Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blityzkrieg
blog,
On a more personal level, how can public service be
promoted as an ideal to young people when this sewer corrupts our Republic? At
this point in early twenty-first-century America, the greatest service our
nation’s young people could provide is to lead an army of outraged young
Americans armed with brooms on a crusade to sweep out the rascals and rid our
capital of the money changers, rent seekers, revolving door dancers, and
special interest deal makers and power brokers and send them back home to make
an honest living, that is, if they still remember how to do so.
Our ancestors did not depart Europe and elsewhere to
seek freedom and self-government alone. They came to these shores to escape
social and political systems that were corrosive and corrupt. Two and a quarter
centuries later, we are returning to those European practices. We are in danger
of becoming a different kind of nation, one our founders would not recognize
and would deplore.
In addition to the rise of the national security
state, and the concentration of wealth and power in America, no development in
modern times sets us apart more from the nation originally bequeathed to us
than the rise of the special interest state. There is a Gresham’s law related
to the republican ideal. Bad politics drives out good politics. Legalized
corruption drives men and women of stature, honor, and dignity out of the halls
of government. Self-respecting individuals cannot long tolerate a system of election
and reelection so dependent on cultivating the favor of those known to expect
access in return. Such a system is corrosive to the soul.
A former senator from Colorado, Gary Hart, has written
an extremely powerful and accurate critique of the unfathomably corrupt and
crony state of the U.S. government in 2015. It covers several very
important angles, including how appalled and disgusted our founders would be at
the current state of affairs. How a once great republic has devolved into
a thieving oligarchy in which the pursuit of money at power at the
expense of the public good has been elevated into something that’s not just
tolerated, but actually celebrated and encouraged amongst an ethics
deprived status quo.
Don’t take it from me though, here are several of my
favorite excerpts:
By that standard, can anyone seriously doubt that our
republic, our government, is corrupt? There have been Teapot Domes and
financial scandals of one kind or another throughout our nation’s history. There
has never been a time, however, when the government of the United States was so
perversely and systematically dedicated to special interests, earmarks, side
deals, log-rolling, vote-trading, and sweetheart deals of one kind or another.
What brought us to this? A sinister system combining
staggering campaign costs, political contributions, political action
committees, special interest payments for access, and, most of all, the rise of
the lobbying class.
Worst of all, the army of lobbyists that started
relatively small in the mid-twentieth century has now grown to big battalions
of law firms and lobbying firms of the right, left, and an amalgam of both. And
that gargantuan, if not reptilian, industry now takes on board former members
of the House and the Senate and their personal and committee staffs. And they
are all getting fabulously rich.
Frustrated, irate discussions of this legalized
corruption are met in the Washington media with a shrug. So what? Didn’t we
just have dinner with that lobbyist for the banking industry, or the teachers’
union, or the airline industry at that well-known journalist’s house only two
nights ago? Fine lady, and she used to be the chairman of one of those powerful
committees. I gather she is using her Rolodex rather skillfully on behalf of
her new clients. Illegal? Not at all. Just smart . . . and so charming.
There is little wonder that Americans of the right and
many in the middle are apoplectic at their government and absolutely, and
rightly, convinced that the game of government is rigged in favor of the elite
and the powerful. Occupiers see even more wealth rising to the top at the
expense of the poor and the middle class. And Tea Partiers believe their tax
dollars are going to well-organized welfare parasites and government
bureaucrats.
Never forget this Venn diagram:
The advent of legalized corruption launched by the
Supreme Court empowers the superrich to fund their own presidential and
congressional campaigns as pet projects, to foster pet policies, and to
represent pet political enclaves. You have a billion, or even several hundred
million, then purchase a candidate from the endless reserve bench of minor
politicians and make him or her a star, a mouthpiece for any cause or purpose
however questionable, and that candidate will mouth your script in endless
political debates and through as many television spots as you are willing to
pay for. All legal now.
To compound the political felony, much, if not most,
campaign financing is now carried out in secret, so that everyday citizens have
a decreasing ability to determine to whom their elected officials are beholden
and to whom they must now give special access. As recently as the 2014
election, the facts documented this government of influence by secrecy: “More
than half of the general election advertising aired by outside groups in the
battle for control of Congress,” according to the New York Times, “has come
from organizations that disclose little or nothing about their donors, a flood
of secret money that is now at the center of a debate over the line between
free speech and corruption.”
Of this handful, the largest by far is WPP (originally
called Wire and Plastic Products; is there a metaphor here?), which has its
headquarters in London and more than 150,000 employees in 2,500 offices spread
around 107 countries. It, together with one or two conglomerating competitors,
represents a fourth branch of government, vacuuming up former senators and
House members and their spouses and families, key committee staff, former
senior administration officials of both parties and several administrations,
and ambassadors, diplomats, and retired senior military officers.
WPP has swallowed giant public relations, advertising,
and lobbying outfits such as Hill & Knowlton and BursonMarsteller, along
with dozens of smaller members of the highly lucrative special interest and
influence-manipulation world. Close behind WPP is the Orwellian-named Omnicom
Group and another converger vaguely called the Interpublic Group of Companies. According
to Mr. Edsall, WPP had billings last year of $72.3 billion, larger than the
budgets of quite a number of countries.
