How Corrupt Is The US: An Extraordinary Example
Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org
How Corrupt The U.S. Is: An Extraordinary Example
Incarceration rates don’t necessarily correlate with corruption, but they do reflect the extent to which a given nation’s government is (by means of its laws and its enforcement of those laws) at war against its own population; and, so, technically speaking, it’s supposed to reflect the prevalence of law-breaking within that nation. After all, by definition, people are presumed to be in prison for law-breaking, irrespective of whether the given nation’s laws are just – and, if they’re not just, then this fact reflects even more strongly that the nation itself is corrupt. So, a high incarceration-rate does strongly tend to go along with a nation’s being highly corrupt, in more than merely a technical sense.
Out of the world’s 223 countries, the US has the world’s second-highest incarceration rate: 698 per 100,000, just behind #1 Seychelles, with 799 per 100,000. Seychelles doesn’t even have as many as 100,000 people (but only 90,024 – as many people as are in the city of Temple Texas). By contrast, the US has 322,369,319; so, the US is surely the global leader in imprisonment. And, furthermore, #3, St. Kitts and Nevis, with an incarceration-rate of 607 per 100,000, has only 54,961 people (as many people as are in the city of Columbus Indiana). The only other country that might actually be close to the US in imprisoning its own people is North Korea, which could even beat out the US there, but wouldn’t likely beat tiny Seychelles: North Korea is estimated to have «600-800 people incarcerated per 100,000», and a total population of 24,895,000.
Thus, for imprisonments, the US really does have no close second: it’s the unquestionable global market-leader, for prisons and prisoners.
And this gets us to the market-leader for prisons within America itself, and to the stunning corruption that stands behind it.
So, here’s that extraordinary example, and the story behind its corruption, which will provide a close-up view of America’s general corruption, from the top (including the government itself) on down:
In order to protect the profits of privately run prisons in the US (where «Sixty-two percent of detention beds are administered by private prison corporations», meaning that most US prisoners are being ‘served’ by for-profit corporations in for-profit-run prisons), the US Federal Government is refusing to honor Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which is trying to find out why people are being imprisoned as illegal immigrants who ought not to be. Wrongly-imprisoned people are a device by which private prison-operating companies keep their prison-beds occupied and thus drawing income from the US government, just like a high occupancy-rate is essential for a hotelier’s profitability. But –unlike in the hotel trade – this coercive bed-occupancy produces more than mere profits; it produces also distressed families, of those individuals who are yanked and unjustifiably imprisoned, families suffering needlessly.
It turns out that federal laws, passed mainly by the Republicans, but also with votes from corrupt Democrats, require (in H.R.3547) the US government to pay for «a level of not less than 34,000 detention beds» for ‘illegal immigrants.’ (You can see that requirement being cited by the Republican interrogator of an Obama Administration official, Department of Homeland Security, at 1:03:00- in this video, where the Obama official is being criticized for not locking up enough people to meet the law’s requirements.) (Republicans and other conservatives love to punish people, irrespective of justice. To be concerned about justice, as the CCR is, is to be ‘soft on crime’, as Republicans view it. Instead of justice, Republicans seek revenge; thus, for example, Republicans overwhelmingly support torture against ‘terrorist’ suspects; Democrats overwhelmingly oppose it. Torture greatly reduces the trustworthiness of a suspect’s statements, but it always serves as a vent for revenge, even when the suspect actually had nothing to do with terrorism; so, Republicans strongly approve of torture. Similarly, the most-conservative Muslims approve of beheading ‘infidels’. Conservatives everywhere, and in every faith, support harsh punishments; and the US is a conservative country; so, sentences are long, and the conditions are harsh.)
However, the Obama Administration itself, even as it locks up, on some days, just shy of the legally mandated minimum of 34,000 accused ‘illegal immigrants’ (which shortfall is here drawing the ire of that congressional Republican in the video), is also actively blocking CCR from access to the information about how the government and private corporations set rates for immigration detention beds and facilities. CCR argues that private profits are being given higher priority by the Administration than is the welfare of the public; and, thus, that the General Welfare Clause of the US Constitution is being violated here.
The Obama Administration says that it won’t release the information, because to do so would «harm corporations competitively».
