Is that hand holding the gun to our head, our own?

[Vernon Windsor]

The American people, I believe, are responsible for allowing their government to be co-opted by money, corporations. The progression toward our present state has been incremental, to be sure, but also relentless. 

We have allowed the repeated failure of campaign finance reform. Lobbyists seem to be a reasonable compromise to allow representative government, at least to me, but money in the form of campaign contributions and PAC money is the Achilles heel. Greed is a human quality that is so easily exploited on both ends of the transaction—lawmakers and special interests. 

The people have allowed this to happen. Now they want to "throw the bums out." This will do no good, of course, as long as the same corrupt system is in place. The new batch will become just as corrupted as the old. Americans don't like to think of their institutions as being corrupt, but how else would you describe the system we have now? 

By treating corporations like "people" with regard to campaign contributions, we have now opened the government of United States to foreign influence as never before through those most sure of avenues—avarice and corruption—fueled and lubricated by money.

We made this bed and we have to lie in it—until we decide to change it, if we ever do. Before we search for someone to blame for the state of our economy, the state of health insurance and health care reform, the state of political gridlock in Washington, DC, we had better look in the mirror and ask ourselves just how engaged we have been in monitoring our elected representatives, making our views known to them, holding them accountable, and separating fact from fiction and spin. And yes, we have to be smart enough to figure out when we are being lied to. Just who stares back from the mirror?

[cynthia Hunter]

I'm with you on Corp. Being able to put thousands if not millons of dollars into campaining. Free speech sure caught costly! I lean way to the right on a lot of things, but this should bother everyone in my mind.

[Vernon Windsor]

I think this prideful unwillingness to address our shortcomings permeates many areas of our national psyche. Witness the reaction to Obama's acknowledgment of a few of our nation's past mistakes.

It seems ironic that the very same people who complain so loudly about Washington gridlock so often refuse to fight for the changes necessary to remove that gridlock. You may substitute "corruption" for "gridlock" in the previous sentence without consequence.

[Bull]

Ann Coulter Feb 2009
is no one going to remark on what a great country it is where a mentally retarded woman can become speaker of the house?

Glenn Beck, he with a special needs child
Then there's Beck, who is himself the father of a special needs child. He was speaking on his radio show last month to actress
(and, apparently, artist) Mary Lynn Rajskub (of 24 fame) and asked her about paintings she does. When she says she particularly enjoys painting "retarded children and paintings of the insane," laughter can be heard on Beck's end of the line. Then Beck, trying to suppress laughs, starts to ask how much the paintings of the "retarded" children go for. When she asks if there are "people laughing in the background," he replies that, "we're not laughing, we're just imagining that those would be nice. ... Honestly, I've been looking for one of those, but I haven't seen them."

Unable to keep from laughing, Beck adds that he has "no idea if you really do this or you're just screwing with people." She's being serious, she insists. You can hear the entire audio athttp://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200901090014

[Madhatterat60]

Well said. We get the government WE elect....or in most cases...we allow to be elected. Worse, as a Television Generation, we're easily SOLD shinola wrapped in a handsome package.

[Vernon Windsor]

We can't wait for the elevation of the critical thinking level in the country's population of its own accord. Some part of the media is going to have to start fulfilling the role of educating the public by separating fact from fiction and drawing connections between events and policy that the public can't seem to draw for themselves.

Frontline tends to do this on PBS, but usually only after the fact.

[Grace Linda]

Unfortunately, I believe it is all about money or demand. If the general public demanded alternative views something "might" happen. It serves medias clientel to keep use ignorant. Oh no conspiracy.

[Vernon Windsor]

Case in point...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeN0JRFGPD0

[Bull]

Just scary, these are Palin people.
Thanks Vernon