Blagojevich – A Case Study

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is facing an uphill task to clear his name from FBI charges. He is booked under almost all possible corruption charges. He is classic example of "Power Corrupts" and transforming "superior from inferior". He was from a working class neighborhood from Chicago north side. His father and mother both worked very hard to raise him and his elder brother. Based on his childhood history, he was a straight A student. He worked hard himself to stay in college, he even worked as dishwasher.

After he was arrested by Feds, rumors twirl around Chicagoland and local media that he is a gambling addict, or drugs or some high level illegal activities, that’s why he needed more and more money. But the truth is he has enormous debt to pay back for his houses, campaign legal debts etc. As per one report his debt is almost $1.5 Million.

Surprisingly, here Illinois is most tolerate state of corruption, because 6 of the ex governors from Illinois are in jail or faced some kind of corruption charges. What one will do? If he/she is in a seat which is already corrupted, he/she had inferior childhood and bloated ego because of unbelievable growth. Any one would decide, let’s play the same game rather than play by book, which is, cut short budget to pay debt or declare bankruptcy etc. Everybody do mistakes, bad judgment and wrong decision, if we try to cover up those by doing more wrong doing is bad. Here Blagojevich also simply fell into the same trap.

Did i sound like supporting Blagojevich? A big NO, he was just betrayed millions of people in Illinois and U.S. But my focus is, what we learnt from here. I believe corruption is because of social and peer pressure. A man or woman not born with corrupted mind but society and peer group, history is responsible for corrupting one’s mind.

Here are some points to how to live with dignity.

1. Friend’s selection: Selecting friends is really important. We don’t need 100 friends but some real good friends are more than enough. But when you are growing faster, we can not control whom should we friendship with. That’s why grow as per age and maturity.

2. Addiction to money: Addicted to money is worse than heroin addict, it was well analyzed and documented. This is i think because of fear, fear of rejection from society and lack of individuality, most of the people addicted to money. Money is a tool created by human to exchange goods, it was not meant to increase one’s dignity or save for future use. If we ignore fear and society then addiction to money would gone forever.

3. Inferior/Superior: This is really important and sole responsible for many crimes and violent behavior. As i said in previous point, if one take an account of overwhelmingly society point of view then they are prone to inferior/superior complex. Society is made with group of people and their judgment is not 100% right and we should not give more important to negative aspect of society view. At same time one should not treat themselves as superior also, being in middle is really tough and required numerous self-realization, meditation and yoga are the best to over come inferior and stay at middle. I think i need to write a post about it
   

I think Blagojevich case is best example of Narcissistic Personality disorder(NPD), his attorney going to use this as an escape point. Even after he knows that Fed was taping his phone, he couldn’t stop what he was doing is the great point of NPD. I’m not very sure about this but i believe sudden growth and eager to make quick money might contribute this disorder. i have to do more research about this.

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Blagojevich

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122904253463000251.html?mod=igoogle_wsj_gadgv1&

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferiority_complex

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_complex

http://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Addiction-Philip-Slater/dp/0525477047