Slime and Punishment

The balance between government and the governed has varied from brutal dictators to town democracies, from enlightenment to repression. The notion of government by the people has been a sought-after ideal born in the writings of the ancient Greek philosophers and carried via the brilliant minds of our own architects of constitutional rights, but even our forefathers did not trust pure democracy for our nation. The people might have predilections on their choice for president, but instead they voted for “electors” who made the final decision. Equality was not a necessity as the United States Senate insured that rural states – inherently with smaller populations – would have the same vote as more populated states, even though that was quite the opposite of “one man, one vote.”

That Gerrymandering could perpetuate one party’s over-representation (and hence not be reflective of the actual diversity of choice) within a state legislature and their ultimate representation in the House of Representatives or that the uber-rich could use their cash to buy campaigns and perpetuate their political domination is simply a fact of American life.

In other nations, particularly in the developing world, bribery and corruption are a way of life, even if foreign nationals can be punished for indulging in such overseas antics in their home country. Don’t bribe and stuff just doesn’t happen. When I lived in Beirut so many years ago, the nation had so evolved efficiency-through-bribery that there was a generally publicly acknowledged “rate card bribery schema” that appeared to be consistent with the normal permitting process in better-regulated societies.

As the U.S. Tea Party is rather strong evidence of a growing mistrust of government at any level, simply allowing the central, federal, government to wither and violently contract, the feeling of being disenfranchised has been expressed in other ways. Historically, where government seems to have ceased to serve the needs of a local community or has simply ignored its mandate to protect its own people, “alternatives” to such governments have arisen to assume quasi-governmental authority, which has often gome awry as the decades passed.

“The Mafia, a network of organized-crime groups based in Italy and America, evolved over centuries in Sicily, an island ruled until the mid-19th century by a long line of foreign invaders. Sicilians banded together in groups to protect themselves and carry out their own justice. In Sicily, the term ‘mafioso,’ or Mafia member, initially had no criminal connotations and was used to refer to a person who was suspicious of central authority. By the 19th century, some of these groups emerged as private armies, or ‘mafie,’ who extorted protection money from landowners and eventually became the violent criminal organization known today as the Sicilian Mafia. The American Mafia, which rose to power in the 1920s, is a separate entity from the Mafia in Italy, although they share such traditions as omerta, a code of conduct and loyalty.” history.com/topics/origins-of-the-mafia

In the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, the rise of American political machines – patronage systems where political bosses bought, sold and dispensed jobs and political favors like Mafia dons – defined large sections of the South (post-Civil War carpetbaggers built entirely new political machines to serve their interests), notorious Chicago and of course cities all up and down the Eastern Seaboard, most definitely including New York. Somehow, with lots of moral distortion and favoritism that blended government with criminality, the systems kinda, sorta worked.

New York (Manhattan’s Democratic Party to be specific) was under the heavy foot of the infamous Tammany Hall political machine for almost a century and a half. And while history books speak of malevolence and corruption, the actual reality was a mixture of terrible, bad, and a whole pile of good. Ted Golway, writing for the January 17th New York Times: “It stole elections, it intimidated political antagonists, and it shook down contractors and vendors. It produced the very face of political corruption, William M. Tweed, known to friend and foe as ‘Boss.’ And it was at best indifferent to the grievances of African-Americans and, later, Hispanics in New York.

“But there’s more to the story. Tammany Hall’s leaders delivered social services at a time when City Hall and Albany did not. They massaged justice at a time when the poor did not have access to public defenders. And they found jobs for the unemployed when the alternative was hunger and illness.

“Barbara Porges, a Tammany district leader years before women won the right to vote, prided herself on knowing the names and predicaments of peddlers who worked on Orchard Street in the heart of her district. When one of them, an onion seller, contracted tuberculosis, Ms. Porges raised money to send him to a drier climate. Nobody saw reason to ask how this was achieved.

“For generations of immigrants and their children in Manhattan, the face of government was the face of the local Tammany ward heeler. And it was a friendly face. This was something entirely new for Russian Jews, Southern Italians and, to be sure, the Irish who dominated the machine. Their experience with politics in the old country was not quite so amiable.

“For Tammany, power rested on voter turnout. And turnout was a function of relentless outreach and tireless service. The legendary Tammany leader George Washington Plunkitt — the man who coined the phrase ‘honest graft’ — met with constituents and lesser Tammany officials in his district several times a week to find out who was happy with Tammany’s services and who required some special attention.”

Are we that much better off with our modern system of what some have labeled “legitimized corruption” that has enabled 1% of Americans to control 42% of its wealth, where 90% of post 2008 earnings increases have gone to 10% of income producers? Is it OK to have a tax system that favors invested upside versus wages and salaries? Are we benefiting the vast majority of Americans by letting the mega-rich have a Citizens-United voice that seems to overwhelm those with less economic power? Are we proud of the rather open Gerrymandering that has reduced urban votes to 3/5^th of rural votes? Are we remotely less corrupt – in strictly moral terms – than we were when the corruption was not sanctioned by the government? And exactly what are we going to do about this rather egregious imbalance?

I’m Peter Dekom, and we really have to take a long, hard and critical look at exactly what we have become and how government has increasingly failed to serve the interests of the vast majority of Americans.