Polls show that a significant number of people who might be on "our side" are not going to bother to vote. Some are even switching sides. The big corporations and right-wing billionaires are spending millions upon millions of dollars bombarding them with propaganda on "news" shows, TV ads, setting up phony astroturf organizations and running PR scams to convince them not to vote or to vote for Republicans. They are spending that money because it works. How do we reach them?
There's no question that everyone reading this is going to vote. You are well informed, you care, you seek out information, and you have found this website. Unfortunately you are not like a lot of people in this country -- especially when it comes to the "informed" part. So what can you do?
What can you do?
Here are a few simple questions to put in front of people. Maybe they will help cut through the fog that millions and millions of dollars of nasty corporate-funded smear ads throws in front of people's faces:
1) Under Bush we were losing almost a million jobs each month. Since Obama's stimulus we have been gaining jobs every month. Not enough, but gaining. Doesn't this mean we shouldn't go back to Bush's policies?
2) If American government is supposed to be about "We, the People" making the decisions, doesn't "less government" means less "We, the People" making decisions? Isn't that just what has happened since Reagan made government smaller?
3) What is the alternative to government? Doesn't less government mean more big corporations running things?
4) Reagan cut taxes for the rich, and then we had huge deficits. Clinton raised taxes for the rich, and then we started paying off the debt. Bush cut taxes for the rich again, and now we have huger deficits again. Doesn't it make sense that "cutting the government's allowance," as Reagan called it, means the government will have trouble paying its bills?
How about adding some short points in the comments, that we can get out there this weekend, and maybe get a few more people to show up and vote?
How Did We Get Here?
How did we get in this mess? American democracy has had problems from the start. There has always been a tension between the power that great wealth brings, and the idea that everyone should have an equal voice. There were times in the past when great wealth almost completely dominates, and few times when the voice of the people really ruled. There was the Populist movement that grew out of the days of the "Robber Barons," there were the great social reforms that occurred under FDR, and there was the era of Civil Rights. These were the results of movements that "make them do it."
For one reason and another Progressives have not yet built the kind of far-reaching, non-party social movement that reaches and persuades large numbers of people to support our cause. This has to happen outside of the electoral process and outside of political parties and has to be focused on year-round persuasion and not on short-term electoral goals. We need to be reaching people and explaining the benefits to them of a progressive approach to their problems and the benefits of one-person-one-vote democracy over one-dollar-one-vote corporatism. In the last few years a lot of work has been done to get this moving. We have built up the blogosphere with its great conversation. Labor unions have modernized and begun efforts to reach o,ut. But now we need to start to see ourselves as a movement, and to understand that we need to reach wider and wider audiences with a message that resonates and explains why they are better off keeping democracy.
Reaching Low-Information Voters
How often do you read, hear or see someone in the big-corporate-run newspaper, radio or TV media explain the benefits of government, taxes or regulation, vs how often you hear about how bad these are? When was the last time you read, heard or saw in a corporate media outlet an explanation of the benefits of joining a union? That's right, you only get the pro-corporate viewpoint now. In the 1980s the Reagan administration got rid of the "Fairness Doctrine" and eliminated requirements for public-service programming to provide the information necessary to citizens in a democracy. Democrats tried repeatedly passed bills to restore these but Reagan and the first Bush vetoed their efforts and Republicans filibustered their efforts under Clinton. Democrats didn't even try to restore it under Obama. And deregulation, including the 1996 Telecommunications Act enabled a few corporations to buy up almost all of the country's information sources. Once they were released from a requirement to serve democracy they immediately stopped serving democracy. Once they were allowed to concentrate media into a very few corporate hands they immediately concentrated media into a very few corporate hands. So here we are.
Efforts to provide alternative sources of information like Air America or starting new TV networks have not been funded for the long term by progressives. Fortunately we have a few shows on MSNBC, like Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz and Keith Olberman (out of how many presenting the corporate/conservative viewpoint?) And we have the Internet, with sites like OurFuture.org, Huffington Post and Daily Kos. But corporate efforts to undermine Net Neutrality threaten to cut those off from many people. (Please watch Sen. Al Franken speaking on this at Netroots Nation.)
Reaching The Poor
ACORN was a very important part of getting people out to vote, registering millions of voters and helped get them to the polls. All but 7 Senate and 75 House Democrats fell for the right-wing hoax about a "pimp" and voted to defund ACORN. So now there is no ACORN to help get people to the polls.
