We have long noticed that the political left wing seems prone to corruption--by which we mean the abuse of office and power to further their own ends. Now, don't get us wrong here. We do not mean to imply that the right are, therefore, more holy or ethical. Power does tend to corrupt, after all. Every long-tenured official or politician is tempted to believe in their own entitlement to rule. Most political corruption sprouts in precisely that kind of manure.
But the left seems particularly prone to it. We believe this is due to certain principles deeply embedded in left-wing ideology. Firstly, there is the axiom that lack of material wealth (aka money) is the root of all social sins, and, indeed all human action. Lack of money results in social problems (crime, poverty, ignorance, for example), whilst plenty of money solves all social problems. Consequently, for the Left it is always about money and access to it.
Consequently, when left-wing political causes and parties are failing at the polls, the culprit immediately identified at hand is a lack of money.
"If we had more donors, or our party were better capitalised, we would have been able to spend more on our campaigns. Ergo, good things would have resulted--namely, folk would have voted for us." When right of centre political parties do well, the Left explains to themselves by arguing that the Right is favoured by "Big Money"; therefore, they paid for their polling success. They bought their way into office.
Thus, the Left always assumes that political power grows out of the trunk of a money tree. If they are to gain political power, they must buy it; if they are to maintain power, they must use their power to ensure that they have more money than their opponents to spend. In the Leftist world-view, then, money is the key to acquiring and maintaining power.
Secondly, the Left believes that the Right's use of money is evil, whereas the Left's is righteous. The Right conspires with Big Business and Big Money to favour the captains of industry and the wealthy, so that the wealthy get more wealthy, whereas the Left believe they look after the little guy. Thus, the Left believes that although it uses money to acquire and maintain power, it uses it righteously because it, in turn, disseminates money and wealth to the underclasses. The Right wing then is always corrupted by Big Money, whereas the Left see themselves as being uncorrupted and pure when it comes to filthy lucre.
These two principles combine together to make the Left susceptible to persistent and abidingly corrupt practices. They are far more likely to engage in corrupt electoral processes, illegal voting rorts, stacking the ballot boxes, intimidating behaviour at polling booths, vote buying and so forth because the righteous end of taking care of the "little guy" justifies cutting corners on electoral law. Moreover, the Left tends to add another justification to this kind of corrupt practice: we need to do these things because the deck is so stacked against the Left. The Right has all the money, so we need to "level up" the electoral playing field with sharp practice.
Once in power, the Left will have no compunction in aligning Big Business with its own monetary appetites. Big Business, for its part, will always gravitate to the centre of power. It cares not whether the Right or the Left is in the seat of government. It will want to do business with either. Big Business hates competition. Government rules and regulations are a sure fire way to get the playing field tilted in one's favour. Sidling up to government to protect one's own interest and, hopefully, ensuring that competitors are spiked at the same breath is a time-honoured strategy, albeit utterly and abidingly corrupt.
Big Business and Left-wing governments tend to get on really well. The Left is ambitious to get access to its financial resources and is far more prepared to trade favours. Big Business finds it can "do business" with the Left relatively easily. The Left justifies cosying up to Big Business by arguing that this is what their political opponents do; and, securing financial favours from Big Business is critical to maintain the Left's hold on the seat of government; and, the natural constituency of the Left are the underclasses which do not have money, so the Left political establishment need to get it from somewhere; and, finally, it is only the Left which will take care of the underclasses, giving them the money they need to solve their problems and bring them to a better and higher state of being.
Here are a couple of examples. Firstly, the recent sweetheart deal between the Bank of America and the Democratic Party, as exposed by Pajamas Media.
Shortly after Labor Day, as polls continued to sink, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) realized it needed a cash infusion for the upcoming midterm elections. Its chairman, former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, turned to the Bank of America to secure a $15 million revolving credit line. Then, in the middle of this month, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) got another loan from BofA for an additional $17 million.
What was their collateral? It turns out, not much. The DNC claims their collateral was an intangible piece of property — its donor mailing list. The DCCC only cites unnamed “assets.” Neither party organization possesses real estate even close to cover the $32 million. The DNC’s headquarters is owned by another entity. Even it was put up as collateral, its market value was last estimated at only $13.7 million.
Were the Bank of America deals legitimate, arms-length transactions, or were they cozy sweetheart deals in which nothing was really put up to secure a $32 million loan?
And if it was the latter, could it be considered an illegal campaign contribution from the largest bank holding company in America?
There also is troubling evidence that two days before closing on the loan transaction, the DNC changed its own privacy provisions to allow the selling or sharing of private donor data. BofA has been a longtime friend of Democrats. In the 2008 election cycle, BofA gave its largest single campaign contribution to then-Senator Barack Obama. According to Bloomberg News, BofA’s new CEO, Brian Moynihan, is considered Obama’s top political ally on Wall Street.
Bank of America gives money to Obama's campaign; the Obama administration ensures that BofA gets a huge taxpayer bailout in the credit crisis; the BofA then extends credit to the Democratic Party on what appears to be more a political contribution than a business deal.
The history between BofA and Democrats goes back years. One highly publicized political scandal linked the bank and Democrats to the subprime mortgage giant Countrywide Financial, which BofA acquired more than two years ago. Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo gave preferential below market mortgages to leading Democrats like Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. After the disclosure of the mortgage favors, both Dodd and Senator Kent Conrad (D-SD) decided not to run for re-election.
Dodd and other Washington Democrats belonged to a group of VIP loan recipients known in company documents and emails as “FOAs” — Friends of Angelo, a reference to Angelo Mozilo.
“This (type of loan) isn’t something that’s generally offered to the general public, but it looks like it is something of a sweetheart deal,” observes Boehm about the new BofA credit line to the DNC. “Usually when you see this it is banks with a relationship with candidates and we see that all over the place. We saw that with Countrywide,” he told Pajamas Media.
And, then there is the case of Representative Barney Frank, who has been actively involved in the regulation of banks, now exposed as taking political donations from those same banks, according to the Boston Herald.
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, in an intensifying clash with GOP upstart Sean Bielat, has pledged not to take campaign cash from lenders that got federal bailouts — yet has raked in more than $40,000 from bank execs and special interests connected to the staggering government loans, a Herald review found.
Frank vowed in February 2009 that he wouldn’t accept campaign donations from banks that received money under the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) or political action committees tied to such institutions.
But Frank has hauled in thousands from top execs at Bank of America, Citizens Bank, Wainwright Bank, JP Morgan Chase and other institutions that received billions in TARP money.
Just yesterday, Frank made new campaign finance disclosures showing he received $17,000 from top executives of Bank of America — including $2,000 from CEO Brian Moynihan. B of A received $45 billion in bailout money. In all, Frank has hauled in at least $27,000 since 2009 from bank execs — and $13,000 from PACs — connected to banks that received TARP funding ....
No doubt Barney and the Democratic establishment are telling themselves, "Hey, but it's OK. We are the good guys. Because we look after the 'little guy' we are morally superior and are incorruptible. The glorious end for which we fight surely justifies any tawdry means we need to employ along the way to maintain our positions of power."
The Left makes a pretty good showing as the Great Harlot.
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