From Dog Catcher to Congress

All encompassing corruption in America 2.0

This is another in a continuing series of previously published articles. Please subscribe to my regular Substack “I Protest”: https://donaldjeffries.substack.com/

Right now, our “representatives” in Congress are holding hearings on the protest rally held in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021. The one that has been wildly misrepresented as an “insurrection.” The one where “armed insurgents” had no guns. The one where “people died” are inaccurately blamed on the protesters.

There is not a single voice in those hearings that contradicts this sinfully false narrative. No one to even partially defend the political prisoners who’ve been held without all due process behind bars for over a year. No one to point out how these show hearings, in and off themselves, make it impossible for any of them to ever get a fair trial. They’ve already been denied a speedy trial. And bail. Been thrown in solitary confinement and beaten. So it’s hardly surprising.

Our War for Independence was fought primarily for two purposes. One, on the principle that all people have a right to consent to those who govern them. But the consent of the governed was shattered forever by Abraham Lincoln, when he forced almost a million Americans to kill each other, to prove that the southern states who no longer consented, had no right to consent. The other guiding principle was “no taxation without representation.” Those being taxed by a government must have the power to control it, through their elected representatives.

Each election for as long as I can remember, over 90 percent of incumbents are returned to office. Since public opinion polls consistently show that Congress as a whole has something like a 6 percent approval rating, this would indicate that the populace is not satisfied with the representation they’re getting. Boastful form letters and midnight pay raises don’t invoke visions of the Declaration of Independence. Either way, the electoral process is lost. Either they aren’t counting our votes, or the majority of our fellow Americans are incomprehensibly stupid.

If the absurd COVID narrative and unconstitutional lockdown proved anything, it was that elected officials at all levels are hopelessly corrupt and incompetent. We never knew there were Lori Lightfoots and Gretchen Whitmers before. The BLM riots of 2020 showed us that the police are politically compromised too, and will stand down in the face of violent destruction if ordered to. The Supreme Court has ruled more than once, by the way, that the police are under no obligation to protect the public. Keep that in mind the next time you think about calling them.

I’ve pretty much finished Hidden History 3: More From the American Memory Hole, and one of the things I want to include in Hidden History 4 is an examination of local and municipal corruption all over this country. I have a friend who’s experienced it in Missouri. Someone else contacted me about the awful things that happened to him at the hands of police and local officials in a part of Iowa. Yet another woman, who was a Columbine whistleblower, lives in fear of the authorities in Littleton, Colorado.

In my own county, back in the early 1990s, young Tommy Burkett was found dead under very strange circumstances. As happens far too often, police ruled it a suicide when the evidence suggested otherwise. Even after the television show Unsolved Mysteries covered the case, his parents could get no satisfaction. I corresponded with both of them, who fought valiantly for the truth, and even started a web site where people all over American shared similar horror stories regarding law enforcement. Both of them died way too young, and I find it hard to believe that was a coincidence.

Police corruption alone has touched millions of lives. I had a distant cousin who was shot and killed by a cop outside a bar in Washington, D.C., probably forty years ago. The reason? He had locked his keys in his car, was probably drunk and maybe mouthy, and was blocking the cop’s squad car. Multiple witnesses saw it, but I don’t believe anything happened to the officer. All they have to do is say they were “threatened;” he was reaching for something, etc. They are utterly above the law they enforce.

Where does the corruption end and the incompetence begin? I’ve written about my escapades with Social Security on behalf of my brother. I still think they shortchanged his last payment, but it’s simply too hard to contact them to bother. On behalf of my brother and niece, I’ve had to contact Medicare, Medicaid, Social Services, Legal Aid, and various housing programs, just to name a few. They are all the same. Rude, abrasive representatives who also are stupendously ignorant. They invariably route you to some other government agency, which will give you the same “service.”

My local power company is not only incredibly bad at keeping the power on, they are incredibly slow in responding to all the unnecessary, Third World-style outages. They are also impossible to contact, but undoubtedly the same brilliant government workers would offer you the familiar brand of “help.” Virginia’s Department of Transportation just gets worse and worse every year, in terms of plowing roads when it snows. They’ve just taken to closing major highways in blizzards now. I guess they got tired of sending out trucks to sit idly on the sides of roads, or drive along with their plows up in the air. I seem to have been the only one who noticed.

I’ve even had trouble with my trash pickup. Many times, they just ignore my trash and collect on both sides of me. That really plays into my persecution complex. Calling them gives you…well, you already know. Every government agency, and every business, makes you wade through that excruciating menu process (remember, our menu options have changed), and then eventually still wait for a long time on hold, while they play lame Muzak for you. The fact that no business decides to scrap this automated menu, and advertise “With us, you will talk to a human being!” tells you all you need to know about “competitive” capitalism.

