Juan Cole: Top 10 Signs the US Is the Most Corrupt Country in the World

[hunter]

19. I've lived outside the U.S.A. and have visited quite a few nations...

... not as a tourist.

I think the U.S.A. is very similar to Mexico in many ways, and not comparable to what we generally regard as the less corrupt "developed" nations, such as the top ten least corrupt nations of the "Corruption Perceptions Index" chart posted above.

We're not comparable in any way to Denmark, New Zealand, Finland, Sweden, Norway...

What we do have, without question, is the most highly developed propaganda machines.

For example, there is an astonishing history of police in various communities large and small actually stealing cars. This is one I pay attention to because we had a car stolen once, first by gangsters who used it in a drive by shooting, and then by police who asked to inspect it for evidence, and then promptly "misplaced" it. We made such a huge stink we eventually got it back.

But there are places where it's much more blatant than that. A DWB (Driving while Black) citation, or an arbitrary parking violation, say for temperorary no-parking zones set up after the car had been legally parked, and taken down again before the driver returned, can quickly escalate to the point where cars are sold at police auction, or has frequently happened in many communities with nicer automobiles, having the automobile ownership magically transferred to the police chief or other police officials.

And the U.S.A. is such a god damned racist and fascist place, that even when "ordinary" white people, working class to affluent, hear about such crimes by police against non-white and lower income poor, powerless, and ignorant white people, they will simply assume that the police "knew" something about the victims, and thus these police crimes were justified.

"Silent majority" white U.S. Americans are roll-over weenies programmed by the television news.

If the teevee news says there is no corruption, if teevee news watcher hasn't heard about the dozens of ways their political representatives are selling them out every fucking day, well then, everything must be fine.