We are in the Halloween season and children with masks and make-up are going to be appearing at the door looking for candy. While the holiday has a long and varied history, it has always involved hiding one’s face in public with the implication that the person under that mask is threatening harm unless the other person gives something up.
If we really think about it, this is a robbery in the making. It is also an accepted ritual that involves the dead force-ably taking a moment of life from the living.
Normally corruption also hides behind a veil of secrecy, a mask that attempts to hide wrongdoing. At some point, it can come into the open as an unspoken understanding and even as a custom.
From there, corruption can take various directions and methods of application. In a nation, political and financial corruption tends to partner with dictatorships and weak democracies.
What I think was my first experience with I understood was corruption was when crossing the country as a migrant child. I remember leaving Texas and being in a truck in the State of Arkansas very early one morning. We got stopped by the police along with the other vehicles.
I recall that when the police left, the men got together and were saying that the deputies had extracted money from the driver and they had to pitch in to help pay the cash. One of the men mentioned that the police officers perhaps needed money to pay for breakfast.
This happened again and again in rural parts of states all the way to Ohio which was our destination that year. Later, as I was growing up, we traveled back and forth to Mexico and had the same kind of incidents with Mexican policemen.
My first exposure to big corruption cases was in reading American history. I read a lot about corruption in the Grant administration although not any specific cases.
Also read about the Tea Pot Dome scandal in 1920 and Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall’s receipt of a $400,000 bribe for releasing oil concessions in Wyoming and California without competitive bidding. But corruption read in books is different than corruption that happens in front of one’s eyes.
Toward the end of the 20th Century, Mexican presidents became famous for the millions some took on their way out. That kind of corruption led, in part, to the demise of the party that ruled since the end of the Mexican Revolution.
Although large scale corruption in Mexico was kept under a hood of secrecy, it was common knowledge that certain presidents left with a lot of money. However, even the Mexican press which is known for exposing scandals kept quiet about much of this.
Not so in the United States. One of the major reasons that President Trump is the enemy of the press is because the press has not been shy about exposing major corrupt practices on his part and that of his family, friends and administration.
I never imagine that the United States would be involved in this scale of corruption by our political leadership. Not only is it big, it is out in the open.
President Trump believes that the Supreme Court will not allow him to be prosecuted no matter what he does. That is why his corruption can be seen by all.
Halloween is about masks that hide faces from other faces. This administration is taking off the masks and telling America that Halloween is something different.
The views expressed by David Conde are not necessarily the views of LaVozColorado. Comments and responses may be directed to News@lavozcolorado.com.