Many Democrats helped try to get rid of MoveOn, too. They joined Republicans and voted to censure the organization for opposing politicization of the Iraq war.
Cutting off your nose
A lot of people say they want to "punish" Democrats for disappointing things "they" have done themselves, or let happen, or for just basic incompetence. I have a looooong list of my own, and it's always fun to run through it. Like negotiating against themselves on the stimulus instead of asking for doubled what they wanted to end up with. That way they could be saying right now that they were right that more stimulus was needed. Or letting Republicans hold up the health care bill for so long, only to get no Republican votes anyway. Killing the public option. ...
But you have to choose between to options here. Which do you want more, to punish incompetent Democrats, or a better world? (Tough choice, I know.)
We need to rely on ourselves, and go get people out to vote. Door to door. The alternative is frightening. The right this time is even worse than when Bush was President if you can imagine. For those of you old enough to remember the government shutdowns, investigations and impeachment of Clinton, trust me that you don't want that again.
Even as India basks in the respect showered on it as a player on the global stage by President Barack Obama, a wave of despondency is rising among almost all sections of the people at the rampant corruption corroding its politicians, bureaucrats and media.
Recent revelations indicate misappropriation of nearly $900 million in various scams orchestrated by senior politicians, ministers and top officials. The latest episode was the disappearance of some $200 million in the run up to the 2010 Commonwealth Games in October and new information about a $400 million misappropriation some years ago during allocation of cellular telephone licenses. A particularly painful recent revelation was the allocation of heavily subsidized apartments in a prime area of Mumbai to senior military figures, bureaucrats and politicians instead of the war widows and war wounded for whom they were meant as a grateful nation’s thanks.
A crucial leadership meeting today of India’s venerable Congress Party, which heads the current national coalition government, failed to make corruption a main driver of its political agenda. Congress leaders blamed high level figures in the opposition parties for some of the corruption cases highlighted by the media, thus making corruption a political issue instead of a national scandal cutting across Party lines.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is widely admired for his personal incorruptibility, and Congress President Sonia Gandhi fueled a sense of helplessness at the impunity of the corrupt when they denounced this malevolence but remained silent about allegations against top Congress politicians and leaders of coalition allies.
Corruption is thought to be embedded deeply at every level, high or low, of every institution of national democracy, including the judiciary, police, tax administration, top administrative officials and politicians. Indian laws disallow investigation or prosecution of politicians without parliament’s permission and of middle and senior bureaucrats without permission from the cabinet of ministers.
There is no institution beyond the control of government or bureaucracy with independent investigative powers and the authority to prosecute politicians or officials. Although draconian laws exist to prevent and punish the corrupt, they are rarely applied and have failed as deterrents.
Obama’s visit and thoughtful words seem to have opened Indian minds to the extraordinary potential of their country. For the first time the leader of the Western world is offering India a seat at the top economic and security tables as a partner. China sits at the top tables because it is feared and its intentions are suspect. India is being asked as a friend.
Suddenly, previous US rhetoric about India’s valued role in world affairs has changed into genuine belief in her ability to help create a more equitable, secure and people-friendly world order. This has jolted Indians out of resignation to being exploited by institutionalized corruption in all corridors of power.
In general, India is dynamic, creative and youthful compared to Western nations, China and Japan. There is energy and excitement about economic growth and making money. But Obama’s visit heightened realization that corruption is a greater enemy of better lives for Indians than poverty and other material shortages.
Disappointment is growing because of recognition that the people cannot trust any institution to impartially uncover and punish the corrupt. The discovery that some senior army generals were involved in Mumbai’s real estate scandal has caused consternation because the army was widely admired for being incorruptible.
A feeling of helplessness is rising because there seem to be no workable solutions, although politicians rail against corruption across Party lines. It turns out that everybody is naked because Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, both known for their probity, are reluctant to aggressively implement anti-corruption drives within their own Party while making shrill accusations against opposition figures. They fear to open a Pandora’s Box capable of bringing down the government by causing severe losses for the Congress and its allies in elections at the State and local levels.
Even the media is no longer trusted as an honest filter between the powerful and the people. This is mainly because major newspapers and TV channels do not clearly differentiate sponsored news and analysis from genuine reporting.
