Chris Tomaras / Straight Talk / December 13, 2008

This morning let me ask you, what is it that could possibly possess the Governor of Illinois to think that he could secretly sell Barack Obama’s senate seat for millions of dollars and how deep does the corruption run? In addition, what does his mislead character, lack of integrity, vulgar language and total arrogance say about him as a person.  How in the world do we elect people like this. What does this say about our country, our politics and once again the deep-seeded desire to make money at any cost? And then we wonder why we are in the financial mess that we are in. When do you think that it might become apparent that we exist in a very dysfunctional society in need of a great deal of help and I’m not talking about bailouts and stimulus packages. I’m referring to morals, values and our faith in God.

Last night I listened to a criminal defender talk about the IL Governor’s legal rights and the possibility of his innocence should a jury be able to interpret his words on tape in a different context. Did we not learn anything following OJ’s found innocence in the murder of his wife, Nicole and Ron Goldman. Criminal defense attorneys work feverishly to find technicalities to enable their clients to be found innocent. Isn’t it amazing that in countries where even the simplest crimes are dealt with severely, they have very little crime. Maybe publicly cutting off a few hands might have a profound effect on those thinking they can illegally beat the system. Maybe the IL governor should be the first in line.

Instead of spending multi-millions of dollars on election campaigns and parties, we should think more about funding character investigations, polygraph tests, and psychiatric exams before we elect these mega-maniacs to office. If we were to investigate the personality traits of politicians I would be willing to bet that many of them have fairly serious self-esteem and ego issues. Would you think?

When selecting people for office it’s become a competition much like an athletic event rather than a selection of competent dedicated individuals with extremely high character and integrity. It seems  that many of our elected officials end up being the finest choices that money can buy.  I look at those who get so excited about their candidates winning an election,  you’d think they’d just won the super bowl and yet you ask them a substantive question as to their candidate’s credentials and they don’t have a clue. And then I think back to the Clintons and how they were in such deep financial trouble but now are extremely wealthy after their years in office. Wow! Who’d of guessed?

Yet when an elected official gets caught doing something that compromises his or her personal honesty and integrity, the response by the liberal left is, his or her personal life has nothing to do with their jobs. Well, I tend to disagree. I think it has everything to do with their jobs. I don’t think that you can separate a person’s personal character from their character in the business or political world. They might hide it for a while but eventually it catches up in some extreme act of dishonesty and we, the American taxpayers end up the victims and our children and grandchildren get a slanted view of right and wrong.

This huge financial mess that we are in is so different and so complex  than anything we have ever had to face and anything we try to do to correct the problem is really by trial and error. Yet in the midst of crisis, when we should be pulling together as a country, we have a Governor attempting to illegally ring the cash register to the tune of millions of dollars. Do you think this is the only corruption going on in politics? In case you didn’t hear, Illinois is ranked number 18 when it comes to political corruption by state-elected officials. Do you think there is a connection between the financial meltdown and our politicians? Of course there is.

If and I repeat if, we are able to dig ourselves out of one of the deepest and darkest holes this country has ever seen, we have an opportunity to change, very much for the better, but what does this mean? Who and what do we want to become, as a result of hopefully overcoming and learning from our mistakes. What do we want to look like when we reach the other side? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome. We need to have a clear and purposeful objective and it needs to be for the right reasons rather than just emotionally reacting to crisis.

Our values are so self-centered and in many cases so corrupt because of the love of money I often question whether or not we as a nation can change? Honestly, the problem is so deep-seeded that unless it hits people at every level and the pain is life-changing, we will always have those that are insulated from the real world, who cannot relate to the pain of the average American and also those opportunists who continually try and take advantage of the system whether it be legally or illegally.

If we continue to bail out the offenders and they don’t have to suffer the consequences of their actions, how will they ever change, and the truth is they won’t.

We live in a feel good society where people for the most part think that they can do whatever they want as part of their constitutional freedom. We solve problems by following the path of least resistance.  Politicians do not want to implement programs that are going to cost them their jobs,  so the least amount of pain for their constituents the better.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned last week, it is going to come back to haunt us in a variety of ways.
We’re in a serious crisis but we are not coming together to solve the problems. Because of that, things are going to continue to get worse.

Here are just a few things that I am referring to:.

The banks were provided billions of taxpayer dollars and instead of using the money to help consumers by providing loans, they are using the money for their own self interest.

The Fed is lowering rates but it’s primarily the wealthy and the speculators once again taking advantage of the system. I again reiterate, in my opinion, that the government must provide no down payment loans to legitimate homebuyers who qualify. When Alan Greenspan lowered rates between 2002 and 2007 the regulators were asleep at the switch and did not control the amount of leverage and speculation which caused the housing bubble.
 In the midst of all of this, we now have a corrupt Governor trying to bilk the system and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Let’s just hope for the good of the country it does not flow too deep.

Because of the seriousness of the financial meltdown, it is critical that everyone, that means the banks, Wall Street, the Fed, the Admin, Congress, Industry leaders, the Unions and foreign governments work together for a common good.

We are still in the initial stages but so far what is happening is that everybody is vying for position and looking out for themselves and they are dealing from the top down instead of from the bottom up where the largest number of people are effected the most seriously. Honesty, honor, integrity and sincerely caring about others before ourselves is the only thing that can change and heal our country and I do not think Governor Blagojevich fits that description.

And that’s this week’s Straight Talk.