Part 2 Corruption destroying governments and organizations worldwide.

Government, corporations, organizations around the world are suffering from corruption.  People have lost faith in institutions and are throwing up their hands feeling hopeless against the tides of corruption.

World soccer officials arrested overseas for taking bribes, issuing contracts and making decisions with their hands out for bribes.  Getting arrested doesn't make you guilty of any crime, but when they are refusing extradition to the United States to answer charges it makes you realize someone has something to hide.

Drug companies and others buying their way, local things like zone changes thereby increasing land use and property values.  Building permits or inspections all subject to private conversations and dealings between two individuals are subject to misdeeds.

Corruptions in all forms particularly dishonest behavior by those in positions of power, such as managers or government officials. Corruptions can include giving or accepting bribes or inappropriate gifts, double dealing, under-the-table transactions, it simply boils down to dishonest actions that destroy people's trust.

Lets say we are both members of the Legislature and I see a couple industries in my district that are spoiling the environment with pollution from their activities.  I don't want to be the one to cost them money or eliminate jobs, their employees would be up in arms and probably cost me votes and my next election.  However, I know it is wrong and has to be stopped.

I go to you and ask you to introduce a bill that would correct the excesses and cleanup the mess they are making.  My hand prints will not be on the legislation, in fact I could put up a huge fight to stop your bill.  You say you are willing to help me if I can use my position on the Transportation Committee to move a state highway one mile east of its proposed route so it goes right by Uncle Charley's farm.  

Uncle Charley now has prime highway frontage which just increased his farm land in value.  Corruption or criminal activities or just plain under-the-table transactions neither of us wanting to take credit or responsibility.

One hand washes the other, no one is really hurt.  Next election I can go to the people with those industries, the employees and their families for campaign funds and votes.  You have your Uncle Charley in great financial debt to you.  A winning formula for soft corruption.

Let's take a high school teacher and coach getting elected to Congress and moving up in position in the Congress to be third in line to be President if something should happen to the President and Vice President of the United States.  

This happened in recent times, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned under the cloud of corruption that happened before his election as Vice President under Richard Nixon. Now the United States is without a Vice President, no replacement until after the next election.  Sometime later President Nixon resigned as a result of Watergate and political pressure.

Who became President, Congressman Gerald R. Ford who was Speaker of the House of Representatives.  So who elected President Ford, the people of one Congressional District in Michigan.  No other voter in all the United States ever voted for the 38th President of the United States before he became President.   He actually lost the next election to Democrat Jimmy Carter.

So lets look at the high school teacher who became Speaker of the House.  It has been reported he was paying someone money to the tune of $3.5 million to keep some private matters from being made public. How did a high school teacher and a Congressman obtain a of bank account where he could pay that kind of hush-money?

Plain and simple like so many government officials from the Military, Executive Department appointees to former members of Congress their access to those still in positions of government power, decision makers has real value around a town like Washington, DC.

It's sweet to go to lunch with someone in the know, especially having worked with you before you took up your job as an influence peddler, I mean consultant.  {Lobbyist}  I don't need you to deliver the contract to me, just let me know who and what the other bids are, I can manage it from there.

Bill Curry former White House counselor to President Clinton writing for SOLON online said, "No public-sector budget itemizes the cost of corruption, but here's a safe bet: America loses more to corruption than to shoplifting."

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Not since Watergate in the 70s when a number of election reforms were enacted has much been done to insure clean and fair elections. Campaign finance and reporting requirements were put in place, ethics rules along with some new campaign laws.  Of course the problem in matters like this, adequate money is never given to the enforcement agencies so not much gets done on the enforcement side. 

People see campaigns point fingers at each other talking about election law violations,  but that's just feel good talk most likely nothing will come of it.  Crying foul in elections is just another tactic to draw attention to a candidate and maybe pick up a few votes because of the attention and maybe a  sympathy vote or two.

The voters stand back,  feel it's "old hat" and get back to their favorite cable TV program.  Then they proceed to ignore total election involvement. Unless turning to no one in particular and declaring nothing in it for me, darn politicians!

Everyone's attention has been drawn to money in politics since "Citizens United" but you can bet your last dollar political consultants, media organizations, advertising agencies and those who benefit from all the money spent in campaigns won't support many changes.

The word in the backrooms of the campaign offices is, "money is round and was made to roll around."   The big boys in politics have invented pay-to-play now days.  I wasn't there but I wonder if today we have much over Tammany Hall of New York or the Pendergast Machine in Missouri from political machines of yesterday?

Political bosses, backroom politics are old fashion, today it's bundling money together for so-called Independent Expenditure Committees.  In days gone by it was making friends, passing out favors, doing little things for people like having recommendations for jobs and then at election time those folks are expected to do things for you.  Like show up and vote for the party's slate of candidates.

I remember the days when a letter from a legislator could get you a pretty easy and well paid job at a dog or horse race track.  Those folks working those ticket betting machines and remember there were plenty at every race track were personal friends or family members of state legislators. In fact in the back offices doing minor jobs were a few state legislators themselves.