CCR claims, and the Obama Administration is opposing their accusation, that «there is essentially no competitive market in government contracts that could be harmed by the release of information, that there should be nothing proprietary about the terms of a government contract, and that the public has a right to understand how Congress funds immigration detention and how that funding is influenced».
The Obama Administration is arguing that if this same cost-information were being requested concerning any of the 38% of government-run prisons, then the FOIA request would be complied with, but that contracting-out or privatizing that function has freed the government of any such obligation.
However, CCR is concerned specifically about that profit-motive here – that the revolving door between government service and the private sector might itself be a key part of the explanation for the government’s requiring that at least 34,000 people will be in prison for, or awaiting trial on charges of, ‘illegal immigration’. CCR contends that the only reason why people should be imprisoned in America is that they’ve actually broken laws for which the correct punishment is a prison term. But the position of the US government is contrary: if the beneficiary of someone’s imprisonment is a private corporation, the public shouldn’t necessarily be allowed to know what’s going on, nor why. And, so, that’s the issue here. Does a private corporation’s privacy-right exceed the public’s right-to-know? The government says yes; CCR says no. CCR argues that to privatize is not to immunize: the government has the same obligations to the public, regardless of how it has chosen to carry out its obligations. The Obama Administration argues that a private corporation is private, protected from the public’s scrutiny – and that the corporation’s only obligations are to the government, not to the public; thus, no such FOIA requests will be honored.
Here’s what’s not in dispute about the case: the man who, in the first Obama Administration, was the head of the US Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations, David Venturella, is now the top sales official at GEO Group, which is «the world's leading provider of correctional detention, and residential treatment services around the globe» – and that’s also the first thing GEO says about itself, on its own «Who We Are» page. And Mr Venturella is now being cited by the Obama Administration as an ‘expert’ in order to deny CCA’s FOIA request.
As a GEO official, Venturella claims in his 22 December 2015 declaration in the court-case, that, «the winning proposal in almost every Federal procurement competition is awarded to the lowest priced bidder», and that, «the disclosure of GEO’s proprietary bed-day rates and staffing plans would result in substantial competitive financial harm to GEO». He claims that, «Even with access to their larger competitors’ staffing plans, the smaller private companies do not have access to the capital needed to compete to win a large facility». In other words, he pretends that GEO is one of «the smaller private companies». But then he goes on to say (just in case a reader might happen to consider GEO not to be one of «the smaller private companies»): «The second stage would be acrimonious competition between the larger organizations, public and private, that will very likely lead to their withdrawal from the detention market as well, thereby leaving ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] with no viable detention service providers». Venturella assumes here that ICE cannot itself own and operate its prisons. (He doesn’t say why; he merely assumes that it’s the case – perhaps that everything should be privatized, and must be privatized, so ICE shouldn’t run its own prisons.)
So, that (false) argument is the reason why injustices to defendants in the US immigration system must continue, Venturella, the salesman for GEO (his title is «Senior Vice President»), is here arguing.
Essentially, the Obama Administration is joining with GEO arguing that the profitability of private prison companies is more important than any injustices that might happen to be caused by Congress’s establishment of an arbitrary fixed and stable minimum number of prisoners every day – and, since the head of the top prison-company is saying that profits would be threatened by adhering to FOIA in this particular matter, the Freedom of Information Act request in this case must be denied.
The basic argument, in other words, is that privatization is more important than the US Constitution and its General Welfare Clause.
How close are these contractors to the government?
Here are five of the seven members of the Board of Directors of GEO:
One is «Former Director, Federal Bureau of Prisons».
Another is «Former Under Secretary United States Air Force».
Another is «Executive Director, National League of Cities».
Another is «Chairman and CEO of ElectedFace Inc»., which «will connect people to their elected officials in every political district».
Another is George C Zoley, the company’s Founder and CEO, who is also «America’s Highest Paid ‘Corrections Officer.’»
In fact, «GEO Group's revenue in 2012 exceeded $1.4 billion and CMD [Center for Media and Democracy] estimates that 86% of this money came out of the pockets of taxpayers. CMD's investigation of GEO Group unearthed how the company's cost-cutting strategies lead to a vicious cycle where lower wages and benefits for workers, high employee turnover, insufficient training, and under-staffing results in poor oversight and mistreatment of detained persons, increased violence, and riots». (If so, then that would add to the misery that’s produced by the improper imprisonments.)
