Follow the Money

So all this political stuff going on just makes me want to comment on it.  Actually, it makes me want to throw up!  That's me pretending I'm Rick Santorum reading stuff about JFK.  Can you believe that guy?  It's like we have an Ayatollah campaigning to be voted in as president.  Only this one is a "Good Christian" Ayatollah.  By the way, he also supported partial privatization of Social Security.  I'm sure Catholic Charities would have picked up the slack for retirees that would have lost just about everything right after Bush left office.

It's not like I consider myself such a staunch atheist like Bill Maher, but I do believe that faith is a matter of conscience.  You have your faith.  You have your beliefs.  Live by them.  Don't force other people to live by them.  (You might anger their god!)

A government, our government, had no intention of giving god a seat in Congress.  Well, I don't know that for a fact.  I wasn't there.  But I feel pretty confident that if the Founding Fathers did believe in god, it was more of a "I-hope-He-approves-of-what-we've-done" kind of belief.  They knew they didn't want a King, especially one with divine connections, to run this new form of government.  And I'm guessing since many of them were probably the one-percenters (or close to it) of their day, that they understood that money and finance was going to play a big part in their experiment (...a new nation conceived in liberty...) being successful. They were certainly right.  Money does grease the wheels of government.  That's not a bad thing, but it is at the heart of why we have checks and balances, and the three branches of government.  Oh it also is why we have a national road system, a military, the means to take care of our old and infirm, and many other "entitlements". 

But, who controls the money?  It's like every detective story you've ever read or seen.  Just follow the money! 

I could do some research and tell you who spent what to buy influence and votes - the super pacs, prior pac incarnations and every other way power brokers broker their power.  But I'm not going to do that. Instead I'm going to say this



WE BROKER THE POWER!

All politicians, left and right, all pundits, all media talk about how much this guy raised or that gal spent in some jurisdiction.  They are talking about how those politicians are buying votes.  We vote.  Is it too naive to think that despite the millions spent, that the voters can exercise their own minds to make these important decisions.  I know - it is too naive.  Large segments of the population just kind of wait for someone to show up on their TV screen, or on their phone, or in their mailbox and tell them what to think.  Smarten up America!

Who said
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Master of Propaganda, said it.  I think some of our politicians have been sneaking strategy out of this old Nazi's game plan. 

No... I'm not calling anyone a Nazi... I'm just saying...