NORMALIZING CORRUPTION
What happens to a society and its people when corruption is normalized? What happens when we do not notice when laws long established and moral stances hard won are broken or ignored. What happens when ethics is dead and even God is seen as colluding with evil?
We are living in such a time. It happened quickly and yet at a deliberate pace. It happened when the institutions responsible for enforcing law and order were decapitated. It happened when judicial systems could be bought. It happened when certain foreign allies could pour money into elections along with nationally bred billionaires. It happened when people in power became exempt from the law. It happened when people who broke the law were paid because they had been rightfully held accountable and it was deemed wrongful. It happened when billionaires bought large parts of the press and built monopolies that under gird empire. And on and on.
One must wonder if Americans have lost their minds and morals, never mind their morale. When all is said and done, elections cannot be bought unless voters can be conned or deluded or their fears exploited and their prejudices stoked. When all is said and done, when citizens become silent by-standers to criminal behavior, society loses its soul.
What happens when the religion that has, over time, led to the humanization of society and the awakening of conscience at the horrors of the cruelty of racial and sexual discrimination is replaced by Christian Nationalism? What happens when the death of thousands of people in assaults on whole populations is ignored or worse, deemed justifiable? What happens when love is replaced by self-interest, and the pursuit of humane ethics is considered political suicide and un-American?
Importantly, what happens when the big guys (and gals) get away with murder and threats of harm, and the little guys (and gals) are incarcerated for minor infractions?
We are watching what happens. Neighbor is pitted against neighbor. A great weariness descends on the land. People retreat and are confused and feeling helpless. People just stop listening to the news. The God many used to worship seems powerless and dying or dead. The ethics that people relied on and taught their children lie covered in dust. We are back in the Wild West with no hope of civilization winning out.
But we are not totally there yet. We certainly are on the brink of disaster, but there is hope. Principles are still at work in many. People care about others. Corruption is recognized in some quarters for what it is. Ethics are not dead. But it is way past time to reclaim the ethical gains hard won by past generations and carry them into the future. Even if elections are being compromised by gerrymandering and high court rulings, people are still free to cast votes for the good to prevail.
All over the country, people are resisting wrongs that need to be righted, affirming laws that need to be reinforced. Sensibilities that need to be nurtured exist. Wrongs that need to be righted are identified. Love that needs to find a way is finding a way. Truth that needs to be told is being sought. Helplessness that needs to turn to empowerment is turning. It is time, especially now as we enter a new age of technology, to assert morality over mayhem and affirm life and law over death and mafia like rule. It is time to reclaim life for all and proclaim the value of every human life.
When I was a kid, I avoided being thought of as a “goody-two-shoes” at all costs. Not anymore. We need everyone who cares about the future of the planet to be an agent of life-saving morality now. When the chaos of authoritarian lawlessness is brought down, we can calm down and let ethics and law fall into place as we go on with our daily lives. We can once again breathe clean air, literally and figuratively.
On this Memorial Day, let us truly give thanks for all those who fought and lost their lives for our democracy in war, on our city streets, and in our institutions. And let us celebrate the life we have been given by rekindling the light of democracy, the ethics of integrity, and the law of love.