"ONE NATION, UNDER THE DOLLAR,
WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR NONE"

Survey: House votes linked to donations

From the Associated Press via the Houston Chronicle:

The Associated Press looked at six measures in the House -- medical malpractice, class-action lawsuits, bankruptcy laws, the energy bill, gun manufacturer lawsuits and overtime pay -- and compared lawmakers' votes with the financial backing they received from interest groups supporting or opposing the legislation. The House passed five of the six bills and defeated an amendment that would have stopped the Bush administration from rewriting the rules for overtime pay.

In the majority of cases, the biggest recipients of interest group money voted the way their donors wanted, according to the AP's computer-assisted analysis of campaign finance data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Groups that outspent opponents got the bills they wanted in five of the six cases examined.

Click here for more of the disgusting truth.

And people wonder why I voted for a presidential candidate who was bound to lose.

Even though there are a very few notable exceptions, it is almost unassailable fact that whatever sense of democracy that once may or may not have existed in the United States is now gone. Voting, at the state and national levels, and increasingly at the local level is now, by and large, simply a ritual without substance. Certainly, "one man, one vote" still exists, but it ultimately means nothing. Money rules this country, not its citizens.

Sadly, most people seem to be content with the ritual, the myth. As Fox Mulder used to say on the late, lamented X-Files television show, "the truth is out there," for anyone that cares to open up their eyes and look. The above linked story is only one of thousands of essays, books, documentaries, and news reports that reveal the usurpation of our precious democracy. I understand how the multifaceted propaganda and thought control system that plagues our nation functions, but I still have a great deal of difficulty accepting how absolutely successful and dominant that system seems to be.

All Americans have studied the concept and value of democracy in school. Why do I feel like I am one of but a few who remember those lessons?

Thomas Jefferson is weeping in his grave.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$