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Government Corruption Has Become Rampant
Government corruption has become rampant:
- Senior SEC employees spent up to 8 hours a day surfing porn sites instead of cracking down on financial crimes
- Nuclear Regulatory Commission workers watch porn instead of cracking down on unsafe conditions at nuclear plants
- NSA spies pass around homemade sexual videos and pictures they’ve collected from spying on the American people
- NSA employees have also been caught using their mass surveillance powers to spy on love interests, such as girlfriends, obsessions or former wives … and to eavesdrop on American soldiers’ intimate conversations with their wives back home. And see this (“routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted” … “‘Hey, check this out … there’s good phone sex’”)
- An employee of the Transportation Security Administration admitted that TSA agents share – and laugh at – nude scans of passengers.
- Investigators from the Treasury’s Office of the Inspector General found that some of the regulator’s employees surfed erotic websites, hired prostitutes and accepted gifts from bank executives … instead of actually working to help the economy
- The Minerals Management Service – the regulator charged with overseeing BP and other oil companies to ensure that oil spills don’t occur – was riddled with “a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity”, which included “sex with industry contacts”
- Agents for the Drug Enforcement Agency had sex parties with prostitutes hired by the drug cartels they were supposed to stop
- Federal agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration and Secret Service investigating Bitcoin money laundering extorted and stole over $1 million in Bitcoin
- The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has conspired with big banks to manipulate commodities prices for decades
- The government-sponsored rating agencies committed massive fraud (and see this)
- The Treasury department allowed banks to “cook their books”
- Regulators knew of and allowed the use of debt-hiding accounting tricks by the big banks
- The Secretary of Treasury (Tim Geithner) was complicit in Lehman’s accounting fraud, (and see this)
- The former chief accountant for the SEC says that Bernanke and Paulson broke the law and should be prosecuted
- The government knew about mortgage fraud a long time ago. For example, the FBI warned of an “epidemic” of mortgage fraud in 2004. However, the FBI, DOJ and other government agencies then stood down and did nothing. See this and this. For example, the Federal Reserve turned its cheek and allowed massive fraud, and the SEC has repeatedly ignored accounting fraud. Indeed, Alan Greenspan took the position that fraud could never happen
- Paulson and Bernanke falsely stated that the big banks receiving Tarp money were healthy, when they were not. The Treasury Secretary also falsely told Congress that the bailouts would be used to dispose of toxic assets … but then used the money for something else entirely
- A high-level Federal Reserve official says quantitative easing is “the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time”
- The SEC has been shredding Wall Street documents for decades to help the big banks cover up their fraud
- The non-partisan Government Accountability Office calls the Fed corrupt and riddled with conflicts of interest. Nobel prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz says the World Bank would view any country which had a banking structure like the Fed as being corrupt and untrustworthy. The former vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas said said he worried that the failure of the government to provide more information about its rescue spending could signal corruption. “Nontransparency in government programs is always associated with corruption in other countries, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t be here,” he said
- Arguably, both the Bush and Obama administrations broke the law by refusing to close insolvent banks
- Congress may have covered up illegal tax breaks for the big banks
- Police have been busted framing innocent people
- Warmongerers in the U.S. government knowingly and intentionally lied us into a war of aggression in Iraq. The former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – the highest ranking military officer in the United States – said that the Iraq war was “based on a series of lies”. The same is true in Libya and other wars
- The government lied when it said it doesn’t conduct mass surveillance on Americans, and then lied again when it said that spying was aimed at protecting America against terrorists
- The government also lied when it said American doesn’t torture (and see this), and then lied once again when it said torture was aimed at protecting America against terrorists
- The government made sure that false claims were made about the amount of oil spilled by BP in the Gulf
- The government has framed whistleblowers with false evidence
- The Pentagon falsely smeared USA Today reporters because they investigated illegal Pentagon propaganda
- When one of the most respected radiologists in America – the former head of the radiology department at Yale University – attempted to blow the whistle on the fact that the FDA had approved a medical device manufactured by General Electric because it put out massive amounts of radiation, the FDA installed spyware to record his private emails and surfing activities (including installing cameras to snap pictures of his screen), and then used the information to smear him and other whistleblowers
- In an effort to protect Bank of America from the threatened Wikileaks expose of wrongdoing – the Department of Justice told Bank of America to a hire a specific hardball-playing law firm to assemble a team to take down WikiLeaks (and see this)
- The Bush White House worked hard to smear CIA officers, bloggers and anyone else who criticized the Iraq war
- The FBI smeared top scientists who pointed out the numerous holes in its anthrax case
The biggest companies own the D.C. politicians. Indeed, the head of the economics department at George Mason University has pointed out that it is unfair to call politicians “prostitutes”. They are in fact pimps … selling out the American people for a price.
