(I originally wrote the following as a reply to a comment from seabe on Booman’s recent post No, You Are the McCarthyite. It grew, so here it is as a standalone post.)
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Seabe wrote:
Yeah I definitely wouldn’t reject it out of hand that many [Republicans] are compromised, including leadership.
Yes indeed.
Me too.
But…first of all, we must define the word “compromised.”
If a politician takes money…legally or not so legally…that has implicit strings attached, strings that the politician recognizes are not truly in the public interest…is that politician “compromised” or is it just more of the whole “private/public” rigamarole like HRC’s public gaffe in her little talk to the Wall Street boyz and girlsz.
If we take that as being “compromised,” then I suppose that almost the whole edifice of U.S. politics is compromised.
But what if it was possible to eliminate that sort of “compromise?” I believe that the entire country would grind to a screeching halt.That action is the lubricant that has greased the gears of this politico-economic system from its very onset, and most likely every other at least moderately successful one as well. The Russian Revolution was an attempt to subvert that greasing, and within only a few years the grease was once again flowing through its system. The only difference was that it was in politburo form rather than czarist form.
Same grease, same types of greasers.
So…in this brave new world where “borders” are easily subverted by teen-aged hackers let alone massive governmental spying edifices…where do we draw the line?
Damned if I know.
Do we draw it by party affiliation?
If the Clinton Foundation/DNC takes grease from mysterious sources and so does the RNC, do we simply line up behind our party of choice and duke it out? That is what is happening now, except compromised entities of both parties have allied with each other to get rid of President Loose Cannon and whomever is really backing him.
Or do we finally stand up and say “Enough is enough!!! Israeli money, Saudi money, multinational corporate money, Russian money and all of the rest of the monies from other interested parties that hold their interests above that of the American people? Enough!!! Stand down!!! We will handle our own affairs from here on in, thank you very much.”
Is this even possible to do!!!??? I don’t really know. In a sense this is why I have been interested in such a seemingly disparate group of politicians over the past several decades, all of whom are labelled different names by different people. Ross Perot, Ron Paul, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Trump’s campaign rhetoric if not his actions…even the much reviled Ralph Nader…they all at least sound like they are looking for a way to stop the anti-American grease from gumming up the works of government.
But “sounding” that way and actually being able to back it up with electoral victory are two very different things. Why? Because much of that money owns the media that are the controllers of most U.S. citizens’ minds, and other segments of that money are now being used to control peoples’ minds through social media.
What does this say about the U.S. electorate?
“We a bunch of dummies!!!” is what it says.
So it goes…
Sun Tzu said “Know your enemy.”
Walt Kelly said “We have met the enemy, and it is us.”
And there we jolly well are, aren’t we. (So said Lord Buckley, and if you’re not hip to him you are not hip to anything!!!)
Gotta run now…think on this, please.
And if you come to any positive conclusions, you know where to find me.
Get in touch.
Later…
AG
