The Power of Money

In another dazzling display of the power of money over proper governance, the Democratic-controlled Congress has reached agreement on immunizing the telecoms against their role in assisting Bush in spying on America. This means that lawsuits against the telecoms, some of which have already been won and which are in under appeal by the telecoms, will now be halted and found in favor of the guilty, as the law is being changed to retroactively legalize their actions.

This is bribery in action. The players have been given huge sums of money in the form of campaign contributions by the telecoms, and that money has purchased the telecoms their immunity retroactively, from improprieties of which they have already been convicted.

This bribery also protects Bush, who has tried claims of executive privilege and states secrets to protect himself from the exposure of his illegalities, in this case without success, and now has resorted to the frantic protection of his co-conspirators.

This is not what we put Democrats in control of Congress to do.

But we should not be surprised. Our system of government is broken, perhaps beyond repair, but certainly broken. It is corrupted by money, utterly lawless and rotten to its core. Its members are a moneyed and elite group who serve themselves and their moneyed financiers. They mouth platitudes and lies to the voting public to get themselves elected and then retire to their offices and enact laws that serve themselves and big money and ignore the concerns of the voting public until the next election.

The problem isn’t the party, it’s the process.