«According to Nasdaq, major investors in GEO Group include: Vanguard, BlackRock, Scopia Capital (a hedge fund run by Jeremy Mindich and Matt Sirovich) Barclays Global Investors, Bank of New York Mellon, and more. George Zoley, CEO of GEO, is a major stockholder with over 500,000 shares. For more on investors, see Ray Downs, ‘Who's Getting Rich Off the Prison-Industrial Complex?' Vice, June 2013».
Privatization is very profitable. But not for everybody. Only for the well-connected. For everybody else, it’s just more poor and abused workers, and unjustly imprisoned people. But virtually all Republicans, and also the Obama Administration and other corrupt Democrats (and Obama will get his enrichment after he leaves office), think that privatization is necessary – even more necessary than is adherence to the US Constitution, or than a justly ruled nation, and prosperous public.
This type of government fits with America’s extraordinarily high incarceration rate.
But a few US officials do whatever they can to reduce the country’s corruption. For example, the «Immigration Detention Bed Quota Timeline» shows that, in September 2015, US Senator Bernie Sanders (who probably is the US federal government’s leading campaigner against corruption) «introduces the Justice is Not for Sale Act of 2015, which seeks to end the bed quota among other criminal justice and immigration detention reforms. The bill is the first effort in the US Senate to eliminate the bed quota. In addition, Reps. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Keith Ellison (D-MN), and Bobby Rush (D-IL) introduce the bill in the US House of Representatives».
Those are the most progressive members of the US Congress. Arrayed against them are the billions of dollars in political propaganda that cause the number of such progressives to be extremely few in the US government. For that bill to pass in Congress, practically all conservatives would first have to become replaced by progressives, and by other supposed non-conservatives (called ‘liberals’), in Congress. Sanders says that it would require «a political revolution», and he’s correct on that. But that’s the least likely type of «revolution» the US is likely to have. Perhaps Sanders knows this but doesn’t want to shock people, who are too indoctrinated to be able to accept the uncomfortably ugly truth, that things might already be too far gone for that type of «revolution» to be sufficient (even if it were feasible).
(35 votes)
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Everything has been corrupted. Everything. The only place I find a lack of corruption is if I open up one of my cans of Spam. No corruption in there at all.
It's only Spam I trust at this point. Everything else, from the dog catcher to the President is, well, you know...
last time I checked, the gap between dog catcher & POTUS was non-existent
The dog catcher is providing product to the spam producer, now there I knew there was some corruption in there somewhere... Eat at your own risk!
No corruption in there at all.
...mechanically separated chicken packed in sodium nitrite...
That's the food version of Hillary Clinton.
Just the mental image makes me want to vomit.
Pity her gynecologist.
She doesn't have one. She does, however, have two proctologists.
Fails to mention that 1/3 of those incarcerated are not in the country legally (and there not in there because of immigration charges). Cut the number by 1/3 and how does the US compare?
Yes, I could not help that he overlooked that simple fact.
But he cries on and on about 34,000 beds being reserved for them. So, Congress expects less than .3% (three tenths of one percent) of illegal aliens to be imprisoned for their crime (by Their low-ball 'dream act' estimates of a mere 11 million.)
http://www.marketvisual.com/Search/Results?searchString=geo+group
There is too much to worry about. Let's be thankful we have a government to take care of such thing?
This story had more value before the Democrat/Republican spins were threaded throughout with the writer, Eric Zuesse, clearly a voter for Obama twice and therefore is a traitor to the nation imo.
This is not ZH material imo as well.
I agree with you Kefeer. I am against imprisonment for ridiculous crimes but that isn't what this article was about. It was against imprisonment for illegal aliens. What is it the author doesn't understand about the word illegal? There are 10 million of them that should either be deported or in jail. 34,000 is not even a good start. The main point of the article was that his orginization was trying to find out how much the private companies running prisons are paid. I think he has missed the whole point about imprisonment.
