Month: August 2008

World Travelers Unite! Bring these to market.

Kyle Lawson is the winner of Gizmodo’s Eureka Contest for her eyeglasses that automatically translate.

Sex, Science and Stem Cells:
Inside the Right Wing Assault on Reason
by Congresswoman Diana DeGette

Why wait so long into the Bush administration to take a stand against its policies—and those of the right wing?

It’s really been about 14 years of this right wing escapade—ever since the Republicans took control of Congress—but it has spiraled out of control under the Bush administration.

A lot of the policies were started under the Republican leadership of the House, like some of the abstinence-only sex education. But then, under the Bush administration, these policies have gone to a whole new level because they have been the focus of a lot of the Bush administration’s efforts toward sex and reproduction.

One of the reasons the book is coming out right now is targeted at the fall 2008 elections to try to say to voters, “When you’re looking at who to vote for this year, be it president or members of Congress, you really need to think about science when drafting public policy.”

“I think President Bush was frankly unconcerned about what the public will was. He had a personal religious view and he felt strongly about that. So, he just stubbornly blazed ahead.”

Home is better:

The water at American beaches was unsafe for swimming last year with the second-highest number of beach closing and advisory days ever. [link]

Next is nearby.

So much underhandedness. So much corruption. Foxes in every hen house. What have you done America?

Oh, I was just wondering. I was wondering if there’s a revolutionary new form of governance. I suppose this matter is on your mind too.

http://thetyee.ca/Books/2008/08/06/MakingGiantsBehave/

Yes, every town should license every label. Imagine the revenue! Roads. Schools. And children too.

You didn’t know municipalities had power? Shame.

Power owes its root to towns.

Ahhh, but beauty is better, a climbing thing, over everything and over is better, a climbing thing, beauty.

I believe Robert Frost, Yeats, Whitman, any Jefferson, all civilian, is our better candidate.

Our days ahead are so easy.

Perpetual.

Scrutiny not in the news:

“she used other people’s names for prescriptions and stole drugs”

McCain needs a hug.

Cindy McCain became addicted to the painkillers Vicodin and Percocet. To keep up with her daily need of 10 to 15 pills, she used other people’s names for prescriptions and stole drugs from the American Voluntary Medical Team, a mobile surgical unit she’d begun in 1988 to provide emergency medical services around the world.

A 1993 DEA audit of the amount of painkillers her charity had obtained quickly uncovered her thefts.

She avoided prosecution for those crimes through an agreement with the Justice Department in which she submitted to drug testing, paid a fine, performed community service in a soup kitchen, and joined Narcotics Anonymous.

---

Cindy McCain was the heiress to a beer distributor’s fortune, she is now active in that distributorship, she did make the Senator sign a pre-nup when he married her and has kept her finances separate from his, she did adopt (at Mother Theresa’s behest) a Bangladeshi girl in need of many surgeries to correct a cleft palate, she has established a family charity that benefits primarily children’s causes, and she is active both in mine-clearing and children’s dental restoration causes.

While John and Cindy McCain have four children together (one adopted), the Senator also has another three children from his first marriage (two of whom are children his first wife brought to their marriage).

The McCains have a commuter marriage in which he stays in Washington, she stays in Phoenix, but they vacation together twice a year.

There is an 18-year age difference between them — they met when she was 24 and he was 42.

[tip to AmeriBlog]

Federally Owned Land in Western States

1. Nevada 84.5%
2. Alaska 69.1%
3. Utah 57.4%
4. Oregon 53.1%
5. Idaho 50.2%
6. Arizona 48.1%
7. California 45.3%
8. Wyoming 42.3%
9. New Mexico 41.8%
10. Colorado 36.6%

The federal government owns 650 million acres of land – nearly 30% of the USA.

The oil and gas industry leases more than 200 million acres but produced only 53 days of oil consumption and 221 days of natural gas in the last 15 years.

Of the 229 million acres offered for oil and gas development, only 30 million or 13 percent, have ever produced oil or gas.

George Bush has lifted rules on another 45 million acres, [link], but as quoted in previous post, “If these oil companies had fantastic projects, they’d be out there….”

If these oil companies had fantastic projects, they’d be out there…

The Beginning of the End for Exxon & Big Oil

An estimated 14,289 oil wells, natural gas wells and dry holes were completed in the second quarter of 2008.