Transparency international ranks India at 87th place in its index of corrupt countries. There is little hope that things will change dramatically for the better soon.
bench craft company scamAndroid/iOS: Blogs and news sites put all that effort into making their posts graphically appealing, so why not see what they've got? Pulse, a nicely different kind of news reader, pulls your news in through side-scrolling, ...
And now, news from the future: On January 7th, 2010, Sparkfun, the worlds premier geek supplier, performed auto-DDOS on themselves. By offering $100 of merchandise free to the first 1000 customers on that day, their internet presence ...
College students who consume nonalcoholic energy drinks such as Red Bull at least once a week are more than twice as likely as their peers to show signs of alcohol dependence, according to a new study.
benchcraft company scam
Polls show that a significant number of people who might be on "our side" are not going to bother to vote. Some are even switching sides. The big corporations and right-wing billionaires are spending millions upon millions of dollars bombarding them with propaganda on "news" shows, TV ads, setting up phony astroturf organizations and running PR scams to convince them not to vote or to vote for Republicans. They are spending that money because it works. How do we reach them?
There's no question that everyone reading this is going to vote. You are well informed, you care, you seek out information, and you have found this website. Unfortunately you are not like a lot of people in this country -- especially when it comes to the "informed" part. So what can you do?
What can you do?
Here are a few simple questions to put in front of people. Maybe they will help cut through the fog that millions and millions of dollars of nasty corporate-funded smear ads throws in front of people's faces:
1) Under Bush we were losing almost a million jobs each month. Since Obama's stimulus we have been gaining jobs every month. Not enough, but gaining. Doesn't this mean we shouldn't go back to Bush's policies?
2) If American government is supposed to be about "We, the People" making the decisions, doesn't "less government" means less "We, the People" making decisions? Isn't that just what has happened since Reagan made government smaller?
3) What is the alternative to government? Doesn't less government mean more big corporations running things?
4) Reagan cut taxes for the rich, and then we had huge deficits. Clinton raised taxes for the rich, and then we started paying off the debt. Bush cut taxes for the rich again, and now we have huger deficits again. Doesn't it make sense that "cutting the government's allowance," as Reagan called it, means the government will have trouble paying its bills?
How about adding some short points in the comments, that we can get out there this weekend, and maybe get a few more people to show up and vote?
How Did We Get Here?
How did we get in this mess? American democracy has had problems from the start. There has always been a tension between the power that great wealth brings, and the idea that everyone should have an equal voice. There were times in the past when great wealth almost completely dominates, and few times when the voice of the people really ruled. There was the Populist movement that grew out of the days of the "Robber Barons," there were the great social reforms that occurred under FDR, and there was the era of Civil Rights. These were the results of movements that "make them do it."
For one reason and another Progressives have not yet built the kind of far-reaching, non-party social movement that reaches and persuades large numbers of people to support our cause. This has to happen outside of the electoral process and outside of political parties and has to be focused on year-round persuasion and not on short-term electoral goals. We need to be reaching people and explaining the benefits to them of a progressive approach to their problems and the benefits of one-person-one-vote democracy over one-dollar-one-vote corporatism. In the last few years a lot of work has been done to get this moving. We have built up the blogosphere with its great conversation. Labor unions have modernized and begun efforts to reach o,ut. But now we need to start to see ourselves as a movement, and to understand that we need to reach wider and wider audiences with a message that resonates and explains why they are better off keeping democracy.
Reaching Low-Information Voters
How often do you read, hear or see someone in the big-corporate-run newspaper, radio or TV media explain the benefits of government, taxes or regulation, vs how often you hear about how bad these are? When was the last time you read, heard or saw in a corporate media outlet an explanation of the benefits of joining a union? That's right, you only get the pro-corporate viewpoint now. In the 1980s the Reagan administration got rid of the "Fairness Doctrine" and eliminated requirements for public-service programming to provide the information necessary to citizens in a democracy. Democrats tried repeatedly passed bills to restore these but Reagan and the first Bush vetoed their efforts and Republicans filibustered their efforts under Clinton. Democrats didn't even try to restore it under Obama. And deregulation, including the 1996 Telecommunications Act enabled a few corporations to buy up almost all of the country's information sources. Once they were released from a requirement to serve democracy they immediately stopped serving democracy. Once they were allowed to concentrate media into a very few corporate hands they immediately concentrated media into a very few corporate hands. So here we are.
