The top three scandals that come to mind, as I finish writing this post, is the Watergate Scandal, which involved President Nixon leading to his resignation, and the Iran Contra Scandal that involved President Reagan’s White House and last the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal with President Clinton.
In addition, if you want to learn of political murders in the United States, I refer you to Wikipedia’s list of Assassinated American Politicians. At the bottom of this list are links to United States federal judges killed in office and US Congress members killed or wounded in office.
Meanwhile, can we believe everything we read or hear from the media since conservative Republicans often let us know that the media in the US, especially when it reports on corruption and scandals of Republicans, is controlled by a liberal bias, and the GOP does not mention that it was Republican President Ronald Reagan that vetoed the Fairness Doctrine that would have required the media to balance its reporting by allowing both sides of an issue equal space/time to explain each respective point of view.
Then in 1991, another Republican President, George H. W. Bush, threatened another veto if Congress attempted to bring The Fairness Doctrine back.
You Can Buy and Sell Anything!
When the Fairness Doctrine was in place, citizen groups used it as a tool to expand speech and debate. For instance, it prevented stations from allowing only one side to be heard on ballot measures. Source: Common Dreams.org
What does this teach us about politics and honesty in the United States?
And last, the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota reported on a comparison of false statements during political campaigns in the United States and said, “PolitiFact assigns ‘Pants on Fire’ or ‘False’ ratings to 39 percent of Republican statements compared to just 12 percent of Democrats since January 2010,” which may indicate that Republicans lie three times more than Democrats but both still make false statements.
In conclusion, if we follow the advice of Jesus Christ when he confronted the mob that was ready to stone a woman accused of adultery, then the United States as a nation with almost 247 million Christians does not have the right to condemn China as the cover of Time Magazine’s May 14, 2012 issue did with “The People’s Republic of Scandal – Murder. Lies. Corruption. Can China face the truth?”
The real question should be, “Are most American’s capable of facing the truth and dealing with it?”
What do you think?
Return to The real “INFAMOUS” role model of scandals and corruption – Part 2 or start with Part 1
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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Also, now that we’ve had our near fail moment, I’m waiting for China’s bubble to pop and praying the USD will rocket back up in value along with opportunity. I still wish I would’ve jumped on the train for online learning years ago and I wish I would’ve gotten a job in China right out of highschool while I still had the chance before they changed the rules to require BA degrees. All the opportunities I missed, and the ones I took that never bloomed into anything. I’m not sure what I can get out of this current trip since the new laws on foreigners are going into effect next July. Fines double, and laws are apparently going to be enforced.
Current Trip? When?
2012 is current right?
What do you mean?
I got the plan about halfway. I’m sure you’ve heard of Hiroshima and Osaka. Unfortunately there’s a small wrench in the works. My previous excursion I might have gotten off easy from immigration, but that means squat to the cute goddess that at the gates passing final judgement after looking over my expensive sticker stating that I asked permission to enter. Whether or not I do is up to the gate guard. From there the opportunities are endless. This time I have more legit connections for jobs, and I dont have to worry anymore about finding ways to fix something that’s already broken.
I said “current” because I’ve built the machine and the gears have begun to turn. Last few times she sputtered and belched, but this time I’ve learned from my mistakes of the past. 😉 It was hard work getting here and took quite a few old shirts that were sacrificed to the grease of the machine, but she runs much better this time. 😛
So, you are now in China?
Unfortunately not yet. When I can say “yes” to your question I will be able to breathe a sigh of relief for getting through the forest of low branches. I’m hesitant, but I trust you enough to say the next few weeks will be absolutely crazy. Mysteriously the threads of fate are clearing my schedule for me. My goal almost a year ago was to reach 5,000. What would you know I nearly reached that goal and will soon go beyond it when I get the next stipend from my student loan. My job delivering food switched companies so either way I lost my job. Bridgestone is only a summer gig. Mom’s selling her vehicles for one single gas hog pickup with a snow blade, so since I will not be there to drive my car I can hand the keys over to her until snow falls. My Kindle also mysteriously froze and died on me around the time I took up following the trail of sir Robert Hart and Captain Patridge.
I’ll be in LA in about 2 wks, for a short couple of hours. I need to bounce out at 9pm, and jump back in for an early morning flight to Tokyo. Praying this bus to Chicago that apparently gives me 4 hrs b4 my flight out of O’hare is enough time. I’ll have to jump the subway and buzz through security.
