This relies on the assumption that congress cares what the people think. As long as the people don't pay large campaign contributions their voices are thoroughly meaningless to their 'representatives'.
As long as bribery is legal (by jumping through hoops and not calling it bribery) the big corporate interests, the ones who've already got sweet deals from government, are unstoppable.
Our democracy is the problem. The idea of voting once every so often for a representative means that we only get one very vague control into the system every few years whereas a company bribing politicians gets literally millions of times more power.
This is exactly the problem. No one thought the DMCA or COPA or CIPA or CDA would pass either. They all did. They didn't pass because they were good for the country, they passed because of the considerable lobby weight behind them.
SOPA and PIA are getting the same treatment. While it may be true that we still have a chance to influence our legislators, it's important to keep in mind that the lobbies haven't really started to work on members outside of the congressional committees yet either.
As long as bribery is legal (by jumping through hoops and not calling it bribery) the big corporate interests, the ones who've already got sweet deals from government, are unstoppable.
Our democracy is the problem. The idea of voting once every so often for a representative means that we only get one very vague control into the system every few years whereas a company bribing politicians gets literally millions of times more power.