No One Cares “What Corruption Really Means?”

While the democracy of Taiwan is under the storm of presidential corruption accuse, there are some big cases that shake the catatonic government, congress and media: government budget for military contract. The military budget is blocked once again (Military Budgets for Arms Blocked by Legislature), and it is obvious so controversial for each side of the political parties to stand when the corruption allegation is widely disseminated.

The media in Taiwan fails to make clear to the general public about the necessary information on military contract. Not only because it is a black box, but also it is a business that would involve everyone on or off the table. For news producing, good-or-evil consensus manufacturing media, it is difficult to have a clean, surgical shot. “Analytical discussion on such topics are too liberal, to elites-oriented,” people inside the journalism industry might painfully said so, which would also indicating their connected with general public, the masses. People are interested in the First Lady & the First Family had taken money or not. That’s the story they want.

People in Taiwan seemed that they couldn’t avoid the logical fallacy inside such question. The money issue seemed so “factual”, and “truthyness” (thank you, Stephen Colbert) to shift poeple’s attention toward personal behavior, not on constitution, national security, government policy, and structural supervision among administration system. The people in Taiwan are too eager to attack or defend the president, and such eagerness open up a grand plaza full of soap boxes for everyone could join. Presidential accusation became a public theater of “truthyness”, and no one could get out of it.

Kerim had commented from his perspective. Comparing to the corruption embedded inside military contract happened in US and elsewhere, the alleged Taiwanese Presidential corruption ($14M NTD/$0.5 M USD) is only a tiny dust. Companies like Bechtel is a huge multinational. Following the link suggested by Wikipedia and Google, I just link Bechtel’s network from Iraq, Big Dig and back to Taiwan. There’s certain dimension of “scale” in corruption investigation, and we need to have that in mind when talking about corruption.

President Chen Shui-Bian is famous on confronting corruption when he was a legislater. He won the votes because he investigated cases including French La Fayette-class frigates purcurement commision, which built up a good fame of his integrity. It is ironic for such corruption fighter, and KMT-terminator party like DPP, to be questioned on their cleanness. Had “transitional justice” been enforced in Taiwan already?

Dr. Mary Polly Cleveland’s article “Econamici: Benefits of Military Spending” had explained the global “collaboration” between the center and the marginal: military contract.

What do caciques do for friendly US corporations? No, they don’t give them markets, or minerals per se. They give contracts. Contracts of course include oil exploration rights, water supply projects, pipeline rights of way, fishing rights, prime locations for processing plants… The easiest to give are those that needn’t be taken from anyone–such as the telecommunications franchise Chile gave ITT before Salvador Allende was elected.

Here’s part one of Gaffney’s dynamic: a contract with “a shaky sheik” isn’t worth much more than the paper it’s written on. Until, that is, the contracting corporation hollers “property rights” and the US cavalry or navy races to the rescue. Or that’s the way it used to be; we’ve grown a little more subtle. All of a sudden, that contract is gold, an entitlement to a growing stream of “economic rent.” Among many examples, Gaffney cites Aramco. Organized in 1933 with a capital of $100,000, in 1947 it was worth, $250 million–an appreciation of $2500 percent over 14 years. By the time the Saudis demanded a share in 1972, it was worth billions.

And now part two of the dynamic: A cartel can greatly enhance the value of stock in oil or other international resource companies. Thus OPEC and its cooperating multinationals restrict supply to keep up prices. That means, especially with a widely-distributed resource like oil, oil companies (or nations) must grab up potential new sources of supply before someone else gets them. And in turn, that means companies must aggressively seek contracts in turbulent corners of the world like western Sudan and the jungles of Colombia–potentially dragging the US into further conflicts.

I don’t know if Taiwan one of the “turbulent corners” that US was/is dragged in. But when we talked about corruption, it is really a big challenge to make things clear. Maybe that’s why there is certain need for international NGO or media organizaiton like corporate watch, or wikipedia. In the era of Internet media, we can absolultely help ourselves to take back the controller with the aid of global information flow.

Then we can finally start to talk about what action or todo on the whiteboard.