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Home To The World's Best Liberal Thought And Humor
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In This Edition
Greg Palast says, "Enron: Not The Only Bad Apple."
Robert Parry asks in disbelief "'Heartland Values,' Again?"
Jim Hightower shows us that, "Congress Just Keeps Going."
Norman Solomon admires the spin of, "GWB And The Incredible Shrinking FDR."
James Donahue watches, "Bush Leading Us Into World Ecological Disaster."
Gene Lyons reports on, "Ground Hog Day In Washington."
Joe Conason says, "It’s Kristol Clear: Bill’s A Hypocrite."
Ted Rall takes us, "Down By Law."
William Rivers Pitt knows of, "Friends in High Places."
Mary McGrory explains, "Enron's Political Potential."
Nicholas D. Kristof wins the "Vidkun Quisling Award!"
Molly Ivins reports on, "Practices That Aren't Always Perfect."
Ann Thomas says these are, "Extraordinary Times."
And finally in Parting Shots The Onion says, "Judge Orders God To Break Up Into Smaller Deities" but first Uncle Ernie asks the musical question, "Et Tu Brute?"
This week we spotlight the cartoons of Stuart Carlson with additional cartoons from Tom Tomorrow, Brad Frost, C.A.L.I.C.O., Ted Rall, Tom Paine, Chadsux, GWBush Art and Political Strikes.
Plus we have all of your favorite departments! Welcome one and all to "Uncle Ernie's Issues & Alibis." We hope you enjoy your stay! |
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I only bring this up because of what this country's gone through in the last 14 months. We've had our Republic overthrown and replaced with a Dictatorship and apparently everyone thinks this is a good thing too? Am I missing something here? When did sedition and treason become a good thing?
Sure Slick Willie (and I do mean Shakespeare) had to write it that way. To do otherwise would bring him quickly to the heads mans ax. Queen Vicky would not except that her reign was anything but heaven sent not to mention her being a dictator. Heads will roll was more than just a saying in those days so I can forgive Willie this but what about the Mainstream American Media?
We just listened to eight years of lies, half-truths and pure Bullshit from the press about Clinton's cock. All brought to you by Trent Lott and his Log Cabin Rethuglicans I'd guess? If they weren't gay why would they be so facinated with his cock? I realize the President Clinton pissed off Papa Smirk by upsetting his timetable for the overthrow of the government and he had to wait 8 years to destroy America but why Clinton's cock? Is it as easy as the Rethuglicans never get laid and were insanely jealous of anyone who can get a little action?
True no doubt but still it always comes back to stealing money from the tax payers.
Many actually think we're hunting terrorists in Afghanistan instead securing Vice Fuhrer Cheney's Oil Pipeline. Silly, silly people! Afghanistan is just a perk to Papa's CEO pals. This is really about power. Real power chucko! The 'war' is just to add a little smoke and mirrors to keep the American Sheeple all excited with their panties in a bunch over killing a few million Arabs while Bush and company keep going to the bank. When the money well is dry you'll see another Bush that has been hidden lest the people remember.
Remember what? Remember the tens of millions murdered the last time the Crime Family Bush went to work in earnest. You remember it was the last time the United States was at war. Way back in the 1940's. When Papa was murdering the crew of his Navy bomber by jumping out of his plane before the other two could get out, they died for his cowardice. Fortunately his son the 'Wonder Chimp' went AWOL before he could kill his own crew but is certainly making up for it now! And when they're finished with the world they'll turn their attention to home and then America watch out!
If, we have another election in 2004 and Bush wins for a change or as more likely will happen another excuse will be made by Toni (light-fingers) Scalia and Smirkus retains power then look out. The first to go will be the Rethuglicans. Much like Hitler got rid of the Brown Shirts you can expect the wholesale slaughter of those who know too much, who know where the skeletons are buried. Then it will be the liberals turn, then the independents and who ever else; blacks, Jews, the poor, will all take the train ride to a corporate workcamp/deathcamp.
The good bit of this is all those Media Whores who helped cover up the Coup D'Etat will be amongst the first to go as there will be no more need of them. 'What's the Frequency Kenneth' indeed? You see, the devil in the 'South Park' movie was right after all. It must be good to be evil sometimes! But that unfortunately is as good as it gets, unless of course you have lots and lots of money! Then the skies are the limit. Of course I'll try not to 'smirk' when they round up all the middle class rethuglicans. Imagine thinking the RNC actually gave a rats ass about them just because they supported the RNC's treason, yes imagine that if you can!
Yes one thing we can thank Papa Smirk for will be all the eyes that are opened by this. Of course for the most part it will be too late but I guess better late than never? Then again we still might luck out and have Smirky removed by Tecumseh's Curse, Et Tu Tecumseh? Yeah me too! Until the next time, Peace Y'all.
Chapter 5 of my new book
© 2002 Ernest Stewart |
 Enron: Not The Only Bad Apple Greg Palast The Guardian I guess I'm not a nice guy. But when I heard that Enron's former vice-chairman Cliff Baxter had shunted his mortal coil, I shed no tears. One tabloid even called Baxter a "hero" who courageously raised the alarm about his company's fantasy financials. Maybe I'm missing something here, but this is the Baxter who last year quietly crawled out of Enron like a cockroach from a rotting log - then dumped his stock on unsuspecting buyers, thereby pocketing a reported $35m (£25m). You can just imagine Baxter chuckling to himself in January last year as Enron's office staff gathered their pennies for his retirement gift while he's thinking, "So long, suckers!" - knowing they are about to lose their jobs and life savings. There have been a lot of misplaced tears in the Affair Enron. The employees were shafted, no doubt about it. But the shareholders? I didn't hear any of them moan when Enron stock shot up through the roof when the company, joined by a half dozen other power pirates, manipulated, monopolised and muscled the California electricity market a year ago. All together, Enron and half a dozen others skinned purchasers for more than $12bn in excess charges. That's the calculation of Calfornia's utility watchdog as presented to federal regulators in a damning petition for refunds. Here's an example of how Enron's po' widdle stockholders, hero Baxter and chairman Ken Lay made their loot. Soon after California dumbly deregulated its power markets, Enron sold 500 megawatts of power to the state for delivery over a 15-megawatt line. Very cute, that: the company knew darn well the juice couldn't make it over the line, causing panic in the state - customers would then pay 10 times the normal cost to keep the lights on and traders could cash in. The federal regulator caught that one. Within weeks of taking office, George Bush demoted the troublesome official. Lay boasted to one candidate expected to replace the sacked regulator that President Bush had given Enron veto over the government appointment. Nor did Enron's stockholders object to their profitable business of trading politicians like bags of sugar. From Texas to Argentina to Britain, Enron used legal but sick-making use of political donations, consultancies and lobbying to twist contracts, rules and regulations to their liking. You want to cry for a power industry exec who came to an early, violent, end? Then let me suggest to you Jake Horton, late senior vice-president of Gulf power, a subsidiary of Southern Company. (Southern is one of Enron's cohort in that fixed casino called the US electricity market.) Horton apparently knew about some of his company's less-than-kosher accounting practices; and he had no doubt about its illegal campaign contributions to Florida politicans - he'd made the payments himself. But unlike Baxter, who took the money and ran, in April 1989, Horton decided to blow the whistle, confront his bosses and go to state officials. He demanded and received use of the company's jet to go and confront Southern's board of directors. Ten minutes after take-off, the jet exploded. While the investigation into the plane crash was inconclusive, the company's CEO believed his death was suicide. He told the BBC: "I guess poor Jake saw no other way out." Ultimately, Southern pleaded guilty to the charges related to the illegal payments. Jake and Baxter are the beginning and end of the story of deregulation. I was part of a team investigating Southern's finances after Jake's plane went down, just after a grand jury voted to charge his company with criminal racketeering for manipulating its accounts. Millions of dollars were charged to customers of Southern's subsidiary, Georgia Power, for spare parts that were not used. The internal revenue service recommended indictment, but George Bush Sr's justice department put the kibosh on the prosecution (their legal prerogative) - in great part because the fancy financials had been blessed by the company's auditor: Arthur Andersen. The company denied any wrongdoing. But while Southern Company didn't face criminal charges, regulators ordered it to pay back millions to its customers. And that's the big connection to Enron. Because it was in those years of investigation that Southern Company led the fight to "deregulate" the power industry. Rather than conform to the rules, they lobbied to get rid of the rules. Southern and its buddies in the power industry were successful beyond imagination. Industry lobbyists and lawyers eviscerated America's Public Utilities Holding Company's Act, and made mincemeat of the rules which once barred power companies from making donations to political campaigns. Crucially, in the newly deregulated power markets, the companies were relieved of the requirement to follow the strict government-designed Uniform System of Accounts. Enron, founded in 1986, was the Rosemary's Baby of this satanic coupling of free-market ideological hoodoo and electricity industry greed. Enron played it faster and looser than the others, but it is wrong and dangerous to say Enron was one bad apple.