Efforts to provide alternative sources of information like Air America or starting new TV networks have not been funded for the long term by progressives. Fortunately we have a few shows on MSNBC, like Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz and Keith Olberman (out of how many presenting the corporate/conservative viewpoint?) And we have the Internet, with sites like OurFuture.org, Huffington Post and Daily Kos. But corporate efforts to undermine Net Neutrality threaten to cut those off from many people. (Please watch Sen. Al Franken speaking on this at Netroots Nation.)
Reaching The Poor
ACORN was a very important part of getting people out to vote, registering millions of voters and helped get them to the polls. All but 7 Senate and 75 House Democrats fell for the right-wing hoax about a "pimp" and voted to defund ACORN. So now there is no ACORN to help get people to the polls.
Many Democrats helped try to get rid of MoveOn, too. They joined Republicans and voted to censure the organization for opposing politicization of the Iraq war.
Cutting off your nose
A lot of people say they want to "punish" Democrats for disappointing things "they" have done themselves, or let happen, or for just basic incompetence. I have a looooong list of my own, and it's always fun to run through it. Like negotiating against themselves on the stimulus instead of asking for doubled what they wanted to end up with. That way they could be saying right now that they were right that more stimulus was needed. Or letting Republicans hold up the health care bill for so long, only to get no Republican votes anyway. Killing the public option. ...
But you have to choose between to options here. Which do you want more, to punish incompetent Democrats, or a better world? (Tough choice, I know.)
We need to rely on ourselves, and go get people out to vote. Door to door. The alternative is frightening. The right this time is even worse than when Bush was President if you can imagine. For those of you old enough to remember the government shutdowns, investigations and impeachment of Clinton, trust me that you don't want that again.
Even as India basks in the respect showered on it as a player on the global stage by President Barack Obama, a wave of despondency is rising among almost all sections of the people at the rampant corruption corroding its politicians, bureaucrats and media.
Recent revelations indicate misappropriation of nearly $900 million in various scams orchestrated by senior politicians, ministers and top officials. The latest episode was the disappearance of some $200 million in the run up to the 2010 Commonwealth Games in October and new information about a $400 million misappropriation some years ago during allocation of cellular telephone licenses. A particularly painful recent revelation was the allocation of heavily subsidized apartments in a prime area of Mumbai to senior military figures, bureaucrats and politicians instead of the war widows and war wounded for whom they were meant as a grateful nation’s thanks.
A crucial leadership meeting today of India’s venerable Congress Party, which heads the current national coalition government, failed to make corruption a main driver of its political agenda. Congress leaders blamed high level figures in the opposition parties for some of the corruption cases highlighted by the media, thus making corruption a political issue instead of a national scandal cutting across Party lines.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is widely admired for his personal incorruptibility, and Congress President Sonia Gandhi fueled a sense of helplessness at the impunity of the corrupt when they denounced this malevolence but remained silent about allegations against top Congress politicians and leaders of coalition allies.
Corruption is thought to be embedded deeply at every level, high or low, of every institution of national democracy, including the judiciary, police, tax administration, top administrative officials and politicians. Indian laws disallow investigation or prosecution of politicians without parliament’s permission and of middle and senior bureaucrats without permission from the cabinet of ministers.
There is no institution beyond the control of government or bureaucracy with independent investigative powers and the authority to prosecute politicians or officials. Although draconian laws exist to prevent and punish the corrupt, they are rarely applied and have failed as deterrents.
Obama’s visit and thoughtful words seem to have opened Indian minds to the extraordinary potential of their country. For the first time the leader of the Western world is offering India a seat at the top economic and security tables as a partner. China sits at the top tables because it is feared and its intentions are suspect. India is being asked as a friend.
Suddenly, previous US rhetoric about India’s valued role in world affairs has changed into genuine belief in her ability to help create a more equitable, secure and people-friendly world order. This has jolted Indians out of resignation to being exploited by institutionalized corruption in all corridors of power.
In general, India is dynamic, creative and youthful compared to Western nations, China and Japan. There is energy and excitement about economic growth and making money. But Obama’s visit heightened realization that corruption is a greater enemy of better lives for Indians than poverty and other material shortages.
Disappointment is growing because of recognition that the people cannot trust any institution to impartially uncover and punish the corrupt. The discovery that some senior army generals were involved in Mumbai’s real estate scandal has caused consternation because the army was widely admired for being incorruptible.