With a budget so astronomical, think how much good WPP
can do in the campaign finance arena, especially since the Citizens United
decision. The possibilities are almost limitless. Why pay for a senator or congresswoman
here or there when you can buy an entire committee? Think of the banks that can
be bailed out, the range of elaborate weapons systems that can be sold to the
government, the protection from congressional scrutiny that can be paid for,
the economic policies that can be manipulated.
The lobbying business is no longer about votes up or
down on particular measures that may emerge in Congress or policies made in the
White House. It is about setting agendas, deciding what should and should not
be brought up for hearings and legislation. We have gone way beyond
mere vote buying now. The converging Influence World represents nothing less
than an unofficial but enormously powerful fourth branch of government.
America’s founders knew one thing: The republics of
history all died when narrow interests overwhelmed the common good and the
interests of the commonwealth.
What would our founders make of this nightmare of
corruption? We only know, in Thomas Jefferson’s case, for example, that his
distrust of central government had to do with the well-founded and prescient
suspicion that its largesse would go to powerful and influential interests,
especially financiers, who knew how to manipulate both the government and the
financial markets. In particular, Jefferson envisioned sophisticated bankers
speculating in public-debt issues with some if not all the interest incurred
going into their pockets.
The scope and scale of this genuine scandal (as
distinguished from vastly more mundane behavior that passes for scandal in the
media) is the single greatest threat to our form of government. It is
absolutely incompatible with the principles and ideals upon which America was
founded. At the very least, we Americans cannot hold ourselves up to the world
as the beacon of democracy so long as we permit, as long as we acquiesce in,
corruption so far beyond the standards of the true republic that our government
cannot be proclaimed an ideal for other aspiring nations.
On a more personal level, how can public service be
promoted as an ideal to young people when this sewer corrupts our Republic? At
this point in early twenty-first-century America, the greatest service our
nation’s young people could provide is to lead an army of outraged young
Americans armed with brooms on a crusade to sweep out the rascals and rid our
capital of the money changers, rent seekers, revolving door dancers, and
special interest deal makers and power brokers and send them back home to make
an honest living, that is, if they still remember how to do so.
When a former senator accurately notes that the best
thing young Americans can do is instigate a successful rebellion
against the incredibly corrupt and powerful monied interests running the county
into the ground, you know things are very bleak.
A harsh judgment? Indeed. But it is impossible to
claim to love one’s country and not be outraged at how corrupt it has become.
For former senators and representatives to trade a title given them by the
voters of their respective states and districts for cash is beyond shameful. It
is outrageous.
“I tremble for my country when I contemplate that God
is just.” Those words of Thomas Jefferson, enshrined on the walls of his
memorial, referred to the institution of slavery. Today he might readily render
the same judgment about corruption in and of the American Republic.
It is an error of serious proportion to dismiss
corruption in twenty-first-century American democracy on the grounds that this
has all been going on from the beginning, that boys will be boys, that
politicians are always on the take. Past incidents of the violation of public
ethics provide no argument fozr accepting the systemic and cancerous
commercialization of modern American politics.
Our ancestors did not depart Europe and elsewhere to
seek freedom and self-government alone. They came to these shores to escape
social and political systems that were corrosive and corrupt. Two and a quarter
centuries later, we are returning to those European practices. We are in danger
of becoming a different kind of nation, one our founders would not recognize
and would deplore.
Even as politicians and pundits alike pummel the
fiscal deficit, we are developing an integrity deficit of mounting proportions.
And one is not disconnected from the other. Because of the erosion of the
integrity of our governing system, and the principles and ideals underlying it,
the fiscal deficit increases. The government spending so many conservatives
claim to abhor includes not only the social safety net of Roosevelt and
Johnson, but also the war-making excursions of Ronald Reagan and George W.
Bush. It is all government spending. And it includes favorite pork-barrel
projects of every member of both houses of Congress of both political parties,
and every one of those most loudly condemning “wasteful government spending.”
Those projects are produced by the lobbying interests that raise money for
those members of Congress in direct proportion to their effectiveness at
bringing government-financed projects to their states and districts. By
definition, if it is a project in my state or district, it is not wasteful.
We were not created to be like other nations. We were
created as an alternative to monarchy, aristocracy, oligarchy, and corrupt
political systems. The more we follow the easy path, the one paved for the
benefit of the wealthy and powerful, the more we stray from our originally
intended purpose and the more we lose our unique purpose for existence.
In addition to the rise of the national security
state, and the concentration of wealth and power in America, no development in
modern times sets us apart more from the nation originally bequeathed to us
than the rise of the special interest state. There is a Gresham’s law related
to the republican ideal. Bad politics drives out good politics. Legalized
corruption drives men and women of stature, honor, and dignity out of the halls
of government. Self-respecting individuals cannot long tolerate a system of
election and reelection so dependent on cultivating the favor of those known to
expect access in return. Such a system is corrosive to the soul.
As bad as things are, the fact a former senator is not
only aware of the problem, but is willing to publicly write a scathing article
condemning it, is ultimately a very good thing.
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