Guns, Bribes, Corporate Greed: What Has Happened To Us?

Day after day I sit at this computer reading news headlines, and day after day I wonder what in the hell has gotten into us?

Lately it seems  that we’ve lost our flipping minds!

Missing lately is a sense of common sense.

Our respect for others is gone, any sense of compassion for the citizens of this country by corporate America has vanished. Our voice in government has been obscured by money & influence. It’s like “We The People” don’t matter any longer.

GUNS:

Under the Second Amendment, as least for the moment, citizens can buy guns that are almost identical to military issued weapons.

These weapons have only two purposes:

• To kill as many humans as possible in the shortest time.
• To kill them so effectively that they are literally shredded.

However, these military-type weapons are legal for ordinary citizens to buy because one can use them for target practice or hunting or shooting events.

That’s nice.

That’s also insane.

Why are citizens allowed to have firearms so close to what police or the military have?

This is even more insane!

This is a lack of common sense and responsibility by our highest court and the United States government.

It’s kowtowing to special interest groups (read NRA) and a ridiculous fear that we’ll hurt somebody’s feelings or ~God forbid~ violate Second Amendment rights.

Bullshit!

There are plenty of other firearms to have to hunt and target shoot with.

Grow up, people!

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GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION & INFLUENCE:

Our government has been corrupt for a long, long time.  I am not a political law person, just  an ordinary citizen who has some questions.

Why isn’t it illegal to influence our government officials?

Obviously lobbying isn’t.  Obviously bribery isn’t.

It’s done in the halls of this government and in every state every day!

If it IS illegal then we need to lock up most of our government!

The only losers:  the majority of the American people and the environment.

For instance, companies like Monsanto are using the world as Guinea pigs with GMO food, herbicides, pesticides and the United States government is letting them get away with it.

We are dying of increased rates of cancers. Our pets are dying of cancer, bees are disappearing, our groundwater has high concentrations of Atrazine and Round-Up.

Little children are getting cancer whereas this was once a disease of older people.  The FDA, USDA, EPA have been influenced – or should I say -threatened – by Monsanto and other monolithic companies.  Yet we have our richest of the rich like Bill Gates, under the guise of being a humanitarian, is promoting Monsanto’s agenda to help feed ~and poison~ the world!

We are also being systematically poisoned and sickened by food corporations by the use of additives and chemicals that in some cases, have only the say so of the manufacturer that they are safe.

The FDA has ruled for the food companies, allowing manufacture and sale of these foods, using the test results OF the food company’s biased testing, while omitting review of any independent tests.

This is fraud!

We are held hostage by the corporations and our own government.  Oh, there are a few who are fighting for us in Washington but those who are in it for the greed and money outnumber them.

To me the scales have been tipped so far out of the hands of the American people to favor corporations.

We literally have no say any longer.

What has happened to our elected officials working FOR THE PEOPLE instead of the corporations?

Simple:  money!

This is despicable!

What can we do, though?  If the ones who write and pass the laws are influenced against us – how can we ever hope to change things?

I am sickened at what our government has become:  fighting like a bunch of little children, totally ignoring why they’re in government in the first place ~and~ ignoring the American people…, but still they bicker on, passing watered down legislation to supposedly protect us or help us.  The corporations and special interest groups have more money and thus, more voice than “We The People.”

This is NOT our government any longer – we have been shut out!

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CORPORATE AMERICA:

The American worker is screwed.

Back to corporate America:  GREED reigns and the workers who are out on the floor of the large corporations are treated almost like slaves.

We’ve lost our jobs to third world nations to “save money” in corporate pockets.

Walmart, the nation’s largest employer, buys clothing from factories in Bangladesh, Vietnam, Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia – yet they still screw their own workers regarding wages and benefits.

Before Obamacare, companies like Wal-Mart, Lowe’s and others adopted the cost saving initiative of only hiring people part-time for just enough hours NOT to qualify for any benefits.

I worked for Lowe’s from 2003-2007. When I was hired people could work full or part-time.  Now, only their top store management and some department people are full time.  Everyone else is hired part time.

The corporations of this country are purposely destroying the lives of most of the workers in this country by denying hours, a living wage and benefits.

We are going to become a service-orientated nation, fighting over jobs at fast food restaurants.

We are going to die premature deaths because ~like me~ millions of people cannot afford healthcare so we do not go for regular checkups.

More of us are going to lose our homes because we cannot get enough work to keep up the mortgage payments or taxes.

WHY?  Because this country is now run by greed by corporate America!

They will NOT invest in this country; they will not spend the money it takes to create the jobs that millions of us need.

They will just continue to take, Take, TAKE and walk on the broken backs, shattered dreams and lives of the average American citizen.

