... or start realizing that, without public financing of campaigns, there's nothing -- literally nothing -- progressive individuals can do to see their agenda(s) addressed in congress or the executive branch.
And until the Scalias and Alitos of the world start dying off -- and not just on the SCOTUS, but throughout ranks of Federalist Society-vetted judges -- the judiciary is useless, too.
So start pooling those quarters and dollars and fives and 20s, decided among any of maybe a dozen effective progressive PACs currently doing great but underfunded work, and enter the congressional flesh peddling business. Fucking whores that they are, they should be more than used to being auctioned off anyway.
At least most whores I've met are fragile, badly damaged but honest women at heart, while these lying slimebuckets are born with silver spoons embedded with utmost precision in their soft palates to keep those forked tongues from joining together as is the case with most decent people.
It's not like the rubes here in Dumbfuckistan, multiplying like Viagra-engorged roaches, present much of a challenge for a proper con artist or are likely to call bullshit on them anyway.
or...
Lacking sufficient funds to compete with the corporate bribocracy, public financing of all campaigns -- from local boards of supes to el presidente and every office in between -- need to be financed by non-optional public contributions.
Of course, the mass extinction of current members of congress and ideological relics in the federal judiciary is a precursor to all but the most meaningless feel-good reform bandaids.
Corporate "personhood" has to go. All the rights and none of the responsibilities? You must be fucking joking...
Several high-profile corporations need to have their charters revoked -- the so-called corporate death penalty -- in the most public manner possible to show the rest that there are in fact consequences for their endless abuse of the peasantry -- here and around the world.
Buckley v. Valeo must go, since money DOES NOT equal free speech, no matter how the Burger court ruled in 1976. Antitrust legislation already on the books needs to be dusted off and enforced stringently.
Thirty-three years of living in a legally sanctioned bribocracy -- featuring the pure scum who have taken the bait such a ridiculous invitation to legislative corruption implies -- should have convinced even the most brain-dead jurist, federal prosecutor, member of congress and even local transportation "czars" that this insane quasi-system ain't working -- except to maintain the status quo which, in turn, rewards the rich for simply being rich and penalizes the poor for simply being poor.
Trouble is, with very few exceptions, they're all invested in it -- both financially and ideologically -- and it's a bit naive to expect the very people who are making out like bandits under the current bribocracy to suddenly strangle the goose that's provided them with golden eggs their entire political careers.
Soooo... I think we're fucked. It will only get worse, which is almost unimaginable given how truly corrupt and self-serving the modern bribocracy actually is.
For evidence, look at what it's produced, both short and long term:
-- Record foreclosures, but nearly all financial assistance going to the lenders rather than to help keep borrowers in their homes.
-- A missing $750 BILLION giveaway that the recipients simply refuse to acknowledge and the swine who gave them OUR MONEY with no strings attached refuse to investigate its whereabouts.
-- US infrastructure is crumbling right under our feet and the money needed to replace or repair it all is building gigantic embassies and permanent military bases through the middle east to improve that "forward
Helping credit conglomerates jack up interest rates rather than compel them to suspend all interest accrual until borrowers reach an agreed-upon level of stability.
-- The great "health care debate," which is no such thing because as soon as you start talking about full or expanded "coverage" -- coverage being code for the continued participation of the for-profit medical insurance industry -- you've invited the single most destructive element driving the present corporate shakedown racket.
-- Regarding torture -- and that's what it's called despite the best efforts of right wing apologists to characterize crucifixion, waterboarding, sleep-deprivation, beatings, attacks by giant dogs, circle jerks... oh, and a little murder just to spice things up... as simply "enhanced interrogation" -- we're told we must "move on." No accountability; no consequences for breaking Con and international law; no penalties for ruining an entire country's already fading reputation and turning it into the world's most dangerous and feared rogue state.
So sick as we should be of that hideous phrase which is the verbal equivalent of Pontius Pilate washing his hands of the matter of crucifying the leading social justice critic, agitator and rebel of his place and time.
-- The "global war on terror," which is absolutely no such thing and is primarily in place to a) continue the upward transfer of money and assets (whatever's left after the massive Bushie grand theft of the US treasury) into the pockets of the usual war profiteers in the oil, banking, armaments and noncombatant support providers (AKA, cooks and potato peelers), and b) make sure there's no money left to spend on social programs.
-- Regulatory agencies are led and staffed by industry insiders who are just padding their resumes while learning ever more efficient and non-prosecutable ways to commit grand theft. Whistleblowers are condemned and fired with prejudice.
-- Slave labor has finally caught on with the consuming public... not that it's ever really gone out of style in this modern version of the plantation economy, replete with slave practices like "stop loss;" privatized prisons staffed by laborers paid in pennies a day; Tommy Hilfigger et al using bullshit labeling laws allowing US companies to stamp "Made in USA" on garments made by slaves literally kidnapped and delivered to sweat shops in the Marianas Islands. Tom DeLay's very own "grand experiment."
Incredibly, DeLay publicly approved of these working and living conditions. The Texan's salute to the owners and Jack Abramoff's government clients was recorded by ABC-TV News: "You are a shining light for what is happening to the Republican Party, and you represent everything that is good about what we are trying to do in America and leading the world in the free-market system."
Later, DeLay would tell The Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin that the low-wage, anti-union conditions of the Marianas constituted "a perfect petri dish of capitalism. It's like my Galapagos Island."
And on and on and on...
So it's guaranteed that these slimy smirking pigs will continue to occupy an honored place at the table when the spoils are divided up. Listen closely and you can hear the cackling and snickering continuing unabated.
Just their good luck to have set up shop in a country with a population so adept at shooting itself in the foot that the national wheelchair franchise is worth a sizable fortune.
Anyone feeling a little more optimistic this morning? I see no reason for it, obviously, but then I rarely do here in the land of the neutered moron.
It's like the timid soul of Don Knotts has been fused with the brain of Homer Simpson, combined to produce a bit of primordial slime with the wimpiest and the dumbest characteristics possible, pulled a "Bride of Frankenstein"/Elsa Lancaster electro-symbiosis operation and gradually made these traits core elements in the American collective consciousness.
D'oh... Indeed.
sf
the former "Warren Pease" now writing as Steven Franklin, trying to reclaim my lost identity so I can win great prizes in a local essay contest.
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