Of course it had noting to do with allowable racing days set by state law, or regulations put forth by racing commissions tied to state lawmakers.  A better system than dark money flowing into campaigns from who knows where?

It is interesting to hear some of these candidates attack their opponents ethics and campaign funding with some strong hints of corruption.  But and this is important, what election reforms are they proposing?  As a result a few people think government is rotten, politicians worthless and get right down to it, WHY VOTE?

To get some real change we will have to cut through all the denials and manipulation  of the system.  Jeb Bush put his foot in his mouth before he actually declared his candidacy and it slipped out he was running for President.  That's a great BIG NO-NO acknowledging your candidacy before formal declaration and avoiding the laws limiting contributions to candidates.  

Some {I hate to say this.} like Hillary Clinton attend fundraisers for her "independent" Political Action Committee {PAC} but leaves after greeting and thanking everyone and before the real business starts of collecting the money everyone know they are there to give.

This type of action beats the candidate and their campaign committee working directly with the so-called "independent" PAC which again is against the law but no one believes many follow the law.  Just another reason for people not to show up at the polls, fingers are pointing back and forth until the voter shakes their head and decides to get home early before the vote count comes in and watch their television.  Why bother to vote everyone knows politics is all rigged.

In elections the Democratic voters aren't inspired to vote and the game is rigged by Republican state legislatures who have successfully gerrymandered legislative and congressional districts in favor of the GOP candidates.  

Independent Election Commissions which draw more attention and opens the reapportionment process to public view have been set up by citizen initiatives in a few states are being challenged in court.  Legislative leaders in many states are not about to give up the power of drawing election district lines without a fight no matter how much it costs the taxpayers of their state to pay the legal bills.

Politicians are tied to their donors, and after the elections jobs are found for those folks out of work who ran the Independent Expenditure Committees, many just get rehired on the politician's staff or take their regular job at a local business who loaned them to the candidate's committee.  In return for the campaign assist the candidate will turn out to be quite grateful.

If this sounds quite an autocratic or authoritarian with little input from the population ruled over, not to worry the majority don't vote anyway and leave the decisions to the few who do.   In order to insure participation in the voting process some countries have voting required by law.  Other countries don't have elections the guys in charge of the police and army pick the leaders and have heavy punishments for those who protest.      

One Problem Facing all Governments--Corruption!

The United States needs a WAR, not in the Middle East over control of oil or a War on Drugs to show who is tough on crime, but a real war on political corruption.

Political ethics involving judgements, public policy, political actions, and favoritism abound just when we should be holding public officials to higher standards than are necessary in private life.  Private decisions are expected to reap rewards in the form of more business, mutual cooperation. They should be afforded the right to privacy. Ordinary citizens can make those decisions without being held to the same accountability as public officials who must be concerned with conflicts of interest. The public has the right to know about the total decision making process. 

Sweetheart public contracts, appointments. hiring of government workers, extended pay and personal benefits to campaign supporters and their family members on public payrolls  occur on a daily basis. Crony politics" such as workers doing "favors" as instructed by their employer is often thought of as soft corruption" as opposed to "hard corruption."  Such practices, while not new, should not be overlooked.

What is new is the blame game attributing corruption to the Supreme Court's declaration in the Citizens United case. Sorry, but corruption and political favoritism existed long before corporations became people, at least in the Court's collective mind.

It has long been a practice of consolidation of power through favoritism, it is the use of that power attained through the handout of political plums or citizen involvement that matters.

Let's face it: Reformist movements are part of the process to end corruption. The women's temperance movement to promote and enact prohibition against alcohol was propagated on a religious basis, but would have gone nowhere were it not supported by factory owners who had massive absenteeism on Mondays.

"Blue Monday" was recognized as the name given to the third Monday of January reflecting the most depressing day of the year. Many of employers dreaded Mondays when workers were too hung-over to show up or be productive at work. The answer was to get a reform movement going.

Watch this election cycle as the corruption undergoes massive exposure. Flashlights used where floodlights are needed cause corruption to go largely unpunished.  Corruption steals from the poor all around the world.  Riots in massively populated areas puts fear in the hearts of government leaders in China and Russia. Protest marches in the streets, people holed up in masses in public parks, and yes, the "Arab Spring" and the revolutionary wave of  demonstrations from Northern Africa to the Middle East have fueled world interest.

Some leaders in the Arab world were deposed, removed from office and put on trial. As civil uprisings and major protests proliferate around the world, Civil war rages in Muslim countries such as Syria and Yemen. 

Remember back just a few years when the corrupt undemocratic regime of Ferdinand Marcos, the president of the Philippines caught our attention.  It was not his wife, Imelda Marcos and her collection of some three thousand pairs of shoes that brought down his government.  It was the excess public corruption.

One more little reminder of political corruption that forced the only resignation of a U. S. President, namely, Watergate.  The "fighters" of political corruption in the United States will be out in force in the 2016 elections as the political aspirants strive to capture the public anger.

My next attempt at my brand of Liberal and Progressive thought will expose some quacks, charlatans, just plain fakers, hoaxers and con artists using the "right" rhetoric, but not walking the walk!