The incompetence extends to everything. We had a new roof put on last year. The company was horrendous, causing damage to the bricks on my chimney. They wouldn’t give me any restitution for that. Work we’ve had work done on our front porch, the new driveway we paid for, some repairs we had done on our large screened in porch- all the same story. It wasn’t done competently, and the companies involved didn’t want to accept responsibility. So it starts with incompetence, and then the corruption kicks in. The failure to address their own mistakes. Sounds like government to me. I don’t remember the last time I had some work done, or even purchased a product, where I was pleasantly surprised and completely satisfied.

The last few major appliances we’ve purchased have been lemons. Again- try getting them to acknowledge this. Try getting anyone to honor a warranty. Refrigerators used to last decades. Our latest has never worked right. “Bumper to bumper” warranty that all cars come with? Maybe it’s just me, but when something goes wrong, somehow it isn’t covered by that warranty. As I’ve pointed out to the blank stares of car dealership employees, isn’t everything in a car between the bumpers? So it’s the familiar pattern; cheaply built product that predictably fails, and the company tries to justify not covering it under the warranty.

My neighboring county of Loudon County, Virginia, was the epicenter of the recent angry parents vs. entitled school board members battles. I haven’t heard about any angry parents recently. Did those schools stop teaching critical race theory, or having transgender story hour? Did they lift all the mask mandates? Will any of those arrogant little tyrants be voted out of their positions? Forgive me if I’m not optimistic. I was uncharacteristically hopeful that if they could effect meaningful reforms at that level, then maybe we would see it trickle upwards.

It should be obvious by now that change has to come from the bottom up. Congress is more entrenched in power than the members of the Politburo were at the height of the Soviet Union. Both major political parties control the electoral process, and are committed to the unresponsive type of “representation” the American people have grown accustomed to. We’re like a collective battered spouse, afraid to turn away from abusive Republicrats, and still falling for their laughably empty rhetoric.

I don’t know any dog catchers. Do they even still exist? I always use them to illustrate the bottom of the power structure. Dog catchers, after all, did have power over dogs. I don’t know, dogs are pretty entitled creatures now. My golden retriever pretty much runs our house, and all the other dog owners I know are in the same situation. But the point remains. Is there even a really low level government official, that has some kind of power, who isn’t corrupt or incompetent? Or insane? Who is remotely accountable to the people that pay his salary?

In private industry, lower level workers have become lackadaisical. The customer is never right in America 2.0. Customer service has become as meaningless as “satisfaction guaranteed.” But who can blame them? All retail workers are paid ridiculously low wages, with virtually no benefits. And usually under tense, unfriendly working conditions. You can find lots of real authoritarian excess in your local fast- food outlet. The attitudes of some of those managers is indistinguishable from that of mayors like Lori Lightfoot. Drunk with their miniscule authority. Power corrupts.

Restaurants have passed along their payroll to their patrons. They can legally pay their servers well below the already ludicrous minimum wage, and customers are obligated to make up the difference with tips. I tip well, because I feel sorry for these hard workers, but really it makes no sense. But then again, the grocery stores have most customers now using self-checkout. They used to pay an outstanding wage for cashiers. As I’ve noted, I know a guy who was a cashier at Safeway in the early 1980s. He was making $17 an hour then, the equivalent of $112,000 a year now. Safeway now starts their cashiers at around $10 an hour. Or they simply get you doing this job for them. And thinking it’s an improvement for you.

We’ve reached full insanity mode now, which just makes the corruption and incompetence that much more deadly to the public. When every private and public institution is committed to the “science” that men can give birth, we have reached critical mass. How do you have a conversation with someone who believes that? And these same “Woke” warriors ridicule “conspiracy theorists.” So not only is the corruption and incompetence institutionalized, so is the madness. Everywhere.

I’ll still keep talking about, and writing about, all these things. But it’s because I really can’t help myself. I’ve been doing it for over forty years now. It’s a way of life. But I’m under no delusions that I have an answer for this overwhelming CIM (corruption, incompetence, and madness). We can’t vote ourselves out of it. We can’t utilize our horrific injustice system. We can’t run to the media, who are paid very handsomely to defend CIM. We can try to be good to each other, and set the right example. My idea about John Doe clubs might really work.

We still have the power to make a statement. To get their attention. Now is the best time there has ever been for a gasoline boycott. If everyone reading this tells ten of their family members and friends, and all agree not to buy gas let’s say for one week. Let’s pick next week, starting June 27, that would amount to thousands of people. It couldn’t hurt, and it’s risk-free. You’re under no obligation to buy gas ever, let alone on a particular date. And with these record-setting prices, what’s not to like?