The more I think about it, the more world politics seem like "The Godfather"

[Smith_3]

You have a bunch of clans (countries) run by highly corrupt and morally defunct selfish people, who got to the place they are in by proving to be the most ruthless.

The most powerful of these (USA, Russia, China) hold something of a semi-stable truce with each other with little proxy wars, assasinations and lead poisonings being "part of business". Russia just delivered a blow against the US by ripping off some of its claimed territory.

But nobody wants to start a full scale war over that. Its just business as usual. Maybe we'll get them back by funding a Chechenian insurgency or bribing one of their energy suppliers into skipping a few loads.

And Saddam Hussein got taken down because he refused an offer that could not be refused (letting big oil run the show on his terf).

[MedleyMisty]

1. I remember reading some interview with a gang leader somewhere

saying that after all, why shouldn't he be in a gang when there was a gang running the country? And his goal was for his gang to become strong enough to take on Bush's gang.

[Jim__]

2. The movie actually made the comparison between Michael Corleone as a soldier for the US ...

... and a soldier for his father.

[Smith_3]

3. It trips me out that a common theme throughout the movie are church ceremonies.

There is the marriage, the baptization, where he receives his medal and so on. As if the whole dirty business that the blessings of the vatican.

How ironic, that our two presidential candidates just went to "receive the communion" together.

[trof]

4. Then this won't make you feel any better about it:

The most important thing the pork system does is to generate revenue. That would not be federal revenue; it would be political revenue. The system is simplicity itself: the senator legislates the earmark; the beneficiary generates the revenue - for the politician.

There are certain rules that regulate the money stream. First and foremost, the gift must be to the politician's campaign, not to his or her person. Second, neither donor nor recipient can articulate in any way any link whatsoever between the legislative act and the donation. In this wonderfully simple system, the petitioner makes known his wants, and then the legislator legislates. Before, during, or after the legislative deed and without either party visibly offering or soliciting a gift, the campaign donation mysteriously appears. If it doesn't, the next time around, the legislator may be "too busy" to help the petitioner. If the legislator doesn't produce, the expression of appreciation just might "fall between the cracks."

The published rules are carefully written to make this fundamentally corrupt system perfectly legal. There is hardly a single sitting member of Congress who has not repeatedly benefited from it.
http://www.truthout.org/article/is-king-pork-dead

[Smith_3]

5. Apparently, bribery has been around since the beginning of civilisation.

I doubt that it will ever change.