citizens for a sound economy

[jordan pollack <pollack@cs.brandeis.edu>]

www.cse.org could be a top-down anti-regulation organization, 
perhaps funded indirectly through the PR agencies of
a diverse set of power and telecom interests,
and not just microsoft. There is no obvious member activity given
the 250,000 consumers it "represents".
Perhaps the 9,600 consumers in Illinois 
work for Motorola and the 25,000 in Florida
work for Harris!:)

Looking around their website, i found a tremendous
push for power and telecom deregulation.
On microsoft, I found these
three "press releases" from december 7
which have three different men saying
exactly the same thing in 3 different locations at the exact same
time (about south carolina withdrawing from the microsoft case)
[The day before bill gates went on satellite
to complain that trustbusters were unfairly targeting microsoft]

http://www.cse.org/cse/fl-csef-nr120798.htm
http://www.cse.org/cse/il-nr-telecom120798csef.htm
http://www.cse.org/cse/nr-telecom981207csef.htm

excerpts:

"Slade O’ Brien, director of Florida Citizens for a Sound Economy
Foundation stated, "On behalf of the 25,000 consumers represented by our
organization in Florida, I commend Attorney General Charlie Condon,
South Carolina, for withdrawing his state from the federal antitrust
suit against Microsoft Corporation.  We
urge Florida’s attorney general, Bob Butterworth, to follow his
example."

"Illinois CSE Foundation
director, Joe Wiegand stated, "On behalf of the 9,600 consumers
represented by our organization in Illinois, we appreciate Attorney
General Charlie Condon’s rejection of the federal government’s efforts
to intervene in the high technology marketplace and withdraw
from the federal government’s case against Microsoft. Our attorney
general, Jim Ryan, should follow his example.

I'm not making this up. they all also say something like:
"prices are plummeting and innovation is booming,"
and use the metaphor "forcing the chicago bulls to give up mike jordan". 

In jun 1996, they produced a dozen cloned state-personalized
articles called "Monopolies cost X'ans dearly" touting
a report they commissioned on power deregulation.

Monopolies do cost us dearly; but I guess they also pay pretty well.

-- 
Professor Jordan B. Pollack   DEMO Laboratory, Volen Center for Complex
Systems
Computer Science Dept, MS018  Phone (781) 736-2713/Lab x3366/Fax x2741
Brandeis University           website: http://www.demo.cs.brandeis.edu
Waltham, MA 02254             email: pollack@cs.brandeis.edu