Does it really matter which Achilles' heel brings down our elected officials? Sex, money, drugs, or a host of other seductive suspects are in every gangsters toolkit don't you know? Any one of which is a slam dunk for your average American.
When the wise guys go to work on someone... games over. Either they help you in, or they help you out, but the ever present quid pro quo applies, with one exception. If they help you win, they own you for life.
In my experience, no one is immune to coercion. Whether you are drawn to drugs, kinky sex or celibacy, whether you are orphaned or blueblood to the bone, you are vulnerable to someone or susceptible to something illegal, immoral, or just plain more fun than the law allows. (Junkets come to mind.) It is in our nature.
Even modest motivational sources, like ambition, family, religion, or sense of duty pale to the power behind the appropriate bribe or blackmail leverage.
Where this leads is to a society compromised by its own antiquated, hypocritical sense of morality. No society is any stronger than its most compromised officials, regardless of whether they are public or private.
Isn't it time we stop crippling ourselves by expecting saintly behavior from everyone? Wouldn't our society be better served if our morals matured into a more tolerant, consensual set of values? Can’t we leave Victoria’s hypocritical influence, and the religious guilt tripping to the last millennia?
Haven't we had our collective noses rubbed in enough dirt to learn anything?
Showing posts with label bribes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bribes. Show all posts
Friday, April 30, 2010
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Can We Be Bribed?
Can We Be Bribed?
After enjoying the lowest approval rating in the nation's history, can both the Congress and the president buy their way back into the public’s favor? The proposed one-time tax refund of $600 per person or $1200 per household is designed to accomplish exactly that. Are we really that gullible? Can we really be expected to forgive all the lying, favoritism, and corruption perpetrated by this administration? After leading us into war and driving the nation into a recession, they propose to give the taxpayers some of their money back. Let us not forget that in order to give money back to us, they have to take it from us in the first place. And let us not forget if it weren’t for this administration wasting trillions of dollars on an illegal, immoral, and unpopular war in the first place, we wouldn’t be on the brink of a financial meltdown.
$162 billion. It sounds like a lot of money. However, if we look at the Bush/Cheney welfare to Halliburton program it is a drop in the bucket. According to the latest Bill Moyer exposé 200 billion dollars of the 400 billion dollars billed by Halliburton to the American taxpayer recently has disappeared. By disappeared I don’t mean failed to show up in Halliburton’s account. I mean disappeared as in the services billed to and paid for by the government were never performed. Buildings billed and paid for were never built. Outrageous double or triple billing for products and services were never reimbursed, or credits issued. In a recent investigation by the Senate, Condoleezza Rice attributed these disappearing funds to "accounting" errors. Theft, by any other name, is still theft. Isn’t it?
Most economists agree that this proposed "stimulus package” won’t stimulate anything. Because businessmen realize the bubble is of short duration, they won't be adding payroll or capacity to plants. It is fair to say a portion will go to paying down personal debt, which won’t stimulate anything either. All this measure really does is drive up the nation's debt. According to Bloomberg analysts, this president has the nation on cruise control straight over a cliff. If anyone in the private sector proposed such a reckless policy, they would be on their way to an institution and fitted for a strait jacket.
We used to be able to tell the bandits from the good guys because the bandits had the decency to wear masks. Now the bandits are leading our nation and stealing us blind with the tacit approval of congress. Since the modern-day Bonnie and Clyde's are above the law they plunder and pillage at will. Unfortunately the scope of the nation's greedy plunderers extends around the globe. Because the country gets no benefit from the exploitation of our treasury, the value of the dollar is in steep decline around planet. Because our dollar is still the Globe's primary currency we are taking the rest of the world down with us.
Now the administration is proposing the largest federal budget of all time, at a time when we can least afford it. A large portion of this budget will go to increasing this war effort and increasing military spending. While the world should be at peace, this pugnacious administration is creating an ever larger war machine and using it to invade sovereign nations without proven provocation.. At the same time, they propose cutting popular programs like Medicare and Social Security and other social programs like health care for the nations’ poorest children. The Third Reich mentality couldn't possibly have arisen again, could it?
After enjoying the lowest approval rating in the nation's history, can both the Congress and the president buy their way back into the public’s favor? The proposed one-time tax refund of $600 per person or $1200 per household is designed to accomplish exactly that. Are we really that gullible? Can we really be expected to forgive all the lying, favoritism, and corruption perpetrated by this administration? After leading us into war and driving the nation into a recession, they propose to give the taxpayers some of their money back. Let us not forget that in order to give money back to us, they have to take it from us in the first place. And let us not forget if it weren’t for this administration wasting trillions of dollars on an illegal, immoral, and unpopular war in the first place, we wouldn’t be on the brink of a financial meltdown.
$162 billion. It sounds like a lot of money. However, if we look at the Bush/Cheney welfare to Halliburton program it is a drop in the bucket. According to the latest Bill Moyer exposé 200 billion dollars of the 400 billion dollars billed by Halliburton to the American taxpayer recently has disappeared. By disappeared I don’t mean failed to show up in Halliburton’s account. I mean disappeared as in the services billed to and paid for by the government were never performed. Buildings billed and paid for were never built. Outrageous double or triple billing for products and services were never reimbursed, or credits issued. In a recent investigation by the Senate, Condoleezza Rice attributed these disappearing funds to "accounting" errors. Theft, by any other name, is still theft. Isn’t it?
Most economists agree that this proposed "stimulus package” won’t stimulate anything. Because businessmen realize the bubble is of short duration, they won't be adding payroll or capacity to plants. It is fair to say a portion will go to paying down personal debt, which won’t stimulate anything either. All this measure really does is drive up the nation's debt. According to Bloomberg analysts, this president has the nation on cruise control straight over a cliff. If anyone in the private sector proposed such a reckless policy, they would be on their way to an institution and fitted for a strait jacket.
We used to be able to tell the bandits from the good guys because the bandits had the decency to wear masks. Now the bandits are leading our nation and stealing us blind with the tacit approval of congress. Since the modern-day Bonnie and Clyde's are above the law they plunder and pillage at will. Unfortunately the scope of the nation's greedy plunderers extends around the globe. Because the country gets no benefit from the exploitation of our treasury, the value of the dollar is in steep decline around planet. Because our dollar is still the Globe's primary currency we are taking the rest of the world down with us.
Now the administration is proposing the largest federal budget of all time, at a time when we can least afford it. A large portion of this budget will go to increasing this war effort and increasing military spending. While the world should be at peace, this pugnacious administration is creating an ever larger war machine and using it to invade sovereign nations without proven provocation.. At the same time, they propose cutting popular programs like Medicare and Social Security and other social programs like health care for the nations’ poorest children. The Third Reich mentality couldn't possibly have arisen again, could it?
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