Buying In, Selling Out

Former Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich, is honestly befuddled. Despite being let-off by a deadlocked jury, federal prosecutors still intend to try and convict him for bribery. And he's not the only one. As lawyer, Scott Turow, points out in his NYTimes Op-ed , thanks to the Supremes barefaced decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a virtual endorsement of corporate corruption, the bribing of public officials is now simply the way that business is done. Call it greasing the wheels of commerce. What poor Governor Blago is apparently too dense to understand is that while it may be common practice we must just not say it out loud.

For instance, consider this: the Washington Post reports that three out of every four lobbyists who represent oil and gas companies previously worked in the federal government. And not just anywhere in government. They are mostly lawmakers from oil-producing states. Fifteen of the 18 former members of Congress who now lobby for oil and gas firms are from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma or Kansas. After blasting the Obama administration for wanting to halt off shore drilling in light of the BP disaster, Louisiana Gov. Mary Landrieu hightailed it to her annual "Crawfish Fest" fundraiser, hosted by (among others) seven oil industry lobbyists -- six of whom previously worked on Capitol Hill. But it would impolitic to impugn the good Governor's integrity. Despite the $17,000 her campaign received in '08 Ms. Landrieu insists she is not the oil industry's handmaiden.

Bad for Business

According to Forbes magazine laws like the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act are just more make-work for lawyers: "companies can find themselves getting extorted in foreign lands, only to get extorted again by Washington." So sad, so sad. Money would flow so much more freely if the public wasn't so damn squeamish. As any modern day Republican or free market Democrat will tell you, regulations just gum-up the works and end up hurting the little guy. I mean we can see how well bribery and extortion has worked out for Africa. Thanks to benevolent oil company largesse Sudan can now boast an endless supply of well-funded war-lords, see-no-evil politicians and a war-torn landscape increasingly unable to sustain human life. For the companies cashing in it means added annual profits in the billions of dollars. As Fatal Transactions reports: in Sudan, roughly 25% of total production value disappears out of the country.




Conflict Zone Darfur Region

Now neighboring Chad finds that the blessings of oil has left it mired in poverty and violence, in no small part, for having had the gall to spurn the U.S. in favor of China. In other words, China's presence means Africa's internecine conflicts are no longer minor proxy wars between the U.S. and France, their politicians expect the bribes to be more than gestures. Without a Berlin Wall in place bribery is now just part of the deal. And as any good governor knows, the higher the stakes the more it takes, governance be damned.

But hey, that's Africa's problem ... it can't happen here ...

A Brand New Year Breeds New Corruption

"The protests (against the Israeli Invasion of Gaza) represent corruption on Earth, and not righteousness or reform." Those are not the words of a far-right Likudnik; they are from the printed declaration of a top Saudi cleric and justice official who claims that the protests in support of the Palestinians are corrupt, and "only serve to foment anger and aggression".


Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (R) shakes hands with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni during their meeting in Cairo, December 25, 2008.

In Egypt, as Robert Fisk reports: "the true disgrace of Egypt ... is not in its (lack of) response to the slaughter in Gaza--it is the corruption that has become embedded in an Egyptian society. "the idea of service --health, education, genuine security for ordinary people -- has simply ceased to exist. There has developed in Egypt a kind of religious facade in which the meaning of Islam has become effaced by its physical representation. Egyptian civil "servants" and government officials are often scrupulous in their religious observances -- yet they tolerate and connive in rigged elections, violations of the law and prison torture."

Greed Uber Alles



There was a time when the Kibbutz represented the highest of human aspirations-- an ideal to live in communion with the Earth-- to thrive and worship in Peace. Such innocence could not long survive in a neighborhood bought off and gilded by Western Avarice. High Principles only last as long or extend as far as the interest on a dollar. A distraught Israeli asks:

"how is it possible for one of Israel's greatest military heroes, a man with a reputation as a patriot and even as a "hard-line" supporter of Israeli settlement in Gaza, Judea and Samaria, to bulldoze through a suicidal project that runs counter to everything he has stood for during the past fifty-seven years? Apparently, new revelations have caused suspicions of a more tangible motive: corruption.

Sharon appears to be personally and financially beholden to a circle of financial backers and campaign contributors who stand to make a killing from the Gaza "disengagement." In addition, at least one, and possibly three, other powerful officials in the Sharon administration seem to have a financial interest in the expulsion/withdrawal operation.

