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Dysfunctional America
If you require more evidence that the United States is a dysfunctional society, observe American elections. Election season is slander season. Each party’s attack teams focus on misrepresenting, defaming, and ridiculing the opposing party’s candidates. Attack ads have replaced debates and any discussion of what the issues are, or should be, and how candidates perceive the public’s interest. Each attack team tells lies designed to enrage various voters about the other team’s candidate.
Whoever is elected is indebted not to voters but to the special interests that provided the campaign money. Once elected the official serves the private interest groups that put the official in office. In America the government can be bought and sold just like everything else. In its Citizens United ruling, a Republican Supreme Court put its stamp of approval on the right of corporations to purchase the US government.
Each state has its own dominant interest groups that win every election. In Florida real estate developers routinely defeat the environment and local communities. Developers have even been known to form organizations that pose as conservation supporters in order to misrepresent and defeat conservation measures.
Yet, despite their long string of losses to special interests, voters still participate in elections. I once read a theory that elections are a form of entertainment. President Clinton’s encounter with the young woman on MTV–”boxers or briefs”–is one indication of the lack of seriousness that Americans bring to politics.
Perhaps the lighter moment of a young woman’s interest in the president’s underwear should be cherished. The Clinton years will be remembered as scandal after scandal with dark events unresolved and covered up. The Clinton years were transformative. For those who don’t remember and those too young at the time to be aware, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard’s book, The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories (1997), will be an eye-opener. Perhaps the Democrats should read the book before nominating Hillary as the party’s presidential candidate.
Evans-Pritchard was Washington bureau chief for the Sunday Telegraph, one of the main British newspapers. He was stunned by how the American media ceased to function during the Clinton years. The Clinton years gave us such events as the federal government’s murder of the Branch Davidians in their Waco compound and subsequent coverup, the Oklahoma City bombing and coverup, and the coverup of the apparent murder of White House counsel Vincent Foster.
Almost everyone who paid attention saw coverups, not investigations, of these extraordinary events. Evans-Pritchard was one who payed attention, and what he saw did not pass muster. Yet, there was no press asking questions.
For example, the official story was that Tim McVeigh was the “lone nut” responsible for blowing up the Murrah Federal Office Building with a truck bomb. Yet, at McVeigh’s trial the prosecution did not call a single witness who could place McVeigh in Oklahoma City on the day of the bombing. “This is a rather astonishing fact,” writes Evans-Pritchard, and indeed it is. The reason the prosecution could not provide a witness to place MvVeigh at the scene of the crime is that the many witnesses all reported seeing McVeigh in the company of other men, and the prearranged official story was that McVeigh was alone. The FBI and the prosecution had to make this case, not conduct a real investigation and discover what really happened.
Experts who have examined the Oklahoma City bombing have concluded that the truck bomb was cover for explosives set inside the building. For example, US Air Force munitions expert General Benton K. Partin provided an extensive and detailed study and wrote to the US Senate: “The attached report contains conclusive proof that the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was not caused solely by the truck bomb. Evidence shows that the massive destruction was primarily the result of four demolition charges placed at critical structural points at the third floor level.”
Miquel Rodriguez, the associate independent counsel assigned the investigation of Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster’s mysterious death resigned after four months convinced that he was dealing with a FBI coverup and that his investigation was being sabotaged by personnel within his own office. The FBI’s official story differed completely from the story of the witness who discovered Foster’s body. Again, as in Oklahoma, the FBI’s case required the creation of a make-believe scenario at odds with the evidence. With no interference from a silent press, the FBI created the story that was needed. Evans-Pritchard wrote that the Foster case was “taboo for American journalists. In private, many concede that the official story is unbelievable, but they will not broach it in print.”
When Americans think of Clinton era scandals, they recall “Whitewater” and Clinton’s sexual escapades with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Evans-Pritchard writes that these two scandals were small potatoes compared to the Waco, Oklahoma City, and Vincent Foster coverups. Evans-Pritchard concludes that these minor events were used by the press to distract the public and perhaps Congress from inquiring into FBI coverups of criminal acts.
