The media have no intention of reporting this connection between a group in which Obama has been extremely active, and in which he wields significant power, and the incredible social and economic burden that will result for not only our generation, but the next. These people have also indirectly placed our national security in jeopardy.
Yet even 'fair and balanced' FoxNews still busies itself with fluff stories, or at most stories that are significantly less relevant than this historically unprecedented betrayal of the public trust.
Thank God for the internet. At least this way we can attempt to inform those who are willing to expend more effort than sitting in front of their televisions in order to know the truth (I estimate that portion of the population to be approximately two percent).
If Americans really understood how thoroughly they have been screwed, the roads to Washington D.C. would be jammed with people looking to adorn the lamp posts with swinging bureaucrats and Congress people.
The only reason the majority of Americans might react in that way would be because this particular affront hits them in the pocketbook. It reverts to the old 'It's the economy, stupid!' mindset. Which, in this case, is valid, but I have always cringed at that concept. There are many more blatant usurpations of power over which we should be revolting that are far more egregious than those that hit us in the pocketbook. But if that's what it would take for the lamp post/swinging thing to occur, so be it. Wrong reason, right reaction.
~ joanie
I thoroughly agree, but until the bread is gone and the circuses are inadequate to sate the masses, Caesar will rule.
What we're seeing with Palin's popularity is that millions and millions of people at the bottom are fed up with the institutionalized corruption, and are showing up enmass, many for the first time in thirty or forty years, to vote for a real pro-American candidate. Whether McCain stays for a complete term matters little. Palin is the energizing element in the campaign, and McCain seems to recognize this. I believe she will be more influential as VP than any other VP in our lifetimes. And I also strongly believe that she will subsequently be President. She is the right person, with the right message, with the right motivations, for this nation, at this particular time in history.
The people who lead in times of constructive change may come from anywhere in the spectrum, but they must lead from the top to bring about meaningful reforms (and they have to be a real person; not media-created vaporware). Anyone here who has tried to bring about improvements in a business, or an IT shop, or in business or IT processes, being led by mindless, inept bimbos should easily recognize the futility of trying to manage change from the bottom. It doesn't work.
So what does this have to do with unemployed or underemployed computer scientists? Everything. IT projects and IT jobs are overhead, expenditures that can easily be trimmed in tough economic times (you'll have to look back 80 years or more to find a "worse" time, long before .Net). In tough times, core business functions will get all the investment, even if they have to work with paper and pencil. In general, technology projects and innovations are reserved for periods of growth or projected growth.
Many people question what I mean by "institutionalized corruption", and whether it has ever been any different. Corruption has always been present in our politics since the nation's founding, but has cycled from bad to worse, to not so bad. The past two or three decades have brought us to this current period of "really, really pervasive corruption", in government, politics, markets, business, academia, and any other sizable group of people in society.
What is ironic about the question is that it would be asked in discussion groups where concerned citizens are dedicated to improving the political direction of the country, or on a job board where so many qualified job candidates find themselves locked out of regular employment, begging through layers and layers of corrupt recruiting firms and corrupt HR "professionals" for a few crumbs of work.
Brokered employment (where the fruits of one person's work is divided among multiple layers of non-producing thieves) is the worst form of anti-capitalist corruption (next to outright slavery); even worse than multi-generational dependency on socialist government programs.
In a real free market, providers of services would have the unemcumbered right and ability to negotiate directly with the consumers of those services, without the bureaucratic interference of any IRS rules; without the overthrow of immigration controls that served the country well for its first 200 years; without the restraint of legal free trade of services created by the multiple layers of corrupt recruiting and hiring practices.
If corruption were not so pervasive, the discussions on this board would be about making real contacts, getting the right people in the right positions, designing and developing software to make honest businesses more productive and profitable in a growing economy. Instead every single discussion on this board deals with the corruption of brokered labor, manipulated salaries and benefits, massive work-visa fraud, illegal non-compete clauses in make-believe unilateral contracts, crooks, crooks, and more crooks.
betrayal of the public trust, probably needs to be followed by this statement, “by unelected bureaucrats”. If I’m not mistaken the same thing happened to the American Indian Trust funds, pension funds, various retirement accounts. Not to mention, earmarks, subsidies, social security, and more.
The greed, theft, graft and corruption in this nation have risen to monumental levels unchecked by much of anything. If we don’t get a handle on congress, the courts, and the Executive branch of Government and hack them down to twenty percent or less of today’s levels we will only reap the whirlwind to greater and greater degrees.
JMHO.