Three years ago, a mysterious loan that Sharon had received from an old friend and former army buddy, a wealthy British businessman named Cyril Kern, dominated Israel's headlines. Sharon had apparently used the money to pay a stiff fine imposed on him by Israel's election authority for his solicitation of illegal campaign contributions. One of the arguments that he used to defend himself was that Kern had absolutely no business interests in Israel; hence, the loan could not be construed as a bribe.

Now, it seems that a corporation has been formed to develop a gambling casino on the site of the Gaza Jewish community of Elei Sinai, whose land is slated for confiscation and whose inhabitants are marked for expulsion in August, only two weeks from the time that this is being written. The principal organizer of this venture is a financier, Samuel Flatto-Sharon, who has been a fugitive from justice in France for over 20 years, charged with embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars from investors in a fund he had managed. Israel gave Flatto-Sharon refuge and citizenship under its Law of the Return, which allows Jews of every background and past history to immigrate to Israel. Among the other investors are a Saudi billionaire and--you guessed it--a British citizen named Cyril Kern.

Nor, as it turns out, is this Kern's first venture into the Palestinian casino world. He has been a major investor in the casino in Jericho, which had to close down during the recent "intifada" because the terrorists couldn't resist the impulse to shoot it up.

Another major investor in the Jericho casino is an Austrian financier named Martin Schlaf. Described in the Israeli press as a close personal friend of Sharon, he was also a major source of the illegal campaign contributions that enabled Sharon to be elected Israel's Prime Minister in 2001.

Not that the Flatto-Sharon and Schlaf groups are the only ones that stand to profit from the confiscated land of the Israeli "settlers." Yet a third such enterprise has as its managing director none other than Eival Giladi, the official in the Prime Minister's office whom Sharon has designated as the "coordinator" of the expulsion-retreat. The British-owned Portland Trust corporation has plans to raise $500 million to build 150,000 housing units for Arabs on the land seized from the Jewish farmers. Giladi will substantially augment his meager income as an Israeli civil servant by directing the development of the land, whose present owners are to be "evacuated," after he supervises their expulsion himself. No public official, it would seem, has ever had a stronger incentive for getting his job done!

The principal investor in the Portland Trust is Sir Ronald Cohen, a British billionaire who is a close advisor and political backer of the number two man in the British government, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown. Cohen also recently bought up Israel's monopoly telephone company, Bezeq.

Another public official who has a possible financial interest in the "disengagement" is Sharon's closest advisor, his chief of staff and personal emissary Dov Weissglass. Virtually all-knowledgeable Israelis believe that Weissglass is the principal architect of, and driving force behind, the "disengagement." Weissglass is (also) a friend of the shadowy Palestinian financier Muhammad Rashid, who managed the looting of the PA-owned companies and the transfer of their assets to the personal accounts of Yasir Arafat, Jabril Rajoub, and other Palestinian officials.

Gaza: A History of Corruption

Whether it be in the Palestinian Territories, apartheid South Africa or Northern Arizona, a subject people are easily exploited. Gambling casinos are the perfect cover for laundering one's ill-gotten gains, avoiding the law and unwelcome taxation. Indeed, the Blago scandal seems almost laughable after witnessing the Grand Theft now taking place in Washington. One must conclude that our Congress, for all its transparent failings, has finally produced the unabashed symbiosis between politics, graft and corruption.

“Lobbyists, legislators, and inside-the-Beltway lawyers are the real stakeholders in Indian gambling,” says Alexis Johnson, a lawyer based in Arizona, who has served as an advisor to campaigns against the legalization of tribal gambling in several states. “Abramoff is just the tip of the iceberg.” Johnson likens casinos to the infected goods that the British distributed to Indians during the colonial period. “This is the new smallpox blanket, but everyone is enamored of it because it has got dollar signs all over it.”

Where Mr. Blagojevich crossed the line was in letting the truth escape from his own lips. Were he a more skillful politician he would understand that in high-profile positions such as say the governor of a state, or leader of the Senate, it is incumbent that one run the shakedown through a surrogate. It is a concept that Washington intimately respects as Harry Reid and his three sons will no doubt attest. From the LATimes:

'The name alone made the eyes glaze over: “The Clark County Conservation of Public Land and Natural Resources Act of 2002.” In a welter of technical jargon, it dealt with boundary shifts, land trades and other arcane matters – all in Nevada.

