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Sunday, March 11, 2007

THE NEW AMERICAN EMPIRE PART II



March 12, 2007








Decadence, Waste, Corruption in the New AmericanEmpire [Part II]

by Rodrigue Tremblay [http://www.thenewamericanempire.com/author.html]

"The abuse of buying and selling votes crept in andmoney began to play an important part in determiningelections. Later on, this process of corruption spreadto the law courts. And then to the army, and finallythe Republic was subjected to the rule of emperors." Plutarch (c. 46 A.D.-127 A.D.) "An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest andmost fatal ailment of all republics."Plutarch (c. 46 A.D.-127 A.D.)"It should be no surprise that when rich men takecontrol of the government, they pass laws that arefavorable to themselves. The surprise is that thosewho are not rich vote for such people, even thoughthey should know from bitter experience that the richwill continue to rip off the rest of us. Perhaps thereason is that rich men are very clever at covering upwhat they do."Andrew GreeleyCorruption and moral bankruptcy take many forms. Theyare usually the end results of an insatiable lust formoney, power and privilege, above and beyond anycommon decency. And money in politics is at the nexusof nearly all forms of corruption. In the United States, for example, big money is socentral to politics and to the functioning ofpolitical parties that anybody running for highoffice, even if he or she is personally a millionaire,is obliged to court those who have the big cash.[http://www.amazon.com/Selling-Out-Mark-Green/dp/0060523921/ref=sr_11_1/103-8039869-7891816?ie=UTF8&qid=1173098885&sr=11-1]Many good candidates thus refuse to enter into, orsoon bow out of presidential races, because they donot want to submit to this kind of prostitution. As aconsequence of the deals that must be made to raisethe huge amounts of money required to be successful,it is difficult for any administration, once elected,not to get entangled in a web of scandals. Indeed, bigcash is the key to influence in Washington D.C., andcash used to bribe politicians ultimately leads togreed and scandals. It happened to the Nixonadministration (Watergate scandal), the Carteradministration (Lance scandal), the Reaganadministration (Iran-Contra-cocaine scandal), theClinton administration (Whitewater scandal) and now,to the Bush administration. There was the Enron scandal,[http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0116-02.htm]the Abramoff scandal,[http://thinkprogress.org/abramoff] and the Tom Delayscandal.[http://ins.onlinedemocracy.ca/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=6526]In the aftermath of the Enron scandal, for example, itwas made public that Enron spent a total of $5.8m onAmerican federal elections, over a period of 12 years,with 73 percent of the money going to Republicans.Globally, 71 out of 100 senators and 188 out of 435House members benefited from the company's largesse.President George W. Bush himself, a staunch opponentof any campaign finance reform,[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_reform]received $826,000 from this single Texas company[http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0116-02.htm]over a period of eight years, since he first ran forgovernor of that state. —This seems to be all part ofa pervasive culture of corruption.[http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10013.html]The revelation that super lobbyist Jack Abramoff[http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060624/ap_on_go_pr_wh/abramoff_white_house]offered $100,000 to meet President George W. Bush andtop adviser Karl Rove to push for legislation of hisliking is an indication how things can degeneratequickly, even in the most solid democracy. Superlobbyist Abramoff was one of George W. Bush'sprincipal fundraisers, earning the honorary title of"pioneer" in his fund-raising organization.[http://tinyurl.com/djszt] And, in what is typicallyAmerican, both Abramoff and Delay said that 'God' wassomewhat behind their actions. –For one, Abramoffconfessed that "I felt that the resources coming intomy hands were the consequence of God putting themthere. " –And, in Delay's words, "I firmly believe I'minnocent of the charges against me. We believe thatGod in fact is in control and indeed he does work allthings for good for those who love the Lord." This isan indication that for some, religion and politicalcorruption do mix.[http://www.amazon.com/Heist-Superlobbyist-Abramoff-Republican-Washington/dp/0374299315/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-8039869-7891816?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1172942126&sr=1-1]In fact, what money buys in Washington D.C. is accessto those in positions of power, direct influence onthe framing of public policies and preferentialallotment of jobs and juicy contracts. Corruption ofcivil servants and Congress by lobbyists[http://www.time.com/time/nation/printout/0,8816,1549069,00.html]follows. Political corruption quickly becomes avicious cycle: The corrupters select the politiciansthey want to see in office by dumping tons of money intheir campaigns, while the politicians thus selectedare anxious to pay back their benefactors by openingjobs of influence and by dishing out rewardingcontracts to them. —And the wheel turns. Inparticular, why do you think all leading Democraticpresidential hopefuls[http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=10626] thisyear are calling for an unprovoked American attackagainst Iran? It is because the big money contributorsthey are soliciting are pro-Israel hard-liners. Thosewho pay make the policy.