History
For the history portion of my project, I decided to look more deeply into what defines corruption and how we can identify it in American politics. To help come up with a system that determines the corruption of politicians, I came up with the Corruption Rubric.
What is the Corruption Rubric?
The Corruption Rubric is a system by which presidents can be given a score determining how corrupt they are. The higher the score, the more corrupt. Before getting too far into detail about the rubric, let’s first talk about what corruption even is. Generally, corruption is defined as public/elected officials committing immoral or illegal acts for personal gain. This could be anything from bribery to theft to simply lying. However, like most things in the world the boundaries of corruption are not so much black and white as they are a morally ambiguous gray. The following rubric has been created in an attempt to counteract this vagueness with some more solid categories of corruption.
The four main categories are foreign interference, unconventional corruption, bribery, and personal affairs. Foregin interference is fairly self explanatory in its meaning. It pertains to all foreign affairs of a president and grades them based on how much they acted for personal benefit. This category is important because a president can strongly influence the fate of their own country or another by meddling in affairs of other nations. Unconventional corruption involves ignoring the general democratic process and abusing power domestically. Undermining the very ideology this nation is built upon is one of the plainest forms of corruption, and that is why it is included.
Bribery is defined as both active and passive. Active bribery is offering another individual a bribe, while passive is accepting a bribe in exchange for an act they normally would not have carried out. Money, as they say, is the root of all evil, making it a rather relevant category when determining corruption. Lastly, personal affairs pertains to the personal actions of the president. This category is rather subjective, but it is my belief that it is a valid judgment of character and should be taken into consideration. The moral integrity of a person is reflected both within their personal life choices as well as their public appearance. Now that we’ve established a better idea of corruption and how the system works, let's look into some presidents.
The Corruption Rubric is a system by which presidents can be given a score determining how corrupt they are. The higher the score, the more corrupt. Before getting too far into detail about the rubric, let’s first talk about what corruption even is. Generally, corruption is defined as public/elected officials committing immoral or illegal acts for personal gain. This could be anything from bribery to theft to simply lying. However, like most things in the world the boundaries of corruption are not so much black and white as they are a morally ambiguous gray. The following rubric has been created in an attempt to counteract this vagueness with some more solid categories of corruption.
The four main categories are foreign interference, unconventional corruption, bribery, and personal affairs. Foregin interference is fairly self explanatory in its meaning. It pertains to all foreign affairs of a president and grades them based on how much they acted for personal benefit. This category is important because a president can strongly influence the fate of their own country or another by meddling in affairs of other nations. Unconventional corruption involves ignoring the general democratic process and abusing power domestically. Undermining the very ideology this nation is built upon is one of the plainest forms of corruption, and that is why it is included.
Bribery is defined as both active and passive. Active bribery is offering another individual a bribe, while passive is accepting a bribe in exchange for an act they normally would not have carried out. Money, as they say, is the root of all evil, making it a rather relevant category when determining corruption. Lastly, personal affairs pertains to the personal actions of the president. This category is rather subjective, but it is my belief that it is a valid judgment of character and should be taken into consideration. The moral integrity of a person is reflected both within their personal life choices as well as their public appearance. Now that we’ve established a better idea of corruption and how the system works, let's look into some presidents.
Richard Nixon
After looking at his history and comparing it to the rubric, Richard Nixon scored an 11/12. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to most, seen as Nixon is one of the most notoriously corrupt politicians to ever see the light of day. For foreign interference, I gave Nixon a 3, considering he coerced and manipulated the South Vietnamese to continue the Vietnam War and to not settle with a treaty. He convinced them that under his presidency, they would get a better deal than under LBJ. This, of course, was not true considering Nixon continued the wars in order to be reelected. For unconventional corruption he also scored a three. The perfect example would be watergate, where members of his cabinet broke into the DNC to plant listening devices. Bribery was a 3 as well, with such scandals as Watergate (again), and certain ties to the mafia, such as the president of the INternational Teamsters Union Jimmy Hoffa, where he accepted bribes for early release from prison. Personal affairs is the only category where he did not score full points. He was accused of several misogynistic acts but was never found guilty of anything, meaning he scored only a 2 out of 3. |
Theodore Roosevelt
Unlike Nixon, Theordore Roosevelt was one of the most highly regarded and respected presidents. As someone who went about the streets looking for lollygagging officers in his days of the New York City police commission, it isn't surprising Teddy scores a 2/12. Firstly, in relation to forgein affairs Teddy has a fairly clean slate. While he does take actions that at times undermined congress or that disadvantage other countries–as was the case with the Panama canal–it ultimately benefited America as a whole. He also was acting in favor of the country and not self interest. For unconventional corruption he scores a one, largely for similar reasons as the first category. He on occasion ignored the democratic process in favor of something he felt strongly towards, but it often would be for the good of the public. For bribery, Teddy scores a 0. Any deals made with senators or congressmen were through persuasion, but Teddy was never found offering or accepting bribes. He once wrote “There can be no crime more serious than bribery. Other offenses violate one law while corruption strikes at the foundation of all law,” demonstrating his disdain towards them. Lastly, what were his personal affairs like? While it can be harder to pin down accusations of older presidents due to a difference in how women are viewed and treated, TR appears to be clean. The fact he was also one of the youngest presidents was likely a contributing factor, considering it is more often than not older, less desirable men being accused of such acts. |
Art
For my art portion, I decided to write a song about John Lennon and Richard Nixon. During the time of Nixon's presidency and presidential campaigns, Lennon was promoting strong anti-war sentiments through his songs. The messages they carried promoted peace and too bring an end to the wars globally. Nixon, had quite the opposite approach. He wanted to make sure the Vietnam War carried on so he could campaign on ending it for re-election purposes. However, Lennon's music touched the hearts of younger people, and now that the voting age had been lowered to 18, Nixon had a much larger group of people against him. Because of this, Nixon used his power to get Lennon thrown out of the country.
The song I wrote tries to capture this clash of ideas through its lyrics and musical aspects. The first section of the song is from the point of view. This section has a bit of a slower tempo more minor chords. I used this as Lennon's section because it is meant to be more of a calm and pleading tone. Lennon is getting tired of asking for peace and has more of a sad, pleading tone. The second section is from the perspective of Nixon, who has more of an angry tone. Because of this i went for a dirty, fast paced sound that captures the anger and frustration Nixon is experiencing through the opposition to his agenda. The last section is solely instrumental, and uses a simple backing track to allow for the two different guitar sounds to express themselves. The guitar solos are meant to be like the voices of Lennon ad Nixon arguing and the tone of each is to represent each ones state of emotion.
The song I wrote tries to capture this clash of ideas through its lyrics and musical aspects. The first section of the song is from the point of view. This section has a bit of a slower tempo more minor chords. I used this as Lennon's section because it is meant to be more of a calm and pleading tone. Lennon is getting tired of asking for peace and has more of a sad, pleading tone. The second section is from the perspective of Nixon, who has more of an angry tone. Because of this i went for a dirty, fast paced sound that captures the anger and frustration Nixon is experiencing through the opposition to his agenda. The last section is solely instrumental, and uses a simple backing track to allow for the two different guitar sounds to express themselves. The guitar solos are meant to be like the voices of Lennon ad Nixon arguing and the tone of each is to represent each ones state of emotion.