David Sirota on PBS

PBS - 6/16/06

Trivializing Corruption

By David Sirota

Ninety thousand dollars in a Democratic Congressman's freezer. A
Republican House Majority Leader indicted for money laundering, and a
senior Republican thrown in jail for accepting bribes. Washington's
biggest lobbyist thrown in jail for trying to buy off lawmakers. This
is what the Washington Establishment and the media want America to
believe is the worst form of corruption: a few dirty political hacks
who had the nerve to violate our supposedly pristine democracy.

Certainly, these examples are egregious. But the intense focus on
them by political leaders and the media to the exclusion of the real
corruption destroying our democracy trivializes what corruption
really is. That's not by accident -- it is a deliberate tactic of
distraction, and shows just how bought off our political system
really is.

Today, the lifeblood of American politics is money. Candidates must
raise enormous sums of private cash to run for office -- sums that
the wealthy and corporate interests are only too happy to provide in
exchange for legislative favors. We are told by politicians that this
system is "the greatest democracy in the world" when, in fact, it is
very clearly the same form of bribery that has marked every corrupt
regime looked down on by history books.

Money, of course, does not just buy favors -- it makes sure that the
concept of corruption is only presented to the public by political
leaders as anecdotes about a few bad apples, not a narrative about a
broken system. Why? Because an indictment of the pay-to-play system
that produced the bad apples could mean structural campaign finance
reforms that challenge the power of the Big Money interests that
underwrite our politicians. Thus, in the aftermath of recent
congressional scandals, all we get is a pathetical discussion about
weak lobbying "reform" proposals and even weaker sanctions against
individual lawmakers.

Such narrowing of our political discourse is the most nefarious form
of corruption of all. It shows how we now live in a country where the
very boundaries of public policy debates are designed to ensure
outcomes that never challenge Big Money interests. The truly corrupt
interests that own American politics long ago realized that they do
not have to pervasively violate our weak anti-corruption laws to get
what they want. All they have to do is shower cash on as many
lawmakers as possible. These lawmakers, uninterested in biting the
hand that feeds them, consequently make sure the overall debate is
rigged.

So, for instance, as America faces an impending energy crisis, the
political debate emanating from Washington has been largely limited
to a discussion of which new tax breaks to give to which major oil
companies -- all of whom have doled out millions in campaign
contributions to politicians.

Any serious discussion of a windfall profits tax on oil companies has
been marginalized, even though polls show the public strongly supports
the concept. Proposals to improve anti-trust enforcement as a way of
slowing down oil industry consolidation -- that's not even talked
about. And any consideration of a tough federal price gouging law has
been met with propaganda claiming it is not needed. Just last week,
the Federal Trade Commission -- headed by a former ChevronTexaco
lawyer -- claimed there is no evidence of oil industry price gouging.
This is occurring as Americans are paying more than $3-per-gallon for
gas at the very same time ExxonMobil made more money than any
corporation in history and gave its outgoing CEO a $400 million
retirement bonus.

The same is true when it comes to health care. As health insurance
premiums skyrocket and more Americans are forced to go with no
insurance at all, polls consistently show that Americans want a
universal health care system -- and are willing to make sacrifices to
get one. Yet, almost no politicians in Washington are willing to
support a government-sponsored, single-payer system like the one the
rest of the industrialized world has. The reason? Because such a
proposal could threaten the bottom line of the private health
insurance industry, which makes massive donations to political
candidates. Instead, the debate is limited either to proposals like
Massachusetts' that simply forces citizens to pay high health
premiums, or to proposals in Congress that would just hand over
billions of taxpayer dollars to the private health insurance industry
to minimally expand coverage.

Even on hot button issues like immigration, the debate is narrowed to
fit Big Money's agenda. Think about it -- the political Establishment
is having a supposedly intense debate over illegal immigration
without even mentioning the corporate-written North American Free
Trade Agreement. This is the pact that, more than a decade ago, was
sold to Americans by President Clinton and Republicans in Congress as
a way to improve the Mexican economy and drive down illegal
immigration, but which actually drove millions more Mexicans into
poverty and increased pressure at our southern border. Almost no
politicians have even raised the concept of adding wage or workplace
protections to the pact as a way to improve the Mexican economy and
give Mexicans a better incentive to remain in their country --
because to raise that concept would be to challenge politicians'
corporate campaign donors who want access to Mexico's impoverished,
exploitable workforce.

To be sure -- politicians will continue their efforts to focus
attention exclusively on the bad apples within their midst. They will
then cite their own outrage as proof they are true "reformers." Just
as they feed us false storylines about supposedly working for us when
they are working for Big Money, they will tell us they are serious
about fixing our broken political system, when they really are not.
Because, as we see, when the cameras shut off, Washington's
bipartisan establishment still refuses to embrace systemic reforms
like public financing of elections that would actually end the
pay-to-pay political culture.

We, the public, can hope and pray for change, and we can delude
ourselves into thinking that a simple change in party control will
fix our problems. But the simple truth is that until we go to the
ballot box and punish representatives from both parties who are part
of this consensus, we will continue to live not in a democracy -- but
in a system of legalized bribery that makes our problems worse.