As he introduced it, Nevada’s senior U.S. senator, Democrat Harry Reid, assured colleagues that his bill was a bipartisan measure to protect the environment and help the economy in America’s fastest-growing state. What Reid did not explain was that the bill promised a cavalcade of benefits to real estate developers, corporations and local institutions that were paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in lobbying fees to his sons’ and son-in-law’s firms, federal lobbyist reports show.'

War As Distraction

Timing an Invasion

Israel’s attack on Gaza has made a mish-mash of that country’s upcoming national election.

“They’re saying no political considerations will be part of the decision-making process — which is of course quite ridiculous,” said Shmuel Rosner, a columnist for The Jerusalem Post.

The election is about corruption, say most knowledgeable Israeli observers, because of Olmert’s indictment, competence and leadership, and the economic crisis. If [Gaza] is a successful operation, Olmert will get some credit and Barak and Livni will share some credit, but the underlying issues for Netanyahu, particularly the economic situation, will still be there.

Meanwhile the Palestinian people, cut off from the world, abandoned by their Arab neighbors, are being burned, shot and bombarded, all for the depth our oil-fed greed and political corruption.

Bread and Circuses (soberly appended and revised)

"...while thy Rome stands and the Capitol thou hast restored to the world, Saturnalia shall continue"--Statius

Watching the corporate media feast on the Christmas scraps tossed them by Patrick Fitzgerald in the form of the Blagojevich scandal evokes scenes from the "Rites of Saturn." Though the ritual is associated with careless pleasures, Roman potteries with their grisly human heads remind us that as winter approached and torches were lit against the darkness of Saturn’s year-end chaos throats were bled upon the harvest god's altar. As the days grew lean, life reverted to its native state of misrule and madness.



Seneca the Younger, describing Rome in December of 50 AD: "Loose reins are given to public dissipation; everywhere you may hear the sound of great preparations, as if there were some real difference between the days devoted to Saturn and those for transacting business..."

If there is a single reporter who was genuinely surprised that an Illinois governor would seek to peddle his power then a child in grade school is surely qualified to join the Washington press corps. Indeed should such illicit trading be prosecuted evenly there is a certain governor recently aspired to be vice-president who richly deserves the breathless scrutiny being lavished upon poor dumb, and possibly unhinged, Rod Blago. It seems that to cheer our dark and dismal Christmas the corporate media would like us believe that "quid pro quo" is somehow a rare art unique to Chicago and not "business as usual", (or at least anything to keep their bosses' exposed cupidity out of the headlines.)

Now that a second Bush presidency has plunged us into another major recession the masters of our financial universe are desperate that we not catch on to the fact that for the last (two hundred) thirty years our country's governance has by in large been a criminal enterprise. What honest member of Congress would hand the very scoundrels who just got through fleecing the public of another 700 billion dollars and then fail to inquire to whom or to what did the Federal Reserve just quietly dole out over $2 trillion crisp new bills? Oh, but winter's almost here-- there are lean and dark days coming-- so let's pretend and make merry--off with that rascal Blago's head!-- and may his corpse leave its rotten stench upon Emmanuel and his smug St. Obama.

Before Blago There was Spitzer

It's one thing to pretend you are fighting corruption by indicting the hired hands (a la Rudy) and something else to attempt to make one's name by exposing the Lords of High Finance as did our zealous New York governor. Spitzer was stopped, thanks to his apparent arrogant belief that Saturnalia can be pursued year-round by a moral crusader.

Because of that inane sexual indulgence, Spitzer's expose of Wall Street corruption, a presumptuous inquisition that ended with a $1.4 billion settlement and the disgrace for the banking world's leading figures has been mostly forgotten save by the gangsters and front men facing thousands of shareholder lawsuits. Lawsuits I suspect that are about to vanish or be tactfully settled.

Thanks to Mr. Spitzer's reckless ambition, we now know that the chain of corruption leads right to the top. Yet despite such indisputable evidence that the thieves were guarding the cupboards our discreet and upstanding public servants who-- unlike that foul-mouthed Governor Blago would never dream of peddling a senate seat-- have handed those very same banks the dwindled remains of our children's college funds and our old-age pensions.

Against this breadth and depth of corruption it is possible to forgive poor Eliot for failing to soberly observe the line between normal behavior and the mindless excess of Saturnalia. And surely only during such a careless time as the mad days of Saturn would politicians presumably less deluded than Palin and Blago attempt to pimp their soiled garments of ethics and decency. But such is the harvest grown from avarice and greed: gamblers squander the fruits of real labor while our drunken Lords of Misrule clap their hands on the nation's grave and dance naked.