All of us People should ask themselves the very simple question. Who is our congressman responsible to? Me or to his fat-cat backers? Is he on the take or is he serving our needs? Corruption means that he's serving the corruptors. A culture of corruption means a culture of shrinking opportunity and "ownership" of people. An ownership society where the very rich own everybody.
This administration has lied to me too often, and too readily, for me to believe them, and they give every indication they are still lying. They have formed a machine and are trying to make their efforts look legal -- but there are clear quid pro quos in every law coming out of Congress right now. The Republicans get rid of one "ownership challenged" congressman and an even worse one takes his place. That whole party hasn't been this corrupt since the late 1860's and early 1870's.
And they shill for each other. Else why would Alberto Gonzalez be allowed to testify about spying on us without being sworn? Why would they parse answers to questions that have only one legal answer?
It's really very simple; If they are breaking the law they are criminals. If they are criminals then they are by definition corrupt. If those crimes are crimes of violence or against the constitution they are high crimes and misdemeaners. A cover of "National Security" is itself a lie. Nothing hurts our security more than to be ruled by criminals.
But this should hit home. The corruption hits us all directly in the pocket book unless we are one of the corruptors [and in the long run I believe it hurts even them]. Current thefts are not at academic levels. We are paying for them -- and will be for a long time. Directly and in large amounts. Bush isn't squeezing his "Pioneers" he's squeezing the rest of us. He is lying to us about little things and he is lying to us about big things. His lies about wiretapping are a threat to all of our liberties. But they are nothing in impact to us compared to the lies with which his administration covers their plans for Medicaid and social services.
All this stuff about Gay marriage, cloning, or abortion is morally important, but can best be handled through the process of debate, dialogue and making intelligent distinctions and choices over priorities. These choices will be with us for the rest of our mortal existence on this human plane. And yes, Bin Laden is a potential enemy -- but if you let your fears drive your voting then you are letting kleptocrats steal from you -- and it is your business to stop it. And if you let them lie and cheat you long enough -- eventually everything will be so corrupt that you won't be able to do anything about it. You will have built yourself a rusty prison out of your own fears.
http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/live/node/2306
http://www.wegoted.com/ href="http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/live/">http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/live/
I was originally going to talk about this topic:
Further reading:
http://mediamatters.org/items/printable/200512240002
http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/live/node/2310