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Author Topic: Corruption in Government  (Read 57518 times)

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AGelbert

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Quote
police state definition. A nation whose rulers maintain order and obedience by the threat of police  ;D or military force; one with a brutal, arbitrary government. The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

Dear Attorney General AG, Would you consider a nation that publicly orders billions of hollow point bullets for it's use on a nation of around three hundred million citizens, including woman, children and the elderly, indicative of a nation that would come under this heading.??

Thanks in advance for your reply.  :icon_scratch: :exp-laugh:  :icon_mrgreen: :icon_mrgreen:

GO,
We are in the throws of Inverted totalitarianism. Chris Hedges explains that in detail. I think you are familiar with that but if you want to refresh your mind, just Google it and Chris Hedges.

And YEP, it IS a police state but it is CLOAKED with the Color of LAW (see definition of Color of Law) with all the trappings (pure theater) of a representative republic.

Around the year 1800, the power of a (white, land owner) American citizen's vote was reasonable (if all the adult citizens had been allowed to vote). At that time a NEW Rep could be added to a state if the Congressional district exceeded 60,000 population. In 1918-19 the COUNT of reps was UNCONSTITUTIONALLY frozen. You'll never get a lawyer to fight that, either. The historical record is quite accurate as to the unconstitutionality of that legislation. You probably know all about how the unconstitutional income tax was pushed on us. But the BIG BETRAYAL was the frozen rep count. This assured a fascist takeover because corporations would get MORE influence while the individual voter would get less. At present your vote is worth one SIXTEENTH of what it was in the year 1800! Representative Republic, my ARSE! 

And if some learned counsel would pound the table about the "progressive reform" of electing senators during the same period (early 20th century) so state legislators couldn't be bought by big wig money bags types, then tell them that it was a FICTION.

Why? because it was ACCOMPANIED by freezing the rep count! What's that got to do with it? Tell said learned council to look up the word "senate". The senate is NOT, and never was, a democratic, representative or otherwise, of the PEOPLE; it is a representative of TPTB.

It is BALANCED (at least in theory) by the HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. Remember it has the SAME power as the House (except it isn't supposed to be able to INITIATE legislation - like it unconstitutionally DID in 2008 with the bailout!) with one third less members when this country got started.

As the number of reps got greater and greater from a population increase, the elite influence increased on a senate with less and less members in relation to the exploding population of the states. I.e. LESS DEMOCRACY in an already undemocraric senate - concentration of POWER in fewer hands!

In order for the proper balance to have been preserved with the, admittedly more democratic process of electing senators instead of having state legislators "elect" them, they HAD TO keep the same ratio of senators to representatives! They did not do that! They pulled a fascist one-two punch (one-two-three if you count the Federal Reserve ripping the power to print money away from the gooberment).

Keeping the, already pro-elite senate at two per state made it EASIER to BUY THEM. Freezing the house count did the same thing.  :evil4:

I wrote an article explaining all that several years ago. Here it is.

I'm talking about the sound bite of all sound bites, "No taxation without representation". We can all agree that representation is essential in a representative form of government, right? Yes, we are a republic and the founding f'rs abhorred pure democracy. But they did write into the Constitution that for every 30,000 citizens, NO MORE THAN ONE representative would be elected to the House (but AT LEAST ONE per state). You can see this is dated stuff. The constitution needs to be CLARIFIED to reflect modern technology.

The constitutional clarification/amendment would be:
1) AT LEAST ONE representative for every 31,000 citizens.
2) The 'AT LEAST ONE representative per state' can be dropped because it is ridiculous and outdated to even consider a state with less than 30,000 citizens.


The corporatocracy would fight this tooth and nail because this amendment would make our House of Representatives a democratic organization for the first time EVER (in 1787 Native Americans, women and African Americans were excluded - In 1911 when they UNconstitutionally froze the rep count at 436, Native Americans, women and most African Americans could not vote).

Since 1911 we have been in a time warp where corporate power grew as our population grew. The fix was IN.

Now do the math. Assuming 2/3 of the population can vote, that means 200,000,000 votes. If you get one rep for every 31,000 voters, the House gets 6451 representatives.


Consider, for a moment, how your vote has been watered down through the years. The 65 reps back in 1787 represented about 2 million white men. In 1911 the 337 or so that voted to freeze the upper bound of the number at 436 represented 90 million mostly white men - NO WOMEN.

Now DAMNIT, PEOPLE! That was one of the most corrupt congresses we have ever had! That was THE Rockefeller congress! That was the Railroad baron congress! That was the congress that, in 1913, brought the federal reserve crooks into being!

