Signs of Societal Decay
October 24, 2003

Modern societies specialize in a dazzling number of indicators that mark the ups and downs of various activities, especially economic, health and audience ratings. But when it comes to signs of societal decay that cannot easily be reduced to numbers, there is a void. So let's look at four "decays" that are trending downward.

Gluttony literally is rapidly becoming a competitive sport. In fact, out-gourging has become a contest with the gourgers riding circuit around the country performing in what its euphemists call "competitive eating." No longer one of the seven deadly sins in this field, "Crazy Devin" Lipsitz, winner of the 2000 year United Carnegie International Pickle Eating Contest in New York City, describes his skill as "a sport" played by "athletes."

There is even an International Federation of Competitive Eating which presides over dozens of events a year where contestants inhale hot dogs (the champion swallowed 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes), matzoh balls, chicken wings and who knows what's next -- mayonnaise?

The voyeuristic audience for such gluttony battles is growing fast. It may be only a matter of time before the first cable TV show is launched. By the way, according to the rules, if an "Athlete" vomits, he/she is disqualified. So much for the Peter the Great manuever.

Next on the decay derby is Tyco under CEO L. Dennis Kozlowski, presently the defendant in a criminal trial. He held a $2 million 40th birthday party for his wife in faraway Sardinia that featured a shrunken model of Michelangelo's David with vodka streaming from its penis into crystal glasses. Videotapes also showed an exploding birthday cake with a replica of a woman's breast. Government prosecutors charge that Tyco paid for much of this party as a deductible business entertainment expense.

Parents cannot deduct their children's college tuition as educational expenses. Yet corporations can and do deduct liquor, lurid entertainment and expensive, luxurious gifts as "ordinary and necessary" business expenses. They thereby reduce the revenues going to the U.S. Treasury which could have been used to provide grants and loans to America's deserving students. Call this the decay of inverted priorities.

A third decay comes from the electoral arena. There was a time in our history when a resurgent citizenry gave itself the right to vote. So the oligarchs devised a "wealth election" when dollars began voting in ever greater numbers. But buying elections was not enough for the power brokers in the two major Parties. Lately they are determined to pick their voters by increasingly precise computer-driven legislative redistricting.

In the past redistricting came once every ten years after the decennial census. Now Republicans and Democrats can not resist the lure of more frequent redistricting because, depending on who controls the state government, the reward of making their one party districts are obvious. In Texas, the state Republicans have broken cynical new ground in passing legislation that carves new zig-zag Congressional districts in order to pick the voters that would replace almost certainly up to five Congressional House Democrats with Republicans. These elections are over before they start.

The courts have been too lenient in permitting such blatant electoral map-making that is turning most of House of Representative Districts into areas of one-party domination. Both Parties now believe that over 90% of House Districts in the country are not competitive, meaning that the other major party doesn't try to contest the incumbents seat. This is worsening decay for voter choice and political competition in a weakening democracy.

The fourth "decay" is occurring in the midst of the nation's largest corporate crime wave (remember Enron, Worldcom, Health South, etc., etc.) that has drained or looted trillions of dollars from millions of workers, their pension funds and small investors. Well, it seems that the corporate crooks so vastly outnumber the federal cops on the corporate crime beat that "accommodations" have become necessary.

Faced with a tiny enforcement budget and the"soft on corporate crime" attitude of the Bush Administration, the Justice Department has developed ways to avoid traditional, straight out indictment, prosecution and conviction approaches of the past.

Presently, the Department initiates a criminal prosecution of a company and then settles for a probation plus a modest fine. Or, the Department criminally prosecutes companies but then enters into a "deferred prosecution" agreement stipulating that the case will be dropped if the company shows good behavior over a year or two. Another lax approach is to file criminal charges but then not prosecute the company and instead enter into a "memorandum of understanding."

Large corporations with their giant corporate law firms skilled in battles of attrition and delay can routinely bring the small number of state and federal prosecutors to such levels of concessions, if they do not escape prosecution filings entirely in the first place.

Congressional and state legislators know this, as they raise money from these companies for their campaign treasuries. So these lawmakers return the favor to their business benefactors by starving the budgets of these federal and state anti-corporate crime task forces. And you the consumers, workers and investors of America continue to pay the Big price.