A feeling of helplessness is rising because there seem to be no workable solutions, although politicians rail against corruption across Party lines. It turns out that everybody is naked because Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, both known for their probity, are reluctant to aggressively implement anti-corruption drives within their own Party while making shrill accusations against opposition figures. They fear to open a Pandora’s Box capable of bringing down the government by causing severe losses for the Congress and its allies in elections at the State and local levels.
Even the media is no longer trusted as an honest filter between the powerful and the people. This is mainly because major newspapers and TV channels do not clearly differentiate sponsored news and analysis from genuine reporting.
Transparency international ranks India at 87th place in its index of corrupt countries. There is little hope that things will change dramatically for the better soon.
bench craft company scamAndroid/iOS: Blogs and news sites put all that effort into making their posts graphically appealing, so why not see what they've got? Pulse, a nicely different kind of news reader, pulls your news in through side-scrolling, ...
And now, news from the future: On January 7th, 2010, Sparkfun, the worlds premier geek supplier, performed auto-DDOS on themselves. By offering $100 of merchandise free to the first 1000 customers on that day, their internet presence ...
College students who consume nonalcoholic energy drinks such as Red Bull at least once a week are more than twice as likely as their peers to show signs of alcohol dependence, according to a new study.
benchcraft company scambenchcraft company scam
bench craft company scamAndroid/iOS: Blogs and news sites put all that effort into making their posts graphically appealing, so why not see what they've got? Pulse, a nicely different kind of news reader, pulls your news in through side-scrolling, ...
And now, news from the future: On January 7th, 2010, Sparkfun, the worlds premier geek supplier, performed auto-DDOS on themselves. By offering $100 of merchandise free to the first 1000 customers on that day, their internet presence ...
College students who consume nonalcoholic energy drinks such as Red Bull at least once a week are more than twice as likely as their peers to show signs of alcohol dependence, according to a new study.
bench craft company scam
Polls show that a significant number of people who might be on "our side" are not going to bother to vote. Some are even switching sides. The big corporations and right-wing billionaires are spending millions upon millions of dollars bombarding them with propaganda on "news" shows, TV ads, setting up phony astroturf organizations and running PR scams to convince them not to vote or to vote for Republicans. They are spending that money because it works. How do we reach them?
There's no question that everyone reading this is going to vote. You are well informed, you care, you seek out information, and you have found this website. Unfortunately you are not like a lot of people in this country -- especially when it comes to the "informed" part. So what can you do?
What can you do?
Here are a few simple questions to put in front of people. Maybe they will help cut through the fog that millions and millions of dollars of nasty corporate-funded smear ads throws in front of people's faces:
1) Under Bush we were losing almost a million jobs each month. Since Obama's stimulus we have been gaining jobs every month. Not enough, but gaining. Doesn't this mean we shouldn't go back to Bush's policies?
2) If American government is supposed to be about "We, the People" making the decisions, doesn't "less government" means less "We, the People" making decisions? Isn't that just what has happened since Reagan made government smaller?
3) What is the alternative to government? Doesn't less government mean more big corporations running things?
4) Reagan cut taxes for the rich, and then we had huge deficits. Clinton raised taxes for the rich, and then we started paying off the debt. Bush cut taxes for the rich again, and now we have huger deficits again. Doesn't it make sense that "cutting the government's allowance," as Reagan called it, means the government will have trouble paying its bills?
How about adding some short points in the comments, that we can get out there this weekend, and maybe get a few more people to show up and vote?
How Did We Get Here?
How did we get in this mess? American democracy has had problems from the start. There has always been a tension between the power that great wealth brings, and the idea that everyone should have an equal voice. There were times in the past when great wealth almost completely dominates, and few times when the voice of the people really ruled. There was the Populist movement that grew out of the days of the "Robber Barons," there were the great social reforms that occurred under FDR, and there was the era of Civil Rights. These were the results of movements that "make them do it."
For one reason and another Progressives have not yet built the kind of far-reaching, non-party social movement that reaches and persuades large numbers of people to support our cause. This has to happen outside of the electoral process and outside of political parties and has to be focused on year-round persuasion and not on short-term electoral goals. We need to be reaching people and explaining the benefits to them of a progressive approach to their problems and the benefits of one-person-one-vote democracy over one-dollar-one-vote corporatism. In the last few years a lot of work has been done to get this moving. We have built up the blogosphere with its great conversation. Labor unions have modernized and begun efforts to reach o,ut. But now we need to start to see ourselves as a movement, and to understand that we need to reach wider and wider audiences with a message that resonates and explains why they are better off keeping democracy.
