“If FIFA were run by child molesters, mass murderers, and –
I don’t know, some other heinous folks – it would have zero effect on my soccer
watching. Zero. And I’m not the exception.”

That was University of Michigan professor Andrei Markovits, discussing the arrest last week of seven
officials of FIFA, the world soccer governing body, on corruption charges.

“Everyone knows these organizations are crooked,” Markovits said on NPR’s Morning Edition. “This is known.
This is how you procure votes. This is totally not news.”

This is what we’ve come to, in too many areas of sports,
and, lord knows, in too many areas of politics and government. Corruption? Shrug.

Markovits, who teaches a class on
“sports, politics, and society,” certainly wasn’t endorsing the actions FIFA
officials are accused of. But he won’t stop watching a sport he loves, whether
it’s run by corrupt officials or not. And the scandal didn’t stop FIFA from
electing Sepp Blatter, FIFA’s president for the past 17 years, to his fifth
term last week.

Scandals in the NCAA haven’t put a dent in the viewership of
college games, either, or in the financial health of that organization.

As for the corruption in politics: holy cow. I had planned
to pull some past examples from my “Corruption in Politics” file late last
week, but real-time events made that unnecessary. On Thursday alone:

• A grand jury indicted former New York Senate majority
leader Dean Skelos and his son Adam, who are charged with
extortion, wire fraud, conspiracy, and soliciting bribes.

• State and federal investigators searched the homes of
Christopher Grant, chief of staff for Western New York Representative Chris
Collins; Steven Casey, former first deputy mayor of Buffalo; and Steven Pigeon,
former Erie County Democratic Party chair and a perpetual political operative.
The Buffalo News reported that a source said the investigations deal with
“political campaigns and fundraising.”

• A US attorney announced the indictment of Dennis Hastert,
former speaker of the US House of Representatives, for lying to the FBI and for
withdrawing cash from banks in a way that let him hide payments of $3.5 million
to an unnamed person for “misconduct” against that person.

And, of course, there’s the corruption of the political
system by big money, abetted magnificently by the Supreme Court. Detailing
examples in a recent New York Times column, Nicholas Kristof passed on advice from Clinton labor secretary and liberal activist Robert Reich. To get rid of
the corruption, Reich had told Kristof, “voters need
to reach a point of revulsion.”

“Hey, folks,” Kristof wrote, “that time
has come.”

Actually, I think that time has come and gone. I think all
of us have gagged and heaved and thrown up all the revulsion we can muster. Now
we’re at a worse stage: resigned to corruption as a fact of life that we can’t
do anything about.

In sports, the result of that resignation is that we keep
watching and enjoying the games and rewarding the corrupters. In politics, the
result is that increasingly, we don’t vote because we don’t think it matters.

Corruption is eating away at the foundation of government at
all levels, not only driving people away from the polls but also making all of
us so cynical that we don’t trust anyone in government and don’t even try to
understand complex issues. It is making it impossible to attract honorable
people into politics. And our abdication of civic responsibility is leaving the
field open for the corrupt and the wealthy to fashion government for their own
ends.

Politicians have a responsibility, to us and to the future
of the nation, to face up to the harm that their corrupt brethren are doing,
and to root out the evil in their midst. To line up behind real ethics and
campaign finance reform.

In New York, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman
is pushing a broad, state-government reform bill, and good-government groups
have lined up behind it. But the chances are close to zero that it’ll pass.

I, too, am losing faith.

This article appears in Jun 3-9, 2015.

Mary Anna Towler is a transplant from the Southern Appalachians and is editor, co-publisher, and co-founder of City. She is happy to have converted a shy but opinionated childhood into an adult job. She...

3 replies on “Ethics, schmethics”

  2. I have often wondered about the legality of a local government passing ethic laws for all politicians which represent this area. For example what about Rochester passing a law making it illegal to vote for things they received money from a group which would benefit from that vote. Sure this would be a ticketed offense which could only be written if the politicians visited the area but perhaps it is a way to try to enforce ethic reforms at a local level where it is easier to pass legislation.

  3. The fact is that those who go into politics tend to think they are better than everyone else. They write the rules and exempt themselves from them.
    They get elected by granting favors and have their hands out for contributions to their re election, if not for money that goes directly into their pockets.
    A lot of them have good intentions when first elected but they all adjust to the system.
    Bottom line is everyone does it.

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