American Corruption
By Larry Walker
Self-serving, dishonest, unethical, illegal, full-blown corruption fuels the System — publicly, right before our eyes. We’ve seen the headlines, the articles, the statistics — and seem to “sigh and turn away” as it has all become “normal.”
Here’s a list of past and current actions that would be less acceptable if only we labeled them as corrupt. You could add more. The longer the list, the greater the need for reform.
Both Political Parties Are Corrupt
Both parties have “gerrymandered” electoral district boundaries, which helps them almost guarantee winning re-election.
Congressional popularity is less than 15% — but incumbents win over 90% of the time!
Legislators spend 50% of their time working to get political donations.
No wonder they don’t have time to work for the people who elect them.
Political campaigns focus on issues of importance to the voters.
Once in office, these promises are seldom met.
Elected leaders in both parties are mostly concerned about getting re-elected.
They maneuver motivated by short-term tactical considerations and ignore strategic and long-term issues.
There are now 4,000 lobbying groups working for corporations.
Less than 400 lobbying groups advocate for unions — and workers.
The “revolving door”.
Far too many people leave public office for high-paying jobs with companies they had oversight over.
The Republican Attack on Democracy is Corrupt
Concerned that pro-Democratic people of color will soon be a majority of the electorate and believing that high voter turnout helps Democrats, the Republican Party is making it more difficult to vote.
Increasingly, Republicans seem to believe the only elections that are “free and fair” are those they win.
They oppose majority rule (with minority rights).
Republican leaders in Congress opposed a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6th riot at the Capitol that tried to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
Immediately after the riot, they blamed Donald Trump for fomenting the riot, but faced with opposition from the rank-and-file, they soon back-tracked.
The party removed Liz Cheney from her leadership post for insisting the election was legitimate.
They failed to punish Marjorie Green for her anti-Semitic comments.
Businesses Are Corrupt
We’re bombarded daily with advertisements that encourage us to buy-buy-buy.
After the 9/11 disaster, President Bush encouraged Americans to go shopping.
Propaganda drives us to be a “consumer society” — what kind of vision for a nation is that?!
Money flows to the top 1% — while wages have stagnated for 40 years although productivity has increased.
In 2019, the CEOs of S&P 500 companies received on average $14.8 million in compensation, and the average CEO-to-worker pay ratio was 264-to-1.
Many executives generate tax-free income by borrowing against their stock holdings.
And — those who suggest taxing wealth are discounted.
Corporate executives are typically not prosecuted for white-collar crimes they commit.
Rather, their corporations are punished. Jed Rakoff, a federal judge in New York, believes this practice is “technically and morally suspect”.
The Sackler family has cleared $10 billion from selling opioids that have killed millions of Americans. By the time their case is fully settled, they will still have their $10 billion and NO criminal charges!!
Donald Trump owed Deutsche Bank hundreds of millions of dollars.
So, he sued them, and most of his debt went away.
Companies caught breaking the law or delivering inferior products often respond with cover-ups.
With permission from our Congress, companies undertake monopolistic and oligopolistic practices.
Congress appears unwilling to take on businesses that are too large to fail.
There are over 5,000 arrests for a white-collar crime for every 100,000 people in the United States.
Insider trading in business and finance is common.
American Schools Are Corrupt
In part because schools need to graduate students to get funding, our children can graduate from high school unable to read or write at a level competent to enter college.
Even though the cost for this education continues to rise and rise.
50% of students entering Minnesota’s two-year college system must take remedial reading, writing, and math.
Even though both the K-12 system and the 2-year college system fall under the Minnesota Department of Education.
Cheaters are Corrupt
More parents are bribing colleges to admit their children.
64% of public high school students admit to serious test cheating.
Cheating in athletics and video games is a widespread problem.
American Treatment of Minorities Has Been and Is Corrupt
Our Constitution defined Blacks as 3/5 human.
This helped preserve slavery until the Civil War.
Jim Crow laws then legalized bigotry until the Civil Rights Act.
Various laws still today put Blacks at a disadvantage.
In June 2021, the National Football League admitted to using “race norming” to pay injured Black players less than white players for concussion injuries.
Whites totally destroyed the remarkably successful Greenwood District in Tulsa, OK in 1921.
Greenwood was known as Black Wall Street.
This destruction was covered up for decades.
Blacks rebuilt Greenwood only to have it ravaged again in the 1960s and 1970s through eminent domain decisions.
Only to be discouraged again today through rules and decisions that prevent them from rebuilding again.
The Rosewood Massacre was an attack on the predominantly African-American town of Rosewood, Florida, in 1923 by large groups of white aggressors.
The town was entirely destroyed by the end of the violence, and the residents were driven out permanently.
The story was mostly forgotten until the 1980s when it was brought to public attention.
It is now known that 48 riots against Blacks by whites across the US occurred in the early 1920s.
New Deal relief programs did not explicitly discriminate against Blacks, but President Roosevelt compromised with the Southern States to exclude (mostly non-white) domestic and agricultural workers to pass New Deal legislation.
Black GIs were excluded from the benefits of the GI Bill because banks wouldn’t lend to them.
Black people were sent to jail for possessing rock cocaine (crack).
White people were not sent to jail for possessing powder cocaine.
European settlers of America systematically took this land from Native Americans and almost exterminated them.
They failed to honor treaties they negotiated with the tribes.
The Dakota Tribe proved in Court that they NEVER gave their sacred Black Hills to the US.
Federal Court agreed with them.
But as of June 2021, the Black Hills have still not been returned to the Tribe.
The Cherokee Indians walked from Georgia and North Carolina to their reservation in Oklahoma — The Trail of Tears.
They ended up sitting right on top of oil.
They were awarded “royalties” just after 1900.
The U.S. Government later decided to stop paying these royalties because Indians awarded their land to ALL their children at death, so it got “too complicated”.
A few years ago, the tribes sued for $100 billion in past-due royalties.
Federal Courts caught the Bureau of the Interior destroying the records.
The case was settled for $3 billion — for decades of unpaid royalties.
The U.S. government started a war with Mexico and seized enormous territory from them, most of the Southwest and California.
During WWII America interned US Japanese Citizens in concentration camps.
In 2019, Latino children were separated from their parents as they were requesting asylum. Hundreds of them have not been reunited.
This violates international law
Most of these actions were “legal” — they were and often still are embedded in our laws. Eliminating or reducing this corruption requires replacing every law that permits rampant corruption, undoing those personal values that encourage self-serving unethical behavior, and developing a culture that more strongly affirms serving the common good.