An estimated 5,219 oil wells were completed in the second quarter of 2008, up 17 percent from last year’s second quarter and the highest second quarter estimated oil activity since 1986.

The United States currently consumes 24% of the world’s oil but produces only 10% of its requirement.

New oil developments in the Arctic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, northern Canada and the various part of the U.S. might offset production losses, but alone they will never reduce prices to the lows seen in the ‘90s.

The United States accounts for less than 5% of the world’s population but uses nearly a third of the global energy supply.

These two pictures captured lightning simultaneously striking both the Hancock and Sears towers in Chicago.

This is Tesla’s “wonder tower”, the first transmission tower in the world.

Poor Tesla. He was sued for non-payment of electricity in 1899. Earlier, the city had sent a bill for water. Investors wouldn’t stick by him. Patents expired, including royalties from Westinghouse for the AC motor.

I wonder how many today are slaving away in research, valiantly seeking the trick that taps the bazillions of volts of electricity all around us.

Tesla patented electric power transmission too. Did you know that sixty percent of the power generated, whether coal or natural gas or nuclear power, is lost in transmission wires? Heat forces electrons out of the wires into the surrounding air.

Huge volumes of electrons are lost to radiation from wires. I walked back and forth under hi-voltage power lines not far from a power plant. When I was directly under the thick wires, I felt sick. As I walked 50 yards away, the queasiness disappeared. I tested this phenomena a few times, hoping to prove the nausea wasn’t just in my mind, but clearly I could repeat the sick feeling only while underneath the wires.

There are thousands of lightning strike at any given time in the midwest. How many tinkerers and dreamers are working to tap a lightning bolt for its electrical power? A thousand? Ten thousand?

But very few scientists or engineers. As powerful as it is, a lightning strike lasts only 0.2 milliseconds and no method exists (yet) to capture and store its electricity. Plus an average lightning bolt will power an average home for only two weeks. It may never be possible, especially if 26 lightning bolts are needed for a family’s yearly power.

How many have never seen lightning?

How many have seen lightning strike a tree?

I lived 51 stories in a

Executive Arrogance!

More than two dozen current and former high-ranking executives and others are reporting that Freddie Mac’s chief executive, Richard F. Syron ignored warnings the firm was financing questionable loans that threatened its financial health.

Los Angeles — An American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Hawaii has made an emergency landing at LAX because of a report of smoke in the cabin. Passengers are being evacuated by inflatable chutes after agreeing to pay a ‘Chutes Fee’. The airport reports smoke was detected in the cabin before the landing and no FCC rules were broken.

“Progress is man’s ability to complicate simplicity.” — Thor Heyerdahl

…

“Dismiss whatever insults your soul.” — Walt Whitman

‘Being the world I want’ has kept me out of politics over the years. I have had good fortune to navigate other battles. Lately I worry about posting items usually found outside corporate media, or hidden among the day’s media factory. My little blog takes on a too rabid tone.

But there is so much crap!

As if these times are Blake’s times of argument, of angry men who have been poison and will be poison in heaven, I think it’s important to see arrogance and corruption on top of us.

Unchallenged, it will continue.

“New York Daily News has a new twist in the administration’s attempt to peg the anthrax attacks to its own bellicose aims.” [ThinkProgress]

FBI was told to blame Anthrax scare on Al Qaeda by White House officials, by James Gordon Meek

Immediately after 9/11, the Daily News reports, “White House officials repeatedly pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove it was a second-wave assault by Al Qaeda,” according to a former FBI official:

After the Oct. 5, 2001, death from anthrax exposure of Sun photo editor Robert Stevens, Mueller was “beaten up” during President Bush’s morning intelligence briefings for not producing proof the killer spores were the handiwork of terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden, according to a former aide.

“They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East,” the retired senior FBI official told The News.

As the Daily News noted, similar to its efforts with Iraq, the White House on multiple occasions suggested that the anthrax attacks were tied to al Qaeda operatives abroad:

On October 15, 2001, President Bush said, “There may be some possible link” to Bin Laden, adding, “I wouldn’t put it past him.” Vice President Cheney also said Bin Laden’s henchmen were trained “how to deploy and use these kinds of substances, so you start to piece it all together.”

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) claimed “some of this anthrax may…have come from Iraq,” suggesting that the “second phase” of the war on terror may be in Iraq.