Government regulators have become so corrupted and “captured” by those they regulate that Americans know that the cop is on the take. Institutional corruption is killing people’s trust in our government and our institutions.
Indeed, America is no longer a democracy or republic … it’s officially an oligarchy.
The allowance of unlimited campaign spending allows the oligarchs to purchase politicians more directly than ever. Moreover, there are two systems of justice in America … one for the big banks and other fatcats, and one for everyone else.
But the private sector is no better … for example, the big banks have turned into criminal syndicates.
Liberals and conservatives tend to blame our country’s problems on different factors … but they are all connected.
The real problem is the malignant, symbiotic relationship between big corporations and big government.
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nice hyperlinks too
Mr Smith was right: "humans are a disease, a cancer"
Pump, pump, pump it up. Still pimping your shit huh. Just another example of why I hound you.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/cheney-libby-named-in-smear-bid/2007...
The Valerie Plame/ joe Wilson fiasco was just that. Plame outed herself many times and testified to that fact. Joe Wilson also proved with his report that saddam did try to obtain yellowcake uranium. No one ever said that saddam had acquired yellowcake from Niger
You are a Gutless pathetic coward who hides behind that avatar. Do you even have a plan general? Change your name to General Disarray. At least that would be more honest than you could ever be.
Do you take psychotropic drugs, such as SSRI's? You don't seem to be all there.
"The first tower just collapsed...WAHHHHHHHH...they hate us for our freedoms!!!"
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL...
You actually believe this guy has some influence?
That's funny.
It's not corruption. Corruption assumes the government is or should have some integrity and serve the people. The U.S. government went off the deep end years ago an is little more than a plutocracy that serves the oligarch cabals that own Washington D.C.
Calling the government 'corrupt' today is like calling a corpse 'sick'.
You have to call it something but if we used the full description, it would take several pages and a thesaurus plus the complete maledicta......
Call it systemic corruption from the very bottom to the very top.
It is incapable of fixing itself. Instead, it will take us all down in flames with it.
Oligarchization...
WB - I'm still waiting for your poster of a wood-chipper with a big arrow and label instructing "Insert oligarchs here"
[edit: On second thought, DON'T do that. You'll never make it through TSA again without a full body-cavity search.]
What are the governments in n korea, russia, isil and iran doing to their residents ??????
Has anybody else noticed that Shitgum Suicide and Prober alway appear together both spouting the same silly shit? They ride together, but who rides who?
All governments are similar.
Hey, my own one legged, disease ridden whore isn't so bad 'cause she's got three more teeth than your one legged, disease ridden whore.
(And no offense to one legged, disease ridden whores...you're all infinitely better than any State and the scum bags that work for them)
I'm sorry, but am I living under the Iranian, North Korean or Russian governments? No, I'm fucking not. You're diverting attention from the problem that is right here at home again and using entities that people will hate. PROPAGANDA! US leaders are corrupt like fuck and deserve to be string up by their balls, regardless of what those other countries do to their citizens. GTFO with your "See, look over there! Squirrel!" bullshit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfyaKG_tE5M
General, you postulate that the current U.S. Government is led by oligarchs. I think that slightly misses the point. A more accurate read might be that the U.S. Government is a representative plutocracy. Really rich bastards select and elect our leaders. We, the hoi-poloi are ourselves complicit because we have allowed this to happen - after all, this is America and we too may one day, if we are luckly and cunning enough, join the ranks of the plutons and we so adore this fantasy that we are unwilling to take measures to dismantle this corrupt system. That is, the squirrel we should be looking for is democracy and we are so infatuated with capitalism, even in its most cronyistic form, that we haven't a clue what democracy is - so there's little chance we'll find it.
