Votes for Sale - by Jack Abramoff

[kpete]

Votes for Sale

Jack Abramoff: "During the years I was lobbying, I purveyed millions of my own and clients' dollars to congressmen, especially at such decisive moments. I never contemplated that these payments were really just bribes, but they were. Like most dissembling Washington hacks, I viewed these payments as legitimate political contributions, expressions of my admiration of and fealty to the venerable statesman I needed to influence."

"Outside our capital city (and its ever-prosperous contiguous counties), the campaign contributions of special interests are rightly seen as nothing but bribes. The purposeful dissonance of the political class enables congressmen to accept donations and solemnly recite their real oath of office: My vote is not for sale for a mere contribution. They are wrong. Their votes are very much for sale, only they don't wish to admit it. The reason they don't feel they are being bought is that the interaction seems so normal. In fact, were they not public servants, it would be very normal."

MORE:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/07/i-know-the-congressional-culture-of-corruption/260081/
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/07/24/votes_for_sale.html

[Ezlivin]

1. Good information from a known insider

It's this sort of "whistle blowing" (though after the fact) that can effect change.

He'd better stay out of small aircraft, however.

[Zambero]

3. Ralph Reed would not be too too happy to hear this utterance

He managed to escape prison and is still very much the practice of bribery for personal enrichment that Abramoff so eloquently described.

[hifiguy]

2. I saw Abramoff on Bill Maher a few weeks back.

Some time in the Crowbar Hilton seems to have brought him into the light, and that is a good thing. He surely knows whereof he speaks.

[Taverner]

4. I think he had a Paul of Tarsus moment

Although I read somewhere it really hit him when he was making pizzas, and how small businesses really got the shit end of the stick.

[hifiguy]

5. Which is why jail is the appropriate place for the banksters.

When a guy as amoral as Abramoff was has the bulb come on over his head and he thinks "What the holy fuck was I DOING??" it can have a wide-ranging effect for good. But that moment comes most often after falling a very long ways into a very unpleasant place and accepting responsibility for one's actions.