Any opinion, any opinion, formed only to favor dominance, to lure and manipulate, becomes a shadow inside us, until we are dim, small and solitary. Little can help a bully but restraint.

Newsweek,
Where Have You Gone, John?
by Jonathan Alter

“For a man who will turn 72 this month, he’s a surprisingly immature politician—erratic, impulsive and subject to peer pressure from the last knucklehead who offers him advice.

“Now he’s got Rove’s protégé,
Steve Schmidt,
running his campaign.”

Doug Thompson at Capitol Hill Blue posted a question,

“Is it fair to judge John McCain’s alleged racism, sexism, and homophobia against the social norms of the 1980’s, in the use of jokes and statements made to a small circle of friends?”

And Doug Thompson answers his question by reciting his memory of seeing McCain in action:

John McCain, a member of the House of Representatives in the mid-1980s, often held court at a table near the bar at Bullfeathers, a popular Capitol Hill watering hole, telling jokes and matching hangers-on drink by drink.

As a Capitol Hill chief of staff, I often drank at Bullfeathers and was invited to join the throng at McCain’s table one evening. A few minutes listening to the racism, bigotry and homophobia of the Arizona Congressman told me all I needed to know.

McCain loved to tell jokes about lesbians, blacks, Hispanics and the Vietnamese community that occupied a large section of Arlington County, Virginia, just south of the District of Columbia.

Of course, McCain didn’t use polite language in the jokes: He used names like “fags” or “queers” or “dykes” or “niggers” or “spics” or “wetbacks” or “gooks.”

A typical McCain joke (overheard at Bullfeathers):

Two dykes are talking at a bar and one leaves. As she walks toward the door, the other watches her leave and says out loud: “God, I’ve love to eat her out.”

Two men are standing near by and one turns to the other and says: “I’d like to do the same. Guess that makes me a dyke.”

Or another (also overheard at Bullfeathers):

Question: Why does Mexican beer have two “X’s” on the label?
Answer: Because wetbacks always need a co-signer.

(McCain has a documented history of lesbian jokes. He’s also come under fire for other jokes about rape.)

Example:

Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?
Because Janet Reno is her father.

Another example:

Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, ‘Where is that marvelous ape?’

When he ran for the Senate, I attended a gathering of GOP operatives at the National Republican Senatorial Committee where McCain outlined his campaign strategy:

‘I play to win. I do whatever it takes to win. If I have to fuck my opponent to win I’ll do it. If I have to destroy my opponent I won’t give it a second thought.’

McCain’s so-called sense of humor has no limits when it comes to simple human decency. Shortly after former President Ronald Reagan announced he had Alzheimer’s Disease, McCain told this joke at a GOP Fundraiser:

Do you know the best thing about having Alzheimer’s?
You get to hide your own Easter eggs.

Doug Thompson continues, “Even his wife is not immune.”

Writes Cliff Schecter in his book, The Real John McCain:

“Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain’s intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain’s hair and said, “You’re getting a little thin up there.” McCain’s face reddened, and he responded, “At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.” McCain’s excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.”

“This is the man the Republican Party thinks should be the next President of the United States. What else should we expect from a party that promotes racism, homophobia and discrimination against anyone with a different skin color, sexual orientation or ethnic origin?

“So we shouldn’t be surprised that McCain’s campaign strategy seeks to raise racial fear about Barack Obama, the first African-American with a serious shot at the Presidency of the United States.

“John McCain is a racist:
Always has been, always will be.

“A retired Naval officer who says he served with McCain in the Navy says he treated black sailors with disrespect and scorn. McCain refuses to release his detailed military record and some sources say that record includes incidents that include issues with black sailors.

“Such attitudes are part of his family history.
“As noted by a black poster in Talking Points Memo:

“I can’t love America the same way John McCain does. When his daddy was Admiral, my daddy was mopping floors. And when his granddaddy was Admiral, all the Blacks in the entire Navy were mopping floors. But they still volunteered and went to war, even when their commanders didn’t think they were brave enough to fight. So who loves America more? The cook on the ship who couldn’t vote in 15 states, or the Admiral who dined on the meals he slaved over?”

“McCain’s collection of off-color jokes are riddled with racist words and sentiments. Advisors have toned down the raunchy rhetoric of his early years in Congress but close aides say his attitudes have not changed.