SHAME ON YOU CORPORATE AMERICA!  You can save this country but you won’t.

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Where IS common sense?

Why has it left our government?

Why aren’t WE THE PEOPLE organizing and fighting back to get OUR country back?

Why do we have corporations making decisions and literally, running our lives?

Don’t we matter anymore?

RELATED:

MONSANTO:  Feeding and Killing the World (Food Truth Freedom)

Atrazine & Round-Up: Persistent Chemicals  (Food Truth Freedom)

GOP: Out To Destroy America For All But Wealthy 1%

Republicans are out to destroy this country. While the extremist right-wing GOP members scream about communism, they are advancing an agenda that only benefits the top 1%.  Every time I read an article about who wants to cut what, it always seems that the Republican party out to decimate a program or law that only extends the control of the super rich.

I’m sick of it and you should be, too!

What has happened to the Republican party?

They’ve become relentless in their destruction of anything which benefits this country or the majority of the citizens.

An excellent article in Reader Supported News about the 1% and this country.  I wish I could have written this piece, it’s excellent!

It seems that every article I read there’s some GOP spokesman saying, “NO!,” to a bill adding a protection for citizens; “NO!” to taking away corporate America’s power; “NO!” to an increase in taxes for the wealthiest (who can afford it the most) and  “NO!” to any regulations on corporate tax loopholes, worker’s rights or making the top 1% – and corporate America, take responsibility for any of their actions.

The super-rich control our country:  we do not! They dictate policy to government officials, sneaking in additions to the laws which benefit themselves.  They buy their way into political campaigns through that travesty of Citizen’s United.  They silence dissenters.

An excerpt from an article in the New York Times about the real fiscal cliff by Frank Rich writes:

“The Republican-led Michigan legislature just passed a “right-to-work” law, severely diminishing union power in a stronghold of American labor. Is this an overreach by a party fearing for its survival or the latest wave in a powerful anti-union surge?”
(Assistant editor Eric Benson replies:) “For all the Beltway hysteria about the fiscal cliff, the forgotten Americans in the debate are American workers: both those who are employed and have seen their wages stagnate and those who are unemployed and can’t find work. The fixed ideas in Washington right now — reducing the deficit, cutting entitlements, increasing tax rates for the upper 2 percent — do not begin to address this crisis. What the stunning victory of the Michigan GOP (the governor as well as the legislature) demonstrates is that while Romney may have lost, the Koch brothers and other right-wing industrialists determined to erode workers’ pay, benefits, and standing have only just begun to fight. If they can’t win a national election, they will pour money in at the local level in state after state, even seemingly blue states like Michigan and Wisconsin, to further their own financial interests. It’s going to be trench warfare in the coming years.” 

What has happened to our government? It’s stopped being government.  It’s turned into a playground for the super rich to enable them to get their way.

Corporate America is an entity which has great wealth.  Because of Citizen’s United, it was given octopus arms exerting a python-like grip which it is strangling  WE the PEOPLE of this country with!  

Truthfully, we don’t have a government any longer. Oh, on the surface it appears that we do.  The checks and balances are corrupted.  There are a few who recognize this but they are far outnumbered by the greed of corporate America.  We the people, are helpless.  The only tool that we have is to vote the scums out of office.

How can we change the laws if the only ones who can do that – our government – won’t?  Most of them are in it up to their eyeballs; it threatens their entitled way of life.  Pass higher tax rates for the rich? They’re all rich; it will cut into their money.  Revamp the system so that they lose perks? That’s up to them, too!  Initiate corporate tax reform so that the biggest corporations have to pay their share? Oops – the crooks in government are owned by the likes of Sheldon Addelson, the Koch Brothers, the banks, Walmart, Monsanto, just to name a few.  They can’t do that!  Where would the Republican party get its money from?

Citizen’s United saw to it that the rich remain rich by controlling our government.   Could the Supreme Court been bought and influenced by the rich?  It would not surprise me a bit!  Only ~human beings~ are people. A corporation IS NOT A PERSON – it is a group of people and therefore should have no say in government.  Corporate America is an entity which has great wealth.  Because of Citizen’s United, it was given octopus arms with a python-like grip which it is strangling “We the people” of this country with!

After President Obama’s election in 2008, the Republicans attempted to make him a one term president through calculated evisceration of any and all of his policies during his first term. Those who didn’t bother to look and add up all the facts during the election, believing all the garbage spewed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, the GOP party itself and Fox News, voted Republican.  Still Obama prevailed. That alone tells me something.  Somewhere out there is a glimmer of hope.  My question is:  how do we make it erupt into a full-fledged fireball of concrete change and take back our country?

Related:

Robert Reich: Rich Keep Pouring Money Into Government