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!