We Need a Frank Serpico in Congress!

“Frank, let’s face it, who can trust a cop who don’t take money?” is one of my favorite lines from the 1973 movie “Serpico” starring Al Pacino. I read the book “Serpico” by Peter Maas when I was a kid long before seeing the movie.

In the movie, Frank explains that all his life he wanted to be nothing but a cop. As a nine or ten year old, he recalls, there was an emergency in his neighborhood with lots of excitement and flashing lights and a big crowd gathered around a tenement. And he was asking everybody what happened but nobody knew.

“Then all of a sudden the crowd just parted—like the Red Sea—and there were these guys in blue and I thought, ‘They know.’”

That’s how Frank Serpico, the proto-type of the uncorruptible cop, back in the days when many of New York’s Finest were most corrupt. Serpico idolized, romanticized and idealized being a policeman because of the power and knowledge policemen had—and because of the service the provided to the people.

Perhaps the same could be said of elected politicians—although there are much fewer opportunities to become an elected official than there are cops.

Senators and Representatives, they know, and they are surrounded by crowds and they, supposedly, help the people.

Police corruption is based on the premise that cops sell their power to withhold or avoid arrest and imprisonment for the benefit of criminals. Similarly, political corruption is based on the premise that Congresspersons sell their power to pass laws and enact funding for the benefit of criminals and quasi-criminals.

With the health care “debate”, we have seen how legalized bribes in the form of campaign contributions offered by the health care insurance industry have bought off the Blue Dogs and the Republicans.

America needs a Frank Serpico of Congress. What Serpico went through to maintain is integrity as a law enforcement officer is more than admirable, it is iconic. In ancient times Frank Serpico would have been turned into a Roman God of virtue. In my young mind—and today—that is exactly what he is—only New York is Rome, as it is in many other aspects.

A Frank Serpico of Congress today would make the rest of them shrivel and shrink like demons before an exorcist just because of comparison reasons. Those bribe takers we have now would not be able to easily explain to their constituents who they really work for and why.

Is it the money from lobbyists or concern for the welfare of the people and the betterment of society that they care most about?

Sure, corporations are people too. And so are pimps, prostitutes, pushers, polluters and politicians.

This is supposed to be the official Frank Serpico blog. If we cannot have a Frank Serpico-type Congressperson, then perhaps Serpico’s opinions of current American politics will help.

For those who have never seen the film or read the book, I recommend them both.

Plus, it’s a New Yawk story! And I will always love New Yawk!

Are Lobbyists Doctors Too?

On January 29, 2002, during his State of the Union speech, George Bush stood before the American people and proclaimed that Iran, Iraq and North Korea were the “axis of evil” and accused these countries of helping terrorism and pursuing weapons of mass destruction. We all know how that turned out.

The only true axis of evil George Bush ever really knew (but wasn’t fully aware of) was he, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

However, there is another triad of troublemakers who I call the “ass kiss of evil”. They are the insurance industry and American Medical Association, various congresspersons, mostly Republican, and these fake grassroots people screaming at congressional presentations. Thankfully, this Ass Kiss of Evil doesn’t have nukes.

Members of Congress (Senate and House) have excellent health insurance, US soldiers have government-run health care (except for Veterans) and yet many Members of Congress of the American people are siding with the enemies of the American people on health care reform despite the fact that the Constitution they are sworn to uphold makes our government, as Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address, “of the People, by the People and for the People.”

The lobbying industry needs to be regulated. They have a python-like stranglehold on our democracy if they can invade sessions for public discourse on health care reform and disrupt it to the extent they have in recent days. If our government’s job is to first serve the people who elect them and then industry and commerce, lobbyists are cutting in line and usurping that process by calling out these groups of thugs and hooligans to prevent a public from being informed by their congresspersons..

With scenes of fake grassroots outrage at government all over our TV screens in the past few days, I have become inspired. I think to insure lobby reform, groups of citizens should flood Congressional offices and whenever insurance industry and pharmaceutical industry lobbyists begin selling their wares in congressional offices we should shout them down, call them liars and start chanting “Just Say No”.

Under our laws, persons who prevent others from receiving what is their due are in violation of either criminal or civil laws, or both.

Excessive lobbyists like the ones behind the thugs and hooligans are guilty of impeding the process of representative government. This should be illegal on some level and to some degree. There should be a well-drawn and restrictive line that lobbyists cannot cross which respects the needs of the people more than it presently does.

I’m sure if I use the word “people” one more time I’ll be accused of being a socialist.

America is the most rabid capitalist country in the world. What did Atticus Finch do to the rabid dog coming down the street in “To Kill a Mockingbird”? He shot and killed it.

That’s what needs to happen to the rabid aspects of American capitalism. They need to be shot like a dog on a dirt road. Swiftly. And the remains burned, not buried.

Greed is the rabies in the diseased minds of these raging capitalist dogs. Lobbyists are the infected foam dripping from their mouths.

And while our focus is now on lobbyists and the Republicans, it may well be Blue Dog Democrats who will destroy health care reform. Damned Blue Dogs. Those Democrats are rabid.

Where is Atticus Finch when we need him?