Agreed. When a non-violent person is arrested because he has one joint over the "law", they are automatically a distrubutor: EVERYTHING THEY OWN IS CONFISCATED, cars, trucks, computers, guns, money, safes. Then they are charged with a feloney with prison time attached unless they can cough up thousands of $ for a lawyer after they have allready been raped by the "law enforcement officers" on a RICO charge. Oh, and dont' forget they will get into your home and grab things there. This has happened to a friend of mine over a few ounces of pot. All distributed to the city PF and the State.
The laws are written by those who profit from those laws.
How did the GOP pass a law without the POTUS signing it?
Anytime I see an article blaming one party (doesn't really matter which one) I automatically know the author is a cock sucking mother fucking asshole.
...Yup, I just heard today Obama blaming Republicans for the crap eCONomy. What an asshole.
Yep, 22 years of shitty trade policy by both parties and someone out there believes that it is the 'other' sides' fault... all the while BO works on another trade agreement to fuck over more Amerikan workers.
If more people carried concealed this problem could be significantly impacted.
By all means let the violent offenders free and go back to Detroit, Chicago, NYC etc. Should liven things up there.
What stupid, dumbed down, categorical bullshit these comments are. Yes, there is a thug culture within the black community that grabs inner city kids and traumatizes them to the point where what little IQ potential they had gets pared down even more. There is no tenderness in hip hop, rap, or inner city black culture, and these kids are fucked from birth because the history of black poverty has led to parents who haven't got a clue how to take care of an infant. But that's not true for every single black person/family.
You know, i'm sure, that western culture for millenia has had ingrained deeply into it's psyche that black is associated with male and white with female. That's why most interracial couples consist of a black man and a white woman, rather than the reverse. It's also why white men have an unconscious (and conscious) fear of black men. This attitude, plus the inner city culture of violence and brutality, coupled with a decades long assault on the inner city by the CIA, who made tons of off-the-books money through the drug trade, created the momentum that led to an inordinate number of black men being incarcerated.
Once this momentum, which fed on such a primal fear, developed, everybody was trapped into playing out their roles, which was okay with the sociopaths who began to see a great opportunity in private prisons. Of course this is only a small part of the story.
Tolerate not knowing completely. Stop engaging in dumbed down, simple minded arguements. We get enough of that outside of ZH.
how's this for simple ---instead of contracting for prisons contract for a bus company--must bus 3000 illegals a day to the boarder for deportation---That won't profit the "stock holders" because the "cheap labor" will be gone---you didn't think those guys/gals just sat around in jail with freebees did you---they work every day for the "corporation" making sure profit is made. Of course the products the produce compete with good ol american (made in America out side of prisons) products ----just saying
The vast majority of people in prisons are not there for violent crimes. They are there because of drug laws.
Maybe they didn't go in for violent crimes. But a couple of years there. What are they going to be like coming out?
the violent offenders are the cops, and the politicians.
How does that song go again ? . . . for the the land of the FREE and the home of the b . . no can't bring myself to write it.
chicken liver
No, it's THIS corrupt (from me to...)
Tonewstips@globe.com attorneygeneral@joj.nh.gov boston@ic.fbi.gov attorney.general@maine.gov ago@state.ma.us and 2 more...
