There is no corruption

A list of Bush and Republican failures ...

Lied about WMD.

Unilaterally invaded a sovereign nation without provocation and justification.

Lied during State of the Union speech re: Niger Uranium.

Responsible for pre-9/11 intelligence failures in White House, CIA, FBI.

Allowed 9-11 murderers to remain free while diverting precious military and financial resources to his vanity war in Iraq.

Lied about Saddam/bin Laden connection.

Turned Iraq into a terrorist breeding ground.

Lied about nation-building.

Opposed creation of 9-11 Commission and Homeland Security Department.

Disrespected and alienated the U.S. from French, German and other key allies.

Lied to Americans about the real cost of war.

Fostered an environment of torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

Lined Halliburton's pockets in Afghanistan and Iraq with fat no-bid contracts.

Under-manned and under-equipped our armed forces in Iraq, resulting in unnecessary death and injuries.

Ignored the nuclear build-up in both Iran and N.Korea; marginalized Kim Jong Il.

Shunned Kyoto Treaty.

Lied about effects of man-made pollutants on the environment to support corporate pals.

Lied about the insolvency of Social Security.

Gave huge cuts to the wealthiest taxpayers.

Lied about true cost of health care bill.

Lied about Free Trade stand.

Bitterly divided the nation along religious, party and sexual preference lines.

Guilty of numerous cronyism appointments (Homeland Security, Supreme Court, etc)

Rewarded failures of Condi Rice and other cronies with key promotions.

Dreadful energy policies lead to record gas and oil prices.

Responsible for the largest debt in U.S. history.

Colossal failure of preparedness, rescue and relief during Hurricane Katrina.

Fostered a culture of corruption among GOP and top leadership (Tom Delay, etc).

Allowed Donald Rumsfeld to keep job despite utter failure in Iraq.

Presided over the U.S.'s lowest popularity throughout the world.

Saw No Child Left Behind fail.

Lied last week about Iraqi troop strength during Saturday radio address. Directly contradicted by testimony given earlier in the week by Gen. Abizaid.

Colossal failure of preparedness for the transition of Medicare Part D.

Allegations of fraud surrounding the 2000 and 2004 elections.

Not elected by a majority of the popular vote in 2000.

Bush's lied when he said, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

Guess you don't like the Constitution. Thought not. The libertarians hate the document.
Jon Albrecht Dixfield

50% of health insurace today is a public option. Try to close down Medicare, Medicaid, Military , and Federal Health insurance. Just try. The polls are pretty damn close. And out west. I refer to my second sentance. Not enough in the Republican South is there support for ending public options.
Jon Albrecht Dixfield

Glad you think the entire nation wants a public option. Go out west, no public option out here. But then consider the polls and the number of individuals asked to participate, very small and usually select to slant the way the pollster wants. Keep your medicare, oh that's right, many states can't even find dr that will accept that, plus the money that they are going to take from it. Keep your public option to yourself.

One man's special interest is another man's corruption. So Mr. Denison, do you describe everyone you disagree with as being corrupt? If you do, you're not atypical in today's Republican Party.

Main Entry: corrupt
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French or Latin; Anglo-French, from Latin corruptus
Date: 14th century

1 a : morally degenerate and perverted : depraved b : characterized by improper conduct

The Health Care Reform national debate is a perfect example of this. The vast majority of Americans want a check and balance placed on insurance companies by establishing a robust public option and repeal of the anti-trust exemption for them. Yet it appears that both will fail. Why? because of the exterordinary power that 50 years of anti-trust exemptions have given the insurance companies, their great wealth, their large number of often wealthy employees, their concentration of employees, their associated companies and other factors.
Jon Albrecht Dixfield

Mr. Denison's letter is inspired by a thory current in the libertarian circles that government must become corrupt as it intervenes in the marketplace. This theory has no fact to support it only the mind games of a dysfunctional economist. We can easily point to specific individuals who have been corrupt - Cunningham who extorted $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors and Jefferson just convicted of accepting $478,000 in bribes from companiesthat want to do business in Africa. But the venality of a few corrupt men does not establish that "government is corrupt" or that government intervention produces by the laws of nature corruption"
What is really going on here is people don't understand our government, how it works, how it should work, and their proper role in all of that. They don't understand our Constitution or our history. Mr. Denison exposes his real feelings in his last sentence - "we have so much control of government." It is his powerlessness that motivates his frustration. Power in a republic is asymetric - some people have great deal of power some little. That is caused by the unregulated growth of business and the accumulation of wealth not just of individuals but of corporations. The concentratin of wealth without proper check and balances leaves people like Denison and myself and most of the people of Maine with little opportunity to "control government". The solution is not to look toward "corruption" but applying the very successful principles of our Constitution to our economic lives.
Jon Albrecht Dixfield