White people use funny words for bribes

If you give an American politician $100,000, it’s a bribe. If you pay them the same amount for lunch, however, that’s a fundraiser. If you wire the incoming Treasury Secretary $1,000,000 that’s a bribe. If you put her in front of a lectern, however, it’s a speaking fee. Forgive me if I don’t understand. White people sure have funny words for bribes.

$100,000 a plate dinners… are bribes

Americans have this thing called a fundraiser where you put a pile of bribes on a table, wave a wand of asparagus over it, and it just disappears. Access is still bought, but somehow because people ate food, it’s not corruption anymore. The press will literally report on the food.

In New York last weekend, $100,000 got donors a plate of grilled chicken and asparagus, a posed picture with President Trump in a palatial, 60-foot-long entryway, and a 20-minute group chat with the president. (Washington Post)

WTF is this? In any other country you wouldn’t report on the chicken, you’d report on the corruption. However, American politics follows the escort rule. If you have dinner first, then you’re not paying for ‘it’. While sex work is honest work, however, these political meals are just naked corruption.

This isn’t just Trump, this is endemic, this is systemic, this is simply how things are done. Hillary Clinton was the French Laundry of money laundry, she ran pop-up restaurants from the Hamptons to Beverly Hills. Obama dined for dollars, Biden did it takeaway over Zoom. While foreign politicians take bribes in smoky rooms, Americans proudly disclose it all. They literally spend the money on advertising, so people can see how much bribes they got.

Because this is all legal, Americans ignore how fucking insane it is. It’s just daylight bribery. This is what I mean when I say that America has legalized corruption. It’s not that your system is corrupt. Your system is corruption. Americans look down on the Third World as hopelessly corrupt, but we are at least not blinded by hors d’oeuvres.

While the South African press, for example, reports on corruption, the American press just reports that rich people just had dinner and talked. Like this has no connection to anything. Nobody’s paying $100,000 for dinner and a photo-op you dumbasses. They’re buying access. THOSE ARE BRIBES.

Speaking fees… are bribes

Speaking fees are also just bribes. Somehow in America if you ‘speak’ before accepting money it then becomes ‘speaking fees’ and not, you know, just bribery. You don’t even need to wave asparagus over the money, it’s immediately clean.

The US Treasury Secretary, for example, has taken $7.2 million in ‘speaking fees’ from the people she’s supposed to be regulating. In any other country these would just be bribes, because they are bribes. In America, however, it’s not because she… spoke words?

This is of course bullshit. No one’s paying her to talk, they’re paying her to listen. When Citadel or Citi calls she listens, because they’re paying her fucking mortgage. This is precisely how corruption works. Can the millions of people getting evicted call her? Haha fuck no, access is for PATREONS ONLY, and the first tier is $500,000.

Can you see the problem of corruption here? Because your press really can’t. They just see the words ‘speaking fees’ and shit out their brains. Here is Politico, almost getting the point:

Politico notes down a shit-ton of bribes, and then frames it at some obscure political issue and not, you know, BRIBERY. This is precisely how American corruption hides in plain sight. No one’s paying your boring-ass Treasury Secretary to talk, but your press carries on like they are. Like this is totally normal. This is not normal. America is just totally corrupt. The usual excuse is that people collect bags when they’re out of office, but this just leads to a revolving door. As administrations change you just bribe the outgoing one, which’ll be back in later. Thus America has a unique sense of ‘policy continuity’. The policy is corruption.

Where I live, officials try hide their corruption, but Americans truly do not give a fuck. Your officials will stand in front of a lectern, take a million dollar bribe and your press and people don’t even think about it. Your investigative journalists completely lose the scent if someone has a meal or speaks.

As Branko Milanovic says,

In many countries, where the institution of “paid speaking” does not exist people would be given fat envelopes. That would go under the heading of corruption. In the US, they are paid for their “speeches”.

In Sri Lanka if someone had publicly paid the Treasury Secretary a million dollars for a speech, we would fucking laugh. C’mon, you don’t have a son-in-law? You can’t register a company? We get robbed here, but we haven’t lost our minds.

Americans, however, are exceptionally dumb. Don’t you wonder why the financial industry gets trillion-dollar bailouts overnight while y’all are still waiting months for a pandemic cheque? What do you think these companies are paying Janet Yellen and everyone millions of dollars for? These are bribes, and like any bribe, the people get stuck with the bill.

Wait, it’s all corruption?

America has really confused legalizing corruption with eliminating it. Yes you have better reporting that most countries, but this reporting has made you numb. You’ve heard about $100,000 dinners and million dollar speeches for so long that you think it’s normal, but it’s not. It’s just corrupt, and this corruption has consequences.

Why do you think rich people get bailouts and tax cuts? Because they have access. In many cases they’re writing the legislation. What do you think these finance guys are paying millions of dollars for? They get billions in return. This is precisely how corruption works. You bribe government officials to loot the public purse. This doesn’t just happen to black people or Russians, it’s happening to you.

America has so throughly legalized corruption that they can’t even see it anymore. Americans have so racialized corruption they won’t even believe what’s in front of their eyes. America and the UK are the most corrupt places on Earth, and it’s not just Trump. He was just the most blatant example. This is you.

Speaking fees, lobbyists, paid trips, insider trading, revolving doors, cushy retirements — corruption is everywhere in America. This is all business as usual. Asking an American about corruption is like asking a fish about water. What’s water? While other countries have corrupt systems, the American system is corruption. And you can see the results.

Just look around. Where’s your fucking cheque? Why does the government intervene when the stock market goes down, but not you?

Americans have become inured to the fact that billions of dollars are spent on bribes while trillions of dollars flow out of their treasury, and they think that these facts are somehow unrelated. But these facts are not unrelated. This is cause and effect.

You think corruption only happens in the Third World? You arrogant, ignorant fools. The joke’s on you. We get robbed, but we know we’re getting robbed. Y’all don’t even know. You really think these people just eat chicken and clap and don’t get their money back a hundred times over? It’s all corruption you fools. Always has been.

Further Reading:
Western Nations Are The Most Corrupt Places In The World
A solution: Abolish Politicians