Corruption: Not just a third world thing

For the last 3 weeks, protesters have gathered on Wall Street in NYC, and other major cities, to protest the greed and corruption that is increasingly characterizing the U.S. economy. It is easy in America to feel that it is the Third World where problems like corruption and greed run rampant. For instance, while we were in Uganda we saw President Museveni spend millions on unneeded fighters jets from Russia while the people of his country suffered from rising food and gas prices. The members of Parliament thought their time spent representing the people (a.k.a. embezzeling money) needed to be rewarded so they gave themselves a raise from 15 million schillings to 20 million schillings (around $8,000 a month compared to the $200 a teacher in Uganda makes). It seems in the Third World those in power don't feel the need to hide their corruption. They have the money, power, influence, and army so they are going to do whatever it is that they want.
But in America it is a bit more subtle. The same spirit is there (self-interest), it is just manifest a bit differently. Last year the Supreme Court ruled that there should no longer be any limit on campaign contributions given to politicians from coporations. This opened the flood gates to oppurtunities for big companies to be even more influential than they have been in years past, using their purchasing power to help make decisions on major issues like war, the economy, and immigration. For example, the war in Iraq is the most privatized war in American history allowing military-contractors to collectively make billions off of armed conflict. Banks and large corporations who are too big to fail, are bailed out by American tax dollars at the same time continuing the bonuses of their CEO's while the middle-class shrinks. In a free-market, capitalist economy, are companies supposed to be too big to fail? (The 4 largest banks in America, Bank of America, J.P Morgan, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo issue 2/3 of the credit cards in America and 1/2 of the mortgages ;"If we will not endure a king as a political power we should not endure a king over the production, transportation, and sale of any of the necessaries of life."-John Sherman) Lastly, the immigration bill in Arizona that was passed last year allowing police officers to ask people suspected of being illegal immigrants to show identification, was written, amongst others, by the largest private prison corporation in America, CCA. That bit of information only came out on NPR months after the bill was put in place. So what you have in all these cases are backroom deals made by politicians and corporate heads who write up legislation that benefits the Americans that really matter, the stockholders.
One thing we tried to do in Uganda was bring a critical consciousness to the classroom. The "banking-model" of education has teachers depositing knowledge into students' heads so they can regurgitate it back on some test. This is basically how it is in the Ugandan classroom as teachers read word for word from their notes while the students transcribe. But when you take math, science, history, and current events and put it into a context that gives the subject meaning to the students, you open up an awareness of the reasons for the plight of their families, communties, country, and world, and you empower them to be an agent of change and use the moral energy Howard Zinn talks about to bring justice, peace, love, and forgiveness to our world and root out the corruption and greed exemplified by First and Third worlds alike. So as we re-examine our framework for viewing the Third World and developing countries, let us remember that the vices associated with money and power are not only present in the blatant injustices in far away lands, but in the subtleties of patriotic slogans, free-market fundamentalism, racism, and very simply humans.