4 ms·

Implying that it's always been this way is part of the reason we are now here. For my entire life, bad faith commentators insinuated that the federal government

by jeffbee 1mo ago

Implying that it's always been this way is part of the reason we are now here. For my entire life, bad faith commentators insinuated that the federal government was rife with corruption. When under Democratic control, of course. The time that Al Gore made one long-distance telephone call from his official desk, using his own personal calling card, birthed over 200 New York Times articles, 30 of them on the front page. We just had to get to the bottom of all that corruption!

netsharc 1mo ago
"Both sides are just as bad" is copium for when the guy from "your side" is revealed to be a corrupt piece of shit. You don't like it, so you justify to yourself that the other party is also full of creeps and assholes and thieves, so you can continue to support your guy guilt free... Of course the supporters of one particular political party is much more better at gymnastics of the mental kind than the other side. Having no spine makes it quite easier...
- rozal 1mo ago
  [dead]
- chronc7403 1mo ago
  [flagged]
- deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]
- imthatsteve 1mo ago
  Thats just party politics operating as it was designed. You only have one real party just like communists and fascists. The democrats control everything in the country via bribes from their super pacs and "charitable" foundations and fundraisers.thats why they were so upset when us-aids got suppressed. Thats why people give millions to the clintons for haiti and the Haitians never see a single penny. The corrupt take that tax money and give it to their friends who give it to charities which are owned and operated by their friends who then donate that money to campaigns or other charities who do the same thing. The republicans are just as corrupt but their power comes from the dems pissing people off so instead they vote against the dems but the reps are the only other option so the reps do the exact same thing as the dems and steal tax payer money and set up laws that make it more difficult for small business to compete with government sponsored monopolies. The left and right parties are like a left and right hand they wont get in each others way or fight each other they cooperate to screw the american people over and the stupid americans keep pretending they have a choice between the left slap or the right slap. The only way to take control of the country is to root out the corruption but the corruption is perpetuated by party politics and stupid americans are more loyal to their stupid corrupt parties than their nation or neighbors.
dispomatrix 1mo ago
Yeah, because the disposition matrix is peak democracy.
iamnothere 1mo ago
The problems that happened during the Clinton admin (with the exception of Whitewater) weren’t so much corruption as they were short-sighted neoliberal trade deals and hostility to organized labor, which accelerated the process of hollowing out the country. But this was also an unusual period in US history due to the end of the Cold War, so this administration could be an exception. Most of the scandals from this period appear quaint.
- cucumber3732842 1mo ago
  An under-examined axis of this problem is that people choose to believe in corruption because it's better than the alternative. It's way more comforting to believe that Bill Clinton's buddies (or whoever) got rich selling industrial America overseas to the cheers of the progressives who thought all that stuff was dirty any way because at least that way it looks sane and planned and rational, albeit selfish, than it was done out of ignorance or malice. And once enough people believe in the corruption, it manifests itself because it's perceived as how things are.
  - cindyllm 1mo ago
    [dead]
- aprilthird2021 1mo ago
  > short-sighted neoliberal trade deals and hostility to organized labor, which accelerated the process of hollowing out the country What if they weren't short-sighted and not hostile? Look at Germany, which did not do this and instead kept strong provisions in favor of organized labor and protecting their domestic industry from foreign entrants. They can't keep doing it anymore. That would have been our future. But we pivoted to high skilled services and it has served us immensely better than if we had tried to defeat other powers in industrial and manufacturing where they had a clear advantage we didn't, in terms of cost.
  - iamnothere 1mo ago
    This ignores that Germany is not energy independent (unlike the US), and that it suddenly lost its main energy supply and followed this up by closing its remaining nuclear facilities, a massive self-own. This also ignores that the US is now having serious trouble supplying its own military and tech sector due to the same deindustrialization! It also basically created its most formidable geopolitical competitor through this process.

by jeffbee 1mo ago

netsharc 1mo ago

"Both sides are just as bad" is copium for when the guy from "your side" is revealed to be a corrupt piece of shit. You don't like it, so you justify to yourself that the other party is also full of creeps and assholes and thieves, so you can continue to support your guy guilt free... Of course the supporters of one particular political party is much more better at gymnastics of the mental kind than the other side. Having no spine makes it quite easier...

rozal 1mo ago
[dead]
chronc7403 1mo ago
[flagged]
deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
imthatsteve 1mo ago
Thats just party politics operating as it was designed. You only have one real party just like communists and fascists. The democrats control everything in the country via bribes from their super pacs and "charitable" foundations and fundraisers.thats why they were so upset when us-aids got suppressed. Thats why people give millions to the clintons for haiti and the Haitians never see a single penny. The corrupt take that tax money and give it to their friends who give it to charities which are owned and operated by their friends who then donate that money to campaigns or other charities who do the same thing. The republicans are just as corrupt but their power comes from the dems pissing people off so instead they vote against the dems but the reps are the only other option so the reps do the exact same thing as the dems and steal tax payer money and set up laws that make it more difficult for small business to compete with government sponsored monopolies. The left and right parties are like a left and right hand they wont get in each others way or fight each other they cooperate to screw the american people over and the stupid americans keep pretending they have a choice between the left slap or the right slap. The only way to take control of the country is to root out the corruption but the corruption is perpetuated by party politics and stupid americans are more loyal to their stupid corrupt parties than their nation or neighbors.

dispomatrix 1mo ago

Yeah, because the disposition matrix is peak democracy.

iamnothere 1mo ago

The problems that happened during the Clinton admin (with the exception of Whitewater) weren’t so much corruption as they were short-sighted neoliberal trade deals and hostility to organized labor, which accelerated the process of hollowing out the country. But this was also an unusual period in US history due to the end of the Cold War, so this administration could be an exception. Most of the scandals from this period appear quaint.

cucumber3732842 1mo ago
An under-examined axis of this problem is that people choose to believe in corruption because it's better than the alternative. It's way more comforting to believe that Bill Clinton's buddies (or whoever) got rich selling industrial America overseas to the cheers of the progressives who thought all that stuff was dirty any way because at least that way it looks sane and planned and rational, albeit selfish, than it was done out of ignorance or malice. And once enough people believe in the corruption, it manifests itself because it's perceived as how things are.
- cindyllm 1mo ago
  [dead]
aprilthird2021 1mo ago
> short-sighted neoliberal trade deals and hostility to organized labor, which accelerated the process of hollowing out the country What if they weren't short-sighted and not hostile? Look at Germany, which did not do this and instead kept strong provisions in favor of organized labor and protecting their domestic industry from foreign entrants. They can't keep doing it anymore. That would have been our future. But we pivoted to high skilled services and it has served us immensely better than if we had tried to defeat other powers in industrial and manufacturing where they had a clear advantage we didn't, in terms of cost.
- iamnothere 1mo ago
  This ignores that Germany is not energy independent (unlike the US), and that it suddenly lost its main energy supply and followed this up by closing its remaining nuclear facilities, a massive self-own. This also ignores that the US is now having serious trouble supplying its own military and tech sector due to the same deindustrialization! It also basically created its most formidable geopolitical competitor through this process.