on Feb 9th, 2006Democracy Republican Style (Get Lost, Bubba, I Represent Special Interests)
If you thought America was a democracy, where one person, one vote translates into a system of representation whereby elected officials create public policy for the greater good of all Americans, then have I got a prescription drug benefit for you. No money down. All the drugs you want. The pharmacy will even deliver the drugs right to your door with a full complimentary breakfast. The only catch: you just need to sign away all legal rights to your future health that may be impaired or destroyed because in the event of a pandemic, that vaccine you get just might be, how shall I say it, faulty.
I thought in a Democracy (big “D” there, folks), we elected a Congress and Senate so issues are are NOT subject to a minority interest that possesses the cash and organization to hijack the political system for their own monetary gain. I thought the Senate Majority Leader actually represented the majority, not the minority. I was even so naive to believe such weighty issues at least were debated, not inserted into bills by subterfuge and misdirection.
In the old world, such devious behavior might be called Fascism. How quaint to think we live in a democracy when in reality we now live a dictatorship run by corporate hooligans who put profits above humanity. It must end. We need to stop calling lobbying an act of speech and call it what it is: larceny, “the wrongful and fraudulent taking and carrying away by one person of the mere personal goods of another from any place, with a felonious intent to convert them to the taker’s use and make them his property without the consent of the owner.”
Election time will soon be upon us. This nonsense requires action. If you can’t find 15 minutes out of your day to vote and change it, then welcome to the new cult commune, where you give up all your rights and interests to the Federal government in exchange for a lifetime of hard labor in the interest of balls-out greed.
“It is a travesty of the legislative process,” said Thomas Mann, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
“It vests enormous power in the hands of congressional leaders and private interests, minimizes transparency and denies legitimate opportunities for all interested parties, in Congress and outside, to weigh in on important policy questions.”
Hastert, Frist said to rig bill for drug firms
Frist denies protection was added in secret
By BILL THEOBALD
Gannett News Service
February 9, 2006