When Absolute Power Corrupts

The new saga surrounding "Rod" R. Blagojevich and the position he holds as the Governor of Illinois, may be a case where absolute power corrupts. On December 9, 2008, Blagojevich was arrested by FBI agents and charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud along with solicitation of bribery. Although presumed innocent at this time, if these charges are found to be true, Blagojevich may be found to have used the power of his office to acquire monetary benefits to him by getting people to pay for positions within the local and federal government. His apparent "pay to play" politics have landed him in the undesirable position of facing possible impeachment and jail time.

It was not surprising to find out that Blagojevich has one of the lowest ratings of any governor in the United States, according to the Rasmussen Reports on October 13, 2008. Their poll found that no one rated him as "excellent" and only 4% rated him as "good". Another survey by the Chicago Tribune had a 71% of the people surveyed as saying they disapproved of his performance. Both of these were done before his problems surfaced and his arrest on December 9, 2008.

Adolf Hitler through his power as the Fuehrer in Germany gave his underlings, Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Eichmann absolute power to destroy the Jewish people living in that country. Joseph Stalin killed millions in his quest to add to his powerbase, although he was nothing more than a common criminal that had drifted into revolutionary politics. Even President Nixon, in his desperation to discredit Daniel Ellsburg, believed he could do so by engaging in criminal activity that led to the infamous "Watergate" affair.

Nevertheless, what happens if an individual has no power at all? More often than not, they find themselves in a situation where their rights and free will are compromised by someone who perceives himself to have more power and the right to use that power for the sole purpose to subjugate those without power. Of course, not everyone in a high position uses the inherent power it provides as a weapon against other people. Only if that person is already corrupt, has no feelings for those around him, and if no one curtails his activities at the very beginning, can that person control others.

We have all heard about the tyrant boss at work or the person who claims "either my way or the highway" and thus abusing their position to threaten another person's means of living. What about the person in charge of a facility where the homeless may sleep at night, but makes unrealistic and illegal demands of some of those people in order for them to enter such as demanding they have to bring in a microwave? Are they supposed to go steal one in order to satisfy this manager?

Then again, there is the social worker who is in charge of several out of work or displaced mothers', but will use every minor infraction of the rules to sanction them in order to take their monetary grant away, thus forcing them to become victims of even worse financial problems. In one case, mothers living in Maryland who receive a monthly monetary grant called Temporary Cash Assistance (TCA) are told they have to attend the local YMCA for an indefinite amount of time for training once their youngest child reaches one year of age. When these women are placed there for "work skill training", they are not allowed to miss a single day without fear of being sanctioned. One girl was sanctioned for three days for attending the funeral of her grandmother. Another girl is scared to death to not go for her "training" although her vehicle tires have the metal cord showing.

A sanction typically consists of their Temporary Cash Assistance being delayed from 1-10 days or their case closed completely. This is being done by one person solely to set these women up for failure by taking away the only means they may have to take care of their children and the money they need to attend training.

There is a woman in charge of a women's shelter in Maryland, yet abuses her power by making all the decisions as to where the women may go look for a job. If one of the clients had a job that took 40 minutes to drive to one way, the client would be told she only had 30 minutes to return to the shelter - without regard to the actual rules and regulations the shelter is supposed to operate under. One social services employee would go through private belongings without permission or probable cause, just to prove she could do so and items would often become "missing".

Another worker, falsely claiming she had been attacked by a client at the shelter, had the woman and her one-year-old daughter physically removed from the building at 11:00 pm at night in 30-degree weather. The same shelter employees would change the daily log to reflect what they needed it to say and not what actually occurred. When one employee said she could not do that (change the log), she was terminated. When complaints were made about these abuses, they were compounded by a lax oversight committee who chose to look the other way in order to sustain the "status quo".

Unfortunately, these abuses of power happen every day. In 1887, Lord Acton in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, stated, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

Today it has generally been shortened to "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely".

It certainly does and those without power continue to be the losers.

Sources:

Rod Blagojevich

Power Corrupts, by Per Bylund

Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely

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