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This is what happen when your government is run primarily thru corruption. sorry, not corruption! retainer fees and timely stock purchases. different thing!
by Kapura 10mo ago
This is what happen when your government is run primarily thru corruption.
sorry, not corruption! retainer fees and timely stock purchases. different thing!
- bdangubic 10mo agoso same as always, eh? or different this time around?
- wredcoll 10mo agoYes, it is different. Pretending it is the same is just another way to defend the corrupt ones.
- bdangubic 10mo agohow exactly is different…? I give you Trump, you give me Biden. I give you Scott, you give me Pelosi. I give you Bush, you give me Clinton… it is not different but regardless of whether it is or isn’t no one is defending it. it is just a disservice to everyone to think somehow magically things are all this different now than before, same crap different toilet paper
- wkat4242 10mo agoIt's different because it's all about that now. The Clintons had their scandals, the "pay to play" lists etc. We all know they are in bed with the moneymen. But it didn't define their administration, and they were pretty hush-hush about it. Trump on the other hand is completely open about this. He even brags about making money from deals, something that was previously considered a huge conflict of interest. He appoints people based on loyalty alone, not knowledge or experience. He bullies countries into compliance with mafia tactics ("appease me or else..." tariffs or even war like venezuela and greenland). It's a huge moral shift where that is no longer unthinkable. The US used to have values. It was a country that was at least trying to be the good guy. Also, the constitution used to be holy. Now Trump is flaunting the 1st amendment on a daily basis (limiting LGBTIQ+ speech, establishing America as a "christian country" which is explicitly forbidden). I think all these developments are very concerning. I don't live in America but considering it is still a big world power it does worry me.
- bdangubic 10mo agoI love the spirit of your comments but IMO it is misguided The US used to have values. It was a country that was at least trying to be the good guy. This really is all wrong. One might think this based on pitches from different times but all Empires are evil by their definition and America has always been that, always
- wredcoll 10mo ago> This really is all wrong. One might think this based on pitches from different times but all Empires are evil by their definition and America has always been that, always Again, the problem with this train of logic is you inevitable condemn everyone and everything as evil, at which point the word completely loses its meaning. Evil is only useful as a term if there are actually things that are not evil. America has certainly done immoral, unethical and frankly evil things. It's also done moral, beautiful and even heroic things. It's a big complicated entity made up of literally millions of people and trying to summarize it as "good or evil" is pointless. The reason this nuance matters is that we want, need to encourage doing good and the first step to doing that is to actually be able to distinguish between good and evil.
- bdangubic 10mo ago> It's also done moral, beautiful and even heroic things give me a list of these “beautiful and heroic things” - very interested to read them
- wredcoll 10mo agoOk, I'll play: > We estimate that over the past two decades, USAID-funded programmes have helped prevent more than 91 million deaths globally, including 30 million deaths among children. How about that? Or are you going to come up with some excuse that somewhere, somehow, an american also benefitted from saving all these lives and therefor it doesn't count? [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01186-9/fulltext#:~:text=We%20estimate%20that%20over%20the,of%20US%20global%20health%20engagement. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
- wredcoll 10mo agoOk, give me biden. Where are his lists of corruption scandals[1]? His public statements about taking bribes? I'm not quite sure how to explain this very obvious point: biden and his government was not corrupt in any meaningful sense and trump and his government is extremely corrupt and pretending that they're the same is both factually wrong and has the effect of protecting trump and his corruption. The point isn't that anyone is above reproach, the point is that all you're doing is normalizing the increased awfulness of the republican corruption. And normalizing it means that it is more likely to continue happening and less likely to be punished. If you're supposedly unhappy about clinton "corruption" why aren't you really mad about trump? This whole "oh everything is the same nothing can improve" attitude is literally a favored tactic of the most corrupt governments. They want you to think that way because it means they'll never be held accountable. Any time people start talking about improving things they're met with an endless deluge of "oh it's all the same nothing can change" which is, of course, a self-fulfilling prophecy. [1] The best the fairly obvious house republican "investigation" into joe biden could manage was some vague statements about his son getting paid for having the last name biden, which may or may not be illegal, but certainly seems unethical, but more importantly, ISN'T THE SITTING PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Like, it is so incredibly obvious that words fail me that the president being corrupt matters A LOT MORE than his son being corrupt. Like, a lot a lot a lot more.
- alexandre_m 10mo agohttps://oversight.house.gov/the-bidens-influence-peddling-timeline/ https://oversight.house.gov/the-bidens-influence-peddling-ti...
- wredcoll 10mo agoI'll quote from myself: > [1] The best the fairly obvious house republican "investigation" into joe biden could manage was some vague statements about his son getting paid for having the last name biden, which may or may not be illegal, but certainly seems unethical, but more importantly, ISN'T THE SITTING PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Like, it is so incredibly obvious that words fail me that the president being corrupt matters A LOT MORE than his son being corrupt. Like, a lot a lot a lot more.
- queenkjuul 10mo agoLol which major media companies paid bribes to the Biden family? I don't disagree that they're all corrupt bastards but come on man you cannot seriously pretend the degree of corruption is the same.
- bdangubic 10mo ago> degree of corruption is the same the echochamber is going nuts… look at this thread and see how many of you are saying “degree of corruption” and then think whether or not you are getting this fed like clowns from whatever fucking (“social”) media your brain is being poisoned and then start to question your life’s choices
- queenkjuul 10mo agoLmao you don't know anything about what i read or believe, and i don't use social media. Are you arguing that every act of corruption is of precisely equal magnitude and consequence?
- bdangubic 10mo agonope, I am educated so I don't write silly blanket statements like this without having something to back it up with. I am not saying that it less, equal or more corruption cause this is something that you cannot measure. you can only believe crap you read (depending on your politics you will be in one or the other echochamber) and then go "oh, the 'magnitute' of corruption is now "bigger/smaller/equal" than in ____ [insert year/administrations/...]
- queenkjuul 10mo agoOk, so you do actually believe there's no difference in degree. You can just say as much.
- bdangubic 10mo agoI have said so, in like 13 comments in this thread
- oh_my_goodness 10mo agoYeah, it's always corrupt. No, it was not always this corrupt. We're aiming for third world. That's going to be a new experience.
- bdangubic 10mo agohow do you measure levels of corruptness?
- oh_my_goodness 10mo agoWe could just keep using "First world" vs "Third world" as above. There are also multiple NGOs that measure these things and break down the "ratings" into component parts. On the other hand, an advocate for greatly increased corruption might claim that corruption can't be measured at all. Or, hypothetically, they might strictly use un-anchored non-metrics like "the other guy does it too", "any is too much", "omg look over there!", etc.
- fuglede_ 10mo agohttps://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2024 https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2024 offers some methodologies.
- bdangubic 10mo agothis is pretty cool... looks like USA is doing amazing here :)
- oh_my_goodness 10mo agoIt says the US is 28th out of 180.
- bdangubic 10mo agonot too bad :) and looks like we picked the right people in 2024 election cause we are with the arrow pointing down :)