We went from one rep for every 30,000 white men in 1787 to one rep for every 500,000 voters in 2010. Think about that. YOU and 15 other voters have the same power that ONE WHITE MAN had in 1787! And with the Citizens United Supreme treason, you are ACTUALLY getting one rep for every (assuming 10,000 public and private large corporation pacs) 22 rich corporations. THIS IS THE REALITY.

There is no valid argument for limiting the number of reps. NONE.
 We want a representative republic. We don't have one. This is not a 'progressive' issue. This is about DEMOCRACY! 
agelbert November 3rd, 2010 10:12 pm

I wish to add that every single issue of importance to the people in the USA which has been ignored, disdained, ridiculed or trashed by the media and/or the government owes its' continued repression to our lack of representation in congress.


The single argument against it is very old. I cede the floor to Patrick Henry:
Quote
"But we are told that we need not fear; because those in power, being our representatives, will not abuse the powers we put in their hands. I am not well versed in history, but I will submit to your recollection, whether liberty has been destroyed most often by the licentiousness of the people, or by the tyranny of rulers.

I imagine, sir, you will find the balance on the side of tyranny. Happy will you be if you miss the fate of those nations, who, omitting to resist their oppressors, or negligently suffering their liberty to be wrested from them, have groaned under intolerable despotism!

Most of the human race are now in this deplorable condition; and those nations who have gone in search of grandeur, power, and splendor, have also fallen a sacrifice, and been the victims of their own folly. While they acquired those visionary blessings, they lost their freedom."

I imagine that Patrick Henry, who is famously quoted as saying he smelled a rat in Philadelphia (the constitutional convention), would have preferred one elected representative for much fewer voters than 30,000. He wanted to keep a sharp eye on the reps way back when. He would probably be outraged and leading a revolution today.

Today we have the technology for an electronic congress. This congress would not be the pampered tools for corporations we have now. Their numbers would make OUR voices stronger than corporate voices. They would be more approachable and more willing to listen to us with the 31,000 voters per district. We would HAVE A VOICE!

Our reps would rule for us.
Patrick Henry's rat was eaten by a Rockefeller T-Rex. We need to kill this dinosaur. The damned thing will kill us all and then start on it's own tail.

Quote
Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end... but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature ... And to found that edifice on its unavenged tears: would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell me the truth!"

 Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov


Quote
"People talk sometimes of a bestial cruelty, but that's a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears and gnaws, that's all he can do. He would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he were able to do it."
 Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov


Quote
"I think the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness."  :evil4:
 Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Quote
"If you were to destroy in mankind the belief in immortality, not only love but every living force maintaining the life of the world would at once be dried up. Moreover, nothing then would be immoral; everything would be lawful, even cannibalism."
 Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov


Quote
"if God doesn't exist, then everything is permitted"
 Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

 
Quote
“We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values… when machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
-- Martin Luther King, Jr. April 4, 1967


The wheels of "fascist progress" were turning fast and furious in those first 20 years of the 20th century. But we had Bernays to put lipstick on that fascist BOOT in our face. The lipstick is coming off.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Wasta: How it "Works" in Abu Dhabi - New owners of Essex Junction Chip Factory  :P
Written Friday, March 11, 2011 but Wasta is an ANCIENT "tradition" so it is every bit as RHIP "applicable" now as it was then.  ;D



If you don't think GlobalFoundries, the new owner of the IBM chip making plant at Essex Junction, isn't going to engage in "Wasta" here, you are in for a rude awakening... 



Finding Abu Dhabi an american couple on life in the middle east


A case for corruption?

When American politicians or foreign policy pundits analyze the activities of Muslim-majority countries, one point mentioned repeatedly is the pervasive corruption among the ruling elite. One oft cited example: Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s penchant for awarding top government positions to his friends and extended family. For many, this behavior in a Third World country is most likely not a surprise, yet it is not restricted to impoverished and quasi failed states. Here in the UAE, with a per capita GDP among the highest in the world, Shannon and I have encountered "corruption" in a few interesting ways.

 During our first weeks in Abu Dhabi back in 2009, we had the great pleasure of navigating the corridors of bureaucracy in order to get our residence visas and work permits, driver’s licenses, and liquor license (yes you’re supposed to have one in order to purchase alcohol). On more than one occasion, our visa officer, assigned by Shannon’s company to act as our liaison in these transactions, walked us to the front of a long line in whatever government office we happened to be in and spoke animatedly in Arabic with the official behind the counter. Suddenly, our paperwork would be stamped as approved, and we would be on our way.