It's the whole wormy tree of public services deregulation mania which is
rotten, root and branch. |
 'Heartland Values,' Again? By Robert Parry George W. Bush is back on the road, flattering the nation’s "heartland" as a place where people appreciate the values of "family and faith, of personal responsibility and hard work." The implicit message is that Bush still finds those values lacking in coastal cities, despite the events of Sept. 11. Bush made his first big pitch for "heartland values" in August during his Texas working vacation, which included side trips to several cities where the president highlighted what he saw as their basic decency. Some residents living near the Atlantic and Pacific oceans viewed the hype about "heartland values" as a not-so-subtle snub at the so-called "blue" coastal states that favored Al Gore. "Where exactly is this heartland so chock-full of values?" asked an editorial in the Sacramento (Calif.) Bee on Aug. 18, 2001. "Is it just those red states, the ones Bush carried on the map of last year’s presidential election?" The Bee editorial argued that no part of the country had a monopoly on positive values, or on shortcomings. "Homicide rates are higher in places like Texas and the South than in ‘sinful’ places such as California and New York, and three times higher than in New England," the editorial said. "Teenage binge drinking is most common in the upper Midwest states such as the Dakotas. The list of states with the highest rates of dependence on alcohol and illicit drugs includes Iowa and Wyoming. Gonorrhea rates are about twice as high in Kansas as here, and Indianapolis leads the country in syphilis." Yet, whatever political advantage Bush saw in flattering the interior states for their "heartland values" in August, the notion that Americans living near the coasts were unworthy was shattered by the actions of everyday citizens during the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, especially the selfless heroism of the firefighters in New York City, the rescue workers at the Pentagon and the passengers who battled for control of a hijacked plane that had been heading for San Francisco before crashing in Pennsylvania.
After Sept. 11, Bush dropped his "heartland values" rhetoric. But it was back on Jan. 14 as Bush addressed a crowd in Aurora, Missouri. After flying
from Washington, Bush declared, "I’m also glad to be in the heartland because it’s a place that understands values, the values of family and faith, of
personal responsibility and hard work." |
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Time to present another Gooberhead Award [Beaniecap Breakdown] – handed
out periodically to people in the news who've got their tongues going 100 miles
per hour... but forgot to put their brains in gear.
I've got a Double Goober for you today. First up is Sen. Thad Cochran! This
Mississippi Republican rose to his full height recently and boldly declared: "We
weren't going to let terrorists shut down our government." Was Thad referring to
some proud determination by our congress critters to say on the job in
Washington? Not quite. In fact he was simply using terrorism in an attempt to
explain why he and his colleagues continue to take congressional junkets, even
though there's a war going on and our nation is in a recession.
Indeed, only 10 days after September 11th's terrorists attacks, Sen. Cochran
was out there junketing with the best of them, enjoying an all-expenses paid trip
to New Orleans, courtesy of lobbyists and executives in the poultry industry. Yes,
even as some of our soldiers were going cave to cave in Tora Bora, some of our
lawmakers have been going to exotic locales like Hawaii, to the posh
Greenbrier resort, and other luxury destinations, paid for and accompanied by
lobbyists for the airlines, the chemical giants, and other interests wanting
special legislative favors from their junketing "guests."
Which brings up Goober Number Two: Rep. Charles Stenholm. Last October,
while the hunt for Osama bin Laden was getting fierce in Afghanistan, this
Texas Democrat accepted it as his patriotic duty to attend the toney Breeder's
Cup horse races in Belmont, New York, as a guest of the National
Thoroughbred Racing Association. "We do quite a few of these events,"
explained Stenholm after a tough day of being wined and dined by the horsey
set. He added: "I never apologize. I had never been to the Breeder's Cup."
This is Jim Hightower saying... That's the spirit Charlie. When the going gets
tough... our congressional tough guys get going on junkets.
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By the time Bush gave his State of the Union speech, countless reporters and pundits had proclaimed GWB and FDR to be kindred inspirational
leaders -- wildly inflating the current president's media stature in the process.
Hammering on the comparison until it seems like a truism, the Washington press corps is providing the kind of puffery for the man in the Oval Office
that no ad budget could supply. But the oft-repeated analogy doesn't only give a monumental boost to Bush's image. It also -- subtly but surely -- chips
away at FDR's historic greatness, cutting him down to GWB's size.
Ever since Roosevelt's death in April 1945 after more than 12 years as president, many Republican leaders have sought to move the United States out
from under the enormous political umbrella created by the New Deal -- bitterly opposed by most wealthy interests and the well-heeled press.
Roosevelt's economic reforms embodied and strengthened grassroots struggles for such basic goals as the right to form unions, collective bargaining,
regulation of business, progressive income tax, federal aid to the needy and programs like Social Security. These are among the New Deal legacies that
have long been under attack, frontally or sneakily, from most Republicans and quite a few Democrats in Washington.
For several decades, the arduous and multifaceted project of dismantling the New Deal has taken aim at a broad political mindset as well as specific
government policies. Yet, in 2002, FDR's mindset -- fervently shared by many millions of Americans -- is scarcely discernible through today's media
fog.
The more that reporters, commentators and media-selected historians join the chorus linking Bush with Roosevelt -- as if FDR's domestic agenda and
his underlying values scarcely merit a mention -- the more that the actual FDR fades into the mist.
But -- moving beyond facile analogies between Dec. 7, 1941 and Sept. 11, 2001 -- we should realize that the real Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke in
ways that would horrify George W. Bush.
"No business which depends for existence by paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country," President
Roosevelt declared in June 1933, a few months after taking office.
Campaigning for re-election in 1936, he did not search for common ground with the corporate giants of the day. One of his speeches noted that big
business and finance were "unanimous in their hate for me -- and I welcome their hatred."
FDR did not stop there. He added: "I should like to have it said of my first administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met
their match; I would like to have it said of my second administration that in it these forces met their master."
After five years of his presidency, in a formal message proposing an investigation of monopoly in the nation, Roosevelt said: "The liberty of a
democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in
its essence, is Fascism -- ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power."
Across America today, there are seniors who watch George W. Bush on television, hear the media prattle of ludicrous comparisons with Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, and think: "I remember FDR. And this guy's no FDR. No way."
We wouldn't know it from the array of major news outlets mired in subservience to the White House spin machine and overall big-money perspectives,
but President Franklin Roosevelt was resolute about directly confronting rich elites and corporate titans. He lambasted them as "economic royalists."
Roosevelt matched his rhetoric with action. When he said that "the citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces
which they have themselves called into being," FDR meant it.
Perhaps it would be gratuitously unkind to compare the intellects and depth of the two presidents. Bush has proved smart enough to fulfill his ambition
of living in the White House while serving this era's economic royalists. That GWB has just about zilch in common with FDR should be self-evident.
Whatever parallels may exist between Pearl Harbor and the World Trade Center, for the two presidents they signify little more than circumstantial
similarities. Journalists might provide more illumination by exploring similarities between Bush and Rutherford B. Hayes -- who also managed to
become president after winning fewer popular votes than his rival but gaining enough disputed electoral votes to prevail.
Political reporters and commentators are proud of being "serious" journalists, in contrast to entertainment-driven and celebrity-fixated media
professionals. But the current craze of touting George W. Bush as comparable to FDR is grimly laughable.