I dont care how corrupt some other government is. The corruption here is what matters. The same way I dont care if some movie star cheats on thier wife/husband. I do care if its my wife.
Your views have been identified as radical and extreme. Report to Room 101 immediately.
I have skills so they put me on that list years ago.
Room 101 is that the one Bruce Willis Reported back to in the Movie 12 Monkeys
Go sit on the group 'W' bench....
:)
NOW, kid!
Yellin' KILL KILL KILL!!!
(Arlo Guthrie Alice's Restaurant for those who are wondering WTF?)
The usual shit of course.....
Are you implying that there is gambling in the back room at Rick's Cafe?
You forgot China, Pee-Wee ("I know you are but what am I?"). They do the same sort of thing. What sets DC apart is its magnitude, scope and arrogance. The entire world pays for the corrupt Washington Military Industrial Police State complex. Drones away.
No kidding, China is buying our govt. also.
"The real problem is the malignant, symbiotic relationship between big corporations and big government."
If there is a solution possible in the world, it will regard the word "big". Pure idealism here, but a short thought experiment: imagine that you try to get any of the people in charge of this show to meet with you, an average person. What are the odds that they will agree to meet and talk with you? This is true both for corporate and political leaders.
Now if they will not meet with average people and talk to us, what kind of connection do they really have to us?
This is the problem. A complete disconnect between the structures of power and those being affected by those structures. This has of course been true in politics for the entirety of recorded history; it's nothing new (though it has only really flowered more recently in business with the rise of corporate business structures). But the only hope for true progress for humanity would be if the people "representing" popular will - either commercially or politically - actually had a genuine connection to those they are speaking for.
It's a pipe dream, I grant you, but everything else is spitting in the wind.
Just an anecdote: in the wake of a severe personal tragedy, Neil Peart, drummer for RUSH, travelled extensively by motorcycle using an impersonal credit card. He goes everywhere and anywhere never being recognized. Point is that we may encounter "the men who hold high places" and never be aware of it.
Peart wrote a book about it called GHOST RIDER - Travels On The Healing Road 2002
RUSH - Ghost Rider - RUSH IN RIO - 2002
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su3zwzmUrxo
Whats RUSH?
/s
I'll take Neighbour's of The Tragically Hip for 100 Alex. nyuk nyuk nyuk
Not Limbaugh? lol
"Who cops all the cops is all I'm asking you" - TTH / Trickle Down / 1990 (live & raw shit!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXFiXh1BSYk
"all the drinks are on the Crown, it's just a matter of the trickle down"
True. Some are more cancerous than others. Clearly banks (since they are all "banks" now after Sept. 2008) lead the list. Eating away at the host with a voracious zeal.
When I want your opinion, I'll give it to you!
"What are the odds that they will agree to meet and talk with you? This is true both for corporate and political leaders."
I have gotten them to meet with me. It amounted to nothing. I have also gotten them to agree to meet with me and then had them completely blow me off and not show up. My current representative is like a bump on a log when it comes to changing things in DC, but if somebody has a real problem with the government locally, she will often go to bat for them. It is what it is.
We do some of our greatest things when we get big institutions. We also do some of our worst. Big is what makes grand possible, be it evil on a grand scale or good on a grand scale. To paraphrase what you say, those "representing" us have no real skin in the game. Accountibility for one's actions, if you're in the great bureaucracy and not a normal idiot on the street, is equated to paperwork, not actually suffering for bad or malicious actions.
I have no trouble with local government for exactly this reason. I know people who have served in local government and they are good honest people. It's when government ceases to be local that the problems start. Same is obviously true with small businesses. You deal with the owner or one of a few carefully chosen employees, you get service. You deal with one of tens of thousands of workers in a corporate machine... not so much. It's a question of scale.
