What is The Game?

For different people its different things. My opinion of the Game has changed through the years. Early on, there was a great song by Tommy Edwards called It’s All In The Game which was about romance and relationships. Lately for me , it was used in The Wire by the  Robin Hood type character Omar.  Omar is a renowned stick-up man who lives by a strict code and never deviates from his rules, foremost of which is that he never robs or menaces people who are not involved in the drug trade.  In the last scene of the first season, he is seen robbing another drug dealer, merely saying it's "all in the game, yo. All in the game."

In one of my favorite scenes Omar testifies in Court and tells the drug dealers lawyer that ,“ I got the shotgun, You got the briefcase, I mean its all in the Game though, right? ” In this encounter, Omar levels the playing field between people who are on both sides of the system. The people with the briefcases are just as immoral and are probably bigger criminals than everyday drug dealers. Or in Omar's case, someone who robs them. 

Omar Little is a fictional character on the HBO drama The Wire, portrayed by Michael K. Williams.

What is The Game?

For the purposes of this story the game is about using local governments to steal tax dollars and at the same time controlling the entire political process from top to bottom. Politically, it is played from the State and County levels down to City Councils, School Boards, Water Districts and Special Districts. It is control of the District Attorney, law enforcement and the courts. It is control over the Registrar of Voters and how elections are rigged as a part of the Game. Stacking City and County commissions and committees with political operatives is also a big part of the Game. Control of the agenda and the vote is essential. How much money is on the table? At the State and County levels its Billions of dollars. At the City , School District, Water District levels its hundreds of Millions. In house at a local level, it could be hundreds of thousands of tax dollars that are changing hands every day with nothing to show for it or no record of where it goes. 


Who Are The Players?
 
3 groups make up the game. The politicians, the campaign contributors and last and least the voters. Players come in all sizes and no matter what their role they are in it for themselves. Starting at the top, its the politicians who arrange and perform the theft. The transfer of tax dollars into the bank accounts of the players happens in a number of ways, trickling down to the lowest level players . Next ,you have the money players who put the politicians in office. Locally, they are developers, business interests  and public employee unions. Real estate and other local special interest groups make up a large number of contributors. Those who make the campaign contributions are the first in line to receive the payoffs or votes on their issues. Quid pro quo and pay to play is the game at this level.  Quid pro quo may sometimes be described as the idiom,"You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours". In legislative contexts, it may take the form of vote trading. It may also describe the reverse situation, for example when a donor expects something in return later. In politics, pay to play refers to a system, akin to payola in the music industry, by which one pays (or must pay) money in order to become a player. The common denominator of all forms of pay to play is that one must pay to "get in the game," with the sports analogy frequently arising. Typically, the payer (an individual, business, or organization) makes campaign contributions to public officials, party officials, or parties themselves, and receives political or pecuniary benefit such as no-bid government contracts, influence over legislation, political appointments or nominations, special access or other favors. The contributions, less frequently, may be to nonprofit or institutional entities, or may take the form of some benefit to a third party, such as a family member of a governmental official. The phrase, almost always used in criticism, also refers to the increasing cost of elections and the "price of admission" to even run and the concern "that one candidate can far outspend his opponents, essentially buying the election." At the bottom of the food chain are the voters who enable the game to be played, and who fund the game with their tax’s and fee’s. The voters rarely benefit from the game. They are the easy marks, who think the game is about what political party is currently playing the role of the good guys. And the other political party is the bad guys. They keep voting for the same political party no matter how badly they have been burned in the past. Sorry voters, they are all bad guys. They are all on the take and you are footing the bill.

How Does It Work?

You start with tax’s and fee’s on everything to generate the money. When you run out of that, government can actually distribute money between the players that doesn’t exist yet by borrowing or stealing future tax dollars to fund the game. The $102 Million dollar Colonies settlement was in large part paid for with future flood control revenues. Government contracts, land usage deals, land sales, and tax cuts and exemptions are a few ways that the players are rewarded. The planned result of the game is that public tax dollars have beed transferred into private party bank accounts. The inside job with insider information moves money into insiders pockets. Like in the Shawshank Redemption, there is a river of dirty money flowing through government and into the players bank accounts. No ones looking and the people who are supposed to be guarding the money are the ones stealing it. Political Action Committees or PAC’s are another huge source of dirty money that has no accountability what so ever attached to it. Millions of dollars are moved from campaign donors into the bank accounts of politicians with no paper trail except for the politicians who may report it on the FPPC form. This may or may not happen, but there is no penalty for not reporting it nor is there any government agency who’s job it is to track this money. Money laundering happens on this level of the game.


What Could You Win By Playing ? Can You Quit?
 
For most of the players the prize in the Game is money. For a few its power, but they will make sure that they are rewarded as they try to control the outcome of their plans. The constant is that its never enough, and you can’t escape from the game once you start playing. You become addicted to the money and the power and locked in for life. The future never arrives with the big payoff, so you rework your failed plans with a different look.  Like being in the Mafia, you can’t just quit.  In order to move up in the Game you have to follow orders and do your dirty work. You have dirt on you and so does everybody else. You will be blackmailed and your past will be used against you. You will blackmail others as you go through the game. You have bargained with the devil and the devil expects his due. No one gets a free pass. In justification for your actions you convince yourself that its just business and thats the way the Game is played.  You play the scene from the Godfather in your head.

Michael Corleone: Where does it say that you can't kill a cop?
Tom Hagen: Come on, Mikey...
Michael Corleone: Tom, wait a minute. I'm talking about a cop that's mixed up in drugs. I'm talking about a - a - a dishonest cop - a crooked cop who got mixed up in the rackets and got what was coming to him. That's a terrific story. And we have newspaper people on the payroll, don't we, Tom?
[Tom nods]
Michael Corleone: And they might like a story like that.
Tom Hagen: They might, they just might.
Michael Corleone: [to Sonny] It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business.