Actor Jackie Chan calls U.S. ‘most corrupt’ country in the world

[cheapdate]

110. "You do not understand how the two things are symbiotic in nature."

Oh, really? I'm sorry to inform you that your conclusion is incorrect. I might say I'm curious how you arrived at it, but not really.

The topic raised in the OP was about political corruption in the United States.

In the preceding posts, I've talked about certain things that I believe illustrate the nature and form of corruption in the political process in the United States. I highlighted a number of specific examples.

On the other hand, you seem to be having, or trying to have a different conversation that speaks to other questions like, what are some things that are generally associated with corrupt governments, or what are some typical qualities of corrupt governments?

I'm not debating those questions. I was talking about corruption in the United States political process.

What I'm hearing is an argument that the absence of widespread violence and brutality in the United States negates the possibility that systemic corruption may exist on a grand scale, as I've argued it does. The premise would be that corruption can't exist without oppression, violence, and brutality.

If you accept that premise, and I don't, it would follow that to assert that corruption exists is to also assert that oppression, violence, and brutality exist. (Maybe that explains your confusion.)

(on edit: note that rejecting that premise does not exclude the possibility corruption may include oppression, violence, and brutality.)

It's almost surreal to me that the idea that we are facing a serious and profound problem in the United States with corruption of our political process, our government, and government officials would meet with such stiff opposition here on Democratic Underground.

As if the Wall Street bailout, the revolving door between lobbyists and capitol hill, "regulatory capture", Citizens United, the mind-blowing influence of lobbyists and powerful, monied interests on our political process, etc., etc., are inconsequential and the very suggestion that the scale of this corruption rivals anything else in the world is "not serious".

I'm not saying that American style corruption is the same as Chinese corruption. Everyone acknowledges China's corruption. It's in plain view. This quotation from Matt Taibbi gives a nice picture of American style corruption:

"The world's most powerful investment bank (Goldman Sachs) is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." - Matt Taibbi