 Seeing our bemusement and slight embarrassment for cutting in line, our liaison explained with a smile that he had “wasta.” It’s an Arabic term, and one of Shannon’s colleagues explained it as a sort of social bank account where deposits are made in the form of family status and influence, and withdrawals in the form of favors and deference  ;). Those who don’t have the right family  :o  :P name can earn wasta by showing loyalty or doing favors for those who do. So, for example, a person with AED 50,000 worth of speeding tickets that has suddenly been reduced to AED 500, or whose job application gets moved to the top of the stack, has wasta.

 As you might imagine, wasta plays a prominent role in the selection of personnel in the government ministries as well. After having some conversations with some expat friends who had lived here for a while, I learned that many positions in the various state ministries here are often assigned according to an individual’s standing in the tribal hierarchy (in Abu Dhabi’s case, the Bani Yas tribe). Hearing this offended my American sensibilities, which consider the use of public office for personal ends, or preferential treatment based upon one’s name, to be anathema when compared with a system of rules and merit. It seemed like, well, corruption.

 At least that was how I felt until I read an article by Lawrence Rosen, in the Spring 2010 issue of The American Interest, that helped to shed a different light on the issue for me. Entitled, “Understanding Corruption” the article explores the differing cultural definitions of corruption held in some parts of the Muslim-majority world, as opposed to those typically held in America (and the West in general). Interestingly, though perhaps not surprisingly, people in this part of the world have a different conception of corruption than the one more commonly held in the West.

 Rosen writes:

Quote
Corruption is the failure to share any largess you have received with those with whom you have formed ties of dependence. Theirs is a world in which the defining feature of a man is that he has formed a web of indebtedness, a network of obligations that prove his capacity to maneuver in a world of relentless uncertainty. It is a world in which the separation of impersonal institutions from personal attachments is very scarce. Failure to service such attachments is thus regarded as not only stupid but corrupt.
  ???

 So, whereas Americans might conceive corruption as a lack of deference to individual qualifications, societies similar to the UAE would conceive of corruption as a lack of deference to communal relationships. This is not to say that Americans don’t appreciate family or that Emiratis don’t laud personal productivity, because they both do. However, their hierarchies of value differ. To illustrate, think about the standard greeting among Americans: "How are you?" Or better, "What's up?" In this exchange, the initiator often doesn't expect, or even care, to receive a real answer. Contrast this with the standard greeting among Arabs: "Salaam Alaykum" (translated "peace be upon you"). By invoking peace upon the other person, the initiator expects peace to be invoked on his behalf (in the form of "Wa Alaykum Asalaam", or "And upon you be peace"). If the person doesn't respond in kind, it is a direct affront.

 I now find it easier to understand this mindset, but I still have reservations  ;). Rosen points out that while this reciprocal back-scratching model seems to function in smaller communities, where everyone knows each other and all exist in relations of mutual indebtedness, it is not as easily applied in large, urban, and now globalized environments, where familiar life long relationships are replaced with impersonal ones more transactional in nature  . What’s the use of bribing a clerk if he doesn’t know you and thus will likely never need help from you?

AGelbert NOTE: The "use" is that "wasta" always was about RHIP, regardless of the Arab "interpretation" of what is supposedly corrupt and what isn't. It's all about autocratic POWER with some self serving baloney about reciprocity.

Of course the author of the blog is a true blue capitalist that doesn't see much of an issue except a possible "danger" in the "future". 


 The danger, then, is for this to evolve  ;D into a system that does not serve to promote social bonds, where favors are expected for those with wasta but are no longer mutually beneficial for giver as well as receiver. The extreme logical conclusion is that the marginalized members of society, those who have become powerless to operate effectively within the structured order, might decide collectively that they want to change the now-corrupt system. And of course, this has been one of the primary motivations for the protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, and Libya.

http://findingabudhabi.blogspot.com/2011/03/case-for-corruption.html

The Bani Yas tribe (Wasta fer Vermonters!) is coming to Essex Junction, Vermont!  :P 
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Wed Oct 22, 2014 at 04:08 PM EDT.

125 Seattle Cops Say They Have "Constitutional Right" to


by
SuperpoleFollow ..


use excessive force-- and they sued to make this happen.


Wow... who could've foresaw this happening in our Nation?  ;D

But some 125 Seattle police officers responded by filing a lawsuit challenging the new laws. In their view, the new policies infringe on their rights to use as much force as they deem necessary in self-protection. They represent about ten percent of the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild membership. The police union itself declined to endorse the lawsuit.
This week, a federal judge summarily rejected all of their claims, finding that they were without constitutional merit, and that she would have been surprised if such allegations of excessive force by officers did not lead to stricter standards.

