“You can’t get rich in politics unless you are a crook.” -President Harry S. Truman
The first president of the United States, George Washington, warned long ago concerning those who represent the American people that “few men have the virtue to withstand the highest bidder.”
As we take a look at what is happening in the arena of politics today, we can see that his warnings have been largely ignored by the people that he was addressing.
Today, Americans are betrayed on a daily basis by corrupt politicians, and that with a kiss (Luke 22:48).
To prove the point, have you ever wondered about the politicians who are to serve “We the people” enter office with little to nothing and before you know it, they have garnered great wealth? As a matter of fact, 268 of the 534 members are millionaires. One has to ask the question, who are they working for, especially knowing that their salaries do not match their accumulated wealth.
How is it that America has experienced so much un-godly and un-constitutional change (Proverbs 24:21) over the last 50 years in this country? Yet, we wonder why America is being turned into hell (Psalm 9:17).
Perhaps it is because there have been senators in this government that have been serving themselves, as well as special interests groups that have literally been conspiring against the American people for years such as Robert C. Byrd (D-WV). Don’t forget about Daniel K. Inouye who served 49 years, Storm Thurmond 47 years, Edward Kennedy 46 years, Patrick J. Leahy 42 years, and the list goes on and on.
I can just here the media-minded, modern day conservative say, “This is not right!” or “Where did you get this information from? Go ahead and back it up Bradlee!”
I say, “I always have in the past, and so I will do again.”
Here is a list of politicians that have admitted that money controls politics.
• Jesse Unruh, Speaker of the California Assembly in the 1960s and California State Treasurer in the 1970s and 80s. He said,
“Money is the mother’s milk of politics.”
“[T]he millionaire class and the billionaire class increasingly own the political process, and they own the politicians that go to them for money. … we are moving very, very quickly from a democratic society (America is a Republic), one person, one vote, to an oligarchic form of society, where billionaires would be determining who the elected officials of this country are.”
• Socialist Bernie Sanders, US senator from Vermont, said many similar things, such as, “I think many people have the mistaken impression that Congress regulates Wall Street. … The real truth is that Wall Street regulates the Congress.”
In other words, the dog is not wagging the tail, the tail is, in fact, wagging the dog.
• Vice President Joe Biden said “You have to go where the money is. Now where the money is, there’s almost always implicitly some string attached. … It’s awful hard to take a whole lot of money from a group you know has a particular position then you conclude they’re wrong [and] vote no.”
• “Today’s whole political game, run by an absurdist’s nightmare of moneyed elites, is ridiculous – a game in which corporations are people and money is magically empowered to speak; candidates trek to the corporate suites and secret retreats of the rich, shamelessly selling their political souls.” – Jim Hightower, former Democratic agricultural commissioner of Texas.
• “People tell me all the time that our politics in Washington are broken and that multimillionaires, billionaires and big corporations are calling all the shots … it’s hard not to agree.” — Russ Feingold, three-term Democratic senator from Wisconsin, in 2015 announcing he’s running for the Senate again.
• “Lobbyists and career politicians today make up what I call the Washington Cartel. … [They] on a daily basis are conspiring against the American people. … Career politicians’ ears and wallets are open to the highest bidder.” — Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
• “I can legally accept gifts from lobbyists unlimited in number and in value … As you might guess, what results is a corruption of the institution of Missouri government, a corruption driven by big money in politics.” — Missouri State Sen. Rob Schaaf
• “When you start to connect the actual access to money, and the access involves law enforcement officials, you have clearly crossed a line. What is going on is shocking, terrible.” – James E. Tierney, former attorney general of Maine.
• “There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money and I can’t remember what the second one is.” — Mark Hanna, William McKinley’s 1896 presidential campaign manager and later senator from Ohio, in 1895.
• “Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government, owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.” — 1912 platform of the Progressive Party, founded by former president Theodore Roosevelt.
• “I had a nice talk with Jack Morgan [i.e., banker J.P. Morgan, Jr.] the other day and he seemed more worried about [Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Rexford] Tugwell’s speech than about anything else, especially when Tugwell said, ‘From now on property rights and financial rights will be subordinated to human rights.’ … The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson … The country is going through a repetition of Jackson’s fight with the Bank of the United Stated — only on a far bigger and broader basis.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt in a 1933 letter to Edward M. House.
Listen to what Daniel Webster said to the American people only to reinforce Presidents George Washington and Harry S. Truman’s statements:
“I apprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing. Make them intelligent, and they will be vigilant; give them the means of detecting the wrong, and they will apply the remedy.”
Remember, America, prevention is better than cure (Isaiah 26:9).
Corrupt Politicians
The Good, Bad and the righteous
© 2017 Bradlee Dean – All Rights Reserved
