Grand corruption

"We will meet our challenges head on and we will do it by rejecting the politics of mediocrity and corruption. You voted for change; I intend to deliver it. ... I will govern as a reformer." - Rod Blagojevich Inaugural address, 2003

When former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich heard the verdict last week in his corruption trial, he reportedly turned to his lawyers and asked "what happened?" Blagojevich later told the press he was "stunned" that a jury of his peers found him guilty on 17 of 20 federal corruption charges.

The years-long circus of the Blagojevich saga with Blagojevich himself willingly playing the jester in the middle would certainly make one think that he is a political animal with no peer. His taped statements about trading a "f*cking golden" U.S. Senate seat and levering his public office for personal gain were so jaw-droppingly outrageous and Blagojevich's hubris so great it seemed that he would forever be in a class of his own.

The fact is, when it comes to corruption, Blagojevich has many, many peers. While his "every politician does it" defense was legally laughable, it had a shade of truth to it.

The marriage of politics and corruption isn't some newfangled concept. Bribes and the horsetrading of favors have shaped public policy since the very beginning of democracy. While many, if not most, of those in public service are hard-working, honest individuals, real power tends to concentrate itself in hands clenched with money.

As Blagojevich listened to the verdict being read in a courtroom in Illinois, in a town square 5500 miles away, Greek citizens battled tear gas and police as they protested their government's imposition of austerity measures.

If one wants to look at the end product of corruption, one need look no further than those smoke-filled streets of Athens, Greece. There, in the birthplace of democracy, we see how petty and grand corruption can infest a culture and break a nation.

Peter Eigen, founder of the global corruption watchdog group Transparency International, has focused his work on the difference between petty corruption and grand corruption (video below).

As Eigen explains, petty corruption is the type of day-to-day indignity of having to pay for everyday services. From slipping an envelope with cash to a doctor so he can treat you to being told by a customs officer that your baggage can?t get through unless you pay an extra few hundred dollars, what seem like horror stories to us are a way of life in country where dealing with the government necessarily entails bringing your checkbook along for the ride. Grand corruption is the type of pay-to-play, Blagojevich-style schemes that take place behind closed doors at high levels of government.

Both petty and grand corruption exist at all levels of government in all countries, but Greece serves as an example of what happens when citizens stop fighting both forms and instead acquiesce to having corruption dictate the fate of a nation.

According to studies, Greek families paid an average of ?1,355 ($1,830) in bribes for public services, totaling over  ?1 billion in 2009. And while the caricature of the tax-evading Greek has dominated the news media, Greece has rankedas one of the hardest-working countries in the world. It?s low-income and middle class families that are paying bribes to facilitate even basic government services.

This widespread petty corruption in a dying middle class is a byproduct of an acceptance of corruption at the very top. Blagojevich?s antics are child?s play compared to the antics of those Greeks elected to serve the public trust. The current debt crisis is directly related to the rampant bribes, kickbacks, cover-ups and special interest favors that have defined the Greek government for decades.

Are we, as Republicans like to rant, "like Greece"? No. Petty corruption is the exception not the norm here, and any comparison of our debt situation to that of Greece is nothing more than a hollow talking point.

What we do have here is something that is becoming endemic in countries across the world, not just in Greece. The acceptance of grand corruption presents a massive threat to our economy and that of the global economy. As Eigen has been arguing, globalization means that corruption at the top levels of any government can reverberate throughout the world. It's a breach of trust butterfly effect where, for example, politicians who pay back campaign favors by decreasing financial sector regulations can send the entire world into an economic tailspin.

America is not immune to the growing complacency with grand corruption. We?ve long come to accept a certain level of corruption in our public officials. Rather than bribes and schemes being the exception to the rule, it?s considered a standard practice. Instead of a zero-tolerance approach, we judge the degree of the offense. Granting ambassadorships and plum government positions to top campaign bundlers? A traffic ticket, an incident shrugged off as usual politics. Handing out checks from lobbyists to members of Congress on the House floor?  An act worthy of the future Speaker of the House.

It appears that short of running an actual bribe menu or storing $90,000 in a freezer or being caught on tape trying to sell a U.S. Senate seat, otherwise extraordinary acts of corruption have become ordinary. Mundane. Accepted.

It?s a troubling state of affairs when a nation begins to view corruption not as a character flaw but a standard character trait in its public officials.

It?s this citizen complacency that gives rise to the repeated re-election of compromised politicians. Blagojevich was re-elected despite glaring headlines about his antics. Democrat Charlie Rangel was re-elected despite the cloud of congressional investigations over his head. Republican John McCain not only was relected after the Keating Five scandal, he was chosen to be his party?s presidential nominee. The list goes on and on.

Placing corrupt officials back in political power rather than holding them accountable at the voting booth has disastrous effects on both domestic and foreign policy. For example, last month?s hearing on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act barely made news. The FCPA bans American companies from making bribes to foreign governments. Republican Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner presided over a hearing on proposed amednemnts to the act:

"Nobody here is in favor of bribery," said Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) at a Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday examining the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). But Sensenbrenner and House Republicans made clear they intend to change the law as it currently stands.

Sensenbrenner called the FCPA statute vague and said it was too open to the interpretation of the Justice Department, arguing that the feds could even apply the law to paying for cab rides for their overseas workers if they wanted. But a Justice Department representative pointed out that all the panelists advocating for reform couldn't point out one example of when they believed the feds had overreached by prosecuting over a cup of coffee or taxi ride and touted recent cases involving bribery with a Ferrari, a yacht and a $170,000 payment toward a credit card bill.

Yes, American politicians, their wallets fat with contributions from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are aggressively working to make it easier for American companies to bribe foreign government officials. Grand corruption indeed.

Progressives have been fighting this type of corruption for a long time. The 1912 Progressive Party Platform, attributed to Roosevelt, stated as one goal:

"To destroy this invisible Government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.?

The first task of the statesmanship of the today however has been not to dissolve that unholy alliance but to strengthen it.  The pace of this endeavor over the last decade has been astounding. Citizens United essentially legalized bribery by allowing unlimited, undisclosed influence from corporations in our political process. FCC commissioner Meredith Attwell voted to approve a massive deal between NBC Universal and Comcast and quit her post to become a Comcast lobbyist just months later. Study after study has noted that members of Congress enjoy ?abnormal? rates of return from common stock investments.

What are we as citizens to do? Corruption will never disappear, but we can minimize its effects here at home by working to elect Americans who can be trusted with the public trust. If that means running for office yourself at the local level, the journey begins there.

The current status quo of accepted corruption is a quicksand that will swallow our middle class. We cannot afford to stand still any longer, looking at the direction of our country and asking each other "what happened?"

There is no stunned look to be exchanged, no surprises around the corner. We know what happens to a democracy when citizens allow corruption to define their society. But we also know that no other nation on earth is better equipped to rekindle the concept of democracy and fairness and prosperity than our own.

With election season starting, it's up to us to roll up our sleeves and get to work for those who will fight corruption at the local, state and national level. Do you have any campaigns that you'll be supporting because of the candidate's dedication to cleaning up politics? Share your campaign experiences in the comments below.

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/FsBkcpGBXfc/-Grand-corruption

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