“McCain opposed making the birthday of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King a national holiday. During his 2000 campaign for President, he told reporters on his “Straight Talk Express: “I hated the gooks (North Vietnamese). I will hate them as long as I live.”

Katie Hong of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, who reported the remark, wrote:

“It is offensive because by using a racial epithet that has historically been used to demean all Asians to describe his captors, McCain failed to make a distinction between his torturers and an entire racial group.

“It is alarming because a major candidate for president publicly used a racial epithet, refused to apologize for doing so and remains a legitimate contender.

“For his 2000 campaign for President, McCain hired Richard Quinn, founder and editor in chief of Southern Heritage Magazine, to serve as his spokesman in South Carolina.

Notes Salon.Com:

Quinn’s articles have called Nelson Mandela a “terrorist” and King a man “whose role in history was to lead his people into a perpetual dependence on the welfare state, a terrible bondage of body and soul.” In another piece, Quinn said of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, “What better way to reject politics as usual than to elect a maverick like David Duke?” though he did condemn Duke’s bigotry.

“Irwin A. Tank, author of Gook: John McCain’s Racism, notes a long and sordid history of racism from the presumptive GOP nominee, including:

• McCain’s use of the anti-Asian slur “gook” publicly for 27 years before dropping the
  use for his current Presidential run;
• McCain’s endorsement of George Wallace Jr., a frequent speaker at white supremacist events;
• His vote against establishing a holiday for Martin Luther King’s birthday and then another vote to rescind the holiday.
• In answering a question about divorced fathers and child support, McCain called the children “tar babies.”

“The list goes on and on.

“What else do you expect from a racist, bigot and homophobe?

Other than Warren Buffet, is it different here?
In 2006 at least 32 of the UK’s 54 billionaires paid no income tax at all. [Guardian]

I pledge allegiance to… torture.

“The architects of this network of secret prisons and secret torture were a small but powerful group within the Bush administration. Dick Cheney stood at the center of the effort but delegated many of its operations to others.

“The vice president’s counsel (and later chief of staff), David Addington, was a ruthless, bullying enforcer of the strategy, effectively derailing all challenges by claiming that everything had been mandated by the president and by dismissing all legal and moral challenges as naïve and weak.

“John Yoo, a law professor from the University of California, Berkeley, who worked in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, drafted an infamous memo giving legal cover to torture by simply redefining what torture was — virtually anything short of deliberate killing. George Tenet, the eager-to-please C.I.A. director; William Haynes, the militant general counsel to the Pentagon; Alberto Gonzales, the weak and pliable White House counsel who later became attorney general: all played vital roles in the creation and protection of these covert strategies.”

“There is no happy ending to this sordid and shameful story. – Jane Mayer

Within hours of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, Dick Cheney in effect took command…NYTimes

Economic Policy Institute, By Ross Eisenbrey

Bush 2009 Budget Spends 100 Times More to Regulate Unions Than Employers

Many times they say survey results depend upon the right question. These are the right questions.

     
   All in all,
   are you satisfied or dissatisfied
   with the way things are going
   in the United States at this time?

   December, 2000 - 51% satisfied
   June, 2008 - 14% satisfied

Pew Research Center for the People & the Press survey – July 23-27, 2008

“How well are things going in the country today: very well, fairly well, pretty badly or very badly?”

NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll – July 18-21, 2008

“All in all, do you think things in the nation are generally headed in the right direction, or do you feel that things are off on the wrong track?”

Associated Press-Ipsos poll – July 10-14, 2008

“Generally speaking, would you say things in this country are heading in the right direction, or are they off on the wrong track?”

Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll. June 19-23, 2008

“Do you think things in this country are generally going in the right direction or are they seriously off on the wrong track?”

Newsweek Poll – June 18-19, 2008

“Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time?”

Gallup Poll – June 9-12, 2008.

“In general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time?”

The Harris Poll – June 4-8, 2008

“Generally speaking, would you say things in the country are going in the right direction or have they pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track?”

CBS News/New York Times Poll – March 28-April 2, 2008

“I’d like you to compare the way things are going in the United States to the way they were going five years ago. Generally, would you say things are going better today, worse today, or about the same today as they were going five years ago?”