Quote
The officers claimed the policies infringed on their rights under their Second Amendment and under the Fourth  , claiming a self-defense right to use force. Chief U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman pointed out that the Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms — not the right to use them — and that the officers “grossly misconstrued” the Fourth Amendment when they claimed that it protects them, and not individuals who would be the subjects of police force or seizures.


Again, folks... it's all about the police constantly, bogusly claiming "their lives are threatened"; whether it's by someone carrying a sandwich, a stick, or NO weapon at all as with the Michael Brown case.

Thankfully the presiding federal judge threw this nonsense out--but the cops could appeal the ruling.

It's wayyy past time for some firm definitions of when a police officer can and cannot use excessive, deadly force.

http://thinkprogress.org/...
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/22/1338443/-125-Seattle-Cops-Say-They-Have-Constitutional-Right-to

Agelbert NOTE:
The Court System  is IRREPARABLE.  These fascist cops will get a judge that overrules the judge with CFS (Pechman) on behalf of fascist "interpretations" of the Constitution to mean anything the cops want it to mean even if they "adjust" it on the fly.

It's ALL ABOUT that "LATITUDE" that the Court System corruptly, unconstitutionally (and totally APPROVED by the lawyers    pretending FALSELY to defend we-the-people  >:() INSISTS on giving the cops whenever the commit a FELONY in the course of their "I am the boss" daily brutality against we-the-people in general and minorities in particular.

Golden Rule Government is the only answer.

Golden Rule Government: A Lawful System Based on Caring instead of Conquest

Fascist Big Ag uses Food Disparagement Law and
the Patriot Act to threaten Truth tellers!


Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes on what the LAW was ALL ABOUT

The Lady Justice Legal Scales mean the OPPOSITE of what you think they mean

Don't count on our Court System to defend Americans from Fascism - Here's why the solution to Corporate Profit over Planet is  EX CURIA

How Lawyers  took the power from the King (for themselves) pretending it was FOR THE PEOPLE

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Corruption in Government
« Reply #33 on: October 29, 2014, 02:47:51 pm »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Does a Wild Bear Defecate in the Woods?
« Reply #34 on: October 29, 2014, 03:23:48 pm »
To be filed under: Does a Wild Bear Defecate in the Woods?   ::)

Is Voter Suppression an American Tradition?

Posted on Oct 28, 2014

As midterm elections loom, voter suppression schemes are sweeping the land, with new requirements on voter identification leading the way and getting the lion’s share of attention. Anyone interested in fair elections should be concerned and alarmed.

But are the new ID requirements really all that novel?    Or are they better understood as the revival of a longstanding tradition evident from the nation’s earliest days, designed to restrict the franchise and manipulate outcomes? 

Before answering those questions, let’s take a closer look at the current voter ID landscape. The National Conference of State Legislatures, which keeps statistical track of such matters, has reported that 34 states have enacted laws mandating that voters produce identification documents at the polls. To date, only three such laws have been blocked—those enacted in Pennsylvania and Arkansas  by state courts and the Wisconsin scheme by the U.S. Supreme Court. A fourth voter ID law—in North Carolina—isn’t slated to go into effect until 2016.

The remaining 30 ID laws will be in place for the midterms, including those in seven states (Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia) that strictly require current government-issued photo IDs. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, prior to the 2006 elections no state had compelled its voters to produce such credentials in order to cast ballots, although some, like Hawaii, authorized poll workers to request but not order voters to display some form of identification. 

What’s behind the new voter ID surge is no secret. As Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has written of the Texas scheme that she unsuccessfully tried to enjoin and as Judge Richard Posner of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has observed of the Wisconsin plan, voter ID laws are the contemporary equivalent of the poll taxes of the Jim Crow era, which were outlawed by the 24th Amendment in 1964.   >:(

Like the old poll taxes, Ginsburg and Posner explain, the new ID laws target minority voters, who are typically among the most liberal, and who are also often the least able to pay for IDs or meet the costs involved in traveling to the DMV or other government offices to obtain them. And like the old poll taxes, the new ID laws do nothing to ensure the integrity of elections. As numerous studies have shown, in-person voter fraud is virtually nonexistent. The new ID movement thus offers a false solution to a trumped-up problem.

