trump off the CO ballot

[sparks]

MM said: " It doesn't seem a lot different than the America of my childhood."

Young person.

62.....and it might have been very different ten years ealier. I think the '70s was the decade where America's selfish, consumer driven, personality really came to the front.

My bad: You are younger than me.

[arthwollipot]

Jon Stewart
Menendez: How Dumb Is You?
16:58

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5udtSQ-LtM0

Let's not look at American "democracy" with rose-tinted glasses.

[stanky]

fun link, arth.

i often wondered how or why the non-corrupt can't exist within the state of overall corruption; why the few decent ones either turn bad or end up dead or the media ignores them or trashes them, as if they too are in on it...which, of course, they are.

Do people like Jeff Epstein get videos of them doing sleezy stuff? Do people like Don Corellone make them a deal they can't refuse? Or, were they simply sleezy, lying bastards to begin with? And all they wanted was to be fabulously wealthy and do very little work?

We can't even imagine how little work a supreme court justice has to do. And how much they get for it. Clarence didn't even have any opinions for the longest time. None of us has ever had a job like that. They're set for life; can do no wrong...pretty heady stuff...maybe that attracts the wrong sort of person?

I first discovered the vast underbelly of corruption in college. We had an 'honor' system for exams. We had to sign a pledge that we wouldn't cheat. I didn't cheat. Didn't do well either. It was hard. I wasn't stupid, or so i thought. How were the other kids getting "A's"?

answer: They were cheating. And lying. and graduating. with honors.
(joining a frat meant you get get the tests and answers long before the taking of the test. It was an inside secret, sort-of. I hated the frat scene and didn't join one. They were rich, white, racist, sexist pricks. Couldn't stomach the shit-heads. Where are they now?

running the world.

where am i?

(fomenting revolution to a few strangers on line.)

[President Bush]

Emotional support gold bars is pretty funny.

[arthwollipot]

If you're a sleazy lying bastard (and American) the way to make bank is to go into politics.

[Meadmaker]

Jon Stewart
Menendez: How Dumb Is You?
16:58

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5udtSQ-LtM0

Let's not look at American "democracy" with rose-tinted glasses.

There's a couple of different sorts of corruption at play, here. This video is about corruption of people who hold office.

To be perfectly frank, I would be very surprised if this sort of corruption didn't exist all over the place. I don't think Australians are uniquely virtuous, so that they never use their power to enrich themselves. If there's a way, people find it. I'm not sure America is special in this regard.

What I have been talking about previously is not what politicians do once elected, but rather how they get elected or re-elected. Is it a reasonably fair playing field?

(To be fair, what this video shows is a form of plutocracy. People with money buy access, presumably because they believe they can influence government decisions in their favor. So, this is another element of plutocracy, but I don't think it's exactly definitive of our form of government, and I would be surprised if this form of influence paddling didn't happen elsewhere in the world.)

[arthwollipot]

To be perfectly frank, I would be very surprised if this sort of corruption didn't exist all over the place. I don't think Australians are uniquely virtuous, so that they never use their power to enrich themselves. If there's a way, people find it. I'm not sure America is special in this regard.

Not like this. Corruption in America is institutionalised. It's built-in to the structure and function of government, by design.

It's government for the rich, by the rich, and the rich make the rules to enrich themselves.

[Meadmaker]

To be perfectly frank, I would be very surprised if this sort of corruption didn't exist all over the place. I don't think Australians are uniquely virtuous, so that they never use their power to enrich themselves. If there's a way, people find it. I'm not sure America is special in this regard.

Not like this. Corruption in America is institutionalised. It's built-in to the structure and function of government, by design.

It's government for the rich, by the rich, and the rich make the rules to enrich themselves.

According to these people: https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/202 ... oIQAvD_BwE we're only a few spots behind Australia.

[arthwollipot]

According to these people: https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/202 ... oIQAvD_BwE we're only a few spots behind Australia.

Weird flex.

[stanky]

To be perfectly frank, I would be very surprised if this sort of corruption didn't exist all over the place. I don't think Australians are uniquely virtuous, so that they never use their power to enrich themselves. If there's a way, people find it. I'm not sure America is special in this regard.

Not like this. Corruption in America is institutionalised. It's built-in to the structure and function of government, by design.

It's government for the rich, by the rich, and the rich make the rules to enrich themselves.

According to these people: https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/202 ... oIQAvD_BwE we're only a few spots behind Australia.

neat link, thanks. interesting that, by their metrics, corruption is growing. i wonder if there's a biological analogy for what happens at max corruption? As when fermentation kills the yeast.

Part of me thinks that corruption normalizes into a workable system; that the rules of the game incorporate it as a given. Peers will judge you by the quality or finesse of your cheating and stealing, as in a play well acted. Residual honest types will be ridiculed as the loser chumps they are, and reproduction won't favor selection of the trustworthy. Morality of any bent would be obnoxious. Anything goes.

i could see it getting sorted out into a sub-species.