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This is How Corrupt Our Political System Is

This is How Corrupt Our Political System Is

Last updated on: May 20, 2016 at 7:18 am by Artur Rosman

This is How Corrupt Our Political System Is 2016-05-20T07:18:31-07:00 Artur Rosman

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(Detail from Corrupt Legislation, Elihu Vedder, 1896; Wikimedia, PD-USA-Before 1923)

There were numerous objections to my proposal for Catholics to vote for Donald Trump.

Now wouldn’t that be nice?

Good intentions paving the way to hell were behind them. The readers assumed I had no idea what Trump stands for. It is as if they did not read what I had written.

The reason why Trump should be elected is because he is a symptom of everything that’s wrong with American political culture. The disaster of his presidency would reveal how much corporate culture is in bed with American politics. His most endearing quality is that he doesn’t dissimulate away the nastiness most politicians work so hard to hide.

Trump is in effect showing the corruption of the old system by bypassing the fundraising machine that is behind Hillary Clinton and directly purchasing a nomination, possibly a seat in the White House. The funny thing is that he may succeed because there is plenty to prey upon in the Clinton political past. The choice is not between the lesser of two evils, but instead between two totally different kinds of evils.

My guess is that once elected he will turn out to be a Clinton Republican on steroids. So much so that he will be unpalatable to both the Republicans and Democrats in the legislative branch. The deadlock he will cause will expose both the Republicans and the Democrats as the special-interest shams that they really are. If not then his presidency will expose the electorate as stupid beyond salvation. Either way, these are immensely important things to know.

Here is an eye-opening video for those who think our political system with its unbounded faith in unfettered markets bends toward the common good rather than toward the sort of corruption a Trump presidency would reveal. WARNING: LOBBYISTS WRITING LEGISLATION BEHIND CLOSED DOORS AHEAD, MAY PROVE UPSETTING TO THE SANE:

If that is not depressing enough, you can also have a look into how academic economists regularly fix their results. Below I link an episode of CBC’s Ideas entitled “It’s the Economists Stupid.” Here’s what you can expect from what economist Julie Nelson, author of Economics for Humans, interviewed for the episode calls the “ethnography of economists”:

Interest rates. Unemployment. GDP. Markets. Austerity measures. Economists tell us what we, as societies, can and can’t afford. But how do they decide? What values are at play?

This is a very tame, a very Canadian, description of this bombshell of an episode.

What the episode actually talks about is how much academic economists, as an Australian economist interviewed for the episode says, put their hands down and bums up for whoever will pay them.

Remember, economists are the people who determine how your economic lives will play themselves out. The economy, stupid, as James Carville said, is our only unquestioned god. Therefore, I think it’s paramount to understand what disgustingly base motivations drive many economists (I know some genuinely decent ones who write for Patheos):

I remember seeing anti-corruption billboards in Poland after the fall of the Wall. They were there to combat Communist habits of stealing from a corrupt state. The slogan was based upon the Polish word for corruption, “korupcja.” The billboards played around with the capitalization of letters by saying “KorupcJA.” “Ja” is the Polish word for “me.” They were meant to make Polish citizens reflect on how great a role they played in supporting a corrupt way of conducting their personal and political lives.

This is how corrupt our political system is. I apologize (not really) for not allowing you to keep your hands clean.

Do not be fooled. But if you think this is merely some lefty conspiracy, rather than a major concern of what used to be conservatism, then also take a look at: Prominent Polish Prelates and the Poisonous Fruit of Unbridled Capitalism or Catholics4Trump: Donald Trump’s Presumptive Nomination is Good News for Catholics.

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