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A Full Body Scan of American Corruption

Discussion in 'Political Debate & Discussion' started by poncho, Nov 22, 2010.

  1. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    In the United States, if a policeman stops you for a traffic violation, and you offer him a $20 bill to forget about the whole thing, you’ll likely end up in jail.

    But if you leave your Federal government job and go work as a consultant to the very industry you used to regulate, you won’t go to jail—you’ll grow rich. Very rich.

    Michael Chertoff is the poster boy for this institutionalized corruption going on in America today. He is not unique. He is not an outlier of any bell curve. If anything, Chertoff’s form of corruption is average—it’s ordinary. It’s what everyone is doing: Everything within the law, everything that the law says he ought to be doing—yet the net effect is a blatant corruption that is personally despicable, and socially disastrous.

    Michael Chertoff was the head of the Homeland Security Agency from February of 2005, to January of 2009. But after he left, he formed an outfit called The Chertoff Group—and was promptly hired by an obscure company called Rapiscan Systems.


    The Chertoff Group, according to their website, “provides strategic security advice and assistance, risk management strategy and business development solutions for commercial and government clients on a broad array of homeland and national security issues.”


    That sounds . . . impressively vague. Slippery as a greased stripper’s pole, actually. So let’s approach this a different way:


    What does Michael Chertoff do?

    FULL ARTICLE.

    This article has a few off color words in it.
     
    #1 poncho, Nov 22, 2010
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 22, 2010
  2. carpro

    carpro Well-Known Member
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    Demonizing Chertoff takes the attention off the real problem, or culprit , if you will.

    Put simply, he is a salesman hawking his product.

    No one has to buy it. But TSA did. And they're to blame for any problems that arise due to their purchase.
     
  3. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    This thread is about "american coruption" Chertoff is just a prime example.

    "Chertoff’s corruption is average and ordinary—in point of fact, I would say that Chertoff’s corruption is the model for the kind of corruption endemic in the United States: The Chertoff Corruption Model. The Chertoff Scheme. We see it with all sorts of departments and agencies. The military? Every retired general winds up a paid consultant for some weapons manufacturer or other. Same with Congerssional staffers, same with FDA scientists—hell, it’s the New American Way!

    It is indisputably legal—Chertoff is not breaking any law, as far as I know. Yet what he is doing is indisputably immoral and despicable nevertheless—Chertoff is preying on the citizenry’s fear and desire for impossible standard of safety, in order to enrich himself."

    Ain't they all?

    Kind of reminds me of those "message force multipliers". Remember those?

    They let everyone believe they were independent military analysts when in reality they were paid propagandists working for the pentagon and the war profiteers.

    America:Freedom To Fascism
     
    #3 poncho, Nov 22, 2010
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 22, 2010
  4. carpro

    carpro Well-Known Member
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    Baloney.

    Chertof is doing nothing illegal, immoral, or corrupt.

    He is simply selling a product.

    You need to check out the buyers. He can't make them buy.
     
  5. matt wade

    matt wade Well-Known Member

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    Are you seriously suggesting that attempting to bribe a police officer and working in an industry that you are qualified to work in are comparable?

    If an article starts off with stupid information such as this, why should anyone pay attention to the rest of it?
     
  6. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    We already figured out this kind of coruption is legal Carpro.

    He is not simply selling a product. He's exploiting a crisis and people's fears for personal gain.

    Here's Rahm Emanuel to explain it in further detail.

    "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." SOURCE

    Once upon a time this sort of thing (exploitation) used to be frowned on some might even have considered it immoral. Guess I'm just old fashioned.
     
    #6 poncho, Nov 22, 2010
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 22, 2010
  7. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    No one is forcing you to pay attention. See ya. :wavey:
     
  8. carpro

    carpro Well-Known Member
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    Once again.

    Baloney.

    You're not old fashioned. You're just not too tightly wrapped and you're afraid of your own shadow.:thumbs: The shadow of others absolutely terrifies you. So much so that you try to exploit their fears by spreading your own.

    According to your own criteria, you and Chertoff are two of a kind.
     
  9. Don

    Don Well-Known Member
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    To a point, I kind of agree with Poncho. I'm quite surprised about the matter.

    There's no doubt in my mind that Chertoff used whatever influence he had with the TSA to ensure his own financial gain.

    But that's as far as I take it.
     
  10. carpro

    carpro Well-Known Member
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    The use of the word "corrupt" is out of line. Chertoff is doing what people all over the country in all kinds of businesses do. He's using his contacts and expertise in negotiating the intricacies of government bureaucracies to help a company market their product to a willing buyer.

    For example, I know a man who spent 35 years as an engineer for Texas Department of Highways and Transportation. When he retired, he went to work as a consultant for an engineering firm at 4 times what the state had been paying him. His job was to use his contacts, knowledge and experience to help his employer negotiate through the bureaucracy of the highway department to help them win competitively bid contracts and then execute them properly. The process was not corrupt and he certainly wasn't.

    Without proof of corrupt or illegal activities by Chertoff,I don't buy the author's characterization at all.
     
  11. Phillip

    Phillip <b>Moderator</b>

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    correct

    I think you are exactly right. I have a backwards situation. I used to work for a government military contractor and now I work an an electronic engineer civilian for the Army.

    To be very blunt, we have ethics classes we have to take every single year.

    These classes cover an amount of time required to pass before I can sell anything to the government that was in the field that I worked in.

    If it wasn't in the field I worked in it doesn't matter because all clearances are "need to know", so I don't know anything unless I work on it.

    I just happen to work in the ammunition and explosives field and because of that reason, I had rather purchase products from someone with experience with military style munitions. Military munitions are NOTHING like the type of blasting used in mines and have lots of (not secrets, but tricks that make the ammo more accurate, lethal and less collatoral damage.)

    If I purchase products from someone who was in the blasting business, he isn't going to know anything about the products I have to purchase, so therefore it is cost-effective and unethical to buy from someone who knows the business. I am simply using this as an example--remember, though for me to quit the government, I have to wait a period of time before I can start selling to the same groups or the same items I worked on while working for the government.

    Would you rather a guy right out of EE school designing the detector on a new missile, or would you rather someone with experience in that field, plus the school (first) provide that product.

    All too often we have to work too hard with contractors that don't know what we are working on and often we can't go into details on what we are working on.

    This is almost a catch-22, but I see nothing illegal or unethical in critical systems being built by someone who has had experience in that special niche market and as Carpro says: We certainly don't have to buy it. We buy now on "best value", not "lowest bidder". That way we can get what we want and need at the lowest cost.

    For more information about how the government buys contracts take a look at the "Defense Acquisition University" that is probably the biggest university in the U.S. mandated by congress to teach engineers and techies like myself how to make legal and ethical purchases from contractors. (I don't know the address, just google it.) You will be amazed at the information you can find there even if you are not cleared for the "secure" sections.

    Just a word from someone who does it every day and I do not break any laws or ethical issues. That is my number one issue when purchasing items.

    Phillip
     
  12. targus

    targus New Member

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    Bingo!!!

    Well said.

    Who made the decision to buy the scanners?
     
  13. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    And yet I'm not the one going on national tv and telling people if they don't accept bigger government and more intrusive "security" policies, like being molested at airports, being subjected to warrantless searches and wiretapping, arrested without charges, etc, etc, etc, the terrorists will get them.

    But you are right about one thing Carpro. I'll give you that. Everyone in Washington is either making money or trying to make money by exploiting crisis and people's fears. The new American way.

    If everyone is doing it then surely it must be okay.
     
    #13 poncho, Nov 23, 2010
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 23, 2010
  14. carpro

    carpro Well-Known Member
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    I'm truly sorry those things frighten you so much.

    May I recommend Psalms 27:1 for some assurance?
     
  15. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    I'm not the one being frightened into accepting all these costly and intrusive and for the most part useless big government solutions Carpro. You are.

    And you stilll call yourself a conservative.

    I guess that must all go along with being a neonationalist. Question. Are all neonationalists as keen to protect the warfare/welfare state as you are? :smilewinkgrin:
     
    #15 poncho, Nov 23, 2010
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 23, 2010
  16. carpro

    carpro Well-Known Member
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    Labels. You do love them so. :laugh:

    Check out Psalms 27:1.

    Then maybe you won't see a boogie man behind every bush. And you might stop spreading you own brand of fear.
     
  17. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    All our little back and forths aside you are a difficult person to understand.

    You come on all red and white blue and have nothing but praise for the veterans who have fought and died to protect our liberties yet you'll turn on a dime and spit on them by praising every new big government intrusion that comes along that threatens to subvert those same liberties. I just don't get that.

    I admit I have some trouble when it comes to labeling you, it's hard to put a single label on a person with two faces.
     
    #17 poncho, Nov 24, 2010
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 24, 2010
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