What you say about doing our "greatest" things when there are big institutions is true. The question that comes to my mind, though, is are the great things (air travel, internet and other mass communications, global trade) not bringing with them equally great miseries (world wars, world debt slavery, resource depletion and destruction)?
This is a philosophical area that isn't talked about much. "Progress" is assumed to be good in and of itself. We assume that all these "externalities" will be ironed out as mankind's genius continues to flourish. I'm not so convinced. In fact, lately, I'm thinking the Amish may have had it right all along (minus the Christian part, which I don't buy). Technology is not necessarily leading to a happier world. We've got lots of new technologies and "conveniences", but are people actually more spiritually fulfilled?
We'll all come down in different places on this issue, but it's a question worth asking. Thanks for your thougtful response.
I have a problem with all government, but believe that, so long as there are enough people, there will be some sort of hierarchy, and that will eventually turn into a government. But yes, local government is better than big government. If you're going to screw me, at least look me in the eye before you do it, and maybe your throat will come into my clutches, maybe not. If you are a good person in local government, then the onus is on you to prove it through your actions. Sometimes that is going to involve going against your colleagues in a way that is very uncomfortable.
And I'm not convinced that globalization is such a good thing, at least not on the scale that we have it now. Those big American farms that distribute food all over the world? Yeah, if your food is not at least mostly local or even semi-local, you have serious vulnerabilities. The same goes for any necessity. At the same time, I know that I'm not going to get coffee without global trade, and believe me, I've looked for a suitable replacement that grows in my climate zone. But that's hard to separate from all of the other things that you bring up, such as internet, air travel, etc... and those are only good or bad to the extent that we depend on them, at least IMO.
What's the difference between globalization and international trade? It seems like we had the latter and after multinationals reached a certain level of size and influence, the term changed to the former. We stopped hearing about trade by itself in the mass media and now the buzzward is globalization. What hides in that word?
It's a shame that the concept of people freely engaging in market transacations around the world is being slimed with whatever agenda is being carried out in the name of 'globalization'. Slavery hides in freedom.
I think that part of the problem is that globalization is a somewhat vaguely defined term. Some might consider any international trade globalization, and others may not. Anyhow, there has been a trend that borders have become much less important in the production of goods. A car might have parts in it that were manufactured in 5 different countries using materials that were mined in 5 different countries. There was a paper written on the production of Swedish ketchup 10 or 15 years ago that analyzed the supply chain interactions just to bring a bottle of ketchup to market. It involved growing the tomatoes in one country, the vinegar being produced another, the bottle in yet another, etc... then assembling everything in Sweden. There is (was?) a vast and complex international network just to bring a simple bottle of ketchup to a grocery store shelf. That kind of complexity is vulnerable to systemic shock, and is a far cry from growing coffee beans in Colombia and shipping them to the US in a burlap bag. It's about the degree of globalization. Or the degree of complexity if you prefer to think of it that way.
With the Swedish example, if one bottle manufacturer goes under, they're not so large that they'd probably be able to find another quickly, and that's a big part of why the system hasn't broken down yet, but there are a few keystone commodities that if they go under, the entire global system comes to a grinding halt.
Furthermore, this isn't about free trade, this is about oligarchs making the rules (trade regulations and treaties) and arbitraging the costs in different countries. Problem is, it's not sustainable, yet we depend on it.
Crappy analogy but it's like a termite coming out and saying "trust me I don't chew wood I'm different". The theoretical decent person that joins up with the govt has the same problem as the termite. After so much wood chewing it's just easier to spray the whole nest.
Why would anybody want to join up w/termites unless they wanted to chew wood anyway. Yup, silly I know.
The analogy works. Like it.
"Because of my life-long and heartfelt dedication to the preservation of wood, I look forward to your support as I officially declare my candidacy for the office of termite."
Where did I see that article that claimed that students who cheated in college were the ones likely to seek government jobs?
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/nov/18/science/la-sci-sn-cheating-stude...
The Cop Is On the Take.
Just following the example set by The Golfer In Chief.