Once upon a time the House of Representatives was known as "the peoples' house." No more. It belongs to K Street now. That's the address of the lobbyists who swarm all over Capitol Hill. There are 65 lobbyists for every member of Congress. They spend $200 million per month wining, dining and seducing federal officials. Per month!
Of course they're just doing their job. It's impossible to commit bribery, legal or otherwise, unless someone's on the take, and with campaign costs soaring, our politicians always have their hands out. One representative confessed that members of Congress are the only people in the world expected to take large amounts of money from strangers and then act as if it has no effect on their behavior. This explains why Democrats are having a hard time exploiting the culture of corruption embodied in the scandalous behavior of DeLay and Abramoff. Democrats are themselves up to their necks in the sludge. Just the other day one of the most powerful Democrats in the House bragged to reporters about tapping "uncharted donor fields in the financial industry"-—reminding them, not so subtlely, of the possibility that after November the majority leader just might be a Democrat.
When it comes to selling influence, both parties have defined deviancy up, and Tony Soprano himself couldn't get away with some of the things that pass for business as usual in Washington. We have now learned that Jack Abramoff had almost 500 contacts with the Bush White House over the three years before his fall, and that Karl Rove and other presidential staff were treated to his favors and often intervened on his behalf. So brazen a pirate would have been forced to walk the plank long ago if Washington had not thrown its moral compass overboard.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1003-30.htm
[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on October 4, 2006]
Note: http://www.commondreams...
Lincoln Weeps
Posted on Wednesday, October 04 at 08:27 by 4CanadaContributed By
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As wealth can not be created, only taken from other sectors and the environment, the pursuers of the neocon and neoclassical market capitalist economic theory must first destroy democracy to institute a worldwide corporate dictatorship.
This is also going on here in Canada, in Europe and Asia, with most governments and political parties cooperating to please the new fascist lords of the universe. In the name of universal "wealth creation".
Ed Deak.
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Constitution Repealed
My god, what's happening here?
While you slept, last Thursday the U.S. Senate passed S.B. 3930 which, among other things, effectively repeals the Constitution of the United States.
The bill redefines an "unlawful enemy combatant" (UEC) so broadly that it could include any citizen who organizes or participates in a march against the war in Iraq. It could include any elected representative or individual who investigates the president or his staff. It could include anyone who laughs during a Jon Stewart monologue. It could include Jon Stewart.
The bill defines a UEC as "a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States" or anyone who "has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense of the United States."
The definition makes no reference to citizenship and therefore could be read to include YOU.
If you care about the ideal of democracy, I hope you'll pass this along. If you care about your children, I hope you'll take a few minutes to call your local, state and national representatives AND (most importantly) your local radio and television stations to demand why they think rescinding the Constitution is not newsworthy. If you need phone numbers or addresses, ping me and I'll help you.
This must stop. Now.
and see it through the lense of Ed's post then they may begin to understand the severity upons us.
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Diogenes said:
"I am Diogenes the Dog. I nuzzle the kind, bark at the greedy and bite scoundrels."
In early 1946, he said: "Everything is going in the wrong direction."
Sixty years later, nothing has changed. History repeats itself.
I have no idea if anyone ever said that before, but given the way tyrants spring up like weeds I expect that someone, somewhere, at some other time said those words or ones very close to them.
Ghandi showed the way when he got the British out of India.
I do not relish the idea of looking down the business end of a C7/M-16 assault rifle and into the eyes of a soldier who may or may not be as scared as I would be, but if it ever came down to it, I'd like to think that my dad raised me man enough to do what needed to be done.
We are either ALL free, or we are ALL in chains.
There is no middle ground.
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"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"
"The Weapon" - Rush