I remember asking my Wall Street Journal colleague Robert Bartley why he put so much energy and editorial ink into Whitewater, a minor scandal involving some real estate payoffs to the Clintons that did not pan out. Serious events were ignored while Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky became a matter of impeachment.
From Clinton to George W. Bush and Obama was another transformative change. The crimes of the Clinton regime were covered up and not acknowledged. The crimes of the Bush and Obama regimes are openly acknowledged by the presidents themselves and by their attorney generals who assert that the “war on terror” frees presidents from the Constitution and from domestic and international statutory law. Thus, we have indefinite detention, torture and loss of protection against self-incrimination, destruction of privacy, and execution of US citizens without due process of law.
Almost overnight the US government became unaccountable, released from constitutional and legal constraints. Elections serve only to validate the unaccountability of government.
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"America isnt a country, its a business. Now give me my fucking money." -Killing Them Softly
The business of America is business. Also, Dear Prudential, I am not going to buy your retirement product, so enough already with the annoying pop up.
yeah, really..Prudential???
ZH has a concentration of ads higher than youTube. Some days i spend more time closing pop ups than I do reading articles. I usually close my eyes and just think of England however so my brain is never impacted their messages.
firefox/ad block...u will thank me...
And add Ghostery!! Try avoid using I.E. & G.C. browsers.
excellent suggestions. you'll eliminate about 85% of the pop-up garbage.
here also are some easy to implement suggestions to help stop online tracking
Amazon Fire tablet here.... tracked plenty. Needs prudential pop-up blocker.
Is there any Apple solution that does not require payment? I have my PC laptop sorted but need the Apple Ipad browser and the Google tablet sorted.
I use firefox and ghostery on my macbook. works great for me.
I am trying Mercury browser. Firefox is not free for ipad, So far so good.
computing is not for you, you kind of fucking fat fuck never trying to even fucking think to get ride of fucking stuff put in front you fucking eyes.
use fucking brain & get fucking alternative, fucking sheep.
It must be real frustrating to be so intelligent and be surrounded by so many stupid people.
Repeat after me, "Adblock, flashblock, and for really persistent pop ups, NoScript." Nothing moves on my monitor unless I let it.
Ad-block is your friend.
As an aside: seriously, 'Tyler', we respect your need (and right) to make money from your efforts. But your ads are just too much.
Many on my phone won't be dismissed.
Clicking the "x" does nothing. He's losing business, because when that happens, I just change sites.
If voting didn't matter, then Voter ID and Amnesty would not be such a huge issue with Democrats in the US. The NRA was smart and sent out election alerts defining which candidates in your particular election district are for more gun control, 90% are democrats of course, but not all.
"If voting didn't matter, then Voter ID and Amnesty would not be such a huge issue with Democrats..."
Dig a little deeper. The illusion that voting matters is extremely important. It is the very foundation of our oligarch controlled society. The minute that People in large numbers (as opposed to a few percent) figure out that it's an illusion and start rejecting mainstream candidates, they lose the government side of the fascist system. So the Red Team makes a big deal about voter fraud and the Blue Team makes a big deal about voting repression. Same with all the social issues. These guys aren't dumb, and they count on guys like you not to see what they are up to and why.
How did I guess you'd have something to say about it, Lola.
Go ahead. Stay in the matrix and vote Red and expect change, and then when there is no change accept whatever excuse is trotted out. And enjoy the steak.
"enjoy the steak"...LOL.
I don't vote for any "team". I vote for individuals and their positions on any particular issue that I care about in my own local district, it has nothing to do with you and your Red/Blue teams. I don't see why it matters to you who I vote for.
So you'll be voting for the candidate who wants to shut down the NSA, end the Fed, and massively scale back the MIC? That's who I am voting for this election. Meaning I can save myself a trip to the fake polls.
I have taught you well. Now go froth, and multipl with the ideas that voting is just a suggestion box for slaves.
Oh....and Happy Demockracy Prayer Service day! I know I wil enjoy it from the comfort of my desk, NOT watching the faux political commentary horseshit on the Bewb Tewb
It is a business.....just got my fucking property tax bill $5766.00 Isn't that great...and 1/2 of it is going to schools and I HAVE NO KIDS.
They were complaining about tax collectors +2000 years ago. It's hard to imagine today that the US actually enjoyed a period of time without taxation before the Fed and progressive movement existed.
