<p>Having had intimate exposure to pretty corrupt national cultures in several countries through personal and business dealings, I am REALLY surprised to read “lenient” attitude about this scandal among some of the posters here. </p>
<p>What separates first rate nations from third rate nations on the “transaperancy scale” is not whether politicians and big businesses are corrupt or not, even though international agencies rate the countries along the line of official corruption in governments and businesses. They are all corrupt any way. However, that kind of “official corruption” is only a symptom. The cause, and the root of it all, is small everyday corruption that permeates the whole society and the general public’s acquiescence and condoning attitude toward it.</p>
<p>I grew up in a society where for almost everything, some kind of “greasing” was necessary. Like $10 contribution to the overworked county clerks to “process” your real estate paper work. $5 “donation” for the hard working traffic cop. $100 cash gift a couple of times a semester for your son’s teacher who work so tirelessly at a low salary to educate the future generation of the nation. Generous donation for your daughter’s class for a special luncheon treat, which, oh, so conveniently happened to take place during the week of an election of the class president of which your daughter is a candidate. Then, all these well meaning and considerate citizens get outraged when they discover, almost painfully too often, may I add, massive bribery scandal among their public officials from judges to elected officials. I tell them: they are the monsters of your own making. </p>
<p>These judges and elected officials are not aliens from Mars. They are the sons and daughters of the well meaning citizens who were elected school president with free lunches doled out to their classmates. They grow up, and they “buy” their elections on the national scale, just they way they bought school elections. The difference between the school teachers who count on $100 cash gifts from most of the parents a few times a year as part of their family finance for the year and the politicians who take $10M bribery is that the latter are more adept and capable of doing it “right” with vision and boldness!!!</p>
<p>I firmly believe that the public in general thoroughly deserve their government, and rarely there are such things as hapless and blameless general public who are victims of corrupt and brutal government. Show me a country where the masses are dying of hunger while their leaders live like a king, and I will show you every day inequities and injustices that are taking place on a small scale among the same people victimized by their ruthless leaders. The same attitude that condones violence toward women and downtrodden gave birth to the system of the society that begets monstrous dictators. Yes, there are some exceptions, like everything else: they may be some truly blameless masses, but they are rare. </p>
<p>When I first came to USA, what I found so amazingly refreshing was the absence of small everyday corruption: to me, that, more than anything else like wealth and advanced infrastructure, signaled to me that I came to a first rate country. </p>
<p>When we lose the ability to be outraged by seemingly victimless everyday small corruption, we start feeding the monster that will grow to devour us all in its insatiable hunger.</p>