I’ve got a friend in Kyoto going to her family summer house in Hiroshima, so maybe I’ll have a tour guide. If I need a tour guide to find a 120,000 sq m park in the center of town, then maybe I need better glasses. I hear Osaka has 3 things. The ccp consulate, Osaka castle, and the “slow boat to china”. I hear they’re net bars are an upgrade compared to what I was staying in China. In Japan a person can rent an entire cubicle with a comfy chair to sleep in.
When I get back, I’ve got a plan rather than to run around like a chicken without a head. Tom always says, “You always miss the opportunities and are never here when there is one.” Well I hear a new visa law going into place next July that will be enforced and could be a bad thing for some foreigners. Not only that, but Iv’e got a friend that had a nice offer from a wealthy chinese man he’s known 6 yrs when he left Detroit. He gave up the offer and chased tail to Suzhou where his gf busted his laptop from jealousy over his multiple friends on QQ. He’s heading home in december because he’s afraid to work without a degree and he wants to double up on school. So I’ve got a small window to go there, drag him by the shirt collar, and talk to him Midwestern to Midwestern to get his rear to Changsha and explain to his friend why he’s chickening out and let me meet him as I might want to work there. My friends over there miss me more than the ones here. We had fun and visited many places over there, the ones here only want to play computer games for a few hours before leaving back to their wives or beer kegs.
I’d prefer the bird not to sing just yet, because I was hoping to make it a surprise for the father-to-be, and previous excursions have left me battling in the trenches against the threats from family. First time they boot me out of the house and I scrambled around town to grab the last vacant room which had no ac. Second time I ran abroad, they nearly boot me out. This time, I think they’d hang my head on a plaque on the wall alongside grannies 12 gauge. 😛 No, they’d probably kick me out for good and tell me to go live with min a corn field.
There is also a fine line too, some corruption and lies are good for the nation. Imagine what would happen if Area 51 flung open their doors and welcomed everyone in with open arms! In 3 months we’d be blown to bits by our own weapons, recreated in Russia or another country. I’d like to use that example and apply it to the American youth. Sometimes it’s better if people dont know the true plans, unfortunately they eventually find out at some point and will blow a blood vessel because they hang onto their old world opinions and refuse to embrace the reality beyond our borders.
True, I run into people all the time that refuse to believe anything that does not fit with what they want to believe.
If China achieves its goals in the next decade or two and ends up with a middle class of 600 – 800 million, a space station in orbit, a base on the Moon and explorers on the way to Mars, I wonder what all the China bashers will say then.
For more than thirty years China’s critics in the West have been predicting failure and for thirty years, they have been wrong.
Only time will tell.
Of course, all they have to do is be right once, and they will say, “See, I told you so.”
Morning off work finally. yea, as with anybody, all it takes is 1 slip up as proof that somebody is a clutz. My personal opinion, people will continue to see things their way. It’ll be their eventual downfall, when politicians use that anger to grab supporters. Look at Obama or the other political figures. Do they really care about what happens in Timbuktu? Now if the people are upset and fear this new Egypt could spawn new terrorists, or if people are upset over the mexicans stealing the jobs…what does Obama do? He plays on that to get supporters. If he wins, he gets the throne for another 4 yrs. Now the question is, what if he bashes China to gain supporters? Well, what they dont notice is we’re all so focused on bashing china to pieces when we haven’t figured out what’s going to happen when our clothes stop coming into market, or other such items we take for granted in our daily lives.
“Well, what they don’t notice is we’re all so focused on bashing china to pieces when we haven’t figured out what’s going to happen when our clothes stop coming into market, or other such items we take for granted in our daily lives.”
It’s already happening. I read some stats the other day that said there are 600,000 jobs in the US that cannot be filled. These jobs are in the manufacturing industry. There reason for this is because manufacturers are starting to return to the US (as labor costs go up in China) but there are not enough people in the US trained to work the machines these companies use. When most of those jobs left the US (starting seriously under President Ronald Reagan due to more GOP tax cuts for industries) the need to teach those skills went with them and the schools started to shut down classes such as machine shop.
According to the piece I read on this, these are all high paying jobs that may earn as much as $100,000 annually in the blue collar sector that does not require a college education but only a high school degree. The piece also said that many Americans are unwilling to go back to school to train for these types of jobs because they don’t want to do them. Why? It doesn’t fit the childhood American dream they were encouraged to follow by parents, peers, friends relatives and sometimes teachers.
Follow your childhood dream and it will come true has been the average parenting practice in this country starting with the self-esteem movement in the 1960s. In the 19th and early 20th century, parents focused on different values that the average parent today doesn’t even think of today.