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 Bush Leading Us Into World Ecological Disaster By James Donahue It is ironic that Senate investigations are putting a microscope on the inner workings of the Bush Administration following the collapse of the Enron oil empire. That a failure of a big Texas based oil company threatens to expose the rough-shod way the Bush family has been whipsawing the nation's political system might be the right kind of justice, after all, if it happens. A lot of people in this country are silently hoping, I think, that the hearings will hang the Bush dirty linen out for all to see. CBS Columnist David Calloway recently put this whole Enron mess in perspective when he wrote: "What the public will get to hear and read about in wrenching detail over the coming months, is how business gets done down in Texas. How a small group of business leaders exert enormous clout over Bush and his team in getting the rules changed to their benefit." He wrote: "It will explain why Bush has locked up presidential records, locked out any voices opposed to his pro-business agenda and rammed through an expensive economic plan that wiped out the budget surplus but to date hasn't had any positive effect on the economy. "It will explain what influence Enron Chief Executive Ken Lay and his advisers had with Cheney and his energy task force when they met six times last year while the vice president was putting together the administration's energy policy. "And it will explain why Bush is now thinking about acting on a proposal from that very task force that seeks to roll back a key provision of the Clean Air Act that helps keep factory pollution down by requiring new controls when old plants are upgraded," Calloway wrote. These are some of the very things the public needs to know about our president. These "behind-the-scenes" manipulations by big oil corporations and other business interests have been skillfully clouded by the so-called "Terrorist War." If the truth will be told, the decisions by our president to allow American industry to continue ravaging the environment has more serious implications than even the September 11 attacks. We are facing a consuming ecological disaster of global scale. Since stealing office a little over a year ago, George W. Bush has backed out of the international Kyoto Clean Air agreement, opened protected lands for oil drilling and lumbering, and now wants to let electric plants and other factories dodge important anti-air pollution requirements in the Clean Air Act. He has left a laundry list of actions that are speeding up the death of an already dying planet. This president has always said he does not believe in global warming. He said it while he was a candidate for office, and he still says it. And while he is paying off the big industrial interests who bought his seat in the White House, the world is already experiencing the first throes of a global ecological crisis that some scientists fear cannot be reversed. The ice caps and glaciers are melting. Sea levels are rising to a point where many island residents in the South Pacific are now evacuating their homes, and moving to higher ground. Low-lying cities like New Orleans and Venice seem doomed as rising waters eat away at the levies built to protect them. Experts at the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) say a warming of the waters in the Pacific Ocean herald yet another severe El Nino that may even be worse than the El Nino that ravaged the North and South American continents in 1998-99. What is worse, NOAA says there is a strong indication that El Ninos will become more frequent and more severe as the world warms. Even without the help of El Ninos and El Ninas, radically changing weather patterns are being felt all over the world. Extreme cold snaps, extreme heat, extreme storms and other weather anomalies are being recorded almost daily. Only a decade ago, reports of straight line winds with speeds of 100-miles-an-hour or higher were almost unheard of. Now they seem common. A recent report by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, in Montreal, warns that if "sea levels rise as expected (because of global warming) storms and flooding will become much worse, causing property damage and loss in the billions of dollars." The report warns that the North American continent faces a "biodiversity crisis" in which threatened species could disappear. This, in turn, "harms evolution and depletes the natural environment humans depend on to survive," the report said. "Our report shows that over the past few decades, the loss and alteration of habitat has become the main threat to biodiversity,'' said Janine Ferretti, executive director of the commission. "A significant proportion of the plant and animal species of North American is threatened.'' Similar problems are occurring all over the world. This is why the other countries involved in the Kyoto agreement are going ahead with plans to reduce industrial (greenhouse) gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, even though the United States, among the world's worst air polluters, is ignoring the pact. Even if the U. S. did honor the agreement, and reduce emissions immediately to 1990 levels, it would not be enough to stave off the looming threat of natural global disaster, some scientists warn. A recent issue of the Russian publication Pravda quotes Viktor Danilov-Danilyan, leader of the Russian Ecological Union, as threatening that the planet is heading for a warm-up that will eventually make life as we know it uninhabitable. He said that all we can do at this point is work to "diminish climatic changes caused by civilization's negative effect. "It is too late to speak of preventing antropogenic climatic changes," Danilov-Danilyan said during a press conference held in Moscow. He urged the world to work to reduce the human effect on climate-forming factors and especially: stop the destruction of ecological systems and cut the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
George W. Bush may go down in history as a key figure in the final
collapse of the world's environment. The few who survive (at least for a
few painful years) will remember him with intense disdain from their
bunkers, deep underground. They will be what the Hopi call "the ant people"
because they can no longer survive on the planet's surface. |
 Ground Hog Day In Washington by Gene Lyons Even as they scold politicians for heeding opinion polls, nobody watches the numbers like Washington pundits. No horseplayer at Oaklawn scrutinizes the Daily Racing Form closer than the Beltway crowd studies the Hotline. Even resident scholars here at Unsolicited Opinions, Inc.'s peerless Division of Political Augury and Hairball Divination sneak an occasional peek. Anyhow, here's how it works: When polls show majorities in agreement with our own carefully-reasoned views, we praise the maturity and wisdom of the American people. Conversely, when majorities of fools fall for our adversaries' shameless demagoguery, we suspect they've grown too self-absorbed and intellectually lazy to be trusted with democracy. That said, talking heads currently marvelling at the alleged love affair between the people and George W. Bush, given his 82 percent approval ratings, need reminding that wicked Bill Clinton flirted with equally stratospheric figures. Exactly four years ago, just after his 1998 State of the Union speech and soon after the Lewinsky story broke, Clinton hit 79 percent in a Wall Street Journal survey. His numbers were almost that good after House Republicans voted to impeach him. Obviously, Clinton's numbers didn't reflect approval of his actions, but anger at his enemies' ruthlessness. Similarly, Bush's lofty polls derive mainly from patriotism and support for the campaign against terrrorism rather than widespread belief that he's the second coming of Abe Lincoln or FDR, and certainly not from unquestioning assent for GOP save-the-millionaires economic and social nostrums. If nobody else gets it, White House political guru Karl Rove does, one reason he told a recent Republican gathering in Austin that, bipartisanship be damned, GOP congressional candidates should position themselves in next fall's elections as tougher on terrorism than their rivals. Democrats who have given Bush unquestioning support against al Qaeda will get the back of his hand. Understanding the ephemeral nature of Bush's popularity also helps decode the near-comic incoherence of his State of the Union message. Pundits have labored to figure out what he meant by designating the odd trio of Iraq, Iran and North Korea "an axis of evil arming to threaten the peace of the world." Was it an allusion to Germany, Italy and Japan, the Axis powers of World War II? Oh no, said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. The phrase was "more rhetorical than historical." In geopolitical terms, it was also downright delusional. Iran and Iraq not only aren't allies, they're mortal enemies, having recently fought a brutal war that cost millions of casualties. With different languages, different ethnic histories, different religions, and vastly different ruling ideologies, about all they have in common are being on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's and now George W. Bush's enemies lists. Neither has been shown to have played any role in the 9/11 attacks. A sane foreign policy-take a look at a world map or a "Risk" game-would exploit their differences, show gratitude for Iran's help in Afghanistan (where it fought the Taliban and supported the Northern Alliance), and encourage its emerging democratic institutions. Today's Iran is a freer country than it was back when Bush's daddy claimed to be "out of the loop" while Ollie North and the schemers in the White House basement peddled missiles to the Ayahtollah. There were spontaneous pro-American demonstrations in Teheran last September. Bush's cheap metaphor kicked Iran's moderates in the teeth and confirmed its religious extremists' view of America as an implacable foe. Then there's North Korea, where Bush's rhetoric compounded the damage done last year when he insulted South Korean President Kim Dae Jung to his face by dismissing the Nobel Peace Laureate's tireless work of engagement and reconciliation with its communist neighbor. Then as now, Bush pretended that a painstakingly negotiated nuclear weapons freeze and moratorium on missile development never happened, thus needlessly antagonizing a government of Stalinist crackpots he has no real intention--and no plausible pretext--to attack. So what does it all mean? Think Groundhog Day, and three more years of "war" against "terrorism," words so loosely defined as to mean almost anything Bush's handlers can get away with calling them. A war against evil need never end. This is not to diminish the administration's genuine accomplishments, although who thought we'd ever see an American president hailed as a mighty Caesar for helping liberate puny Afghanistan? Bush once famously vowed to take Osama bin Laden, "Dead or Alive." Now that he's eluded capture, he's Osama the Obscure. Barring another horrific attack, new enemies must be conjured to replace him. My other favorite part was Bush's grim determination. "Whatever it costs to defend our country," he asserted "we will pay it."
Pay anything, that is, except taxes. Come what may, Bush's wealthy
campaign contributors must have their reward. What's impressive is how
he says all this stuff with a straight face.
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 It’s Kristol Clear: Bill’s A Hypocrite Like an earthquake or explosion that tears away the façade of man-made structures, the fall of Enron has peeled off cosmetic surfaces to expose what is rotten within certain privileged professions that are supposed to protect the public. By now, no one is shocked to hear that there are crooked politicians and corporate managers, enabled by crooked lawyers, although the extent and brazenness of their chicanery is still remarkable. More surprising is the corruption of the accountants, if only because their dull reputation concealed such colorful activities as shredding evidence and cooking books. And then, of course, there are the journalists. When The New York Times published a long article about the failure of American institutions to scrutinize Enron, journalists rated only a few perfunctory closing sentences. The story didn’t note that, like so many other publications, The Times expended much newsprint celebrating Enron and the deregulatory fervor that made Enron’s fraud possible. Few journalists are publicly examining the difficult questions about media complicity in Enron’s rise–perhaps because to do so might explode the "free market" ideology that warps so much business reporting and commentary. It should be obvious by now that deregulation of industries and markets is not invariably beneficial to investors–particularly not small investors like Enron’s employees–but the cheerleaders aren’t ready to admit that yet. If ideological bias blinded the press to Enron’s schemes, there are other and worse journalistic problems exposed in the corporate ruins. Now we know that at least four influential pundits took big fat checks from Enron: William Kristol, Paul Krugman, Lawrence Kudlow and Peggy Noonan. Conservatives have eagerly used his former membership on an Enron advisory board to discredit Mr. Krugman, the liberal Times Op-Ed columnist and Princeton economist. It is indeed dismaying to learn that three years ago he took $50,000, in return for little discernible work, around the time he wrote what amounted to a puff essay about Enron and deregulation for a national magazine. Yet he severed that connection when he joined The Times and never concealed it. That distinguishes the Times columnist from Mr. Kudlow, a writer for National Review and now the host of a nightly broadcast on MSNBC, who evidently saw no conflict in taking money on the side from various corporations in connection with his private business of publishing a pricey economic newsletter. Who else has paid Mr. Kudlow? And it also distinguishes him from Mr. Kristol, whose flippant attitude about the 100 large ones he admits taking from Enron over a period of two years is truly breathtaking. Mr. Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and ubiquitous television commentator, says he regularly takes large sums from corporate interests for making speeches. His Enron buck-raking was arranged by Irwin Stelzer, a confidant of Weekly Standard owner Rupert Murdoch who doubled as the coordinator (or bagman) of the energy giant’s so-called "advisory board." During that period, The Weekly Standard led the cheering for energy deregulation and attacked Enron’s critics, but only after the company fell did the magazine (parenthetically) reveal its editor’s lip-lock on the Enron sugar tit. (Here I should mention that The Weekly Standard has knocked me personally on several occasions. I regard all those criticisms as terribly unfair, although at least one piece–a mock Italian opera about the Clinton scandals–was terribly funny, too. Also, nobody paid me to write this except The New York Observer.) While Mr. Kristol is hardly alone in taking money on the side from corporate interests–a deplorably common practice among Washington’s celebrity journalists–his role as the editor of a crusading conservative journal raises the most serious ethical issues. He airily dismisses his Enron take as "not much of a ‘gate,’" which only suggests what dismally low standards prevail at the Standard and throughout the Murdoch media empire. As recently as Jan. 20, Mr. Kristol appeared on Fox News Sunday, another outpost of that empire, to comment on the Enron affair. There he disparaged a "big hyperventilating editorial" on Enron in The Times and went on to defend the Vice President’s refusal to release materials concerning White House contacts with the company. "I do think if you start releasing all executive-branch communications with anyone from any company with whom you deal totally legitimately, where does that go next?" he asked. Nobody, including Mr. Kristol, mentioned his fat consultancy fees from Enron. In fact, Mr. Kristol’s ethical code apparently applies to everyone but himself. This reflects poorly on someone who built his career on preaching about the liberal evasion of personal responsibility, the decline of public morality and the necessity of full disclosure by the Clinton administration.
