All fine and good, but what's gotten "done" in terms of corruption since you've been here, Grahame? Heck, go back 40 years! I won't even ask about what's been accomplished by the street theater and other assorted "non-confrontational" acts. I ask for specific, quantifiable reesults. Hard facts. Not squishy movement-speak. Results matter in real people's lives, style points don't. What's the expression? Money talks and bullspit walks? I'd like to see the progress the DR has made toward ending institutionalized corruption.
IMO, the street theater thing, while noble and even truthful, did little more than make the participants feel good about themselves. Certainly the AG issue has been front page for quite a while. Heck, it's been talked about on the radio station I listen to prol...err...probably a dozen times. It's not like folks don't know about it. It's everywhere. Besides, even when a rascal gets caught, only the worst of the worst get a free room @ La 21. Not exactly a huge anti-corruption motivator, know what I mean?
AG is not the "problem". She's just a symptom of the "problem". And I put "problem" in quotes, because, once again, based solely on the recent election returns where a HUGE % of the population voted, and 95% voted for the status quo. I'm not so sure the CITIZENS of the Dominican Republic see as much of a "problem" as sophistomacated foreign residents and visitors do.
Voters are basically consumers of gubmint. When they want a different product, they will demand one. I don't see it, and the voting pattern demonstrates it.
And, FTR, I perceive gubmint* corruption as the second worst, most basic problem in the country (I've mentioned my first before, the purely macroeconomic one, the genesis for all the other problems...), and I'm not giving AG a pass at all; au contraire, I'd like to buy her manse at the auction when she needs to raise a defense fund, after The Boys remove the jumper cables from her sensitive parts
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We agree on corruption, Grahame. We just disagree with the methods to achieve the end result, and the certainly the qualitative and quantitative measure of those results.
*I'll most likely use the term "gubmint"; it's my personal *street theater* protest to mock corruptable man-made institutions used to control others behavior at the eventual point of a gun (or eternal damnation). Gubmint is the antithesis of personal sovereignty. It's a style issue. May I count on your solidarity for The Cause?