Jan 11 at 2:47 PM Hello, I just spoke with someone on the phone and am sending the requested links. Should be a pretty good story. Other news outlets are interested as well. N.H. U.S. Rep Kuster lobbied for big pharma to not have date rape drug classified Schedule 1, BTW. Are we looking to her to solve our opiate problems? These pharma companies are killing for profit, right in your face. Oxycontin co. got everyone addicted selling off label (not to old cancer patients) with "the most successful ad campaign of all time", then when the patent (monopoly) runs out and generics are available, lobby to have them banned, because now corp has new patent (monopoly) on extended release version which can't be crushed and snorted and abused. How long did they have this technology, why was it not used in the beginning, or when they got it. A patent monopoly keeps the price up so they make money but it pays to sell on the street because it's expensive/ profitable and THAT'S how it gets around. Company that makes pseudophenedrine (crystal meth) lobbied to keep it on the shelves, don't need to present ID, or else DEA says we never would have heard of it. And it looks like the Globe and Mail says this is not just in the U.S. Scumbag evil lawyers, and execs planning this for years. What's the voting record look like? Where does the money trail go to (yes, I know, to the top)? Any documents leaked? Any whistle blowers? Why is some federal agency not ALL OVER this? What is being done about this in the MA, NH, VT, ME, RI CT legislatures and law enforcement agencies? You need to do everything in your power to do the right thing and stop this. This can get it started. It's front- page. http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-big-pharma-hooked-america-on-legal-heroin http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/new-oxycodone-rules-would-give-drug-maker-a-monoply-in-canada-experts-warn/article25820214/ I'm tired of hearing excuses, an executive order can handle this. Opiates and meth come from big drug companies (one in Connecticut, one in California) who have lobbyists, including some who run for offices and call themselves politicians in order to better serve their masters. In China you will stand before a firing squad certain economic crimes, like putting poisons in baby formula, and your family will receive a bill for the whole box of bullets. Put the screws to these guys, it's all over Nightly Business Report for goodness sake. Enjoy the rest of Your Day,
-------------------------BERNIE 2016------------------------------------
ONLY candidate that will stand up to the Fed
Fuck lizzie
This vote come down the same time the market was ramping up?
--------
January 12, 2016, 03:12 pm
Senate rejects Paul’s push to audit the FedBy Jordain Carney
“We’ve had a lot of Democrats who claim that they’re concerned about big banks and big banks controlling things and a revolving door between Wall Street and big banks and the Federal Reserve,” Paul told reporters during a conference call Monday. “We’ll see if any of those loud voices — Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren — are they loud voices that really are for more oversight of the banking system?”
Warren voted against the bill.
Sanders, who in the past worked with Paul’s father, former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), on similar “Audit the Fed” legislation, said the new bill would help build on his 2010 push to require an audit of the central bank’s emergency lending
Warren voted NO ? Wow, this "vote" will 100% ID all of the Elite Treasonist In the Senate. What POSSIBLE reason could anyone have to vote against it? This vote could become a permanent "label" --a scarlet letter--for those Elitist anti Americans who voted no. It should be the first question in any interview because it says everything about motives.
here is her version of that as posted by the WSJ, for what its worth :
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/02/10/sen-warren-opposes-audit-the-f...
Apparently her reason is that the FED MONETARY POLICY is vital to US political STABILITY.
Liz Warren is therefore behind Yellen but NOT behind the BIG BANKS who CONtROL Yellen !
Some circular logic there! IMO.
KILLING OUR FAMILIES FOR MONEY!!!!!
Fuck the feds, you aren't going to solve anything you'r going against by allowing the federal government access to the cash they need to implement this bullshit.
The repub hate is ridiculous.
I honestly can't even believe this is posted here.
Honest legislative reform means end the drug war, enforce legitimate non incarceration prison reforms, close borders by force, give land and influence back to state legislatures with real expunctions of convoluted legal codes, giving back common sense, swift, repercussions to violators of people and property.
I feel good about this boat ride-
Millvina Dean
The author has potential. I've read a lot of his material and the guy definitely has a passion for (some) truth.
His maniacal and frankly borderline deranged hatred of Conservatism though is like a flashing red light. Lets get Conservatism right k?
It isn't this devilish cartoon depicted by the CORPORATE media. Yeah, that's something Eric hasn't written about to the best of my knowledge.....(he has written extensively on media ownership consolidation...90%+ blah, blah, blah. But why is the majority of this media supportive of obama to the point of it being comical?)
The corporate media is lock step with progressivism. Why is that? Well, we can't say that transnational corporations/banking cartels and the sick fucks who play 'world leader' know nothing about it right? Why does this extremely clear bias take place? If the 'evil' not progressives actually were in charge, do you suppose they would tolerate the current state play of making the republicans (who are absolutely by and large NOT Conservative) look like complete psychopaths while promoting obama as if he were indeed some wonderful man just fighting the republicans and trying to save the world from putin..
This nation is chock full of absolute morons who couldn't (literally) survive two weeks without someone telling them what to do, think, or how to 'act'.
Why? Well I don't suppose the public school systems have anything in particular to do with it eh Eric?
