What Corruption Looks Like
What I love about corruption in DC is that it's just so damned tacky.
Al Wynn is running in Maryland's fourth Congressional district for reelection against progressive challenger Donna Edwards. Wynn sat in Congress for fifteen years with no challenges until Donna came along in 2006, helping every corporate interest that came his way. I'm not going to advocate for Donna much in this post. I just want you to feast your eyes on this incredible tacky specimen of a fundraiser invitation.
Who knew Verizon had a good government committee?
There's lots of good information on the race and the dynamics of it here. The primary is on February 12, and you can find more on Donna here.
Corruption even makes bad font choices.
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I thought the General Electric war profiteers deciding who the president will be was pretty damn corrupt.
MoveOn has targeted Wynn for rampant corruption and is trying to help Donna Edwards raise more money for her campaign, check them out if you want to help. If we can get rid of the worst of these corporate-owned reps and replace them with real progressives, it's got to help, at least for a while until they figure out other ways to buy a vote.
Tacky and bad font choices? What would you expect from the incompetents who have driven our government and economy into the ground? Countrywide shells out $110,000,000 to the guy who ran it into the ground as a going-away present. Toyota will overtake GM any month now. Major Wall Street banks go begging to emirs who have all of our money because we don't create the new jobs that alternative energy efforts would require.
cognito ergo populistae
Who's got the biggest fight in him to oust from control the Lobbyists and the corporations they work for?
John Edwards.
That establishment Democrats are playing the game isn't news to most.
That money from those who violated our privacy without a court order at the request of Bush is being funneled into campaigns against good progressives may be opening some eyes.
Corporatist Democrats are responsible for enabling Bush, and we must organize to remove them from office.
The primaries are the battleground for the heart and soul of the Democratic party and pretending like the Republicans are the only enemy to the progressive movement would be a disastrous mistake.
Thanks for passing this add along. To call this add tacky is an insult to adds that are merely tacky. What honestly chaps my ass is that Congressional leaders have the temerity to argue that campaign donation have no influence on the way Congressional representative and senators vote. Anyone who believes this argument must also believe in the tooth fairy.
What this shows is that Republicans haven't cornered the market on corruption. Granted, they have proven themselves more than capable of taking corruption to unheard of heights but Democrats play wannabes, which is why progressive thinking people shouldn't always vote for someone just because they are a Democrat. Official Washington corruption is nearly endemic and if Democrats gain control of government you can bet that business interests will work to ensure maintenance of the economic and social status quo, and, that progressive ideas never see the light of day.
It's nice to see this article pointing out the corruption within the Democrat Party in such blunt fashion. Clyburn represents my state, and I'm embarrassed to find that he is connected to this financial fleecing. This is exactly the kind of info I need to know to ensure that he does not continue his unethical behavior in the future - I'll remember this next time I'm in the voting booth!
One way or another, it sure seems like SOMEONE out there other than your intended recipient is reading your email, anymore...
Does the reception includes a meal? For either $1,000 or $500 or even $250, there better be plenty of shrimp, lobster tails and steak available....
One thing that clearly must be reckoned with in the modern world is the corrupting influence of money on government. Money, skillfully applied to decision making can virtually control every outcome. Only in the absence of monetary corruption is the will of the people, expressed through voting outcomes, able to be effectuated.
Accordingly, it’s clear that our current government structure is simply no longer viable. It is impossible under our present system to separate the decision makers and the influencers to a sufficient degree to be able trust the outcome as having democratic reliability. A major reason that this is so is that we have no true means available to test the legitimacy of policy direction, let alone individual decisions, by declaring that a majority of us just lack confidence. We have virtually nothing available other than impeachment, and impeachment is so cumbersome as to provide no remedy.
The will of the most outstanding individual imaginable in the Whitehouse? That still leaves 535 other “deciders” who are susceptible to being bought and sold, especially with the sums available in a system where even a trillion dollars no longer qualifies as being too much money to imagine. Campaign finance reform? I’m not sure that helping high quality, but not well to do, people gain high office is really going to ensure that their votes can’t be “bought” in one of the many ways in which this sort of thing is done.
So is there an absolute answer. Possibly not, but even having the ability to vote the scoundrels out on a whim would seem to be a large improvement over waking up daily for four solid years and cursing the fools who clearly are not going to give us what we are vociferously demanding of them. We need to meet, we need to brainstorm, and we need to create a government that is sufficient to manage the problems of these extraordinary times.
THE SECOND AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION!!!
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