But hypocrite and fraud that he is, even Bill Kristol isn’t beyond redemption. The first step would be to disclose all his corporate emoluments. Then he
ought to give back that $100,000 to the Enron employees who were cheated.
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 Down By Law Government Gangsterism at Work By Ted Rall NEW YORK-Unbridled legal hypocrisy is a recurring theme of the ideologically-impoverished Bush imperium. When it suits their immediate aims, the Bushies wield the law like a club. As soon as the law proves inconvenient, however, they chuck it out the window like a gum wrapper. We've seen this schizy lurching between law-and-order conservatism and anarchic retro-Tricky Dicky Nixonism ever since November 2000, when the same campaign that sued under Florida's election laws to stop that state's ballot recount resorted to hired thugs and back-room deals when it became obvious that they were going to lose. Born illegitimately of intimidation, this administration is waging its New War on Terror with the same graceless style. Before September 11, it used international organizations and legal strictures to impose economic sanctions on Afghanistan (news - web sites). As the Trade Center towers burned and Bush's polls soared, the last vestige of respect for law disappeared. Bush dropped bombs without declaring war, without bothering to formally request that the Taliban extradite Osama bin Laden, and without presenting a smidgen of proof that either the Afghan government or bin Laden had anything to do with the attacks on New York and Washington. "You're either with us or against us," Bush said, but "us" meant "me." During the last few months, at least 6,000 people have vanished off the streets of the United States. Kidnapped by government agents, they have no idea when-or if-they will be released from prison. The Bushies say these people overstayed their visas, that they have links to Al Qaeda, that they don't wash their hands after using the toilet, that America is safer because they're behind bars. Is any of this true? Who knows? Since they haven't been granted access to lawyers or allowed to call their families, no can talk to them. Bush says they have no rights because they're not American citizens. Keep that in mind the next time you travel abroad. The Bush police state doesn't coddle our own citizens, either. John Walker Lindh, an American with the bad taste to join the Taliban and the bad luck to get caught, was held for weeks without even being told that his parents had hired him an attorney. You may or may not give a damn about Walker, but he's an American citizen accused of serious federal crimes. The fact that he's been denied legal counsel, that Attorney General John Ashcroft's outrageous statements have made it impossible for him to get a fair trial, and that Bush was seriously considering subjecting him to one of his kangaroo-court military tribunals, tells you everything Americans need to know about our leaders' respect for the law. Don't deign to look down on Burma or North Korea; when it comes to human rights, you live in a rogue state. Exhibit A: The Taliban and accused Al Qaeda prisoners of war now being held in pens in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Despite European criticism of the conditions under which they are being held, Dick Cheney insists that "nobody should feel defensive or unhappy about the quality of treatment they've received." Maybe so. But if our government has nothing to be ashamed of, why can't reporters, lawyers or family members get inside to visit them? Even more troubling is the administration's assertion that these men are "unlawful combatants" not entitled to the decent living conditions and other protections guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions. When Nazi Germany executed captured soldiers of the French Resistance, using the argument Bush now cites, the world was appalled. The Taliban prisoners' status is far more clear than the maquis-the Afghans were fighting to defend their own nation's government from an invasion force. The Taliban, who controlled 95 percent of Afghanistan, were recognized as its government by three U.S.-aligned nations. If the Talibs aren't prisoners of war, who are? Fortunately, the Geneva Conventions addresses the current situation. In the event of a dispute over the status of prisoners, the agreement stipulates that "such prisoners shall enjoy the protection of the present convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal." But, protests Cheney: "These are the worst of a very bad lot. They are very dangerous...These are bad people...They may well have information about future terrorist attacks against the United States. We need that information. We need to be able to interrogate them and extract from them whatever information they have." Vice President Klaus Barbie wants to torture our prisoners, which justifies our making an end-run around one of the most important international agreements ever made. "The debate is not actually whether these people are prisoners of war," an anonymous State Department official told The New York Times January 28. "They are not. The debate is why they are not prisoners of war." Cheney summed up the Bush position the next day: "They are not P.O.W.s. They will not be determined to be P.O.W.s." To hear these guys tell it, the Geneva Conventions exists solely to protect the safety and dignity of American servicemen when they fall into enemy hands. When we capture foreigners in combat, on the other hand, we simply claim that they're "unlawful combatants." Unfortunately for future American P.O.W.s-er, detainees-the rest of the world is listening closely. After September 11th, many Americans wondered aloud other citizens of the world hate us so much. What kind of things could we, or our government, have done that would explain such fury? Here's one example.
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 Friends in High Places William Rivers Pitt "Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions." - Agatha Christie Conventional wisdom has it that Enron was losing money at a fantastic rate, a sustained cash hemorrhage of four years or more that could no longer be hidden from regulators and investors. This wisdom has not been stated openly in newspapers like the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. Instead it is simply assumed that the company crashed due to unsustainable losses. This would make Enron no different from a million other businesses that have been chewed up in the gears of capitalism. The facts, however, are different in this case. Enron is not like other failed companies. Most companies fail because they cannot operate in the red. They come by this failure honestly. Enron collapsed after years of questionable profit-taking, back-door deals with influential politicians, and an instinct for self-interest among the executives that has left thousands of loyal employees counting food stamps. The story of the Enron disaster begins in California, a state that depended upon the energy giant for electricity service. California endured 37 'rolling blackouts' in the last year that bankrupted businesses and turned the state upside down. Californians paid billions of dollars in energy fees to Enron, which boosted electricity prices while fiddling with the power switch. Long before the rest of America heard the name Kenneth Lay, Californians were marching in protest, carrying signs emblazoned with his face and demanding justice. California Representative Henry Waxman has good reason to be so dogged in his pursuit of the truth behind Enron, for his constituents felt the bite of Lay's greed long before it came to affect the suburbs of Houston. Enron was allowed to fiddle with California's power while lifting their wallets due to the efforts of Senator Phil Gramm, Republican of Texas. Gramm blasted a new law through Congress in 2000 that took the buying and selling of electricity "off the books," according to Public Citizen researcher Tyson Slocumb. Before the passage of Gramm's bill, which went against the recommendations of then-Treasury Secretary Rubin and Fed Chairman Greenspan, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission had been making noises about price caps because of the extreme energy costs being levied against California energy users. After Gramm's law was passed, attached as it was to a must-sign bill, Enron's energy trading moved beyond FERC's oversight powers. Enron's profits quadrupled in the next quarter. It should be noted that Gramm has accepted some $100,000 in political contributions from Enron during his time in politics. FERC finally made good on its threat last June and instituted price caps on energy in California. Enron, which had been reaping fabulous profits on its off-the-books energy trading and power manipulation in California, suddenly found itself taking losses. The party abruptly came to an end on December 2nd, 2001, when Enron filed for the largest bankruptcy in history. The accelerated nature of this collapse is curious in the extreme when the fact that Enron was the seventh-largest corporation in the nation is taken into account. That quarterly quadrupling of profit amounted to billions and billions of dollars. Where did the money go? Price caps alone cannot account for this disaster. At the end of the day, the fall of Enron could well be laid at the feet of those who knew their manipulation of the California power grid was illegitimate, and perhaps even illegal. Enron has some 2,832 subsidiaries, 874 of which are registered in nations that are notorious tax havens such as the Cayman Islands. These off-shore subsidiaries are perfect places to hide profits from those who would call the company to account for its actions in California, from tax investigators, and from bankruptcy creditors. The ultimate irony may prove to be that the very profits which could have kept the company financially viable were untouchable, because it was dirty money earned on the sly at the expense of honest citizens. There is more to this story than the rape of California. There are people in America who, after surveying the wreckage that was once a profitable retirement portfolio heavily invested in Enron, would describe the company as terrorists who took everything from them. The comparison is not without merit, for Enron used the same system of shadowy off-shore bank accounts to move money that Osama bin Laden used before September 11th. Bin Laden was able to transfer money to his Al Qaeda operatives in secret by using off-shore accounts in Panama, the Bahamas and elsewhere. These banks are well known for their discretion, and do not ask prickly questions about whose name is on the account. Enron executives used the same loopholes to exploit the American capitalist system, taking billion dollar loans from stateside banks and using company stock as collateral. They then traded these stocks with themselves and reported the income from these trades to the banks as profit, thus justifying the loans. All of this financial action took place within these off-shore accounts, away from the eyes of regulators and investigators. These off-shore accounts were also used to hide the multi-million dollar paychecks earned by mid-level Enron executives from shareholders. This double-dealing was unsustainable, and collapsed upon itself. The money, however, is likely still sitting in these off-shore accounts, a fact that Californians and bilked