The Stench of Corruption

Corruption is not the greatest crime. It is not murder or genocide. It is not oppression or tyranny. They say that Adolf Eichmann could not be bribed. His evil was not that of venality. His evil was that he obeyed orders even when those orders were bestial. The philosopher Hannah Arendt has pointed out that corruption is an understandable human flaw, while the evil of genocide is beyond understanding. It is banal. But corruption can undermine the fundamentals of civilization. It can seep into the hearts of men and rot their sense of decency.

When you read the transcript of the telephone conversations by Governor Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois, you can smell the stench of moral decay. Here was a man elected to an office of public trust, plotting ways to get a quid pro quo out of the appointment of a senator to replace Barack Obama. Democracy is an imperfect method of government. Sometimes the voters elect monsters.

It should have been expected that the Republican leaders, bitter and humiliated by an election that rejected them and their ideas, would revel in this exposure of a crooked Democratic politician. Several of them have tried to tie President-elect Obama to the scandal. It makes me think of Satan in Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” Satan is thrown out of heaven, hurled “headlong flaming from the ethereal sky with hideous ruin and combustion down to bottomless perdition.” Lying in the foul pit of Hell, Satan looks around at his fallen host of evil demons and tries to arouse them, saying: “What though the field be lost? All is not lost; the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and courage never to submit or yield.” It could be John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, or Mike Duncan of the RNC.

It is obvious from the Blagojevich tapes that Obama had nothing to do with the Governor’s sinister schemes. I believe that Barack Obama is a thoroughly honest and decent man. I have spent my life in courtrooms listening to witnesses lie, and I think I am a pretty good judge of whether someone is telling the truth. Barack Obama is a man of integrity. His detractors are lesser men who need something to raise their petty spirits after their ignoble fall from grace.

The reasons given by politicians for seeking office are mostly baloney. People do not usually run for office in order to help their fellow men. People run for office in order to achieve personal aggrandizement. It is a normal human ambition. But sometimes politicians seek to be elected in order to aggrandize their bank accounts. Money is Power. Power is a narcotic.

Money is the golden idol we worship six days a week. The U.S. Supreme Court adopted the language of the great theologian, Paul Tillich, when it defined “religion” as “your ultimate concern….what you take seriously without reservation.” If that is religion, than money is our god. The critical fact about money is that it not only buys the necessities and luxuries of life, it confers status. Among the wealthy, money becomes the symbol of respectability and the foundation of earthly merit. Among the middle class, money is a means of elevating one’s stature in the eyes of one’s friends and neighbors. Among the poor, money is the lifeblood of survival and the means of escape.

Money exerts such stunning power over our lives that most friendships are too weak to withstand its interference. Families are torn apart over financial disputes, and children wait like vultures for loved ones to die so that they can inherit the estates. It should come as no surprise that our public and private dealings are permeated with large and small corruptions based on money.

We should treat public corruption as treason against the government and the people. The penalties should reflect the seriousness of the offense. Prison terms should be very long and act as a deterrent. The fines should make corruption a fearsomely hazardous financial risk. Conviction should mean seizure of the offender’s entire net worth.

Much of what we do in life is based on faith. If we live in a world where every act of trust is suspect, we are doomed to perpetual paranoia and despair.