But what about the children?
Well, it is their property. That is why on the property deed you are listed as 'Tenant' and only own equitable title and not real title. The local county gov't has the real title document. That way if you don't pay your property taxes they can kick you off their property. If it was your property then you would have alloidal title to it.
Vote for _________ He's easy to hate.
Because he will promise you everything, deliver nothing, and do all the same $hit as the incumbant and all the other candidates.
They Must run on negative ads, as they have not done ONE fucking positive thing for the people, ever!
Fuck voting and political ads. They should be allowed to duel and settle it that way. In the words of Hillary, "What difference does it make?"
The illusion of choice.
This is why I don't vote. It honestly is an insult to my intelligence to believe in a "representative" democracy when the representatives benefit more by supporting special interest groups. I'm not going to vote and provide legitimacy to an illegitimate system.
Why can't I vote on laws and bypass these monkeys?
In Switzerland, they do that a lot. I think their democracy is the oldest one on earth.
Fuck democracy and the horse it rode in on.
America does not have elections so much as selections. The top 0.1% have already selected the winners. But you can have your fun pretending you have a choice.
America was dysfunctional a couple of generations ago. Now it is a diseased, moribund, fascist, police state that caters only to the 0.1%. You have to be dreaming to not know that.
"Whoever is elected is indebted not to voters but to the special interests that provided the campaign money." And the home voting districts at every level that control which candidates get on the ballots see to it that only those who are are backed by money and power get their nods. From its beginning to end, the process is flawed, and there's no such thing as "free" elections. All scripted start to finish.
no argument here
This is a fair phrase for us:
"The Public Be Suckered"
http://patrick.net/forum/?p=1223928
Ask journalism how much it got for its soul.
Recall a praise ending "..., except when it comes to money."
"Whoever is elected is indebted not to voters but to the special interests that provided the campaign money."
Perhaps, then, we should only elect wealthy people who can fund their own campaigns?
All campaigns should be publicly funded out of general tax receipts to completely eliminate the conflict of interest. But that is shere fantasy and will NEVER happen...lol
The public should control the public money supply. However, the public would have to understand that money is measurement backed by murder in order to do that. Instead, the best organized gangs of criminals privatized the public "money" supply, by successfully applying the methods of organized crime to the political processes, especially by assassinating any politicians that could not be otherwise bribed or intimidated.
Public funding of public political campaigns is a "sheer fantasy" because enough of the people have become Zombie Sheeple, so that we are trapped over the edge of the event horizon of a social black hole, due to the enforced frauds of the financial systems having been concentrated enough now that there are no ways to possibly pull out of their mad criminal insanities!
It would take a prodigious series of political miracles for enough people to go through sufficient intellectual scientific revolutions in the ways that they think to be able to understand their real political problems. Unfortunately, mostly they are being somewhat "awakened" by people who then try to lead them backwards to bogus "solutions" still based on false fundamental dichotomies and impossible ideals, that actually continue to make the opposite happen in the real world.
Here in Australia we have compulsory voting and taxpayer funded election campaigns. Still get shitty corrupt MPs and senators who don't work for the general public.
"Perhaps, then, we should only elect wealthy people who can fund their own campaigns?"
Each candidate should be granted the exact same amount through public funds. As long as that won't happen, there can't be an end to the corruption. Americans will carry on voting for the candidate of the wealthiest lobby, which amounts to voting for their spokesman.
If you're running in any contest NEVER discuss or mention the Federal Reserve.
you might as well speak in a "foreign" language.
where i live, there is this guy who changed his
name and created his own party. he also pleaded
guilty to lying about his disappearance for a
couple of days, claiming at the time that he was kidnapped.
only god knows what that was all about, and he ain't tellin'.
.
kumar, vote for him on the sapient party ticket.
but now he goes by the name bobby k. kalotee,
running for lieutenant governor of new york.
this is what we are reduced to. anyway,
it sure was funny and heart crushingly debilitating.
Hillary and Jeb will fight it out for Satan's Oligarchs (nwo).
Like the saying goes,
" Two hands up a Bush ass beats a bird brain screeching communist fat chick.
or something like that.