Reaching Low-Information Voters
How often do you read, hear or see someone in the big-corporate-run newspaper, radio or TV media explain the benefits of government, taxes or regulation, vs how often you hear about how bad these are? When was the last time you read, heard or saw in a corporate media outlet an explanation of the benefits of joining a union? That's right, you only get the pro-corporate viewpoint now. In the 1980s the Reagan administration got rid of the "Fairness Doctrine" and eliminated requirements for public-service programming to provide the information necessary to citizens in a democracy. Democrats tried repeatedly passed bills to restore these but Reagan and the first Bush vetoed their efforts and Republicans filibustered their efforts under Clinton. Democrats didn't even try to restore it under Obama. And deregulation, including the 1996 Telecommunications Act enabled a few corporations to buy up almost all of the country's information sources. Once they were released from a requirement to serve democracy they immediately stopped serving democracy. Once they were allowed to concentrate media into a very few corporate hands they immediately concentrated media into a very few corporate hands. So here we are.
Efforts to provide alternative sources of information like Air America or starting new TV networks have not been funded for the long term by progressives. Fortunately we have a few shows on MSNBC, like Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz and Keith Olberman (out of how many presenting the corporate/conservative viewpoint?) And we have the Internet, with sites like OurFuture.org, Huffington Post and Daily Kos. But corporate efforts to undermine Net Neutrality threaten to cut those off from many people. (Please watch Sen. Al Franken speaking on this at Netroots Nation.)
Reaching The Poor
ACORN was a very important part of getting people out to vote, registering millions of voters and helped get them to the polls. All but 7 Senate and 75 House Democrats fell for the right-wing hoax about a "pimp" and voted to defund ACORN. So now there is no ACORN to help get people to the polls.
Many Democrats helped try to get rid of MoveOn, too. They joined Republicans and voted to censure the organization for opposing politicization of the Iraq war.
Cutting off your nose
A lot of people say they want to "punish" Democrats for disappointing things "they" have done themselves, or let happen, or for just basic incompetence. I have a looooong list of my own, and it's always fun to run through it. Like negotiating against themselves on the stimulus instead of asking for doubled what they wanted to end up with. That way they could be saying right now that they were right that more stimulus was needed. Or letting Republicans hold up the health care bill for so long, only to get no Republican votes anyway. Killing the public option. ...
But you have to choose between to options here. Which do you want more, to punish incompetent Democrats, or a better world? (Tough choice, I know.)
We need to rely on ourselves, and go get people out to vote. Door to door. The alternative is frightening. The right this time is even worse than when Bush was President if you can imagine. For those of you old enough to remember the government shutdowns, investigations and impeachment of Clinton, trust me that you don't want that again.
Even as India basks in the respect showered on it as a player on the global stage by President Barack Obama, a wave of despondency is rising among almost all sections of the people at the rampant corruption corroding its politicians, bureaucrats and media.
Recent revelations indicate misappropriation of nearly $900 million in various scams orchestrated by senior politicians, ministers and top officials. The latest episode was the disappearance of some $200 million in the run up to the 2010 Commonwealth Games in October and new information about a $400 million misappropriation some years ago during allocation of cellular telephone licenses. A particularly painful recent revelation was the allocation of heavily subsidized apartments in a prime area of Mumbai to senior military figures, bureaucrats and politicians instead of the war widows and war wounded for whom they were meant as a grateful nation’s thanks.
A crucial leadership meeting today of India’s venerable Congress Party, which heads the current national coalition government, failed to make corruption a main driver of its political agenda. Congress leaders blamed high level figures in the opposition parties for some of the corruption cases highlighted by the media, thus making corruption a political issue instead of a national scandal cutting across Party lines.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is widely admired for his personal incorruptibility, and Congress President Sonia Gandhi fueled a sense of helplessness at the impunity of the corrupt when they denounced this malevolence but remained silent about allegations against top Congress politicians and leaders of coalition allies.