I have researched and written on this topic extensively over at my Blog on education and parenting at http://crazynormaltheclassroomexpose.com/
With the raise your child with HIGH self esteem came a change of values in American culture that does not value the drudgery work as much as it did before and placed “do what you want so you feel good and are happy all the time” above those old values that made America what it is today. The United States is now running on borrowed steam from our ancestors that lived with a different system of values, which may explain why the national debt is $16 Trillion and the United States came within a whisker of Great Depression that would make the one in the early 20th century look like child’s play.
Have you read the nonfiction, award winning book or seen the movie of “Too Big to Fail“? I recommend it to see how close the US came to a TOTAL economic collapse worse than the Great Depression where 25% of the workforce was unemployed.
I suspect that the Chinese do not care if manufactering jobs return to the US because China’s long-term goals are to transition from an economy that depends on exports to one that grows on consumerism at home, and that is why China’s goals are to have a middle class in the next 15 to 20 years that has 600 – 800 million people in it so China’s manufacturing base, which the world helped build, makes products for their own consumers so China will no longer depend on people in other countries to buy “Made in China”.
In fact, that is already happening. I read that new manufactering being built inland in Western China already sells all of its products to Chinese consumers in the growing middle class. If China succeeds, in twenty years it will be difficult for an American to blame China for lost jobs.
Actually we dont teach “skills” anymore besides how to use a computer and become an office zombie. Years ago my grandfather learned about general car maintenance from his father. Just like my uncle’s and dad learned farming from my grandfather. Today, everything is by the book which is going to cost a chunk of change. When people go to college and get degrees, they were taught that a degree will guarantee you a high paying job with little physical labor involved. A kid today with a degree, can easily become the manager of my stepfather whose been down at the grain processing facility for 30 yrs. Not only that, but I think our creativity is gone. As one guy used to say, school today is a corrupt place. Before they taught you something, but in today’s world they prepare you for the big companies. In elementary school they teach according to specific state tests. There is no slowing down to let others catch up. Those that get lost in the confusion, never go to college, and end up working at a warehouse driving a fork truck or packaging pre-built pieces for an office desk. Those that manage to pass the tests, they get scholarships from the local businesses to attend college, and they intern for those businesses, and when they graduate they are offered a job at those businesses.
Too Big to Fail. One of my favorite documentaries. Amazingly, we did that. Not a terrorist, not a rogue nation, we create that problem. We barely managed to fix it. Unfortunately, if it happens again, we are more than likely s.o.l.
China’s already preparing their middle class. My estimate is the elite and middle class will be along the coast. The middle and lower class will be mixed inland. Already China’s made a statement that they have 2 problems. First, the beautiful coastal cities everybody visits and attracts foreign tourists are all heavily polluted from the major factories. Secondly, the provinces of mid-western China (Guangxi, Guizhou, Xinjiang, etc) are not very profitable because they’re basically sleepy farm villages. In China, being a farmer is opposite of the American farmer. The crops are mainly used for food, where as our corn and soybeans are found practically everywhere and drives up the value of such crops. Since China is stuck with poor farmers that can barely pay the bills, the government plans to move all the factories inland to those provinces and provide work to these peasants. It’s a win-win situation for them, even though I’d hate to see the terraced farming, amazing old villages, and valleys turn into a massive factory kicking out plastic tupperware by the hour.
Old fashioned job training may be coming back unless the GOP blocks what Obama wants to do. The GOP has blocked or attempts to block everything else so I wouldn’t be surprised. All the GOP cares about is lower taxes for the top 1%.
February 13, 2012, the NYT reported, “As part of his budget, President Obama on Monday proposed an $8 billion Community College to Career Fund, with the goal of training two million workers for well-paying jobs in high-demand industries.”
“Mr. Obama has for years sought to expand resources for community colleges, the main source of education and job training for most low-income Americans. In the American Graduation Initiative he announced in 2009, Mr. Obama proposed to bolster the work force by producing millions more community college graduates over the next decade. But instead of the $10 billion for community college that the administration’s original plan called for, community colleges got just $2 billion for job training.”
However, now Obama is trying to get it off the ground again during an election year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/education/obama-to-propose-community-college-aid.html
Scandals and corruption. Every country has it and thanks to Assange for being the medium to bring the embassy wires to light. I find it funny that our government has a price tag on his head. The irony is he hires top Chinese hackers to work for him, and they dig up dirt on the western world. They could easily bash China to bits and eventually begin a revolt, but they dont. I believe the reason is everyone already knows China is corrupt.