Elections validate political criminality, I agree. Ontario CANADA is operating a criminal agenda for Light Rail Transit throughout Ontario's major cities at a cost of $29 billion to start projects. The accounting has not been done, no business case exists for the outrageous spending, and no indistry estimates are forthcoming, but the motherfuckers just keep getting voted in via MSM agenda shills. I decided to run against the incumbent Mayor of my city and was soundly beaten by the MSM for exposure of my platform planks, and money for advertising. The incumbent Mayor received over half a million dollars for advertising against all the Mayoral candidates that collectively received no union or corporatist investment. The corporatists and developers all gave to the incumbent Mayor early on in the electoral campaign. The media downplayed all the Mayoral candidates' platforms, ideas, and approaches to governance in favour of lies, God damned lies, and statistics, as well as 'the cult of Personality'. Suffice to say that I will _never_ run for public office again and I am now an ardent supporter of Grumpy Marxism once again, yippie! :|
I always find it amazing... GOVERNMENT created laws that completely fuck you over, so now you are back to being a Marxist??? IDK, I guess capitalism is the cause of government cronyism, right? Ugh, sorry, think you have it backwards.
I was raised to be an orthodox Capitalist by a Chartered Accountant.
After years of indoctrination, and many years owning a small business,
I found Marxian doctrine. Marx is by far the most adept Conflict Theorist
ever unleashed on the World and Economic Theory proper. As one that leans towards a real Capitalist paradigm, and one that does not see real Capitalism at work anymore, I am entitled to modify my stance with regard to the Corporatist/Fascist paradigm and adopt Grumpy Marxism and Neo-Capitalism as my new blend of theoretical perspective that guides my world view. In politics I tend to make modifications in order to facilitate adaptation strategies. Man is a political animal with capacity for reasoned opinion and argument. When gubberments become unreasonable, and operate outside of reason, and empiricism, I start to make a concerted effort to distance myself from that sort of decision making and modify my political stance theoretically. This permits me to breathe freely as opposed to being subject to the dogma of one world view rhetoric typically espoused by mainstream political parties in the Western World.
McVeigh. Another FBI fall guy
Calling America dysfunctional is like calling the government incompetent. That's only the tip of the iceberg. And most people that participate in the false choice elections around the globe will never wake up to the fact that there are far bigger plans for the destruction and reorganization of their society. And none of it is for their benefit
the freak with the big lips in the add banner, what is the deal
there? is that a photo shop thing?
Stop Paul Craig Roberts. You are talking crazy.
Pretty soon you are gonna tell me that two planes hit TWC and one hit the Pentagon and there was a cover up there, too.
/sarc off.
Honestly, America has been sold off to the oligarchy a long time ago. I am just waiting for the final destruction. Those who support the Democrats or Republicans are either profiting from this corruption or are complete fucking idiots.
America is not a society or a "culture". It is a bazaar....a supermarket. Make deductions therefrom accordingly........
The American monetary system has become a metastasizing cancer, which has resulted in the American political system becoming terminally sick and insane. The vicious spirals of the successful applications of the methods of organized crime to dominate the political processes have been getting worse at an exponential rate for more than a Century ... The more recent statistics regarding the funding of the political processes during the current election cycles are merely more demonstrations of that runaway criminal insanity, as Robert's article succinctly summarized.
http://blogs.rollcall.com/beltway-insiders/billionaires-dominate-campaig...
Billionaires Dominate Campaign Spending, Analysis ShowsBy Eliza Newlin Carney, October 29, 2014.
At this point of time, the American (& globalized) system is suffering from terminally metastasized cancer. The enforced frauds of the public "money" system have thoroughly infected everyone, enough to make any effective treatments more likely to kill the patient faster, rather than heal.
The established systems are driving themselves towards their own mad self-destruction. There are no possible reforms within those established systems, due to the real roles of money in the political processes having become triumphant criminal insanities, that dominated the lives of everyone. The only "solutions" are some "revolutions." However, those are only possible after the madness gets bad enough to destroy itself ... which is such a bad situation that it becomes practically impossible to predict what might emerge from such collapses into chaos ... especially since the destruction of the natural world was actually way worse than the social polarization driven by the social successes of fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems capturing privatized control over the public powers of governments.
