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This shit is often far too subtle for most people to spot it or fully understand its impact but can have big effects in the lives of just about everybody in a country and then people for example just go around feeling that their money doesn't seem to go as far as before not putting two and two together to figure out they're dieing the death of a thousand cuts as monopolies and cartels which should never have existed without corrupt legislation bleed them out, are dying younger because of avoidable air polution or exploitative private healthcare systems all possible thanks to legislation designed together by crooked politicians and lobbyists, feel their quality of life is much less than before as most public spaces have been made sold to private interest, and so on.

This hits so hard. Honestly your entire thread is fantastic, I'd say you should package this up into an essay and see if you can't get it published in some op-ed sections.

More people need to understand the difference between big C corruption and small scale corruption and how the former affords the latter legitimacy. In america we are at the crossroads of institutional corruption finally becoming so blatant that the smaller structures will be able to follow suit without fear of stigma. The big guy gets his palms greased; it's common sense that the little guy should get his too.

Therein lies the "slippery slope" that opens the floodgates to beat cops shaking someone down in a traffic stop for lunch money. It doesn't come from the bottom up but from the top down. The most powerful officials will have the most leeway to embezzle and defraud and shake down what or whomever they see fit. Those below them are free to find their own means to enrich themselves from their position of authority, and so it goes all the way down to the lowest enforcer of this state of affairs. As long as they don't disturb the affairs of their superiors, they are free to wheel and deal as they wish.

Once it has reached the general population and begins affecting their daily lives it is already too late. The traffic stop on your work commute is now a natural occurrence and you begin to carry a purse just to ensure safe passage, because you can't simply report this to the precinct.

I fear we are not too far from reaching this point. A few years may be all we have left to prevent the system being permanently, irreparably damaged.

We had our opportunity to let the power structure play out and it failed to hold the most powerful in the country accountable for any of their crimes. What's happening in France gives hope that the rest of the world will take this threat seriously and begin strengthening their countries against these threats. America has already proven itself incapable of enforcing the law. I'm not sure how we go about amending that from within.

I'd need to do more study on Portugal to understand how you managed to overturn such a corrupt system in modern times but I hope your message can reach more people and open enough minds to bring us out of this descent into kleptocracy.

The first step, I'd imagine, is making everyone aware. My hope is that it doesn't take all 300 million people in America personally witnessing the corruption first hand to create a popular uprising for change.