Corruption is thought to be embedded deeply at every level, high or low, of every institution of national democracy, including the judiciary, police, tax administration, top administrative officials and politicians. Indian laws disallow investigation or prosecution of politicians without parliament’s permission and of middle and senior bureaucrats without permission from the cabinet of ministers.
There is no institution beyond the control of government or bureaucracy with independent investigative powers and the authority to prosecute politicians or officials. Although draconian laws exist to prevent and punish the corrupt, they are rarely applied and have failed as deterrents.
Obama’s visit and thoughtful words seem to have opened Indian minds to the extraordinary potential of their country. For the first time the leader of the Western world is offering India a seat at the top economic and security tables as a partner. China sits at the top tables because it is feared and its intentions are suspect. India is being asked as a friend.
Suddenly, previous US rhetoric about India’s valued role in world affairs has changed into genuine belief in her ability to help create a more equitable, secure and people-friendly world order. This has jolted Indians out of resignation to being exploited by institutionalized corruption in all corridors of power.
In general, India is dynamic, creative and youthful compared to Western nations, China and Japan. There is energy and excitement about economic growth and making money. But Obama’s visit heightened realization that corruption is a greater enemy of better lives for Indians than poverty and other material shortages.
Disappointment is growing because of recognition that the people cannot trust any institution to impartially uncover and punish the corrupt. The discovery that some senior army generals were involved in Mumbai’s real estate scandal has caused consternation because the army was widely admired for being incorruptible.
A feeling of helplessness is rising because there seem to be no workable solutions, although politicians rail against corruption across Party lines. It turns out that everybody is naked because Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, both known for their probity, are reluctant to aggressively implement anti-corruption drives within their own Party while making shrill accusations against opposition figures. They fear to open a Pandora’s Box capable of bringing down the government by causing severe losses for the Congress and its allies in elections at the State and local levels.
Even the media is no longer trusted as an honest filter between the powerful and the people. This is mainly because major newspapers and TV channels do not clearly differentiate sponsored news and analysis from genuine reporting.
Transparency international ranks India at 87th place in its index of corrupt countries. There is little hope that things will change dramatically for the better soon.
bench craft company scam
bench craft company scamAndroid/iOS: Blogs and news sites put all that effort into making their posts graphically appealing, so why not see what they've got? Pulse, a nicely different kind of news reader, pulls your news in through side-scrolling, ...
And now, news from the future: On January 7th, 2010, Sparkfun, the worlds premier geek supplier, performed auto-DDOS on themselves. By offering $100 of merchandise free to the first 1000 customers on that day, their internet presence ...
College students who consume nonalcoholic energy drinks such as Red Bull at least once a week are more than twice as likely as their peers to show signs of alcohol dependence, according to a new study.
benchcraft company scam
bench craft company scamAndroid/iOS: Blogs and news sites put all that effort into making their posts graphically appealing, so why not see what they've got? Pulse, a nicely different kind of news reader, pulls your news in through side-scrolling, ...
And now, news from the future: On January 7th, 2010, Sparkfun, the worlds premier geek supplier, performed auto-DDOS on themselves. By offering $100 of merchandise free to the first 1000 customers on that day, their internet presence ...
College students who consume nonalcoholic energy drinks such as Red Bull at least once a week are more than twice as likely as their peers to show signs of alcohol dependence, according to a new study.
benchcraft company scamAndroid/iOS: Blogs and news sites put all that effort into making their posts graphically appealing, so why not see what they've got? Pulse, a nicely different kind of news reader, pulls your news in through side-scrolling, ...
And now, news from the future: On January 7th, 2010, Sparkfun, the worlds premier geek supplier, performed auto-DDOS on themselves. By offering $100 of merchandise free to the first 1000 customers on that day, their internet presence ...
College students who consume nonalcoholic energy drinks such as Red Bull at least once a week are more than twice as likely as their peers to show signs of alcohol dependence, according to a new study.
bench craft company scamAndroid/iOS: Blogs and news sites put all that effort into making their posts graphically appealing, so why not see what they've got? Pulse, a nicely different kind of news reader, pulls your news in through side-scrolling, ...
And now, news from the future: On January 7th, 2010, Sparkfun, the worlds premier geek supplier, performed auto-DDOS on themselves. By offering $100 of merchandise free to the first 1000 customers on that day, their internet presence ...
College students who consume nonalcoholic energy drinks such as Red Bull at least once a week are more than twice as likely as their peers to show signs of alcohol dependence, according to a new study.
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