There are so many liars and whores who sell their integrity for the sake of influence, power, or money, it is reasonable to assume that ANYONE appointed or recruited by the Bush team is corrupt, dishonest, untrustworthy and likely to betray the interests of the United States for the sake of the interests of the Bush administration.
We've seen, again and again, how Bush appointees are happy to end protections to workers, consumers, the environment. They are happy to violate the constitution, to buy politicians, evade regulations and whereever possible, elimination rules that require corporations and the wealthy to be responsible and liable.
This criminal corruption operates on a trickle down basis. As the leaders in Washington go, so go the right wingers, mostly republicans, but some democrats too, at the state and local level. And let's not forget the crooked, dishonest, lying, unchristian hate mongers who pretend to be ministers of god, running massive megachurches or televangelical programs.
We need a Hercules to clean out Washington. Just as Hercules was never paid for his work, we can expect the work of cleaning up Washington to be a thankless task. The people who do it won't get rich. Neither did the heroes of the American Revolution.
It won't take one Hercules. It WILL take a Herculean effort. It WILL require courage and smarts. Courage and smarts. That's something we really don't see much of in the Washington "stables." We see empty windbags making deals to maintain their power, doing favors for friends-- lobbyist buddies. And that adds more sh*t on the floor of the stable, more cleaning to be done.
The problems start with the political process. Republican or Democrat, candidates are culled if they don't raise massive amounts of money. That's the main criterion used to decide if a candidate is viable. Rahm Emanuel blew off Christine Cegelis because he didn't think she could raise as much campaign money. It's partly Emanuel's fault, but it's mostly the fault of a system that is driven by money. It takes a lot of money to run the ads necessary to let people know who a candidate is. And it costs more to swiftboat attack a candidate or defend from such attacks.
The airwaves are the property of the people. We should take them back and give candidates a reasonable amount of free ad slots to use for their campaigns and primaries. We could just legislate that the TV networks and local stations would be REQUIRED to give up the time, in all the different time periods, not just after midnight and Sunday at seven AM.
We could give candidates an allowance of free postage and even a budget for free printing.
We could provide candidates with equal numbers of lawn signs and bumper stickers. Part of winning a campaign would involve responsible, effective management of resources.
Image the idea that candidates would not have an advantage based on the number of PACs, wealthy supporters and corporations that backed them. They'd have to exercise good management, good hiring and good decision skills to use the same resources their competitors used.
But we don't have that. So many political "leaders" judge candidates by the money they can raise. Integrity, leadership, vision-- these don't matter. The ability to stay on the phone calling rich donors is the main skill that the DCCC the DSCC the DNC, the RNC all value.
It's disgusting. It's bad for America. It will take major, courageous, selfless leadership by the people who are already tainted by the system, since they had to become the phone dialling money askers to win their campaigns.
It's time to change the rules so we can clean out the corruption, the money driven political scenario that has become accepted as the way things are.
There are a lot of incumbents lounging in the stables in Washington. We need a Herculean effort by a lot of people of integrity to clean out the stables. Perhaps the "river" will be a drastic change in election laws that will eliminate the influence of big money.