While Ginsburg has long been skeptical of voter ID requirements and sided with the minority in the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision that validated Indiana’s voter ID law (Crawford v Marion County), Posner is a recent convert to the anti-ID judicial community. Indeed, he was the author of the original 7th Circuit opinion that the Supreme Court upheld in the Crawford case. Now, he is one of the most eloquent critics of both the Crawford ruling and the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which gutted the Voting Rights Act. But as forceful as Ginsburg and the repentant Posner are in their recent opinions on the Texas and Wisconsin voter ID laws, neither lays out the full historical context or political dimensions of voter suppression.

Notwithstanding the landmark advances achieved in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, the adoption in 1920 of the 19th Amendment according women the right to vote in federal elections, and the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, voter suppression has been the norm for much of our history. From the original disenfranchisement of black slaves and women to the early exclusions of white men without property, voter inclusion has always been an elusive goal.

Current voter ID laws and other suppression techniques aimed at limiting early voting and same-day registration may be less obvious than the poll taxes, whites-only primaries and literacy tests of yesteryear, but they are driven by the same purpose of undermining genuine majority rule and deflecting potential threats to the established order. If anything, today’s techniques are all the more insidious precisely because they are less obvious.

Today’s suppression schemes are also more dangerous
because they have been accompanied by a series of Supreme Court decisions that have unleashed the power of corporations and the wealthy to spend unlimited money on elections (the Citizens United opinion and its progeny) while restricting the right of public-sector unions—the last bastion of organized labor in America—to collect the membership dues and fair-share fees they need to exist. All of these developments—voter suppression, the removal of limits on campaign spending, and union busting—are joined synergistically in what I have previously called in this column a “trifecta of institutionalized class domination.”

Whether the trifecta is anything truly new or simply the latest version of a longstanding tradition I will leave for you to decide as the midterms approach and you contemplate how to vote or even whether you will head to the polls at all, given the lack of real political alternatives on the ballot.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/is_voter_suppression_an_american_tradition_20141028

Agelbert NOTE; Posner NOW agrees with Ginsburg! :o BUT, evidencing the irreparable corruption of the system set up to GUARANTEE rigged election outcomes, Posner's reversal has been OVERRULED by an Appellate Court as a "dissenting" opinion.  . How Forking Convenient...   



Fascist Big Ag uses Food Disparagement Law and
the Patriot Act to threaten Truth tellers!


Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes on what the LAW was ALL ABOUT

The Lady Justice Legal Scales mean the OPPOSITE of what you think they mean

Don't count on our Court System to defend Americans from Fascism - Here's why the solution to Corporate Profit over Planet is EX CURIA
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Corruption in Government
« Reply #35 on: October 31, 2014, 12:38:39 am »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgWy_u4BLXs&feature=player_embedded
Christie the Fascist blows his top. This is an interview with an honorable citizen that told Christie he was out of line. Well done! 


If you want to watch the corrupt governor Christie Doing what he DOES , go to the link. Bring your barf bag.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/30/1340351/-Chris-Christie-blows-his-top-after-angry-constituent-confronts-him-at-press-conference

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Corruption in Government
« Reply #36 on: November 03, 2014, 07:50:52 pm »
25 Arrested Shutting Down FERC Office  in DC

Full story at link:


http://ecowatch.com/2014/11/03/25-arrested-shutting-down-ferc/
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Corruption in Government
« Reply #37 on: November 06, 2014, 11:56:45 pm »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Corruption in Government
« Reply #38 on: November 07, 2014, 06:44:52 pm »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmX7iYOE9FI&feature=player_embedded

100+ Arrested at Beyond Extreme Energy’s Week-Long Protests at FERC

Anastasia Pantsios | November 7, 2014 3:40 pm

http://ecowatch.com/2014/11/07/beyond-extreme-energy-ferc/2/
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Corruption in Government
« Reply #39 on: November 07, 2014, 07:28:18 pm »
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRfRMQUX2ns&feature=player_embedded

People want democracy. We do not have democracy n the USA.


The Fossil Fuelers   DID THE Climate Trashing CRIME,   but since they have ALWAYS BEEN liars    and conscience free crooks ,    they are trying to AVOID   DOING THE TIME or     PAYING THE FINE!     Don't let them get away with it! Pass it on!
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Corruption in Government
« Reply #40 on: November 09, 2014, 03:51:54 pm »
 sure (1+ / 0-)

it is possible, if you change the Senate rules.

It is not possible if you allow all the foot-dragging
Seeking to be as wise as Fioral

by GideonAB on Fri Nov 07, 2014 at 11:07:41 AM EST

[ Reply to This ]

* [new]  Senate "rules" (2+ / 0-)

But they won't do that. Ever since Cheney got bent out of shape because Jeffords foiled his attempt at getting Republican control of the Senate by going independent, they have INVENTED out of WHOLE UNCONSTITUTIONAL CLOTH, the BULL**** that a super majority is needed and other TRIPE like being able to "filibuster" by sitting on your ass.