“This jump in incarceration rates represents a massive intervention in American families at a time when the federal government was making claims that it was less involved in their lives,” according to University of Washington findings at the 2008 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. [link]

#1

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about. — Albert Einstein

There are billions and billions of pages indexed by Google.

When a subject returns 100 links or even 1000, we know there’s little interest, not much said.

I found only 1210 hits for “corporate psychopathy”.

C’mon people!

Corporate Psychopathy, Montague Ullman, M, D.

In psychiatry there is a diagnostic entity variously known as psychopath, sociopath and antisocial personality disorder. The central feature of this disorder is the failure to develop any ethical standards of social behavior, The concept of ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ is foreign to the psychopath. That remarkable advice is replaced by ‘do unto others as it pleases you regardless of consequences.’

In a democratic society government is supposed to serve the needs of every member of that society. There are two models for such societies, Both involve capitalism. The social democratic societies, such as in Scandinavia, temper the profit motive so as to restrict the massive inequities and ensure that health, education, security and opportunity is available to all. They do this by a system of taxation that succeeds in narrowing the gap between the haves and the have-nots so that a significant proportion of the population is not in trouble.

In the United States where capitalism is given a much freer rein there is the possibility of the profit motive getting so out of hand that those on top are enriched at the expense of those left behind, That is “wild capitalism”. The recent run of failures of formerly very profitable corporations are a prime example of that, and how painful it is for those who are ultimately victimized by it.

A corporation has been endowed with personhood by the Supreme Court. It is not a person but it is run by persons. If the ethical standards of those at the top fail to maintain a certain level of social responsibility, the result is the insidious onset of corporate psychopathic behavior. A few get very rich and the others wake up one day to find themselves abandoned by the institution they trusted.

Pinstriped Psychopaths by Eric J. Fry

Some psychopaths occupy a prison cell. Others occupy a corner office. Both are dangerous.

Psychopathy is destructive, no matter whether it roams the back streets or roams on Wall Street.

Is There a Cure for Corporate ‘Psychopathy’? by Jeffrey Nesteruk

Has corporate law created a monster?

There is no cure to corporate psychopathy as strictly speaking it is a personality trait not an illness. Wherever it is encountered, there is destruction and paucity of ideas and goodness. The closest psychopathy get to illness is the illnesses left after their passing.

Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington

The excesses of corporate America have become more than just a social crime; they are a direct threat to the well-being of our society… CEO bad boys, highlighting their personal extravagances such as ostentatious mansions, million-dollar birthday parties and interest-free loans straight out of the company kitty. As we all know by now, while these so-called business leaders enjoyed the very, very good life, market values for their respective companies were going down the tubes.

Psychopath in a suit by Leon Gettler

Is the boss a psychopath?

Not a murderer, a vicious criminal or rapacious scam-meister. But we know the type. Oozing charm and charisma but with no emotional depth; more sizzle than steak. These are the ones who are manipulative and ruthless enough to do whatever it takes and stick the knife into anyone standing in their way. With their finely honed political skills, sharp timing and chameleon-like abilities, they thrive on risk, chaos and upheaval. And they are cold-blooded enough to claim later that they did nothing wrong.

The Corporation, a documentary exploring the psyche of the corporation, came to the conclusion that if the corporation can be regarded as a legal person, as it is under United States law, its personality would meet all of the DSM-IV requirements for being a psychopath (such as conning others for profit and recklessness). [Interview with Joel Bakan author of The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power]

A comprehensive article on corporate psychopaths at FastCompany.

The more sociopaths are allowed to shape the world around them to best suit their own interests, the more damage they do to the society and the more sociopaths they CREATE.

We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims. – Buckminster Fuller

When all is wrong by David Auerbach

Albert Camus said his greatest temptation was cynicism, and we all share that weakness. There’s a great comfort in a hopeless stupor where the chasm between action and effectiveness is uncrossable…

Moderate, healthy skepticism, when thoughtfully pursued, leads into either utter self-doubt or a superiority complex. Either you become paralyzed with uncertainty like Kafka, or you preach negation as gospel to the masses, like Alex Zubatov.

An exception is the case of E.M. Cioran, a little-known Romanian philosopher who has made it his mission to assault most people’s ideals and beliefs with far-flung rage.

“At any price
we must keep those
who have too clear a conscience
from living and dying in peace.”

