My friend Pasquino invites our attention to today’s Frank Rich column, the perusal of which leaves me with a headache, a heartache and a stomach ache. The headache is from trying to follow all the threads of corruption that Rich is weaving together. The heartache is the thought of the billions being misappropriated and the lives lost for what? And the stomach ache is from having to contemplate the possibility that the quest for illicit guaranteed profits is near the center of U.S. foreign/military policy.
Here are the troubling questions Pasquino suggest we consider after reading the Rich:
Is this too much corruption for Americans to understand?
Do the connections lead to too many people in and out of the White House?
How much excrement can you sweep under a carpet before you have to throw the carpet away?
Is the truth a threat to national security? Is that why it’s all being redacted? When a crime is redacted do the criminals get to keep the money? Are there ever just too many criminals to put in jail? (Hint: think “white collar”) When someone is vital to national security does he get out of jail free?
We already know that whatever the president does is automatically legal, but does that also work for anyone he winks at?
Pasquino is the nom de plume of Mpls. writer Eric Hanson
I am assuming that you are not serious in suggesting that “whatever the prewident does is automatically legal”. That is, I assume you are saying that we are supposed to swallow the “unitary executive theory” that the President is above the law because nobody in Congress is willing to recommend or vote for impeachment so there is nothing we slaves can do about it.
aside form that, I think Americans fall into three camps: first, those who are mad as hell but feel powerless to do anything about it; 2) those who feel that yes, it’s bad but both sides are guilty of this and i can’t do anything about anyway so why try; 3) those who think that Bush, et al are the second coming and if you disagree, you are against God’s will. I fall in the first camp and i feel a sense of outrage fatigue. I thought and hoped getting the republicans out of power in Congress would change things. I am becomng very dislussioned with what I see happening with our elected officials. Most of them (not all) do not want to rock the boat or stick out their necks. All in all a sad and sorry state of affairs, which brings to mind the way Rome was made into an empire by conniving politicians (like Julius Caesar and his nephew, Octavian, later Augustus)from a republic. I think we are there for all the good and bad which that means.
Who is going to hold this administration accountable?
There is an opportunity for greatness in all this but we have too many people on the payroll or so many politicians playing the middle of the road that they have found a yellow strip down their backs.
Anyone who loves America and all it stands for should be enraged.
Perhaps our best way to fix this is to teach our children (and reinforce to ourselves) that Money does NOT make the world go around.
Restitution would help as well, for those who get caught, but would not fix the problem, so long as our culture continues to lionize those who have accumulated a pile of cash, no matter how they got it.
For most of my life, it has seemed to me that accumulating money to the point of being considered “wealthy” was a pretty sure sign of a past with some crooked dealings.
My respect is reserved for the person who works hard, deals honestly in daily life, and trusts the promise of the Our Father for his family’s daily bread.
Such persons are unlikely to offer or accept the incentives discussed here.