Bribery vs Lobbying: One is Illegal and Wrong; the Other is Legal, but Is It Right?

Thanks to the federal and state politicians who don’t possess the will to reform our campaign finance laws, the endless amounts of money that special interests are willing to spend to gain special advantages and a U.S. Supreme Court who thinks corporations are people, millions of anonymous dollars are pouring into political advertising and influence peddling without any accountability or transparency. Let’s look at the similarities between illegal bribery and legal influence peddling:

    •    Both buy favors.

    •    Both are anonymous or faceless.

    •    Both tilt the playing field of fairness.

    •    Both disenfranchise those who can’t afford to purchase favorable treatment. 

    •    Both compromise the politicians.

    •    And both subvert the system.

Bribery is illegal and frowned on by society. Lobbying is legal and thereby tacitly condoned by our society.
Who made campaign financing and lobbying legal? The beneficiaries are the ones who made the laws. The issue of morality versus legality I shall leave to you the reader.

This query was prompted by two recent media pieces. One was a June online piece by Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor: see http://robertreich.org/post/24472398883?632ecf88

The other was a segment on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” on July 8th where Lesley Stahl interviewed Jack Abramoff, one of the most notorious U.S. lobbyists of our time, who served more than three years in prison for his crimes – one of only a few lobbyists who ever served time. You can watch the interview here: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-57319068-10391709/jack-abramoff-inside-capitol-corruption/?tag=cbsnewsMainColumnArea.1

Please read the former and watch the latter. Then see if you have the same reaction that Stahl had during the interview: "I think the public's going to be furious watching this," she said after expressing her anger at what he’d done. I hope people do get angry. I hope you do. We need to get mad as hell and stop taking this anymore!!

Comments

[johnrenesch]

Peggy O'Neal sent me an email asking...

I love your writing. And, I wonder if you have specific ideas about what to do after we're mad as hell and won't take it any more.

It's so funny; you're such a seeming calm and peaceful man, but you want us to get mad?

My response:

Hi Peggy, OK good question…

Anger is a normal human emotion. It is also an energizing one. Drunk driving became very uncool because the mother of a child killed by a drunk driver got “mad as hell” and even named her organization “MADD”

In my view, the masses are repressing their anger (very unhealthy thing to do, by the way) …. so it shows up in very unhealthy ways like Aurora, Columbine, etc. Or for most of us, distracting ourselves through media, addictions of various types, workaholism, etc. If we all really got angry about the state of things we could find what we were most angry about and then do something about that… it could be political reform, environmental degradation, coral reef destruction…whatever has struck a nerve in you! Whatever you most care about that need fixing.

My mad as hell thing in the article about bribery made legal, so that’s what I’m yelling about…in a way I can.

Does that answer your question?

John

Peggy's response:

Oh, yes, it answers it very well. And, I'm enjoying this interaction. I do, of course, know what you are saying below, have taught it, work with it in myself, on and on. What I really meant was, do you want to include it in your piece? I'll get better at offering suggestions...

Getting angry in and of itself I guess is useful to start experiencing our experience, but then what? Didn't know if you might want to include something along the lines of what you wrote below. To feel the anger and then do what that anger (after you've sat with it until it gets to the level that is useful to take the next step, i.e., to determination - I think that's what anger gets to when you've been there for a while) is actually calling you to do.

And, if all you want to do in this piece is invite people to FEEL, then - GOT it!

Thank you so much!

Peggy

[johnrenesch]

Peggy, still unable to log in here herself, emails me the following:

I was going to add (for now) is that you say something about fixing things. And, there is nothing to fix. It would be like rearranging the chairs on the Titanic, as I'm sure you've probably said yourself. So, let's stop thinking of fixing things and start with possibly this question, "What is next?" "What's a whole new way to do this or that - whatever it is that we say needs fixing." Like Einstein said - we can't solve problems at the same level of thinking at which they were created.

So, if you want to do something with that, great. If not, at least I got to say what was on my mind. And, I appreciate that! And, you reading this!!

My response to Peggy:

There is plenty of fixing to be done, Peggy. Not that "fixing" needs to be restricted to duct tape and bailing wire patch-ups (which is not what I meant) but including transforming some things and creating newly others things. This is the same as our Third Thursday calls.