Anybody that thinks all the press hype before this S- election was not deliberately aimed at pushing the LIE that Republicans were "favored" so the voting "results" would match the propaganda is naive.

Get this, people: There WAS NO HORSE RACE HERE, PERIOD. The people want democracy and they are not going to get it as long the Fossil Fuel Fascist Oligarchs continue in power in this inverted totalitarian dictatorship.

And the oligarchs NOTICED our VAST dismay at these elections and are going to do the old tactic they have ALWAYS done. It's called TWO STEPS FORWARD and ONE STEP BACK. Yeah, they attributed that to the Communists during the cold war. But the FASCISTS in the USA are the EXPERTS at it.

So NOW you will see the senate make a lot of noise about progress, renewable energy, democracy, blah, blah ,blah, blah and pass some token legislation like extending wind power subsidies (that are a PITTANCE) compared with fossil fuel subsides. All this will be TRUMPETED by the fascist press as "defeats" for "conservatives".

In fact, it is this "one step back" that will be followed by world class crushing of what is left of progressive laws in next year's session. But  for NOW, the job of the press is to PUT ALL OF US TO SLEEP, GET IT? You DON'T? Don't Worry, YOU WILL!

So ALL those nice articles (that have already started) about "not despairing" are not worth a TINKER'S DAMN!

The ONLY tool we have to fight this is to STOP consuming (all the way to the bare subsistence level for a decade or so) and STOP participating in the economy (NO STOCKS!) and ACCEPT being poverty stricken until it brings the ****ing corporations to their knees. NOTHING ELSE WILL WORK because we DO NOT HAVE DEMOCRACY in the USA.

And you know what? I doing think even 20% of Americans have the intestinal fortitude and integrity to go poor to take down the rich fascists in charge.

There are solutions and I have, in the links below, identified the problems and outlined the solution. But Americans are too materialistic to get it. We have become those donkey kids in the Pinocchio movie.

 So, YEAH, it's OVER. Have a Fine Fascist Day.


The Lady Justice Legal Scales mean the OPPOSITE of what you think they mean

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. on what the LAW was ALL ABOUT

Fascist Big Ag uses Food Disparagement Law and
 the Patriot Act to threaten Truth tellers!

Golden Rule Government: A Lawful System Based on Caring instead of Conquest

by Agelbert on Sat Nov 08, 2014 at 06:08:47 PM EST

[ Parent | Reply to This ]


* [new]  Amen, Agelbert! (3+ / 0-)

I've been on to the corporate takeover of democracy in America for about 15 years now.  The one thing that continues to elude me is the end game.  Big Ag had a definite end game; Earl Butz had a real vision for the transformation he wrought in American agriculture, but he wasn't out to destroy the country.  'Get Big or Get Out', his motto, was intended to eliminate small farmers and the inefficiencies that so much localized production brought to the table, but he wanted the displaced farmers to head into the factories.  It made sense in the post war world, and though he created a lot of ghost towns on the Plains and destroyed a way life for poor Southern farmers who'd managed to deliver their produce to a local cannery where they also picked up work for a few weeks at the end of the season, he met his primary objective - cheap food for American consumers.  Yes, food prices have been going up the past few years, but that's partly the toll of normal inflation, increased demand from Asians who have finally climbed out of desperate poverty, and (probably mostly) market speculation by WS firms freed from the constraint of having to have some kind of tangential relationship to the commodities they are dabbling in by the Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000.  Repeal that Republican piece of **** legislation and food prices will plummet.

But the folks who make non necessities, which covers most things sold in every store in the first world, have set out to destroy their own customers.  Those billions of Asians who can now afford to eat on a regular basis are going to want safe, potable water before they want iPhones and they'll need plumbing and electricity before they can buy dishwashers.  Is it possible that the captains of industry are too ill informed to know that?  And if they destroy the first world by reducing us all to the level of those Asian factory workers, they really will be stuck with all the bills; they use roads and bridges, too.  Poor countries are not nice places to live, even for the very rich (they're quite dangerous, making most of them no go areas), so they'll make their own lives unpleasant while they make ours hell.  I just don't get why they can't seem to see that, to say nothing of the fact that there's a limit to how much you can do to an infinitely powerful entity like the US military, staffed entirely by members of the middle and working classes, before it turns and kills you.  An angry, beleaguered middle class started the French Revolution; we're getting close to part deux.     

by CatKinNY on Sat Nov 08, 2014 at 11:32:24 PM EST

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* [new]  I Have Said For Years (1+ / 0-)

That I will probably live to see the end of The United States as we know it.  Because you can only squeeze so much before those being squeezed finally push back.

