My anger boiled into a nutshell

Dear James, Daniel and Emily

Have to get this quasi-political screed off my chest this AM. Family stuff later today ina different post.

Corruption

Defined:
1.the act of corrupting or state of being corrupt.
2.moral perversion; depravity.
3.perversion of integrity.
4.corrupt or dishonest proceedings.
5.bribery.
6.debasement or alteration, as of language or a text.
7.a debased form of a word.
8.putrefactive decay; rottenness.
9.any corrupting influence or agency.

After reading the beginnings of this article yesteday this was the word that came to mind, and really this is what I see in our politics and is the cause of pretty much everything that bothers me in the public arena.

Yesterday I was in a Twitter and Facebook link frenzy (I love the Internet sometimes). And pretty much every link I posted had at it's core some level of corrupt action. At one time in my life I was pretty much a Liberatarian. But that has changed and I think the reason for that is that as I grow older I have determined that what I fear more than any government action and infringement on my liberty is the capriciousness of a government that is wholly bought by various corrupt business interests.

And it really permeates our society at this point, just a huge amount of influence. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how the Right Wingnuts had won the propaganda war against the government. Well the problem is not that their motives are pure. If they were pure Liberatarians who truly believed that less government is best they wouldn't be selling off government functions, properties and privileges out the back door. What has killed the Colorado Springs economy isn't the less government is more people, it is the corrupt council handing out tax cuts and flat bribes to bring employers to town, who then cut & run a couple of years later, or basically hold the city hostage. If the Council had not been engaged in those types of action the people might have been more willing to agree to new or different taxes.

And businesses have discovered that they can pretty much buy anything they want. Need some Environmental activists to back that plan to destroy the water? Hand them some money. Need to justify selling cheap handguns, liquor, cigarettes etc. to poor people? Hide behind the Bill of Rights and buy some politicians who will support that stance. Need to justify outrageous bonuses for ruining the economy with your failed financial gambles? Claim taxes will prevent you from doing your part and destroy the economy even more. Everywhere you look in current political discourse you can find corporate backing behind the opposition to any and every 'Progressive' proposal.

Don't get me wrong, I support and believe in a Free Market. But not when that Market isn't truly free, but instead bought and paid for at the expense of: poor & middle class workers, foreign countries, the environment, smaller businesses. And that is what we are veering towards.

So I say Open up government, let in some Sunlight, make politicians accountable to We the People, not We the Coporations. We have had to do this before in this country, the original Progressive Movement, and again with the New Deal. Both times governmenat had gradually fallen under the sway of the moneyed interests, and the people suffered as a result. We can do it again, it just takes some nerve and the will and leadership.