What percentage of the tools 'teaching' our children in public 'schools' identify as Conservative, let alone republican? That of course includes not only K-12 (so far) but also obviously acadamia.
Who signed NAFTA, and more relevantly..Who is pimping the nuclear version of NAFTA..you know right, TPP, USEDTP, NOTPFORYOU? Eric has written about some of this stuff but I haven't seen any material produced by him uncovering the extreme corruption and disgusting subversion's of human right's which are routinely committed by 'progressive' gangsters.
Does being a pathological liar qualify one for Eric's disdain? Or is that only a pathological liar who doesn't self identify as a progressive?
The answer is "Cool Hand Luke" and "Papillion" - these were places to be feared. Now days, prisons with three hots and a cot - plus Internet and TV - hold much less ability to deter.
Politically incorrect, cruel, and they worked on those with three strikes!
Yeah, they are real nice places. Try one sometime?
And how did that work on those with 3 strikes? Not as a deterrent, of course, because once you have three strikes you're "in" for life. What three strikes does is make sure the tax payer pays for your (admittedly miserable) keep for the rest of your life.
the usa has always been satanic. it was created for that exact purpose. where have you been?
Let not the political twistedness of the author distract us from the abomination that is the private prison.
Is there even any pretense anymore that the purpose of prison is not just to temporarily keep a criminal out of society (providing societal-safety and detention-based-punishment), but also to reform them? Are private prisons paid on a pure prisoner/unit-time basis, or does their payment take into account the recidivism rate of those prisoners they have presumably helped to reform? If private prisons were paid on a basis not only of competition (if that even happens) but also on a meritocractic one that included not only securing and properly "hosting" prisoners but also reforming them, I would be all for it - they should then all be private. I'm pretty sure that's nothing like what we have now though.
Reading your post made me think that although the private prison in its current form may be an abomination, it doesn't need to be that way. It's the politicians, the populous that fails to hold them accountable by whatever means necessary, and as willwork4food points out the fact that private prisons themselves are likely allowed far too much political influence that has produced the rules by which the private prisons get to "play", and the abomination is probably baked right into those rules.
Besides reduced recidivism, I would like to see private prisons "forced" (economically motivated) to produce releasees with improved English and STEM scores and job placement (not just in terms of being hired but in terms of income achieved -- or maybe put it in terms the government can more easily understand: taxes paid). If there were a feasible way to objectively measure morality I would throw that in too.
BTW, you're one of my favorite new-ish posters. Keep up the good work!
Someone I know in prison says that if you're min security and a non-violent offender you can either sit around bored off your ass or stamp out washing machine parts for Westinghouse at 27 cents an hr.
I once read a German politician saying 'and if we do not get enough to enlist in the army we can always do as the Americans do. Give low level criminals the choice between a conviction or army service'.
I remember a time when the Press would do an undercover investigation and bring this immoral crap into public view. I thought too that the Public Records Law was very settled law. Obombyou and friends really do make their own laws.
The whole show is a pyramid scheme held together with fear and hope. As it runs out of fresh blood it gets ugly. Nothing good is coming down the sewer pipe except SHTF
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Perhaps the reason we have so many people locked up is because we have so many laws?
These other countries? They're nearly failed states.
An analysis of the reasons why we have so many incarcerated, the laws broken, would quickly produce the answer.
I would think part of the answer is because we don't have enough jobs for people.
Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CIVPART
Inactivity Rate: Aged 25-54: Males for the United States©
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LRIN25MAUSM156S
The real key metric is that in 1985, our balance of trade with the Chinese was - 6 million dollars.
https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html#1985
Now?
$350 billion. https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html#2014
All those jobs.
Gone.
The other part, is the cultural marxists, tearing down our society, our values, our culture, our families.