shareholders should take an active interest in. The words "Enron" and "criminal" have become interchangeable, a marriage of definitions that will soon be consummated by hefty prison sentences for the perpetrators. A furious example must be made of this company, and of the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, which rubber-stamped the lies Enron told. The actions of these two entities have called into question the viability of the stock market, the banking industry, the accounting industry, and the health of millions of pensions across the country. When all is said and done, the American penal system must swell with the ranks of these white-collar thieves. Thus always to perpetrators, but what of enablers? If you believe the worst of American corporate culture, then you assume that all corporations would descend into a frenzy of greed as Enron did, taking all they can from American citizens while lining their own pockets. Perhaps all corporations would behave as Enron did if they were able to, and that is the rub. All corporations cannot act as Enron did; there are rules and regulations and watchful eyes to keep the potential excesses of the system from destroying the whole show. Somehow, Enron was able to go where no corporation has gone before. Either these Enron executives are the cleverest pack of thieves to come down the pike since the fellows who pulled off the Brinks job, or else they had help from powerful people in influential positions who could cover their tracks and pull the thin veneer of legitimacy over their scurrilous activities. The very magnitude of the crime strongly suggests the latter to be by far the most plausible explanation. We already know that Senator Gramm played a large role in Enron's ability to siphon billions of dollars in profit from Californian energy users. He did so while married to a woman named Wendy, who has sat on Enron's Board of Directors since 1993 and was a senior member of the company's Auditing Committee, whose responsibilities included understanding where the profits were going. As chair for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 1988 to 1993, Wendy Gramm played a leading role in deregulating the trade of energy derivatives, the very commodities whose unrestrained trade made Enron a giant in the industry. The appearance of a conflict of interest – between a Senator who actively worked to enrich Enron on the floor of Congress while his wife sat on the Board – has led many to assume that Gramm's September 4th announcement that he will retire from politics is based upon his desire to distance himself from the debacle. His efforts thus far have failed, for his wife has been served subpoenas to testify before Congress as to her knowledge of Enron's dubious financial affairs. One is forced to wonder what dinner-table conversation has been like in House Gramm of late. The list of Enron's powerful friends reaches into the highest levels of American government. Since the first Bush administration, and throughout Clinton's term, the connection between business and American national security has been a strong and energetic one. With the advent of globalization, America has sought to position itself in strength throughout the world by way of American corporate contacts with friendly governments. This has been done to assure America's primacy on the world stage, and to ensure that American economic interests are well served. The rationale is simple: the health of America's economy is a matter of national security, and therefore the government should be involved in its care and feeding around the world. In the second Bush administration, this arrangement has reached heretofore unknown heights. The National Security Council, long the White House crisis center for addressing international diplomacy and strategy, recently intervened on behalf of Enron's Kenneth Lay in a financial argument between that company and India regarding the sale of a power plant in Dabhol. Such an intervention by the NSC has never before taken place. Lay was dissatisfied with the progress of negotiations, and went so far as to accuse the Indian government of bilking him. In statements to the press, Lay threatened India with American governmental sanctions if he did not get his way. That a corporate CEO felt empowered to issue sanction threats in the name of the American government speaks volumes about his perceived standing with the Bush administration. A constellation of American government officials has rallied to Enron's cause. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, a former Enron consultant, paid a visit to India regarding the Dabhol issue. Secretary of State Colin Powell raised the subject with Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh during a meeting on April 6th. The issue has been raised a number of times with the Indian government by Vice President Cheney, who was even given a list of Dabhol talking points by the NSC. George W. Bush was prepared to discuss Dabhol and Enron with Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee during their November meeting, but the subject was scratched after Enron's problems became public. For an administration that has been lambasted for its lack of energy in addressing the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, such effort on behalf of an American corporation is astounding. When one considers the millions of dollars Bush has received in campaign contributions from Enron and Kenneth Lay over the years, this vigorous and unprecedented intervention by the National Security Council makes more sense. Bush owes his political success to Enron, and it is not too far a stretch to assume that he felt compelled to use the power of his administration to help an old friend in need. Enron is not simply another failed business to be brushed into the dustbin of capitalist history. Enron is an example of everything that is wrong with our current state of financial affairs. Enron has exposed the ability of greedy merchants to take advantage of the largesse of the system, and has put the entire American economy on very shaky ground. If the people do not trust Wall Street, if they do not trust profit reports, if they do not trust accountants to keep the books properly, if their own financial viability is called into question, the entire economic system this nation has thrived upon will shatter. Enron simply could not have done all of this without significant help from people in powerful positions, and someone must answer for it. The effective investigation of every aspect of the Enron debacle may well be the only way this nation can salvage its financial reputation and survive. Erwin Chemerinsky, a Constitutional Law professor at USC, has called for an independent special prosecutor to pursue every angle of this catastrophe. His calls must be heeded, even as the investigative path leads all the way to the White House. At the end of the day, the political viability of George W. Bush is small potatoes when the future of the country is at stake.
The recent suicide of former Enron executive Clifford Baxter frames the
issue in vivid light. Perhaps he knew what was coming, and could not face
it. May God be with his family. In the end, we shall all be forced to
live on in the wreckage.
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 Enron's Political Potential By Mary McGrory Rep. Billy Tauzin, chairman of the House Commerce Committee, is against politicizing the Enron matter. Fritz Hollings, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, is not. The day that Kenneth L. Lay stood up the senators, Lay's attorney accused the senators of being "accusatory," as if he had previously expected a hearing to be a fitting for Mount Rushmore for his client. At a press conference, Hollings, in tones that blend a foghorn and tobacco auctioneer, gave voice to his feeling that the Bush administration is just about a wholly owned subsidiary of Enron, the Houston octopus. With Republican Sen. Peter Fitzgerald of Illinois wincing by his side, Hollings, who is perhaps the least inhibited member of the Senate, railed against "cash and carry government." He rattled off names of prominent Bush personalities beholden to the elusive Kenneth Lay, who was once called "Kenny Boy" by the CEO of our country, George W. Bush. Hollings's roll call included such familiar names as Vice President Cheney; Mitchell Daniels, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. The White House sets store by the fact that O'Neill and Commerce Secretary Don Evans turned down Kenneth Lay cold when, in late October, he called for help as the great ship Enron was sinking. He was toast to them. But before that black day, Lay's largess bought him access, big-time, to the Executive Mansion. During the deliberations on the national energy policy, Enron got six audiences with the vice president and other White House officials. The environmentalists got in just once. Meanwhile, in a major escalation of the Clinton practice of being helpful on huge and delicate international deals, Enron was given the highest-level help possible on a gas-plant installation in India. Personnel from the National Security Council were recruited to do the scut work. It's episodes like this that make the Democrats think the gods have handed them a huge bouquet of roses -- a marvelous opportunity to upset the Bush apple cart with dramatic proof that it's the man in the suite, not the man in the street, who gets Republican attention. But the roses are extraordinarily thorny. Fritz Hollings, bawling for a select committee and a special prosecutor, illustrates the problem. He, like so many Democrats, received Ken Lay's bounty. He tried to handle it in a blustering aside -- "I got $3,500 over 10 years, but our friend [Sen.] Kay Bailey Hutchison [also a member of the Commerce Committee] got $99,000. Heck, I'm chairman of the committee. That's not a contribution, that was an insult." Democrats are grateful that Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota is chairman of the commerce subcommittee that does the actual hearings. He has a distinctly less antic approach, and advocates a careful reading of the Enron in-house investigation chaired by the dean of the Texas Law School, William C. Powers Jr., that made Lay cancel his trip. Powers called the Houston heist "appalling." But Chairman Tauzin does not think Democrats can make any political capital out of it. Like most Republicans, he believes the case can be made that it is, as Sen. Fitzgerald says, a corporate, not a political scandal. Tauzin suggests that Democrats are scrambling for a lifeline in the heavy seas of Bush's popularity -- "It's all they've got." Some Democrats fret that they may overplay their hand -- as the Republicans did with impeachment. An old Democratic poker-playing operative has cautioned them: "If you have four aces, let the hand play itself." In other words, let the press do the heavy lifting for a while. Bush goes from strength to strength, almost no matter what he does. Europeans were shaken to the core by the State of the Union address, with its additions to the president's hit list. "There was no Europe in that speech," said one European ambassador, "and no Middle East." And some of our best friends couldn't help noticing that of all the allies he chose to mention, he singled out Pakistan. In a talk addressed much to values and democracy, he commended by name only President Pervez Musharraf, a military dictator.
