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Swarm-Corruption
Posted by Shannon Love on November 2nd, 2008 (All posts by Shannon Love)
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In computing, swarm designates a process carried out by a large number of decentralized small computing units each working on a tiny piece of a much larger problem. For example, the Folding@Home project uses the idle computational power of thousands of desktop computers to run computationally intensive simulations of protein folding.
More recently, the concept of swarm has expanded to describe any decentralized action enabled by peer-to-peer communications such as the Internet. For example, in swarm-journalism large numbers of people independently decide to investigate the same event and independently publish their findings.
Recent revelations that the Obama campaign did not take elementary precautions to prevent illegal campaign donations over the internet raise the real possibility of a corruption swarm in which a large number of people independently carry out the same corrupt act.
The beauty of swarm-corruption lies in its deniability. The Obama campaign did not have to launch a centrally coordinated effort to break the law, they needed to merely remove the standard safeguards that normally prevent such illegal acts. Obama could then just sit back and let corrupt donors figure out for themselves that they could break the law....
...At what point do corrupt campaign donations invalidate an election? No campaign can guarantee that 100% of its donations are legal. A certain amount of error and fraud creeps into any system that collects from millions of sources. So, we have to tolerate low-single-digit percentages of a politicians funding coming from illegal donations. On the opposite extreme it seems obvious that if 100% of a politicians campaign donations came from corrupt sources then that level of corruption would invalidate the politicians mandate to hold office. Somewhere between the two extremes lies a level of corruption that would invalidate a politicians claim to office.
Where does that point lie? If 10% of Obamas donations came from illegal sources would most Americas believe that invalidates his claim to office? Probably not. 20%? Unlikely. 30%? Maybe. 50%? Probably.
Even if the level of corruption falls below the threshold that triggers the outright rejection of the legitimacy of the election, high levels of swarm-corruption could seriously undermine a politicians mandate.
Obama may find that he won the election battle but lost the political war. In any case, we must update our laws and procedures to prevent swarm-corruption from becoming a significant problem in the future.
This is just one of the many things that will not go away if Obama is elected. Also expect to see the natural born issue, Rezco-Ayers-Wright, ACORN and voter fraud, and documentation of hundreds of lies and broken promises. He will have a full time staff spinning all this shit that will make the Clinton machine look like kindergarten in comparison.
Not to mention the "excuse squad" to spin the spiraling economy and bankrupt social programs.
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1. Markets hate uncertainty.I don't understand how you can start blaming Obama already for the declining economy. Not only is it not his fault, the man hasn't even taken office yet!
Swarm corruption is rather like the de facto racial prejudice that Blacks face every damned day.
1. Markets hate uncertainty.
2. The Democrats have been bad-mouthing the economy ever since Bush took office,
but more so since they have been campaigning for 08. Obama ratcheted up the rhetoric even higher since the Fannie Mae thing.
3. Obama is promising to raise taxes during an economic downturn
We have ways of deferring income so he can't touch it.
We have ways of deferring income so he can't touch it.
We have ways of deferring income so he can't touch it.
So do most people with that amount of income.
That's why I laugh at the apologists for the master class who whine about how unfair the tax codes are for the superwealthy.