The question is...just how far into the corner will people allow themselves to be backed....before they finally explode?

And that is what it will come to.  We will have another Civil War, but it won't be a nice, neat North versus South thing...it will be a hundred different factions all fighting each other for the rancid bits of what was once a great nation.

It will be hell on Earth.  I hope like hell it doesn't happen while I am still alive.  But I am betting it will.  Because things are getting worse and worse and worse for the middle and lower classes...and there is only so much deprivation that they will tolerate.

It would be ONE thing if the wealthy, too, were suffering.  They might be willing to endure more suffering if the wealthy were also suffering.  But they aren't.

The wealthy, in fact, are profiting - and doing so on the backs of everyone else.

The wealthy are self-aggrandizing and by doing so CREATING the misery for all below them.  And the people know it.

The pitchforks are coming.

Remember that song from Megadeth "Peace Sells?"

I find myself thinking about that song all the time now.  For those who don't know it, the lyrics follow:  (I am going to bold things that mirror my own feelings at the moment...

Peace Sells - by Megadeth

What do you mean, "I don't believe in God"?
 I talk to him every day.
 What do you mean, "I don't support your system"?
 I go to court when I have to.
 What do you mean, "I can't get to work on time"?
 I got nothing better to do
And, what do you mean, "I don't pay my bills"?
 Why do you think I'm broke? Huh?

 [Chorus:]
If there's a new way,
 I'll be the first in line.
 But, it better work this time.

What do you mean, "I hurt your feelings"?
 I didn't know you had any feelings.
 What do you mean, "I ain't kind"?
 I'm just not your kind.
 What do you mean, "I couldn't be the president
 Of the United States of America"?
 Tell me something, it's still "We the people", right?

 [Chorus: (repeat)]
If there's a new way
 I'll be the first in line,
 But, it better work this time.


Can you put a price on peace?
 Peace,
 Peace sells...,
 Peace,
 Peace sells...,
 Peace sells...,but who's buying?
 Peace sells...,but who's buying?
 Peace sells...,but who's buying?
 Peace sells...,but who's buying?


"Sometimes, you just have to be offensive to offensive people"  - Max Nofziger, former Austin City Council Member (This still qualifies as one of the best life-lessons I ever got)

by Kalisiin on Sun Nov 09, 2014 at 09:21:46 AM EST

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 * [new]  Great lyrics! (0+ / 0-)

Thank you for the song. It's a keeper!

by Agelbert on Sun Nov 09, 2014 at 02:22:01 PM EST


[ Parent | Reply to this ]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/07/1342926/-Senate-gears-up-for-packed-lame-duck-nbsp-session
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Corruption in Government
« Reply #42 on: November 19, 2014, 06:18:49 pm »
Excellent Post by a Pediatric Dentist about Government Corruption through increased bureaucratic hurdles and expenses:   

I'm sure some of you read John Michael Greer's  Archdruid Report, and you might have caught last week's post talking about the inevitable creep of more and more intermediaries  stepping into the space between producers and consumers, taking some small piece of the action --- which, as he rightfully pointed out, drives up the cost of goods and services and acts a very effective barrier to anyone wanting to create a new business --- in a civilization on the decline.

I've been an unhappy witness to this process for my whole career, but this week I was gob-smacked by a fine new example: A brand new scam known as Online Hospital Credentialing.

Now, a few of you who know me, know that I'm a dentist, and some of you know that I carry a board certification in pediatrics ( another intermediary, but never mind that one right now).

The thing is that pediatric dentists usually have hospital privileges, because we have to treat lots of patients in the two year-old category, and some as young as nine months. This is  because young parents don't always get the message that a baby over six months old who goes to sleep with a bottle (or a breast) in his/her mouth is at great risk for nursing bottle caries.

 And unfortunately, in our present day culture, some infants are the victims of serious neglect, and get bottles put in their mouth with soda pop, sweetened milk, and the like, and can get what is known as "rampant decay". Last week I had to remove 18 of the normal 20 primary teeth on a three year old special needs child who was such a victim.  Needless to say, these procedures are best accomplished with the patient asleep under general anesthesia. Hence the need for me to have a relationship with one or more hospitals.