But Bush can do no wrong. He can stonewall on Cheney's Enron connection and refuse to turn over the documents. Republicans, who screamed
themselves hoarse at Hillary Clinton's long holdout on Whitewater paper, are embarrassed by the Bush-Cheney show of concern for future presidents --
but wouldn't dream of saying anything. Nobody's worried that Ken Lay will spill any beans when he makes his appearance, under subpoena, on Capitol
Hill. He's in enough trouble already. A man who sends his wife out to boo-hoo that he was out of the loop and lost everything, along with the 20,000
employees whom he bilked out of their retirement funds, has nothing to say. |
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Dead Letter Office
Heil Bush,
Dear Propaganda Ansager Kristof,
Congratulations you have just been awarded the Vidkun Quisling Award for 2002. Your name will now live throughout history with such past award winners as Marcus Junius Brutus, Judas Iscariot, Benedict Arnold, Vidkun Quisling and last year's winner Volksjudge Clarence (slappy) Thomas.
Without your help shilling for us, spinning the truth, telling out right lies and ignoring the real news, holding onto power after our Coup D' Etat would have been impossible. With the help of our mutual friends, the other "Media Whores," you have made it possible for all of us to goose-step off to a brave new bank account.
Along with this award there will be an Iron Cross 2nd class presented by our glorious Fuhrer Herr Bush at a gala celebration in der Fuhrer Bunker (formally the White House) on 03-15-2002. We salute you Herr Kristof, Sieg Heil!
Signed,
Heil Bush
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AUSTIN -- The seminal historic event always affects the language. Already we can see that Enron is of this shattering magnitude. A stick-up artist goes
into the Jiffy Mart to pull a heist. He whips out his heater and says to the clerk, "Put 'em up, this is an aggressive accounting practice."
Or, you take your car to Ralph's Rip-Off Garage to get a 50 buck problem fixed and, sure enough, he bills you $600. You say, "What an aggressive
accounting practice!"
Euphemism of the Year, and it's just February.
The single most distinguishing feature of the Enron collapse is that no one is yet sure the company did anything illegal. As we gyre and gimble in the
wabe of Enron, we run across such delightful items. Did you know that Enron's board twice voted to suspend its own ethics code in order to create private
partnerships? But how thoughtful of them to suspend the ethics code first! Otherwise, they might have violated it.
The funniest line of argument about Enron so far is, "This is not a political scandal." Boy, there's a triumph of denial. Of course it's a political scandal.
Business writers solemnly explain that Enron was in the business of buying and selling everything from natural gas and electricity to--as the company
grew increasingly delirious--broadband telecommunications, water and weather contracts. Also, legislators, congressmen, governors, senators and
presidents--the company bought them with campaign contributions and then sold them on fatally foolish policies. Anyone who tells you campaign
contributions only buy "access, not policy" needs to have his nose rubbed in this one. Just to mention a few highlights:
Wendy Gramm's key decision as chair of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to deregulate energy futures markets. She has been on the
Enron board since 1992.
- Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) received more than $97,000 in Enron contributions and passed legislation that exempted key parts of Enron from
government oversight.
- President Bush got $2 million in contributions from Enron and its officers over the years, and numerous administration officials have Enron
connections. A key decision by the administration was to call off the Clinton-led effort to stop international money-laundering by going after off-shore
banks. As has been widely reported, Enron maintained more than 800 offshore accounts in order to avoid taxes--paying zero in four of the last five years.
Much as we would love to gyre and gimble in the wabe of Enron with the Jabberwock, there's some serious business here. If we are lucky, plucky and
raise lots of hell, Congress will probably make some improvements in campaign finance laws, the conflict of interest on auditors also working as
consultants and oversight of private partnerships. And that will not be enough.
As Bill Greider writes in the current issue of The Nation: "The rot consists of more than greed and ignorance. The evolving new forms of finance and
banking, joined with the permissive culture in Washington, produced an exotic structural nightmare. . . . They converge, with kereitzu-style (Japanese
crony capitalism) back-scratching in the business of lending and investing other people's money. The results are profoundly conflicted loyalties in banks
and financial firms--who have fiduciary obligations to the citizens who give them money to invest. Banks and brokerages often cannot tell the truth to retail
customers, depositors or investors without potentially injuring the corporate clients that provide huge commissions and profits from investment deals.
Sometimes bankers cannot even tell the truth to themselves because they have put their own capital [or government-insured deposits] at risk in the deals."
It seems to me pointless to continue the argument over free-market capitalism versus regulated capitalism. It is a theological, not a practical, argument,
requiring perfect faith from the free market fundamentalists. The questions are, "What works?" and, "What doesn't work?" Leaving corporations without
government oversight doesn't work. "The disorder writ large by the Enron story is this regular plundering of ordinary Americans [through pension plans
and mutual funds]," concludes Greider.
And the greater danger is that as these enormous financial institutions run into trouble, they'll take everybody with them. Greider quotes Tom Schlesinger,
executive director of the Financial Markets Center: "A bank that has equity shares in a company that goes south can no longer make neutral, objective
judgments about when to cut off credit. The rationale for repealing Glass-Steagall was that it would create more diversified banks and therefore more
stability. What I see in these mega-banks is not diversification but more concentration of risk, which puts the taxpayers on the hook. It also creates a
financial sector less responsive to the real needs of the economy."
When you hear people say Enron represents a "systemic" or "structural" failure, this is what they're talking about. That's what needs to be fixed.
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Torture is wrong, of course, but what I keep hearing from people is that these are extraordinary times. Perhaps torture is wrong only when things are
ordinary?
The practical among us might point out that torture is a rather lousy interrogation tool. Victims tend to say whatever their torturer wants them to,
without worrying too much about the truth. And, of course, torturing suspects would make it a wee bit harder for the U.S. to strut around bragging
about freedom, democracy and human rights. Then again, the Bush administration is quite comfortable in hypocrite-mode and would no doubt
adjust quickly. These are, after all, extraordinary times.
And it isn't as if terrorist suspects deserve our sympathy. Hell, if they were pulled in they've probably done SOMETHING wrong. The numerous
reports of abuse that have come out -- prisoners beaten, forced to take lie detector tests, denied attorneys, etc. - shouldn't concern us, and we
shouldn't question the investigation too closely, because it's classified. National security and all, you know. You wouldn't want to compromise
national security, would you? Best to let the authorities handle things and trust them to do the job right. After all, YOU'RE not a terrorist, so you
aren't in danger of being abused, or tortured, or shipped off to another country so that the U.S. can keep its hands clean. And we do need to get
information from these suspects. It may be that it's just too difficult to get it through normal, lawful means.
Because times are so extraordinary, it makes sense - doesn't it? - that the press should accept certain restrictions. No patriotic American wants to
endanger our troops, and if Donald Rumsfeld says that releasing information about what we're doing in Afghanistan would endanger our
troops...well, who would want to argue with that? It MIGHT be true. Better to play it safe and report only news the Pentagon gives permission to
report. A free press is important in a democracy, but national security is more important - right? That's why it was a good thing, we're told, that the
networks were so obedient when Condoleezza Rice told them not to air bin Laden's speeches, since he might be trying to send coded information
to terrorists who don't have access to anything but U.S. media. It's probably better for the press to report only what the Pentagon tells it to, so the
press doesn't run the danger of reporting something that compromises national security. It's certainly the simplest, easiest way to handle things.
Journalists in the U.S., it seems, are supposed to be Americans first and journalists second. Especially right now.
Of course, during the Gulf War the press accepted certain restrictions, and we found out later that we'd been misinformed about a great number of
things. Smart bombs, we learned, were about as "smart" as George W. Bush. But not to worry - the press, I suppose, had too MUCH freedom during
the Gulf War, and that's what caused the problem. Now, journalists miss the 'good old days' of the Gulf War, when they had some information to
pass on, even if it wasn't extensive or terribly accurate. But they should be Americans before they are journalists, according to the current wisdom,
and so one imagines that they won't complain all that much.
Besides, complaining isn't the simple matter it once was. Now that the "Patriot" anti-terrorism legislation has been signed into law, one has to be
extra careful to avoid being labeled a terrorist. For instance, if you engage in any sort of protest which could be considered dangerous to human life
(and we must leave it up to the authorities to determine what acts are 'dangerous to human life'), even if such acts are not against the law, you
would be engaging in terrorism as it's now defined. And even if you don't engage in said acts, you could still be prosecuted for harboring a terrorist if
you provided any sort of assistance to someone who did engage in said acts...even if you just let them crash at your apartment one night.
Non-citizens have to be even more careful, as they could be deported simply for having made a donation to a group which the U.S. later determines
is a terrorist organization. Since terrorism now includes any activity which could be construed as dangerous to human life, there are many, many
groups which could conceivably be classified as such.
But it's necessary that we fight terrorism, and if the new legislation seems a bit harsh, well, consider the times we're in. Surely all good and patriotic
Americans would be willing to give up a little privacy in exchange for safety. After all, if you've never done anything wrong, what does it matter that
the CIA can now spy on you? You don't want to make it more difficult for the authorities to catch the terrorists, do you? Of course not. You want to
make it as easy as possible for them.
It all seems reasonable, if one looks at it the right way. And the more one waves a flag and sings patriotic songs, the more reasonable it seems. It
would be a little silly, perhaps, to question things too closely, to read the exact wording of various bills and explanations, to get overly hung up on
ethics and morality, to take the First Amendment too literally...because everything is so complicated, and who has time to keep up with it all? The
media will tell us what we need to know, sanctioned and approved by the government, and in extraordinary times, we're told that not only is this the
correct way for things to be done, it's also the easiest.
And yet. And yet.
Freedom, democracy...they're kind of 'all or nothing' deals. You either believe in them or you don't. You either support them, promote them and fight
for them - or you don't. It isn't freedom if it applies only to certain people at certain times. It isn't democracy if it exists only during ordinary times.
Being a patriot means fighting for what this country stands for, and uniting - not behind figureheads, not behind symbols like flags and slogans, but
behind the concepts of freedom and democracy. Being a patriot means fighting for these things even for people you despise, even when doing so
puts you at risk.
You can choose to remain silent and complacent right now, sure. It's the easiest thing to do. But it's not the patriotic thing to do, and anyone who
says otherwise is a damned liar.
This edition we're proud to showcase the cartoons of Stuart Carlson |
| For Whom The Bell Tolls
Make his fight on the hill in the early day
For whom the bell tolls
Take a look to the sky just before you die
For whom the bell tolls
In original Hebrew the letter gimmel or G in English was actually pronounced as J . The prefix in Hebrew for "from" is "meh".
Let us now look at the familiar terms refering to a great war at the end of days in the bible : Gog and Magog. This can be accurately pronounced "Joj mejoj".
With a respelling to match current usage of the English language, this can be translated "George from George".
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Activist Alerts "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing." ... Edmund Burke
Welcome to a brand spanking New Year - the year the people take back
the power!
Since the Hightower Lowdown featured the Rolling Thunder Down-Home
Democracy Tour, we have gotten hundreds of inquiries from folks such
as yourself, interested in jolting the task masters out of their
somnolent status quo system that thinks, profit first, people last.
Well I know I don't have to tell YOU that the sleeping beast is going
to be politely, but firmly awoken by thousands of perceptive
speakers, sassy musicians, passionate politicians, no-terd-takin
cowboys, free-thinkin farmers, hard-workin waitresses, talented
workshop leaders and a whole host of other inspired, inspiring, bona
fide 100% honest-to-goodness just downright real folks!
From Seattle to Libertytown, MD, from LaFarge WI to Memphis, TN you
all have jumped up to say (in the words of Penny Lane from Floyd,
VA) "we're overworked and underfunned - let's Chautauqua!"
And so Chautauqua-ing we are.
* Firstly, we thank our financial supporters without whom this would
not be possible: Working Assets, Ben and Jerry's, Mother Jones, the
Tides Foundation, Global Resource Action Coalition for the
Environment, Essential Action, the MacArthur Foundation, Nathan
Cummings Foundation, Common Council Foundation, Pohaku Fund, the Gill
Foundation and others!
But don't let them get all the credit - sponsor us yourselves! Your
donation means the world to us - whatever the amount. Just click on
the "Donate Now!" button at www.jimhightower.com/tour and make your
tax-exempt donation today!
* Way back in September we went up to a little place called Unity,
Maine, where we pioneered the reincarnated Chautauqua concept.
Community members and groups from the Alliance for Democracy to the
Maine Organic Farmers & Gardeners Association joined together
to "quell the corporate coup." All the organizations involved not
only worked hard to put together this event, but also committed to
devote 10% of their attention and energy over the coming year to
solving the overarching problem of corporate rule. Through local
referendums and initiatives they will challenge corporate
sovereignty, personhood and the other illegitimate privileges they
have usurped over the years (e.g., their rights to enjoy Bill of
Rights protections, to demand welfare, to suborn elections, to
dictate policy, to overwhelm local business, to own life forms,
etc.). Speakers included Doris Haddock (Granny D), David Korten,
Ronnie Dugger and Jim Hightower. Check out the great webpage
www.newchautauqua.net for information about how Maine folks are
continuing the Chautauqua spirit and listen to coverage of the event!
* Start agitating NOW! Meetings to discuss plans for the RTD2 tour
to come to Austin, Tucson, Atlanta, and Chicago will be held in the
upcoming weeks. Please contact the following people to get involved!
Austin
Tucson
Atlanta
Chicago, IL
* Austin, TX will be our next stomping grounds where we will wake up
the nation and urge them to get up on the right side of the
ideological bed. We'll have hide-tingling speakers, death defying
acrobats (and activists), hay bale mazes for the kids and kids-at-
heart, Hightower hot sauce, and YOU! We need geniuses and idiots,
farmers, bakers and candlestick makers, toddlers and tykes, grandmas
and poppas, actresses and hams, and very other type of person to be
vendors, workshop leaders, organizers, volunteers, barkers, ticket-
sellers, media spokespeople, etc. To get involved in the Austin
planning, contact Tricia Forbes at tforbes@protex.org or call 512-441-
3003. We'll be heading to Austin in March so contact Tricia TODAY!
* I get more calls from the Tucson area than almost anywhere else
and we're getting set to do a bang-up job on the Chautauqua there.
We'll scoot on over to Tucson in April so come join the Arizona
Central Labor Council, Derechos Humanos, Jobs with Justice, Latin
American Council for Labor Advancement, League of United Latin
American Citizens, Primavera Foundation for the Homeless, Sierra
Club, SW Biodiversity Center, League of Conservation Voters,
Interfaith Social Justice Committee, Catholic Social Services and
other organizations to help craft a progressive extravaganza!
* In Chicago, IL plans are underway for a Chautauqua focused on
celebrating real farmers and real food (yes! They still exist!) to
take place in June. The goal of this festival will be to democratize
the food system from the planting to the processing. The groups
involved thus far include the Institute for Agriculture and Trade
Policy, Farm Aid, Organic Valley Family of Farms, the Illinois Food
Safety Coalition, the GRACE Factory Farm Project, Public Citizen's
Food Irradiation Project, the Illinois Food Stewardship Alliance, the
Chicago Task Force on Homelessness and the Center on Voting and
Democracy. We are also working with the office of Representative
Jesse Jackson Jr. Contact LaDonna Redmond at songobisi@netzero.net or
773-261-7339 for more information on how to be involved or be a
sponsoring organization.
* In Atlanta, GA plans are underway in collaboration with Task Force
for the Homeless, the Atlanta Central Labor Council, the Christian
Council of Concerned Black Clergy, 9 - 5 National Association of
Working Women, Rural Urban Summit, and others to produce a Chautauqua
focused primarily on human and civil rights. This Chautauqua will be
held in May and we look forward to your involvement! Contact Anita
Beaty at anitalawbeaty@aol.com or 404-230-5007.
* The other cities we are thinking of visiting include Seattle,
Madison, Oakland, Baltimore / DC, Boston and Minneapolis and a whole
host of others. If you want your city to be part of the tour, please
email info@rollingthundertour.org and ask for a
proposal form. But, don't wait for us to come to you - roll your own
thunder!
We can't make it to every city so we are encouraging communities to
roll their own thunder by hosting a mini Chautauqua. We will be
compiling Chautauqua Community Superstars - communities where the
full-fledged tour doesn't stop, but where there is enough local
enthusiasm to put on a mini-Chautauqua by reaching out to other
organizations and putting together an event with both cultural and
activist concepts such as a spoken word event, a kids performance, a
workshop on corporate dominance in your hometown.
We ask that communities that are interested in doing this adhere to
the Chautauqua spirit in that the events endeavor to bring together a
diverse group pf people and constituencies, that they focus on the
common thread that unites us all - the need to take back our
democracy from the global greedheads, and that there is an effort
made to stick together and work cooperatively with one another after
the event so that the momentum and energy doesn't dissipate. These
events will be publicized on our soon-to-be website and also on this
listserve so that other like-minded people in your community and
region can hear about what is going on around them and can get
involved. We also want to showcase all the individuals,
organizations, networks and entire communities that are rejoicing in
the Chautauqua spirit. We'll ask communities to submit a photo, a
list of the organizations involved and a brief description of their
mini-Chautauqua and we will display them proudly at each mega-
Chautauqua to encourage and catalyze others to take power back in
their own communities!
If you are interested in hosting a mini Chautauqua, please let us
know the nature and details of the event so we can post it. Send an
email to info@rollingthundertour.org
* Our list of national partners continues to grow and thus far
includes ACORN, The National Council of Churches, Service Employees
International Union, AFL-CIO, (SEIU), United Students Against
Sweatshops, Ben and Jerry's, Barbara Ehrenreich, Working Assets,
Essential Information, Tides Foundation, Representative Jesse Jackson
Jr., Rainforest Action Network, Global Exchange, Senator Paul
Wellstone, Public Citizen, Mother Jones, The Nation, Utne Reader,
Alternet, Dan Carol, CTSG, Patch Adams and the Gesundheit Institute,
Campaign for America's Future, Institute for Agriculture and Trade
Policy, Joel Rogers, Ruckus Society, Alliance for Democracy, Center
for Voting and Democracy, Bioneers, Ella Baker Center for Human
Rights, Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, Global Resource
Action Center for the Environment, United for a Fair Economy, Public
Campaign, Sustain, Democracy Matters, Julianne Malveaux, Greenpeace,
Organic Consumers Association, Women's International League for Peace
and Freedom, National Coalition for the Homeless, Organic Valley
Family of Farms, American Medical Students Association, and many
others in the works. To find out what it means to be a national
sponsor and to add your organization to the list, please email
info@rollingthundertour.org.
