http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ro...own_republi.htmMarch 3, 2006
Trickle Down Republican Corruption; Poll Results show right wing corruption exists at all levelsBy Rob Kall
It's clear that, at the top, the Republican Party, led by George Bush, Dick Cheney, Bill Frist, Denny Hastert, and until recently, Tom DeLay, has been thoroughly corrupt. It's clear that the rank and file Republican members of congress have been rubberstamping the crooked, unconstitutional, anti-democratic moves of their leaders, deferring ethics rules, attempting to pass laws that make the Bush team's lawbreaking legal.
In the OpEdNews.com /Zogby People's poll of 850 Pennsylvania voters, we found that Republicans were far more likely to expect corruption. We asked, "Who is more corrupt, if at all, Republicans or Democrats?" 48% of respondents said Republicans and 9% said Democrats. 41% said both equally. Women said 60% Republicans and 4% Democrats. But it gets most interesting when you compare Republicans and democrats, looking at the crosstabs.
83% of Democrats said Republicans were corrupt, compared to 6% of Republicans saying that Republicans are corrupt Only 21% of Republicans said Democrats are corrupt and only one percent of Democrats said Democrats are corrupt. Most interesting, 71% of Republicans said that both parties are equally corrupt, whereas only 14% of Democrats say both parties are equally corrupt.
If you add up the percentage of Republicans who say that Republicans are corrupt and both parties are corrupt you get a total of 77% of Republicans saying that Republicans are corrupt, compared to 15% of Democrats saying Democrats are corrupt. What does this mean? Republicans assume their representatives are corrupt because they think everyone is corrupt. That's the mindset of a culture of corruption. They see they world as corrupt and they accept it. Let's take a closer look.
There's the Republican base. Our OpEdNews.com / Zogby People's poll asked, Do you agree or disagree that Churches, Synagogues and Mosques, or other places of worship would l ose their tax exempt status if they openly and actively support politicians or political parties?" Seventy percent of voters support this. The one demographic group that disapproved was the "very conservatives" Less than 1% of Democrats identify themselves as very conservative. 22% of Born agains identify themselves as very conservative. After "very conservatives, the next demographic group that opposed revoking tax exempt status was the Born agains. I think they oppose this because they've been doing it-- violating the law against churches getting actively into politics. The majority of Americans-- 70% oppose this. These people are extremists who believe they have the right to break the law. It's trickle down corruption, trickle down law breaking, trickle down absence of integrity. These self-righteous, sanctimonious extremists are breaking the law. Their churches should be taxed. Their leaders should be charged with violating the law, and laws should be made tougher to prevent these abuses. Meanwhile, people on the left should organize "church-watches" which monitor, especially right before elections, activities and services in right wing churches.
Then there's the corruption that surrounds the voting and election process. Democrats in the house and senate have entered bills that would make the voting process safer and more reliable. Republicans have failed to respond. At local levels, Republicans seem to have done all they can to keep the voting, vote counting, voter registration and voter access as untrustworthy, unfair and inaccessible for Democrats as possible. This is treacherous-- an attack on Democracy that should be punishable, in its worse forms, as a capital offense. Sorry, for most reasons, I oppose the death penalty, but when the most basic, core element of democracy-- the vote-- is "murdered" there is only one punishment that fits the crime-- the same one applied to traitors.
Then there's the Republican position on cleaning up the money in politics-- in elections and in congress. The right wingers want to keep the money in. In our OpEdNews.com/Zogby People's Poll, we found that 66% of voters, want to take the money factor out of elections by providing a fixed amount of money to qualified candidates, and 65% of voters support a law that would require network and local TV stations to provide free ad time to qualified candidates. But just over 50% of Republicans oppose taking the money out, and while more Republicans support a law requiring free advertising for qualified candidates, that percentage doesn't reach 50%. The Republicans want to keep the influence buying, the ability of corporations and wealthy people to influence elections, at the price of a purer democratic process.
I've been saying that part of the process of taking back America is waking people up.
I've been saying that the only people left supporting Bush are either corrupt, greedy rich parasites who are tax avoiders and fools.
But I need to modify that. These people are all tolerating an unbelievable level of corruption. These people MUST have impaired integrity and impaired character.
There is hope for those right wingers who are finally waking up and seeing how bad the Republicans have been.
Those Republicans who HAVE awakened MUST go to their legislators and tell them it is time to impeach both Bush and Cheney. One factor that may make a major difference in this year's elections is the response from moderates. Forty eight percent of them say republicans are corrupt, compared to one percent saying Democrats are. Frankly, there are enough DLC Republicrats so I think they are estimating too low. But the writing is on the wall. Unless Republicans take major steps to change the situation, they will be in deep doo doo this fall.
It is time for the people on the right to either wake up and face the corruption they've allowed or accept that they are co-conspirators guilty of helping the crimes and corruption to continue.