In modern times, there has always been a credentialing process for doctors and nurses, but over my 25 year career, the process has gotten increasingly complicated and rigorous, which might seem to be a reasonable and necessary thing, but lately, since Big Insurance has corporatized medicine completely, it's started to get really out of hand.

Not only do I have to resubmit all my credentials annually ( and there are many small credentials I have to prove), now we have to go through a similar process for our assistants. With me and the three assistants I keep credentialed, it seems like we are caught in a never-ending loop of paperwork. These are employees of mine, not the hospital. In the operating room the hospital typically  provides me and the anesthesiologist with only one nurse, known as the circulator, whose job it is to bring patients from the admissions area to the OR, accompany the patient to recovery after the procedure, and to write what has to be documented in the medical chart.

To actually help me do my job, I typically bring two of my employees, who do the same sorts of things they do in the office to assist me. Set up the room, take x-rays and digital photos, hand me things, and provide four of the hands involved in what we refer to in our business as six-handed dentistry.

When I started twenty-five years ago, there was NO credentialing required for these folks. Either by the hospital or the dental board. Now they (or their employers) get to pay a nice tribute annually to the dental board. And, as of this week, they (me) also get to pay an additional $225 a head to...an online credentialing service, that saves the hospital (aka giant insurance conglomerate) the pesky trouble of making sure they're qualified to do their job.

Even though they don't ACTUALLY work for the hospital. They work for me, and not only that, I am legally responsible for their every action. If they do something wrong that causes a problem for the patient, it is my malpractice insurance that has to cover them.

So, bottom line, I now have to pay an extra $775-$1000 in fees to practice at the hospital.

Tough noogies, you say! That's why they pay you the big bucks.

Well, get this. That ain't all. No that ain't all. Not a by a long shot.

They now want proof that I, and each staff member, had all our childhood immunizations. Don't have proof? Fine. Just get them redone. Also we HAVE to get a flu shot, something I'm opposed to on principle. And a TB test. And Hep B vaccine. Proof of immunity to MMR, which for me requires a blood test, since I'm old enough to have actually had measles.

All in the public interest, you say? Well then, let the hospital pay for it. After all, they are a hospital and it would cost them next to nothing, right? But no, I have to pay for all that. Work out the logistics of sending me and my staff to some doctor's office during work hours, with significant lost income AND multiple doctor bills.

And WAIT, there's MORE! My employees must now submit to a CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECK and a DRUG TEST. I can sign something certifying that I have done this as a normal part of the hiring process...but guess what?  By participating in this whole dog and pony show, I also have to sign that this "online credentialing service" can audit my personnel records, to prove I'm not lying.

This whole ball of wax is being sold to me as a way of "simplifying" the credentialing process. I'd  die laughing at that if I weren't so absolutely and totally angry that I could spit.

By the way, the "online" part of online credentialing means that MY office manager has to input all the data into this "service package". I'm not exactly sure what the company that  I'm paying to look up my and my employees collective skirts is actually doing to earn their $225 a head. Looks to me like they bought some software, and now they are set for life.

Because they are getting this not only from all the doctors and their employees, but also from each and every hospital employee as well. Ka-ching! And probably most of the employees will have to pay for it, not the employers. I pay for my employees, but I have no requirement to do so.

if you have no compassion for my plight, how do you think this impacts a low level doctors office employee who is a single mother making maybe $15 bucks an hour?

Agelbert NOTE:I agree with Doctor Eddie.     If the gooberment wants you to jump through some bureaucratic hoop in order to enrich some corporate welfare queen that runs a hospital, then the gooberment should make we-the-people ALL pay equally. But that would negate the whole point of corrupt practices disguised as "fer yer own good" requirements.  ;)    So it goes.   
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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The two million dollar TRUTH about Trayvon Martin in 3 minutes: :o
http://viewrz.com/video/the-2-miiilion-dollar-trayvon-martin-truth

Or just watch the following video starting at the one hour mark:  8)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNFAwvBt_Dg&feature=player_embedded
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Corruption in Government
« Reply #44 on: December 09, 2014, 12:55:27 am »
POLICE in our POLICE STATE =   

“So… now what?” he asked. “We can move forward with this notion that police officers wearing body cameras will make them more judicious in their use of force, but it seems pretty clear that they just don’t give a f uck, and the court system is content to allow them to keep on not giving a f uck.” Police “are not regarded as citizens also beholden to the law. They are an armed force charged with maintenance of a status quo steeped in white supremacy and anti-blackness.”

Full EXCELLENT Mychal Denzel Smith  article:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/truthdigger_of_the_week_mychal_denzel_smith_20141206

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

 

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