THE QUEEN OF POLITICAL CORRUPTION

Graecokleptocrats span the gamut of political corruption. Bribe is the gift bestowed to influence the recipient's conduct. Kickback is a payment to a person in a position of power or influence for having made an income possible. Embezzlement is outright theft of entrusted funds. Patronage is favoring supporters. Nepotism is favoring kin. Cronyism is favoring kith. Graft is an unscrupulous use of a politician's authority for personal gain. The freakish government of Greece stole my life! 


Hillary Clinton points out corruption and the lack of transparency eats away like a cancer at the trust people should have in their government, at the potential for broad-based, sustainable, inclusive growth. Corruption stifles entrepreneurship and siphons funding away from critical services. Poor fiscal transparency makes it impossible to hold governments accountable. And if these problems go on long enough, if they run deep enough, they literally can and have been shaking societies to the core. http://venitism.blogspot.com

Greece is the queen of political corruption in Occident. The freakish government of Greece stole my life! The impunity of the 300 MPs of the Grand Brothel of Democracy on Syntagma Square is the most freakish thing on Earth. Even though Graecokleptocrats loot many billion euros in bribes and churning, Graecokleptocrats cannot go to jail! Graecokleptocrats are protected by the parliamentary immunity, and nobody can touch them, no matter what. Moreover, they have the nerve to jail dissident bloggers. It's a long way from the 300 Spartans of Leonidas! Allons enfants de la Grece! http://venitism.blogspot.com

Clinton notes that anyone who doubts the power of frustrated citizens to rise up need not only look at the Middle East and North Africa, but increasingly across the globe because social media has given every citizen a tool in order to report and literally post in the matter of seconds the kind of abuses that have been, up until now, just taken for granted. So this is an integral part of national security.

Michael Christoforakos, former president of the Greek subsidiary of Siemens, revealed some names of the 200 Graecokleptocrats, who shared two billion euros in kickbacks, to the prosecutor of Munich, where he escaped from Greece. He also deposited all names with two public notaries in Munich, in case he gets murdered by agents of Graecokleptocrats. This way he stays alive! But the Greek government has not pressed charges against the 200 Graecokleptocrats, because they are protected by immunity and they are in power in Greece, members and ex-members of the Greek government and parliament. You just cannot press charges against yourself! Moreover, the Greek government does not even reveal their names for the voters to know who they are voting for.

Christoforakos also revealed the names of twenty journalists who received many million euros in hush money to keep their mouth shut about the billion euro kickbacks to the 200 Graecokleptocrats. Needless to say, those Graecokleptocrats who did not receive kickbacks are also guilty, because they all knew about the bribery of their colleagues and said nothing about it. The suitcases with the cash were whistling around them. There is no way they could not hear all that loud whistling! So, in reality we are talking about four hundred guilty people! Since Greeks continue to vote for the same crooks again and again, they deserve what they get!

We also know that corrupt practices contribute to the spread of organized crime and terrorism. They underwrite trafficking in drugs and arms and human beings. And we have a major stake in building up partners who can work with us to take on these transnational threats and to promote stability, who will work with us to champion an international standard of behavior that gives more people in more places the opportunity to fulfill their own God-given potential.

The largest bribes originate in the military industry. Military procurement is a corrupt business from top to bottom. The process is dominated by advocacy, with few checks and balances. Most people in power love this system of doing business and do not want it changed. War and preparation for war systematically corrupt all parties to the state-private transactions by which the government obtains the bulk of its military products. There is a standard 10% bribe to kleptocrats for military purchases. http://venitism.blogspot.com

Participants in the military-industrial-kleptocrat complex (MIKC) are routinely blamed for mismanagement, fraud, abuse, bribes, and waste. All of these unsavory actions, however, are typically viewed as aberrations, malfeasances to be covered-up, while retaining the basic system of state-private cooperation in the trade of military goods and services and the flow of bribes. These offenses are in reality expressions of a thoroughgoing, intrinsic rottenness in the entire setup. 

Now, of course, for every one of those officials who are taking cash under the table just to do his or her job, there are many who are refusing. There are leaders of integrity who are trying to look powerful people in the eye and say, "No." But they need our admiration, but more importantly, our support. http://venitism.blogspot.com

We all know what happens at Olympics, an international competition of steroids, not athletes. People feel well during the games, but feel miserable after the games when they find out Olympics cost them ten times more than projected, and most of it went to kickbacks of kleptocrats! The Athens Olympics cost was projected to two billion euros, but it finally cost Greek taxpayers 20 billion euros, with all that extra money going not to the games, but to the private pockets of Graecokleptocrats.

Clinton has made it a priority to fight corruption and promote transparency, and the United States has been at this for quite a number of years now. In 1996, the United States played a major role in developing the first legally-binding commitment by governments to fight corruption. And they've led on many important fronts since then.