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Damn FBI/CIA really planting the crumbs leading up to some sort of 9/11 2.0: nuclear boogaloo and the resulting total lockdown
This time Saudi royals will have nukes...
The TSA is pure security theatre and anyone who thinks otherwise shouldn't be trusted. They're either incompetent, ignorant, or in the tank fully for the worst types of people
It should be pretty telling on the surface too that in the like ~100 years or so of flight (maybe like 75? for being available to "normal" civilians. Something like that anyway) there was ONE successful attack pulled off and suddenly the entire congress agreed "Yep! Lock that shit down!" (In the most incompetent and ineffective way possible).
Meanwhile there are like a solid dozen horrifying murder (really bad ones that catch media headlines) events every year, police brutality in the form of them executing people with guns, regular people going on rampages, etc. and not a peep is heard from one side except to maybe scream "How dare you!? Not right now! We can't talk about this!" and, well, dems have given that up too. Just another one of those cool little "out in the open corruption" things in the land of the free ™️ 🦅
When a lobby exists for something, oddly no laws get passed despite the public broadly desiring at least some legislation so they can send their kid to school and not worry about shootings. Maybe if some lobbyists start donating $30K per year to Ted Cruz (these people are always bought off extremely cheaply is another interesting aspect) he'll suddenly develop the opinion that ineffective, unnecessary, mandatory searches by the government to use a "required" (in certain circumstances) form of travel is pretty clearly ridiculous and violates at least the spirit of the law (4th amendment. Not going to get caught doing that circlejerk though. That's why Ted gets the big bucks. Let him jerk... or... well...)
Every time I see the donations accounts, I am astounded at how little politicians cost. Just goes to show they're already on the side of capital, and they just take a little bonus to do what they would've done for free.
Well, that is sort of the sad underlying truth to lobbying. They do it for cheap because they either fully agree or don't care. Supporting the status quo and "not caring" is functionally the same as agreeing in the end, so there you have it. These politicians were always going to hold these beliefs and cast these votes in favor of capital.
Not to say lobbying does nothing because it's pretty clear that it does. But it's not because of "bribes" necessarily (although of course they get those...). It's more like they already agree or are willing to cast a vote from the start. But corporations and special interest groups pay the small campaign fund donation fee to get a seat at the table and make their case explicit to the congressperson. They have now intertwined their fates by putting something (although small in the grand scheme) on the line. The politicians get to stick to their own internal ideological compass while also having a cheerleader in their ear letting them know someone out there supports this vote. And hey, your son is graduating from Harvard next year with his MBA and needs a job? How does an executive at Aetna or whatever sound? Maybe he can be CEO one day! Or a senator!
It's pretty easy to see why all of them fall into this shit eventually. If you're in a bubble disconnected from reality and all you hear is the opinions of the donors because they get the privilege of passing along some "sage advice" with their yearly max payment to the campaign and PACs that support you... it won't take long before you see them as your only friends and also the only ones being "nice" to you. They fund your campaigns, tell you you're really smart and doing great things. All the plebs do is tell you that you killed their mother when you voted to deregulate medical insurance further. Who wants to hear that shit? Write me the check, fly me to the condo next to a beach for a weekend, tell me why it's so important to vote yes on "liquify the children" bill, and let me go roast in the sun for a few hours.
Not to excuse the behavior of congress. Just to consider the reality that only those with strongly held convictions would he immune to that sort of corporate lobbying. Even then... the corrupting power and insanely unbalanced power corporations hold is incredible. PACs as well of course