Corruption Watch
This email posted at TPM pretty much summarizes my thoughts:
Just to mention something that is obvious, but hopefully not overlooked, i.e., if this country cannot pass a bill which insures that every citizen has access to medical care, which every developed country has managed to do (and got done many many years ago), there is something very fundamentally and structurally wrong with this country.I think it is obvious we live with a "completely corrupt and dysfunctional form of government, but I guess you always have to hope things will get better.
Such an event, in my mind, would confirm that we live with a completely corrupt and dysfunctional form of government. Forty nine states, each with bicameral legislative bodies, some of which have distinguished themselves recently with unabashed levels of incompetency and cluelessness. Then, graft a federal government over that, which is also bicameral, the non-representative portion of it being filled with officials who are certifiable morons and/or who are bought and sold like whores by wealthy contributors.
Talk about a Waterloo.
This is a defining moment in our history. Do we fulfill our supposed status as a "shining city on a hill" or continue our long slow decline into a second rate oligarchy?
posted by spooked at 9:01 PM
1 Comments:
A completely corrupt and dysfunctional society, which, incidentally, dictates the "government".
Excerpts from a recent Mathias Broekers article in TAZ (the daily newspaper), "Perverse Prohibition":
Strong punishment measures for drug involvement has a decidedly negative effect. For example, in the USA, the ratio of drug users of hard stuff to soft stuff (cannabis) is 7:1 whereas in Holland, it is 2:3, where the hard line is not taken.
The US, with 5 percent of the population, consumes 25 percent of illigal drugs, while the War on Drugs sucks up ever increasing billions of dollars. The privatized prison industry makes more than a third of its profits, notable in stock market reports, from people locked up for durg abuse.
The world’s anual profits from drugs is estimeated (UN) at $400 billion and is the principal support of organized crime and terrorism.
A comparison can be made between the “War on Terror” and the “War on Drugs”, not only for huge profits but for the fact that both produce the victims that they profess to save.
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