Federal officials say the Congressional bribery investigation now includes Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, based on information from convicted lobbyists who are now cooperating with the government.
“I have been racking my brain all day and calling people, wanting to know what could be the other side of the story for a congressman having $90,000 of cash in his freezer. And the collective wisdom of my friends have not been able to come up with anything. But if he can come up with a reason for this, I’m waiting here, man. I want to hear it, because I can’t think of it.”
— Democratic strategist James Carville
To say they all do, that both parties are culpable, misses the point. This isn’t about political parties. It’s a class thing. An elite monied class is entrenched in D.C. They make sure the money goes to them. When they leave office they get cushy positions with lobbyists, think tanks or big corporations. Despite the sometimes quite real differences between the two parties, they are united in protecting their class and interests against those of the rest of us.
However, sometimes they get so bloated and corrupt that they can’t hide it anymore. That’s what’s happening now.
I scoff and mock your idealism! Forget baseball – stealing is the national pastime. Further, robbery is an international recreation endemic to all people and classes. Three out of ten will steal from you, brazenly. Two or three more will steal if they see the first three get away with it. Call it what you will – appropriate, burgle, cheat, defraud, divert, embezzle, filch, fleece, heist, hold up, lift, loot, misappropriate, nick, peculate, pilfer, pillage, pinch, pirate, plagiarize, plunder, poach, purloin, ransack, rip off, sack, shanghai, shoplift, swindle, swipe, take, or thieve – you can’t dismiss despoiling as an upper class curse.
And sending me to a May 1st Farm to re-educate me about something called “altruism†ain’t gonna help, bub. Err…Bob.
I’m sure glad Nelson Mandela sitting in prison didn’t say, oh the heck with all this altruism, we can never overthrow apartheid.
In Cuba, the leaders of the very powerful unions aren’t paid much more than a worker. Under a system like that, much of the supposed avariciousness of the people would not exist or be a problem. Thus, such traits are not innate but are more a function of the economic system.
It’s not so much human nature that is the problem, but rather the economic systems we live under that reward greed and selfishness.
Greed and selfishness are their own rewards, and they pay handsomely, too. Shall I compile a list of “socialist” scandals?
Now taking applications for the Revisionist Wives Club.
I do not subscribe to the “all people are buttheads” theory, and wouldn’t be an organizer if I did.
People don’t suck. The systems they live under sometimes do. And can be changed.
No need to take applications!