[http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=13527&print=yes]—That may be the overriding reason why 60 percent ofAmericans do not bother to vote, come election time.They are not apathetic; they only know that plutocracyis not democracy and that there is not a chance inhell that the system can reform itself. Plutocracy isthe government of the rich, by the rich and for therich. This is a far cry from the Lincolnian view ofdemocracy of "a government of the people, by thepeople and for the people."When Paul Wolfowitz,[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wolfowitz] theprincipal technical architect of the war against Iraq,went from the U.S. Defense department to preside theWorld Bank, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Bank]the world had a vivid demonstration how corrupt theAmerican political system could be. Wolfowitz had noformation (political science) or experience infinance, but was nevertheless named to be president ofthe important World Bank for services rendered.Another example is the curious spectacle of DickCheney, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney] amember of the American Enterprise Institute[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute]and a former CEO of Halliburton Energy Services,[http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=15]who, in 2001, chose himself to be George W. Bush'svice-president (he was Bush's Vice-Presidential searchcommittee) and as chairman of the president elect'stransition team found himself in charge of naming mostof the high officials in the new Bush administration.How could he manage to do that, one may legitimatelyask? Also, why did George W. Bush, on March 25, 2003,sign executive order 13292,[http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12055.htm]giving Cheney the power to declassify intelligence andgranting the greatest expansion of the power of thevice-president in US history? Why did Dick Cheney endup having so much power within the Bush administrationthat George W. Bush once even joked about 'PresidentCheney'?[http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/2001/02/12/punches.html]No political scientist that we know of has foundsatisfactory answers to these questions.Another form of corruption in America may be derivedfrom the first type. It comes from the fact that whilethe super rich gorge themselves on cost-plus militarycontracts and tax cuts,[http://www.ichblog.eu/text/content/view/661/1/] thepoorest Americans are becoming relatively poorer.[http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17186.htm]Indeed, economic inequality[http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1782.shtml]in the U.S. has increased markedly between 1979 and2006: During this time, more than a quarter century,incomes adjusted for inflation of those at the topincreased 34 percent, incomes of those at the medianincreased by 11.5 percent and incomes of those at thebottom have remained about stagnant, increasing ameager 4 percent over 27 years. —Recent reports havealso shown that the percentage of poor Americans whoare living in severe poverty has reached a 32-yearhigh as the gulf between the nation's "haves" and"have-nots" has continued to widen.[http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17186.htm]In 2005, for example, 35 million Americans[http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:-DbPuRLuqEEJ:www.frac.org/pdf/hungermedia06.pdf+35+million+Americans+went+without+enough+to+eat+in+2005&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us&ie=UTF-8]went without enough to eat. This is due to the factthat 13 million American children, or 17.8 percent,were living in severe poverty.[http://www.ajpm-online.net/article/PIIS0749379706002339/fulltext]And, with the cost of health care increasing each yearin the two digits, some 47 million Americans[http://www.janegalt.net/archives/009486.html] findthemselves in the precarious situation of not beingcovered by any health insurance, all the while theirgovernment is wasting billions and billions around theworld.But perhaps the most insidious corruption in ademocracy occurs when elected officials are nottruthful[http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=10634] withthe people and rely on lies and propaganda rather thantruth in the public discourse. Then confidence andtrust are destroyed, and so is the moral fiber of thenation. Such public corruption is often accompanied by thecorruption that feeds political corruption, thecorruption of the media. When the government and themedia are both corrupted, all the other forms ofcorruption follow. The increasingly incestuousrelationship[http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1799.shtml]that exists between large segments of American mediaand the government is harbinger of things to come.Indeed, propaganda machines seem to have replacedgenuine investigative journalism in many mediaorganizations where a cohort of "useful idiots"[http://lrb.co.uk/v28/n18/judt01_.html] and yellingvillage idiots feel free to engage in public campaignsof disinformation and of outright lies. When this happens, confusion and disarray result, andthis is when the worst mistakes are made. The2001-2007 episode will go down in history as such aninstance when the American people were lied to, bothby the Bush-Cheney administration and by the majorAmerican media.This has led, indeed, to a show of massiveincompetence[http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15308.htm]and to the monstrous American moral and financialcorruption,[http://www.amazon.com/Imperial-Life-Emerald-City-Inside/dp/1400044871/ref=sr_11_1/002-0251697-8067202?ie=UTF8]which has been observed in Iraq, where theBush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Feith-Bremer wreckingcrew went on a rampage that did great and irreparableharm, not only to Iraq, its economy and its people,but also to the United States, to Americans and to theinternational system of law and justice. The grossmisuse of money, the suspension of the right of"Habeas Corpus" and the reliance on torture techniquesin occupied Iraq (Abu Ghraib) are only the tip of theiceberg of what has the potential to be one of thebiggest corruption scandals in American history._______________________________________Rodrigue Tremblay lives in Montreal and can be reachedat rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.comVisit his blog site at:http://www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog. Author's Website: http://www.thenewamericanempire.com/Check Dr. Tremblay's coming book "The Code for GlobalEthics" at: http://www.MoralityWithoutReligion.com_______________________________Posted, March 12, 2007, at 5:30 amEmail to a friend:http://www.TheNewAmericanEmpire.com/tremblay=1061Send contact, comments or commercial reproductionrequests (in English or in French) to:bigpictureworld@yahoo.comN.B.: Messages may be published in our weblog, unlessyou request otherwise.Please register to receive free emails on new postingsof articles.Send an email with the word "subscribe" to:bigpictureworld@yahoo.comTo "unsubscribe", write the word "unsubscribe" andsend it to: bigpictureworld@yahoo.com(Home: TheNewAmericanEmpire.com)© All rights reserved

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