Ed Ring at Ecoworld warns and reminds us with brave cynicism that there’s a climate of guile penetrating the green revolution, turning ecology and sustainability into a carbon trading, tax whipping and investor’s windfall orchestrated not by wise policy or smart entrepreneurs but likely by Wall Street:

“In many cases environmentalism, and the policies to enforce it, already constitute the most regressive hidden tax in history, and global warming alarm will catapult these hidden taxes into the stratosphere of economic stagnation. With carbon trading and carbon taxes and carbon offsets set to eclipse rational environmental policy, our economy and our way of life are what is in peril, not our planetary icecaps, and only financial traders, professional accountants, attorneys, credentialed consultants, academic experts, corporate cartels and the public sector will benefit.

“There is a lot of junk science out there on both sides of the environmental debate, as always with all debates, but extreme environmentalist junk science seems to be carrying the day, so that is where we most appropriately ought to shine our scrutiny.

“America is a lucky, lucky nation and perhaps cursed as well with troubles so huge, but complaining will not make the world better – and setting people free to compete, nurturing meritocracy, sustainably improving entitlements everywhere, encouraging building and development – and letting green resume its place within the dazzling spectrum of reality – will create the economic growth and tolerance for pluralism; will create the next step in the ascent of man.”

As water begins to form ice on a cold surface, it first lays down a frozen layer of single atoms.

The picture shows ice one atom thick on a very cold surface.

This is the very first stage of freezing, followed by a thickening formation of layers of ice crystals.

Sandia Labs snapped the first photos of nanometer-thick ice films taken by a scanning tunneling microscope to capture how water molecules deposited an ice film.

From Scientific American, phenomenal pics department.

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. ~ Edward R. Murrow

“…while we’ve all heard stories about how much waste and inefficiency there is in our military spending, this is always portrayed as either “corruption” or simple inefficiency, and not what it really is — a profound expression of our national priorities, a means of taking money from ordinary, struggling people and redistributing it not downward but upward, to connected insiders, who turn your tax money into pure profit.

“…the basic dynamic is transnational companies raiding the cash savings of the middle class.

“These fantasy elections we’ve been having — overblown sports contests with great production values, decided by haircuts and sound bytes and high-tech mudslinging campaigns — those were sort of fun while they lasted, and were certainly useful in providing jerk-off pundit-dickheads like me with high-paying jobs. But we just can’t afford them anymore.”

Economic Realities Are Killing Our Era of Fantasy Politics

“Corporate America is going to have to reinvest in our society. It’s that simple.”

via IMproPRieTies

Bill Moyers is dredging news about “corrupt government officials and cronies dedicated to dismantling government by selling it off, making massive profits as they tore the principles of a representative democracy to shreds.”

Repeat:

“corrupt government officials and cronies dedicated to dismantling government by selling it off, making massive profits as they tore the principles of a representative democracy to shreds.”

While corporate media scorns our sensibilities, Moyers is keeping track of Jack Abramoff because as any true journalists would know “Jack Abramoff is the gift that keeps on giving” as the

Wave of “Capitol Crimes” Continues:

Over the last couple of years he has been singing to the authorities, which is why he has been kept in a detention facility close to DC and the reason his sentencing for tax evasion, the defrauding of Indians and the bribing of Washington officials has been delayed — the FBI is thought to be using Abramoff’s testimony to build an ever-expanding case that may continue to shake those who live within the Beltway bubble for months and years to come.

Bill Moyers Journal is airing an updated edition of “Capitol Crimes,” a special that was first produced for public television two years ago, relating the entire sordid story of the Abramoff scandals.

“Fantastic misgovernment is not an accident.“

“Do we Americans really want good government?”

That’s a question asked, not by Thomas Frank, but the muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens, writing more than a century ago in his book, The Shame of the Cities.

He wrote, “We are a free and sovereign people, we govern ourselves and the government is ours. But that is the point. We are responsible, not our leaders, since we follow them. We let them divert our loyalty from the United States to some ‘party;’ we let them boss the party and turn our municipal democracies into autocracies and our republican nation into a plutocracy. We cheat our government and we let our leaders loot it, and we let them wheedle and bribe our sovereignty from us.”

That is, she worries that in rejecting government regulation, we’ve approved a defacto dictatorship in the form of the companies we put our trust in.

In rejecting government regulation, we’ve approved a defacto dictatorship in the form of the companies we put our trust in.