I'm going to vote. I still vote for Ron Paul everyday. He never gets elected and nobody counts my vote though. Even so I feel better voting.
I'm at a cross roads, vote for my own demise or don't vote and not get to choose my ass raper. what to do, what to do.
No seriously, I think for those of us who choose not to participate in the self enslavement and wish for a quick death of a corrupt system are missing the fact that they will slowly bleed this country dry so the third option is to go ahead and get the party started with some good old fashion tar and feathers so.......who wants to go first. I'm right behind you...promise.
That's the dilema... For sure... Who's gonna start it (cannon foder) and who's gonna quickly follow into the breach. I'm thinking that the patriots who have recently been given the news that they have the terminal C should form into small groups and pick out the "officers" of the enemy.
They're running out of our money so
the end is near.
"Since JFK was killed and we got off the gold standard, we've become a country where nothing matters and anything goes"
~DipshitMIddleClassWhitekid
Gonna be funny as fuck if the shitbag repubs win both houses from the shitbag dumocraps. They'll do what they did last time they ran both houses. Absolutely nothing. Same shit, different decade. But hey, run out and vote as many times as you can sukkerz.
Well let's see Al Franken is running again and will the write in of "lizard people" be an issue this year? Context is everything, video from Charlie Siefe at NYU, and see what a judge and lawyer spent time with when tallying the vots to see if such a person exists to determine winner, about 15 minutes into the video.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2012/01/context-is-everythingmore-about-dark.html
why is everyone new in the discussions?
oh shit lol ..........
I gots my hope and change....do y'all?
If libertarianism terminal nihilism? Is the height of erudition and wisdom saying "Fuck it" after condensing all these millions of words spewed by you cynical nihilists? Is there anyone out there who realizes the problem is big gov't, and the solution is to elect politicians who believe in small gov't?
Anyone who agrees with this article and decides the only alternative is to shun the system and not vote is the type of sheep our overlords crave.
"Anyone who agrees with this article and decides the only alternative is to shun the system and not vote is the type of sheep our overlords crave."
Which is worse, a sheep that knows it's a sheep, or a sheep that doesn't think it's a sheep?
Those who can posit an affirmative are not sheep.
You had the freedom of voting in France 250 years ago - as long as it was for Louis XIII, then Louis XIV, then Louis XV, etc...
Dysfunctional with a capital "D." Today I make no predictions and have few expectations because yesterday when I awoke it was to a market where stock futures were soaring ever higher even after important economic numbers had been released that came in below expectations. As the stock market continues to remain at historic highs please tell me what is so good? What is so much better?
As I see it the weight of carrying a large number of unemployed and people who have dropped out of the work force is wearing society down through attrition. The article below points out some of the glaring flaws in the argument that blue sky lies ahead as the stock market seems to indicate. As I look at a landscape of empty and under-leased buildings that once housed thriving businesses that provided Americans with good paying jobs I'm forced to ask, How are things getting better?
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2014/10/tell-me-again-how-things-are-getting.html
As I've said many times, it's one thing to get fucked in the ass, but it's an entirely different thing to beg for it. Anyone who still votes in this country is a MORON.
now that the supreme court stabbed the american electorate in the back and coporations can give all the money they want we have parlimentary "socialized" politics in america. corporations are now america's parliment.
on top of that elections are rigged man. i know that .gov must keep up the veil of "ur vote counts" at all costs up please don't be so naive, elections are r-i-g-g-e-d, that's how we got al franken in the senate and obama in the white house.
R-I-G-G-E-D
so now the masses need "hyper, android phone democracy" right? cuz we all know how rigged elections are, so to appease the masses we must have "anglosphere" hyper democracy to go along with our "corporations are now america's parliment" meme
let freedom reign ! how long before that statement becomes a hate crime???
get rid of the federal reserve and let every state have its state bank. get rid of these entitled beaurocratic donut eating parasites. get rid of the national education administration and all the rest of them.
if the cia, irs, fbi, want to run around the world let them. ban them from the u.s and see how long they last.
i can't afford to pay these assholes anymore.
stop making all these laws. judges just use them as their rape kits.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh