Major political corruption scandals have recently made headlines in newspapers around the country. The increased attention to the issue raises important questions: Are politics getting more corrupt? Or have such scandals existed throughout all eras of politics in the United States?
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But the Blagojevich scandal is not unique. “Pay-to-play” politics are par-for-the-course for U.S. politics. As a matter of fact, had Blagojevich not upset Bank of America executives with his intervention in the workers’ struggle at Republic Windows and Doors, he might still have a career today. More often than not, behind-the-scene deals remain the dirty little secret of top political players and their corporate sponsors.
Political corruption is institutional
Political corruption has existed in every era of U.S. political life.
Between 1795 and 1803 several Georgia governors and the state legislature sold vast tracts of land to insiders for bargain-basement prices in what became known as the Yazoo Land Scandal.
President Ulysses Grant’s personal secretary diverted public funds to distilleries in what came to be known as the Whiskey Ring of 1875. His secretary of war was found guilty of accepting bribes to sell off Native American trading posts.
The infamous Teapot Dome Scandal during Warren Harding’s presidency involved the secretary of the interior profiting off the sale of naval oil reserves to oil tycoons.
More recent political scandals include lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who was found guilty in 2006 of defrauding banks, fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials; California Congressman Randall “Duke” Cunningham resigned from office in 2005 after pleading guilty to accepting bribes; Alaska Senator Ted Stevens was indicted for failure to disclose thousands of dollars in funds received from a private corporation for remodeling his home.
Even when a few “bad apples” are punished for their crimes, legions of lobbyists for some of the biggest and most powerful corporations in the world still dominate nearly every aspect of Washington politics. Between 2000 and mid-2005, the number of registered lobbyists in Washington, D.C., more than doubled to over 34,750, or nearly 70 per member of Congress. (Newsmax, June 22, 2005)
Revolving door of the military-industrial complex
The military-industrial complex, as it was originally called by outgoing President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1961, has since evolved into a constantly revolving door between high-ranking military leaders and private defense contractors raking in billions in government subsidies through the Pentagon.
A look at the record of former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Hugh Shelton, demonstrates how interconnected industry and the Pentagon have become.
“The day I left the military,” General Shelton said, “my phone started to ring off the hook.” (Corp Watch, June 19, 2005)
Since retiring from the Army, General Shelton has served as a director of several large corporations, including Northrop Grumman, Cisco Systems and Anteon International Corporation, all of which do business with the government.
Anteon, for example, helped build NATO’s intelligence-gathering operations and helped operate computer systems for the Pentagon. The company is one of the largest suppliers of information technology to the government, which accounts for about 80 percent of its $1.5 billion in sales.
Anteon’s board members also include former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry and Paul G. Kaminski, a former Pentagon acquisitions official. Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John M. Shalikashvili is on the boards of defense contractors including Boeing, L-3 Communications and United Defense Industries.
Gen. Wesley K. Clark, a former supreme allied commander of NATO, has served on the boards of several high-technology companies that worked with the Pentagon, including Acxiom, a data supplier to the Department of Homeland Security, and Allied Worldwide, which moves military families around the globe.
Wall Street is also highly connected to the Pentagon’s revolving door. For example, Veritas Capital, an investment firm in New York that owns military companies with $3 billion in sales, has put many retired officers on its boards.
Former Pentagon officials connected to the company include three former retired generals—Anthony C. Zinni of the Marines, Barry R. McCaffrey of the Army and Richard E. Hawley of the Air Force—and two former Navy admirals—Joseph W. Prueher and Leighton W. Smith Jr. Zinni is also the president for international operations of M.I.C. Industries, director of BAE Systems and DynCorp, all of which have major contracts with the Pentagon.
Bad apples in a basket of rotten fruit
Clearly, the source of the corruption is not in the individual perpetrators found guilty of a crime, but rather the nature of the system itself. With such interconnection existing between private corporations and the Pentagon, how could one not expect the interests of “national security” and profit-making to become one and the same?
Politics, like all else under capitalism, becomes commodified. Those with political power and influence sell their favors to the highest bidders. Most corruption is sanctified by law: campaign contributions, corporate lobbyism, coveted corporate positions doled out to former and present state officials. The rest is swept under the rug—the not-so-secret stuff everyone in the ruling circles knows but no one talks about, until something becomes too big to hide.
As long as the banks and corporations hold the keys to power in all the major institutions of the U.S. government, these same relationships between politics and private business and the associated corruption will continue unabated.
To resolve this increasingly dangerous contradiction, the dictatorship of the banks and corporations must be replaced with people’s power. The myth of a government of, by and for the people must be made a reality by smashing the current government of, by and for the banks and corporations. Only then can corruption be meaningfully confronted.
