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The Corruption Of POTUS, SCOTUS, And SCROTUS
The Corruption Of POTUS, SCOTUS, And SCROTUS | ZeroHedge
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
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"?
2. Is there any sense of sincere shame or wrong-doing when those reaping private gains from their positions in the State are publicly exposed? Or do the guilty disclaim any notions of sin or shame for betraying the Public Trust?
3. Are there two completely different Standards of Justice, Criminality and Punishment, one applied ferociously to the general public and another applied with the lightest of feathers to insiders, financial elites and the politically influential?
I submit that all three conditions are true: corruption is now BAU, business as usual; there is no sense of shame or wrongdoing when the corrupt are exposed, and there are two judicial standards, one for the bottom 99.9% and another for insiders, the well-connected, the influential, the politically protected and the super-wealthy, what I call America's Aristocracy or Royalty.
...... more here
The Corruption Of POTUS, SCOTUS, And SCROTUS | ZeroHedge
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
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"?
2. Is there any sense of sincere shame or wrong-doing when those reaping private gains from their positions in the State are publicly exposed? Or do the guilty disclaim any notions of sin or shame for betraying the Public Trust?
3. Are there two completely different Standards of Justice, Criminality and Punishment, one applied ferociously to the general public and another applied with the lightest of feathers to insiders, financial elites and the politically influential?
I submit that all three conditions are true: corruption is now BAU, business as usual; there is no sense of shame or wrongdoing when the corrupt are exposed, and there are two judicial standards, one for the bottom 99.9% and another for insiders, the well-connected, the influential, the politically protected and the super-wealthy, what I call America's Aristocracy or Royalty.
...... more here
