RE: A note on corruption in the USA

[Charudatt <charu@iced.com>]

[NOTE FROM MODERATOR!!: I'm going to hold on to posting further msgs on
this topic today. Enough for one day, what do you think? SS]
Back to Charu:

Kush Khatri[SMTP:free_voice@yahoo.com] writes:
> . . .
> Quite simply, corruption means SECRETLY obtaining favors
>(financial or others) by virtue of your public (government) position
>for your OWN PERSONAL USE.  

I think you're restricting the definition- why SECRETLY?
As I said elsewhere: A murder committed in broad daylight is still
a murder, likewise the fact that bribery is open, as in campaign
contributions, does not mean that it is not bribery.

>I challenge Vijay Prashad to show any instances where funds have been
>obtained seceretly by politicians for their personal use or the use of
>their families through lobbying activities.  

I recall reading somewhere that the way the law works, once
a politician retires s/he is free to use the funds in a campaign
fund as if it were income.

>Show us examples of other
>resources such as government property or personnel being used by
>politicians for their personal use.

Well in my adopted home state of Massachusetts, there were
numerous cases exposed and not prosecuted. For a specific
example- there's this guy William Bulger, former speaker of the
state house [BTW his brother is on the FBI's ten most wanted
list, he committed murder and escaped prosecution because he was
supposed to be an informant, but I digress]. Anyway, Billy Bulger
is now chancellor of the state university. As chancellor, he uses
university funds to rent himself huge house spending twice as
much as previous chancellors, and also creates about 10
sinecures paying over 100K/yr for his buddies. Now if this
happened in India we would call it what it is- corruption. Since
this kind of thing is so institutionalized and the dominant media
has so desensitized us to it we don't even blink or in some cases
seek to find justifications for this perversion.


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