And when anyone goes to prison,
the niggasA$$RapeThem till they become
the superRace == homos
similar to CabalA$$LickerLiarAddictObamma
Sure the US might have one of the Highest Incarseration rates on the Planet. But how many Bankers have gone to Jail in the past 20 years, Exactly. See, they are the most honest people you could meet, well except ONE, he was found to be stealing from his employer. It's Legal to steal from the Public, it's Illegal to steal from a Bank
And the very few who do, go to the "country club" prisons, not the "f*** me in the a** prisons" ("Office Space" movie. :-)
Hey Tyler? You should be ashmed for posting this stupid article. This Eric Zuesse is another libtard who is looking for a cushy job in academia. If you want an example of corruption in Amerika, then I'll give you one: I was visiting my relatives in New Orleans for Christmas and they told me about what happened to some of their friends who went to talk to their city councilor. They visited their councilor when he was having a public get-together and they asked him when their street would received some desperately needed repairs. The councilor told them that they should pay for the repairs out of their own pocket.
Let that statement sink in. You pay your taxes and then you are told to make additional payments for services you are already entitled for. I asked my aunt if anyone had the foresight to bring along a video camera to record the councilmans statement so they could put it on the internet. She said they did not but I can't stop thinking about if they had. Just imagine how many hits that video would get from that statement!
That's what the City ad valorem property taxes are for: to keep the City streets in SAFE condition.
IF their streets are not in a SAFE condition, then that may endanger the lives of people who happen to drive into their neighborhood. As good citizens, they would have an argument for complaining PUBLICLY, ON THE RECORD, in CITY COMMISSION MEETINGS and in emails to ALL the PRESS they can find.
Those people could form a Neighborhood Association (and incorporate it), and send the Mayor (and copy ALL the Press) a registered letter noting the public safety problems.
Thes people could even contact a contractor and find out how much it would cost to make their streets safe again, and report that PUBLICLY, ON THE RECORD, in CITY COMMISSION MEETINGS, and in emails to ALL the PRESS they can find.
Those people could also seek out and communicate with other neighborhoods having problems.
Next, those people could start a "City Commisioner Voting Record", reporting all Commissioners votes on ALL neighborhood public safety issues (and all Commissioners' negligence, in failing to call for a vote on a safety issue a neighborhood had reported public). They could maintain that list diligently, contact other neighborhoods, and regularly return to City Commission meetings and read it into the public record. THAT's when the magic will happen. ALL City Commissioners are afraid of ONE THING: not getting reelected. A Voting Record, frequently reported to the public, and showing a Commissioner's grade as "F", will make a Commissioner afraid he might not get reelected, and that will work miracles in motivating him to reexamine his priorities.
Just make sure everybody actually shows up and votes in the City Commission elections. City Commssioners are not stupid, and you can't bluff them. "They" don't know who you voted for, but they sure as heck know whether you voted, and how many people in your neighborhood voted, and how many people in the other neighborhoods you worked with voted.
The nice thing about forming a neighborhood association is that it only takes 3 people to form it and run it. There is plenty of information all over the place about how to set it up, which requires incorporating it at the State as a non-profit corporation. You can put its purpose down as anything you like, for example: "the XYX Neighborhood Association is created to protect the public safety and health, and public and private property values, in XYZ Neighborhood". You can also say, "membership is open to all who ascribe to these goals". A non-profit corporation can do everything a for-profit corporation can do, with the exception of one thing: pay dividends to stockholders. There are no stockholders. Once you have received your non-profit corporation license from the State, it only takes 3 people to have Association meetings, and you can be the Association Secretary, and therefore you can write up the minutes, and the minutes will then say exactly what you want them to say. The Association can then vote to send out all these news briefs, City Commissioner Voting Records, etc., and as Associationg Secretary, you are then FORCED to send them. Your minutes do not need to say who voted "Yea" and "Nay" on the votes to send out these emails and mailings. So you are protected legally. (I am not an attorney.) Again, everything you do, you are FORCED to do.
Once others in other neighborhoods notice that you are active, I bet you will get volunteers coming over to help you, because some people have the energy and courage to try to do what you are doing in your neighborhood, in their neighborhood also. It's probably helpful to show up at their meetings and act helpfully, but your Association needs to stick to just doing what its State charter says its purpose is (which is what you said its purpose is). Those other people need to form their own Associations to do their stuff, and some may and some may not, but you can't rescue anybody; you can only do what your charter says.
Again, in the end, it's all about votes at the City Commission elections. You don't have to endorse candidates, but the Voting Record, plus people actually showing up and voting, should give you more influence at the City Commission than you have now.