For those of you outside of Illinois, “Blago” is short for “Blagojevich” (pronounced blah-goy-yah-vitch); the last name of our most corrupt governor.
I am a student of politics. I have proudly been involved since age 17. I have worked on campaigns, supported candidates for public office, ran for public office, held public office and am currently an elected fire district trustee up for re-election.
I have done so in the true spirit of public service that I learned from the fire service. It has never been done for money or power, but rather, as a call to duty; to make changes that would hopefully create a better model, if you will.
That doesn’t make me special or different. It describes the majority of others in our state’s public service; be it politics, fire service, EMS, law enforcement and untold numbers of civil servants. Despite my cynicism, I truly believe that.
“Absolute power corrupts absolutely” (John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton). It does and it did!
Governor Blagojevich was arrested yesterday along with his chief of staff, John Harris and was charged with federal corruption, racketeering, wire and mail fraud.
I won’t bother to post any links. It’s everywhere! It is embarrassing to the point of humiliating.
I was already hearing about this slime ball in 2001; the year before his election to his FIRST term as governor. That’s right; Illinois gave him TWO chances to take Illinois to the most corrupt state in the country…and he didn’t disappoint us!
In a state that is highly regarded internationally for its fire service and its fire research programs, the citizens and its public servants of this state must now shoulder the intense scrutiny by the rest of the world, because of the ignorance, arrogance and ego of the state’s top executive.
It disgusts and angers me that the voters in this state gave him the “do over” of a second term to further erode the public trust.
His name will be added to the ever-growing “wall of shame”.
The irony to all of this is that Blagojevich ran a campaign to “clean up corrupt politics” in Illinois.
In fact, he stated that, with regards to corruption, it was not going to be “business as usual”.
He got that right. He took corruption to a whole new level.
And in spite of it, Illinois still has a damned good fire service and for that, I am still proud!
Ah, what the hell: www.chicagotribune.com.
TCSS.
The article as submitted is published under The Adventures of Jake and Vinnie© umbrella and is the intellectual property of Art Goodrich a.k.a. xchief22 and ChiefReason. It is protected by federal copyright laws and cannot be re-printed in any form without expressed permission from the author.
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