Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for June 19, 2015

Yup, that sums it up…

It would be nice to think that we have the best legislators money can buy. Unfortunately, we can’t say that. Most of them aren’t of especially good quality.

Since time began the rich control and the poor toil

I still can’t get over the incident when Wisconsin governor Scott Walker dropped everything to take a cold call and talk for 20 minutes with someone he thought was one of the Koch brothers. That’s 20 minutes out of an allegedly busy schedule. The caller later turned out to be a hoaxer. Few office holders have shown more clearly that they are owned. And yet this guy today is seriously touted as a presidential candidate. Mind boggling.

See, that’s how Danae found her true calling…

So? Don’t elect those people.You don’t need money to get elected.You only need votes.If money is buying votes, there is your problem.If your representative also represents the fact that your votes must be purchased, the fault is not in the system.They say you cannot cheat an honest man.The public is constantly being cheated.I can’t help but think there is something to that.

Anyone recall the Douglas Adams bit about the freely-elected lizards? People vote for the lizards so the wrong lizards won’t get in?

at least he is asking for money…..not other favours

It wasn’t the top .01% that created this system, it was Tammany Hall, the Unions and the Democratic machine.

What can be expected? Why would someone spend millions to campaign for a job paying $150,000/a ? For the medical coverage?It’s amazing that any of them has any integrity left.Danae is discovering that her Senator isn’t even pretending that it isn’t so.The next Presidential campaign is expected to cost the candidates hundreds of millions. Who has that kind of money to donate? Big business, labour, crime lords, the NRA, foreign gov’ts?It’s a terrible system but with two fairly equal parties and two levels of Congress, a President and a relatively independent judiciary there are enough checks and balances to still make it the best system around.

in a perfect world, Flight 93 would have crashed not in an empty field, but in a full session of Congress.

If pro is the opposite of con, what’s the opposite of progress?

ah money, America is the best plantation set up our owners like. we work they get the profits. lol both the D’s and the R’s are the overseers. the Republicans at least are honest about screwing us over. the Democrats like to pretend they care about the rest of us.

Oh, BrassOrchid, you are so naive. How do you get someone without money to run? You have to have money to buy ads, get air time, etc. Also, because we are a bunch of ignorant asses who don’t study up on the candidates, we vote for whoever has the nicest hair, or someone we would like to have a beer with, or whoever is in our face the most. Unfortunately, I don’t see a solution to this mess.

As expected, a representative of those the rest of us thought as ‘good riddance’. Maybe meeting Danae will be a shock; we hope.

And that, of course, would make them more independent. There’s lots the matter with the U.S. system but nothing that justifies flying a plane into the Capitol.Remember that the corporate leadership (top 0.01%?) have the greatest effect on the country’s fortunes so who else would you look to for input? Labour leaders, of course, but who else?

The rich are buying the country one politician at a time. Then the bought politicians enact laws to enable the rich to make more money to buy more politicians who will enact more laws to enable the rich to get richer so they can afford more politicians who etc etc etc. Meanwhile, that money has to come from somewhere, so the Middle Class is sinking further and further into lower class living conditions ever day. If it hasn’t happened to you-YET- look around you. You have a friend, relative or neighbor who’s already there.

But, the one good thing about a “bought” politician is that you can count on them not to have the integrity to stay “bought” if it will keep them from getting reelected. We have to get it together and elect the people who are least in the pockets of the 1%ers- none of them are completely clean of corporate money, but there’s a better and worse candidate in every race. Do your research into their voting record and find out which one is fighting for the rich and which one is for the Middle Class ( at least relatively), and vote accordingly. If we don’t vote for our own best interests, and do it soon, the Middle Class is toast."

The Roman Empire was doomed the day they literally auctioned it to the highest bidder. 100CE as I recall. The winner did not live out the year – one of three that year.

kind of looks like Wiley read the book Extortion, by Peter Schweizer. An excellent book that shows how our congress(both parties) has become nothing more than a gang that extorts money from businesses and is really run by lobbyists. Congress has made bribing tham pretty much legal, as long as its called a “campaign contribution”BTW, the author was in the Reagan administration

Mark Twain observed that people generally get the government they deserve. If all the sheeple in this country would get off their super-sized butts and think before they (gasp) voted, we may get someone decent. Don’t pin your future on it though.

Things began going steeply downhill right about the time Fox News went on air. Coincidence? I think not.

As much as I like to bash politicians, I do have to say that my former Congressman didn’t fit the stereotype. I always got a meaningful response to my letters, and he did show up at many public functions just to “hang out.”

Unfortunately, he’s the last of a breed and retired before the last election.