/QUOTE]
Exactly. Long term real change requires long term real work, and diving down into the messy details of legislation, regulations and the entire political process. Weekly vigils and protest marches are good, and can build solidarity, but if that is the extent of a movement, well, not much actually movement will occur.
Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches did not end segregation and the removal of the Jim Crow laws. The Civil Rights Acts did along with numerous court decisions at all levels.
But snide dismissals of any attempt at meaningful change does not help either. And all good revolutions were started by malcontents smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee - why do think we did not see mass democracy until those products were imported from the new world? 😉 The printing press helped too, but getting wired beforehand helped even more.
First was religious freedom, then political freedom. Social freedoms came next, and now economic freedom. None of them are complete, but they certainly have improved over the last few centuries.
[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole]
Firefighters in Wisconsin are removing their money from Madison’s M&I Bank to protest the bank’s support for Governor Walker.
[/QUOTE]
This is the next wave I think. Moving the money from the national and regional banks that support the dysfunctional system we have and move it to credit unions and community banks. It is not enough to support small businesses but to also hold them accountable for who they bank with. Then work on changing the laws and regulations to abolish ‘too big too fail’ entities. Considering the disagreement Wall Street had with the modest reforms Obama supported, it will not be easy.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2011, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hurt-a-politician-or-a-ceo-of-a-company/574369/15 "2011-03-12T06:29:37Z")
> [@Agnostic\_Pagan](#):
>
> Exactly. Long term real change requires long term real work, and diving down into the messy details of legislation, regulations and the entire political process. Weekly vigils and protest marches are good, and can build solidarity, but if that is the extent of a movement, well, not much actually movement will occur.
Like Joe Hill said, “Don’t mourn. Organize.”
Scott Walker won the Wisconsin Governor’s race by about 120,000 votes. That’s a target for how many votes you need to get somebody else elected in 2014.
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### Author:  [@randy054](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/randy054)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2011, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hurt-a-politician-or-a-ceo-of-a-company/574369/16 "2011-03-12T19:31:12Z")
> [@msmith537](#):
>
> WTF does that even mean? How would you “attack their money”?
> One answer is that “you” don’t. Because you are nobody. No one gives a shit about what you and your left wing coffee house buddies think about anything. No offense. That’s just the way it is.
>
> However, if one did want to take out a CEO or politician? Well, you would need to align with people who have a great deal more power and influence that yourself. With CEOs, typically you would need evidence of some sort of\*\* illegal activity.\*\* Something severe enough to \*\*bring in the SEC, FBI, or some other regulatory agency. \*\* In a sense you have to turn the system against them. Look at Enron or Madoff for example.
>
> Politicians are similar, but in some ways easier. All you need with them is to find examples of them acting in a way embarassingly contrary to their political position.
Nothing can be “illegal” when those in power involved in the circular door between corporations, wall street and the government are who dictate what is and is not “illegal” for themselves, while increasing the amount of laws for the little people to break\>
Want an example?
The Glass Steagal Act repealed making it legal to rape Americans.
Want to see proof of the revolving door and the corruption involved?
> **[Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-179414/)**
>
> Financial crooks brought down the world's economy — but the feds are doing more to protect them than to prosecute them
**Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail?**
> [@](#):
>
> The deal looked like a classic case of insider trading. But in the summer of 2005, when Aguirre told his boss he planned to interview Mack, things started getting weird. **His boss told him the case wasn’t likely to fly, explaining that Mack had “powerful political connections.”** (The investment banker had been a fundraising “Ranger” for George Bush in 2004, and would go on to be a key backer of Hillary Clinton in 2008.)
>
> Aguirre also started to feel pressure from Morgan Stanley, which was in the process of trying to rehire Mack as CEO. At first, Aguirre was contacted by the bank’s regulatory liaison, Eric Dinallo, a former top aide to Eliot Spitzer. **But it didn’t take long for Morgan Stanley to work its way up the SEC chain of command**. Within three days, another of the firm’s lawyers, **Mary Jo White** , was on the phone with the SEC’s director of enforcement. In a shocking move that was later singled out by Senate investigators, the director actually appeared to reassure White, dismissing the case against Mack as “smoke” rather than “fire.” **White, incidentally, was herself the former U.S. attorney of the Southern District of New York — one of the top cops on Wall Street.**
>
> Pause for a minute to take this in. Aguirre, an SEC foot soldier, is trying to interview a major Wall Street executive — not handcuff the guy or impound his yacht, mind you, just talk to him. **In the course of doing so, he finds out that his target’s firm is being represented not only by Eliot Spitzer’s former top aide, but by the former U.S. attorney overseeing Wall Street** , who is going four levels over his head to speak directly to the chief of the SEC’s enforcement division — not Aguirre’s boss, but his boss’s boss’s boss’s boss. Mack himself, meanwhile, was being represented by Gary Lynch, a former SEC director of enforcement.
Yea, the freaking SEC is worthless!!! Bunch of crooks.
Then to top it off, they fired the investigator.
> [@](#):
>
> Aguirre didn’t stand a chance. A month after he complained to his supervisors that he was being blocked from interviewing Mack, he was summarily fired, without notice. The case against Mack was immediately dropped: all depositions canceled, no further subpoenas issued. “It all happened so fast, I needed a seat belt,” recalls Aguirre, who had just received a stellar performance review from his bosses. The SEC eventually paid Aguirre a settlement of $755,000 for wrongful dismissal.
Actually, the best thing to do is the keep raising the consciousness of ordinary Americans to show them the crooks running the show, and to smear those as much as possible.
Eventually something is going to give which will cause change.
And they went after Maddoff because he went after rich people’s money and in that circle that is a no no.
Pension Funds etc, thats ok.
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### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2011, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hurt-a-politician-or-a-ceo-of-a-company/574369/17 "2011-03-12T23:59:09Z")
> [@randy054](#):
>
> Actually, the best thing to do is the keep raising the consciousness of ordinary Americans to show them the crooks running the show, and to smear those as much as possible.
> Eventually something is going to give which will cause change.
Not really. Because no one cares about “ordinary Americans” and ordinary Americans don’t care about anything as long as they can do what they do best - consume.
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### Author:  [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2011, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hurt-a-politician-or-a-ceo-of-a-company/574369/18 "2011-03-13T00:17:55Z")
> [@humanafterall](#):
>
> A means of taking true action against the corruption of the US Government, my Government. I’m not talking about picketing or writing angry letters. I’m talking about real action. these are radical times, which call for equally radical measures.
How are these times radical? Pretty pedestrian, really.
If you seriously wanted to reform the U.S. government it would require either a generations long struggle of consciousness raising and institutional democratic reforms from an upswelling of people power (damn does that sound corny) or a lot of high explosives, RPGs, and a huge network of people across the nation to support an insurgency, hopefully with the help of the military. The former would never work because we have the most unassailable system of rulers over ruled in history, at least when it comes to that sort of so called soft power. The latter wouldn’t work because even if successful you’d just end up with some authoritarian strong man. Although maybe the revolution against that guy could fix things. But probably not.
I mean, what country in the history of mankind can you point to and say “AHA! They have things figured out.” People love to point to western Europe but they’re just like us. The people who own the society run things in their best interests. That’s how human societies _work_.
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### Author:  [@Heyoka13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heyoka13)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2011, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-hurt-a-politician-or-a-ceo-of-a-company/574369/19 "2011-03-13T03:17:13Z")
how to hurt a politician or a CEO of a company?
Well, how about giving their mistresses pubic lice?
And then having a cooperative TMZ cameraman video the itching and scratching
:eek: