Ed Doyle Is the state of Rhode Island doomed to become the No Hope because it has been corrupt for so long that nobody even cares anymore? For as long as I can remember for my adult life the moans and groans of Rhode Islanders concerning state government, taxes and fees, officials on the take and the other usual rumblings have been a part everyday conversation. On the job, at the beach, in the bar or at the hairdresser the names change but the topic is always the same. This one did a favor for that one and got the other one a sweet job with the state or this guy went against that guy and hey yeah… what ever happened to that guy anyway? Our history of corruption has awarded us the honor of being the butt of the rest of the country’s jokes about everything from the most crooked little state in the union to now being a complete laughing stock for the 38 Studios fiasco. And what have we learned… not one dam thing! Instead, more and more players seem to be involved and the questionable acts, cloak and dagger secrecy and what many feel is corruption involving every single high level official in the state of Rhode Island has become a way of life for us with the most shining example of the I know a guy politics, 38 Studios. Only in Rhode Island could there be such a blatant disregard to expert bond advisers, third party watchdog agencies hired by the state to oversee the 38 Studios deal, which now seems was a smokescreen, the State of Massachusetts which wanted no part of 38 Studios and to RI law itself which holds in its Constitution that no loan of 50 million dollars can be given without approval from the voters of the state. Only in Rhode Island could our elected officials ignore the laws they were elected to protect and come up with a scheme to bypass its people and its laws with something called a Moral Obligation Loan where there are virtually no rules and completely opaque to those from which the money is coming from, the taxpayers of Rhode Island. Sadly it seems that the F.B.I., State Police, the U.S. Attorney, the Attorney General and anyone else that could blow the lid off Rhode Island and the corrupt back room deal of 38 Studios seem to have turned their heads and given up on the State and its people allowing Rhode Island to wallow in its own filth to crash and burn. Allow me however to inject a bit of hope into what seems to be a completely hopeless State of affairs and say that even though there are so many uncontested seats in the State House this election season, there is new blood, untainted by greed and power, not afraid to make noise even if the old game of “if you want your bill passed you will play ball” and all you need to do is cast your vote for them in the September 9th Primary and the November election. It always comes back to We The People. We have nobody to blame but ourselves if we continue to vote the way we are told, because they have always been there, because his uncle, father or grandfather were great guys or simply because we are to tied up in our own problems to care. We are also the only ones that can fix it by standing up for our families instead of looking in the gutter to find out who knows a guy! |
WBOB
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