Corruption is the norm, it permeates the highest ranks of American government and its allied institutions. From Charles Hugh Smith at oftwominds.com:
Until we reach that point of social transformation, we’re passengers on a ship of state doomed by rampant, systemic corruption and the collapse of moral standards and the rule of law.
Political corruption isn’t hard to define: confidentially leveraging the power of one’s position in the State for private gain. This covers the spectrum of using State power for personal gain from freebies, bribes, sweetheart deals, obtaining insider information, revolving doors between private sector and state positions, influence-peddling, selling tax breaks, subsidies, permits, etc., bloated speaking fees and so on, in a nearly limitless profusion of private financial gains generated solely by one’s position of power within the State–the legislative and regulatory government, central bank, military and judiciary–gains that are cloaked from public disclosure and scrutiny.
One example is employees in building-planning departments taking bribes from applicants to bypass lengthy permit reviews. Money changes hands privately to gain some state-issued benefit.
Public trust in institutions, the rule of law and basic fairness are all undermined by corruption. This is why even the hint of impropriety must be promptly investigated and the results made public.
But there is more to corruption than just investigating improprieties. The larger questions are:
1. Is corruption a rare occurrence or has it become business as usual, i.e. endemic, embedded, taken for granted as “the way things work”?
