Some of you may have heard the political issues for years going on in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. To many, Massachusetts is an economically strong, highly educated, historical state, and this is all true. But many are not aware of the murky political waters. Political followers, and people nearby have often heard of the political machine steamrolling people in the state that oppose it. Recently, we have seen three politicians in the state that have been charged for misconduct: Dianne Wilkerson, Chuck Turner, and James Marzilli. The fact that all three are Democrats should mean nothing in Massachusetts as there are very few elected officials that are not of that party in the Commonweatlh.
What is important, especially in Wilkerson and Turner’s cases, is the lack of ethics and accountability to the people they claim to serve. Both of these politicians have been charged with accepting bribes. According to the FBI, Wilkerson accepted over $23k in bribes from undercover officers, and Turner allegedly accepted $1,000 from the same informant who said he paid bribes to Wilkerson in exchange for help getting a liquor license for a Boston nightclub. Not only is the fact that these two took money from people, but also that this money came with strings of influence attached, which these two knew were part of the acceptance of the money. It is disgusting and reprehensible, and neither opted to immediately resign from their posts. One has to wonder, how many more in the state, or in this country are cut from the same cloth?
So, as I’m a solutions elf, I look to the action plan that has been undertaken: According to the Boston Globe and further highlighted by talk show host Michael Graham and others, lawmakers have brought forth more proposals to insure the ethics in Massachusetts politics are strong. Some ideas were: Attending ethics training (paid for by the taxpayer of course) every two years was one proposal, increased penalties for illegal lobbying (if the politicians or lobbyists get caught), and others want to strengthen the Ethics Committees power and penalties (of course, they then have to police their own). In addition, there seemed to be some sensible suggestions like transparency, expediency, and term limitations to prevent any politicians from having too much power or complacency, but I have a hard time believing that the people who vote for all of this are going to be the ones to drop the hammer on themselves. As we’ve seen from a suggestion earlier in my rant, many think that a class will TEACH ethics. The problem is that if you don’t have a moral compass by the time you hit office, you’re a lost cause. The problem is that most ethics are very common sense-oriented, and that doesn’t seem to be something many of our politician possess great quantities of.
So what now? First off – shame on you Massachusetts voters who vote these bums in… shame on you people for electing and supporting these people over and over again. You people need a drastic change, and it starts in the voting booth. If any politician in your Commonwealth is not actively campaigning (AND voting) for transparency in the political process, vote for anyone else on the ballot, or write someone else in, DO NOT vote for these people. Just like cancer, you can’t allow it to stay.
In closing, I want to leave you with an ironic quote from Chuck Turner himself: “If you took out all corrupt politicians, you’d take out 90% and be left with us 10%.” – I’d hate to hear what HIS definition of corrupt is.
Filed under: Politics | Tagged: Bribe, Centrist, Chuck Turner, Conservative, Corruption, Democrat, Dianne Wilkerson, Indepependent, James Marzilli, liberal, Massachusetts, moderate, Politics, republican, Third, united states, Vote
Add in Luisiana and there you have the Axis. Tojo Jefferson
well then, here’s to the Reichstag burning and the trains running on time!
That may be like saying Hitler was worse than Stalin… I’m not sure who WAS worse, and it seems that history keeps turning up new details of their ugliness — much like these commonwealths’ politicians.
Well the good news Elf, is that compared to Illinois, Massachusetts now looks like paragon of virtue as if the Sons of Liberty had just dumped British tea in the harbor.
An ethics course is fine, at the end of which they should be required, if they aren’t already, to sign a Letter of Understanding stating that they have completed the course, understand it and are willing to be held liable for punishment if they should be found to be in violation of ethics rules.
Unethical behavior in government is insidious for so many reasons, not least of which it engenders a feeling of apathy and hopelessness in the citizenry, particularly if it goes unpunished (or lightly punished), as is usually the case. Congress as an institution has become a cesspool of corruption and consequently enjoys abysmally low approval ratings. But worst of all, the conflicts of interest that are regular occurrences and the shady deals that are nothing less than bribery no longer shock the American people into action or outrage. They simply shrug there shoulders and say, “That’s our Congress!” as though they were the mischievous but lovable neighbor on a sitcom.
I can’t disagree. To me it’s a disgrace that people are standing up for these criminals. I could care less what party they’re from. I’m a rather forgiving person and I don’t expect my politicians to be perfect, but to me someone like Turner who’s willing to sell out his constituents for $1000 is scum.
I think the problem stems from uninformed voters. Many voters vote the incumbent based on name recognition alone. I think this is probably true especially for relatively “low level” politicians (you could argue that a state senator is not “low level”, but I doubt the average person even knows what a state senator does) like these three. So I don’t know if people voted for these three knowing that they were corrupt or if they voted out of pure ignorance. I don’t know which is worse!
As far as ethics courses go, I understand and support a basic course (not a course per se, but a standard document online or in book form that goes over the state ethics code in a remedial way). I think there’s a difference between morals and state ethics. State ethics are a definite set of rules and procedures that may or may not be common sense. Although, I won’t disagree – the transgressions committed by these three certainly fell into the common sense category.