What's depressing is the complete indifference shown by the journalists that their leaders are crooked, and that many supposedly neutral writers on the NYT and other major publications, and on television network news, are getting bribes to support them in their criminal activities.

There is no Fourth Estate left in America, unless it is the little people with their blogs and YouTube videos and comments on Reddit. They are the only real journalists left. Those who work for the corporate media are nothing more than word pigs.

In a word, indoctrination. People, not just journalists, have no principles anymore.

Most (not all) only care about buying shit, showing others they bought shit, going to work and showing people they know shit, and saying, "See manager I did an awesome job shovelling your shit", now gimme some cheddar so I can repeat this cycle. This is not a life of principle, that is semi-sheltered servitude.

As an Agnostic, I sometimes wonder if Christianity and Catholicism aren't the lesser evil. The philosophy that's embedded in western religions does seem to help mitigate moral and ethical debacles comparatively better than faith in governments. Though both are pretty fucked up. Some people literally need to be trick and lied to in-order to make them not be shitty people.

I guess it depends on which parts of Christianity or Catholicism you follow or believe in. Obviously people have done (and still do) horrible things in the name of Christianity and/or Catholicism. On the other hand, if you think of Christ as a historical figure or even as a historical concept, he was kind of a revolutionary for the common man. Same deal with government, it CAN be a force for good, but government seems to eventually be used by bad people to achieve their own ends.
I agree that "some people literally need to be tricked and lied to in order to make them not be shitty people", but the more intelligent psychopaths of the world who end up moving to the top of governments and corporations aren't guided by morals or ethics. Those are just public relations tools to them. So how do you deal with those people? It's becoming very clear that these leaders don't have any moral compass and use that to their advantage. They wouldn't pay any attention to any religious guidelines, and they have no allegiance to the people they rule, and they have it set up so that their own governments will not prosecute them. Hmmm...we've got a big problem don't we?

Some people literally need to be trick and lied to in-order to make them not be shitty people.

Or, perhaps stripping people of their agency makes them more likely to exhibit shitty behavior. Less likely to step up and prevent others from acting wrongly.

Worship of government religious or secular, seems to produce a reactionary and compliant population.

Good point on the agency, however, philosophy doesn't work particularly well with stupid people.

Yes, integrity is only to be admired in the movies. Most people think you're stupid to act with integrity - especially in the workplace.

Don't forget the fact that said cheddar has no value beyond the paper it's printed on.

Lol. We work our whole lives for little pieces of paper because we're told it's worth a lot. I almost started crying

Yes, the economy is going to crash soon. It is unsustainable. If you have registered retirement accounts, go to your bank and sell the mutual fund shares to convert them into compound interest accciunts. You can do this with company provided retirement accounts too where they match your contributions every paycheque.

As /r/FULLCOMMUNISM would put it - these people are Pure ideology.

the media is owned by bankers. the bankers are the mafia dons.

To be fair, when it is shown repeatedly that anyone that "goes against the flow" gets assassinated either professionally, politically or physically, I don't think many of us would be interested in stepping out of line.

To do so at this moment in time, is about the same as committing suicide.

Then there are the repercussions on your family, loved ones, or anyone you happen to know...

Yep and when they come for you, there will be nobody left to help you. This is like the prisoners dilemma, look it up.

We're already there.

Doing anything now, is going to require mountains of people throwing their bodies on the gears of power before anything will change.

There is no social impetus, to cause anyone to care about the situation, even IF they took the time to try and understand the situation.

Naa, just you and me. You change yourself. you change the world.

"Word pig" prefect!

Its hilarious because this type thing is exactly what RICO act is meant for. Only thing i see being a problem is the number of people implicated. Like how deep does it really go? Judges? Attorneys? Mayors? Shit the garbage man could be involved. US Marshalls would most certainly be involved. At least at the highest levels.

US marshals are too busy arresting military lawyers connected to Gitmo detainees.

20 armed US marshals just to arrest and enforce a video testimony to the court.

then theres all the medical marijuana growers and dispensaries, shoplifters, parking and traffic tickets. broken tail lights, overgrown lawns... SHES, Boston, Orlando, and all the other hoax shite they do.

so 'puppy' is too busy to bother with treason and other high crimes. (except what they do for giggles)

all these federal slackers earn 100K plus per year, benefits and pensions mere mortals cannot dream of.

they swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. they break this oath by means of inaction.

Sounds nice, but the lack of action by the Department of Justice in prosecuting Wall Street gives you an indication of how that would go.

The cops you want to arrest the criminal gangsters are their henchmen. The arrests aren't gonna happen.

The Broken Hero Outrage Ladder Climb is a hell of a slog, eh.

Why did you trust?

I was too. I paid too much attention during history class. It's hard to break out of the lies they indoctrinate us into.

The problem is that the U.S. Marshals are part of the Dept. of Justice. The DoJ doesn't want to prosecute certain people. I read something that helped clarify federal prosecutions in "The Divide" by Matt Taibbi. It was about the "Holder Memo" or "Holder Memorandum". This memorandum was written by Eric Holder when he worked as the Deputy Attorney General in Bill Clinton's administration. Its a guideline for federal prosecutors that says when considering whether or not to prosecute someone for corporate crimes, take into account any "collateral consequences" of prosecution. This is why none of the big banks were prosecuted years later in 2008 when shit hit the fan (and coincidentally, when Holder had become A.G.) http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/06/holder-laid-the-groundwork-for-too-big-to-jail-in-1999.html (By the way, don't bother googling "Holder Memorandum" Taibbi or "Holder Memo" Taibbi - you have to use Bing to get results. It's stunning how partisan google results are.) Problem with this approach is that people who commit huge corporate frauds are NOT prosecuted - so gee, I wonder if they or others might do it again.
For the purposes of this thread though, the point is, the DoJ decides who gets prosecuted. They don't prosecute those they don't want to prosecute. Therefore, it's pointless for U.S. Marshalls to go after these criminals running the country. In fact, it's probably impossible for them to do so without being quickly shut down.

Individual U.S. Marshalls are not likely to be as passionate as you about patriotism. They are also, most likely, not awake to what is going on. Even if they are, they probably have to worry about paying for their kids college tuition, a big mortgage, the car payments and on and on. So they're afraid to risk the paycheck. They see what happens to the people who stick their necks out and they aren't willing to have their own necks on the chopping block. Instead, they make their fantasy football team draft picks, and keep their minds off of moral dilemmas. And that's how we've been conditioned to behave.
But as more of us have less, the system becomes less sustainable, because we have less to risk.
Why is that when rich people commit crimes, they don't seem to have to go to prison? Because of our system of prosecutorial discretion. The Department of Justice, that is, the Attorney General, doesn't have to prosecute these people. So they don't. They come up with ridiculous excuses so they don’t have to prosecute their friends or benefactors. That sucks and is completely wrong. What's the point of having laws if the biggest criminals are not prosecuted for breaking them? It has become very clear that the very wealthy can break laws with impunity. There is no rule of law when it is only selectively enforced. This broken system is not sustainable and, just as they have always done throughout history, the ruling elite will push the bounds as far as they can because greed knows no end among these sociopaths. Unless there is some miraculous change, unless somehow our political system is cleaned of its corruption, then there will be a tipping point. When the rule of law becomes a farce, and the people have nothing left to lose, then the people will demand justice.

We're already there.

Doing anything now, is going to require mountains of people throwing their bodies on the gears of power before anything will change.

There is no social impetus, to cause anyone to care about the situation, even IF they took the time to try and understand the situation.