That's all for now folks...but hold on to yer hats and keep listening
for the roar...of thunder and of minds being activated......
Until soon.
We, the people, do hereby demand that Congress investigate the following
actions taken by George W. Bush and his administration, and call for the
IMPEACHMENT of Bush, John Ashcroft, the five members of the Supreme Court
who violated State's Rights to select Bush, every member of the
administration who also served in George H.W.Bush's administration, and
every person who has executive and monetary ties to the oil industry.
The Republican Party spent $40 million of our tax dollars trying to
crucify Bill Clinton for his sexual activities, and there has barely been a
whimper but one is finally emerging -- about GWB's desecration of the
very foundations of our democracy. We, the people, demand investigation of
the following crimes of treason -- with the intent to impeach:
1. Tampering with the 2000 presidential election process, e.g. hard
plastic inserts causing "no vote" in the Gore column of Florida ballots.
(Cited by Diane Feinstein.) We demand investigation and imprisonment of
all those in the State of Florida who participated in this obstruction and
the blocking of recounts in Florida.
2. Violation of State's Rights by the last and final bastion of law in
the United States â?? the Supreme Court. Violated State's Rights to
recount, and Florida State Law that automatically requires a recount in
close elections. We demand impeachment of all "Justices" who desecrated our
democratic process and appointed Bush to the White House.
3. John Ashcroft, to gain office, said he would not let his personal
beliefs interfere with his position that wields power of the laws of our
nation. Investigate and impeach for violating State's Rights by
overturning the will of the people of Oregon that allows assisted suicides.
4. Investigate and impeach John Ashcroft for implementing laws that are
so vague in describing "terrorist" that they potentially violate the civil
rights of citizens and residents of our country, thus destroying the
tenets of democracy that made this country great.
5. Investigate and imprison members of our "intelligence" who met with
bin Laden in July 2001. Since bin Laden was, even then, a "war" criminal,
investigate why he was MET WITH and NOT ARRESTED. Impeach the final
authority who directed the visits.
6. Intelligence members have stated that Bush TOLD them to back off from
bin Laden to NOT investigate him and his cohorts. Investigate and IMPEACH
the final authority who directed that surveillance of bin Laden and his
cohorts be stopped prior to the attacks.
7. Members of our "intelligence" placed PUTS on United and American
airlines two days before the attacks sent the stocks plummeting. Although
software supposedly tracks abnormal trading, the 1200% gain in PUT activity
on those two airlines was not revealed. Investigate and imprison all who
profited from these puts. Investigate and IMPEACH the final authority who
gave notice that the event would happen.
8. Bush has attached his unpopular agenda items to his so-called "war"
bills, and has used the "war" as an excuse to undermine every tenet of
civil rights inherent in our democracy. Compile a list and remove his
agenda items, as well as every "law" that erodes and violates our civil
rights. Note that every participant in this agenda commits TREASON and is a
TRAITOR to this
great nation.
9. Bush is buying up every satellite image of Afghanistan â?? with our
tax dollars. His daddy didn't do this, and reviews of satellite photography
after the Kuwait "war," where GHWBush didn't bring in Hussein, showed that
there was NO enemy presence in Kuwait - hence our soldiers died from
"friendly fire." Investigate and impeach anyone who endeavors to maintain
exclusivity and secrecy in our democracy. Democracy works by keeping WE,
THE PEOPLE, informed of all actions of our politicians, in order that we
may more properly select who will REPRESENT us. SECRETS are TREASON to
democracy.
10. Bush has by Executive Order hidden all presidential papers -- that
BELONG to WE, THE PEOPLE. His order locks other presidential records,
including his daddy's and Reagan's. The order has a "double lock" on it,
so that if either the creating or the sitting president says "no" to
releasing the records, they remain locked from the public. We, the people,
demand that Congress act in unison to destroy this "Executive Order." We
demand investigation of what the Order seeks to hide, and full revelation
to the people.
11. Bush has requested power to "quarantine" American citizens in the
event of a smallpox (or communicable disease) breakout. He has refused to
discard American supplies of the smallpox virus. History has proven that
quarantines do NOT WORK. Should he accuse bin Laden of threatening with
smallpox, and then mandate a nation-wide inoculation, he will set the
"bio-terrorism" in motion himself, as there are always people who become
sick from the vaccine, and the American people today already have massively
corrupted immune systems. Recall Ford's attempt to force inoculations for
Swine Flu - and that he killed people. Every person with a weakened immune
system has the potential of contracting the disease, and then contagion
will have been set in motion - with only blame on, but no action from, bin
Laden. Ensure that Bush cannot in ANY way cause or allow to be done the
releasing in ANY FORM of any virus or anthrax that
can harm we, the people.
12. People have already been concerned that FEMA would have totalitarian
powers if a national emergency were declared. Bush has now sought the same
power for himself. He has stripped all rights from "foreigners" (racism)
the diversity of which made this nation great. With quarantine powers, he
can strip all rights from citizens -? WE, THE PEOPLE, and prevent movement
within the country. (Read this as Hitler's Germany.) He can imprison
(quarantine) people in stadiums. Entire cities could be herded into
unsheltered, unhealthy environments. He has taken the power to turn
hospitals into prisons. WE, THE PEOPLE demand that Congress overturn this
Executive Order, for it does NOTHING to stop terrorism.
13. Bush has set in motion SECRET military tribunals, once again
declaring "needs of security." He has made it law that a person's home is
not longer his castle, and it can be entered and searched without a
warrant. He has made it a law that one is no longer innocent until proven
guilty. One now only needs to be "suspected." One now has no guarantee of a
fair and democratic trial. One can be tried by a secret military tribunal
and be executed â?? in total secrecy. This constitutes a police state and
NOT a democracy. We, the people, DEMAND that this power be stripped away
and never set in motion. We demand that Bush be IMPEACHED for granting
himself "unusual powers" for a "war" that is phony - and not declared by
Congress, and for further destroying the character of America in the world
community.
14. Bush is buying all satellite images of Afghanistan, he has locked
down presidential papers, and he wants to conduct secret executions â?? to
prevent the airing of any testimony that might incriminate him and his role
in the attacks used to set in motion all of these assaults on American
citizens. We, the people, demand IMPEACHMENT for his destruction of the
ELECTION PROCESS and his intent to grant himself FULL DICTATORIAL AUTHORITY.
15. The anthrax distributed in the mail - and sent only to Democrats -is
the variety held by our own military. We, the people, demand investigation
of our own military and administrative authorities who have command over
U.S. supplies of anthrax. Imprison all who participated in its release, and
IMPEACH the highest authority.
16. Bomber pilots are saying that they are being prevented from bombing
military complexes in Afghanistan. Rumsfeld declared the "anonymous" pilots
to be "royal thumb suckers." Rumsfeld tripped over his own lies as he first
denied the charges with that idiotic remark, and then admitted it when
someone rephrased the question. He stood LAUGHING at some of the questions.
Excuse me, did someone say this was about "war"???? Investigate WHY the
military is under such discretionary control, and the reasons for it.
IMPEACH all who are calling the orders in this phony "war."
17. We, the people, demand an investigation into who controls the news
media so that it is not screaming from the headlines, and at the top of the
hour, about these acts that are TREASON to our nation. The news media's
purpose is not to amuse and deceive.
18. Investigate "profiteering through government" during this time of
assault upon the American people via permission by you in Congress who have
failed in your purpose to represent WE, THE PEOPLE. You have handed
BILLIONS of our tax dollars to Corporations â?? letting these corporations
"take the money and run" â?? even as individuals lose their jobs, and will
wind up working for $6 an hour to pay for the massive government debt being
created by Bush - and yourselves! STOP and REVERSE these handouts.
19. Investigate WHY Congress has cooperated so fully in Bush's
destruction of our democracy under the pretext of "war." If there has been
any threat, or collusion to deceive the American people, IMPEACH all who
participated.
20. Investigate the role of OIL in this entire charade, and the monies
paid by "religious" influences who also seek destruction of American rights
and freedoms. Clean up our government, beginning with your own apologies
to the American people - and to the world. We could FEED the world with the
BILLIONS that Bush is giving to war barons and corporations. This is a dark
hour in our history, and each of you need to bring all of these TREASONOUS
and TRAITOROUS acts into the LIGHT.
Representing We, The People,
Here's what you can do to help:
2. Contact your local and/or state Democratic Party office urging them to also
support the resolution.
3. Contribute to the Democratic Party of Oregon. We plan to continue to promote
this resolution and your contribution, no matter how small, will help us in this fight
for democracy. Click on Democratic Party of Oregon to send your support today!
This ultra-conservative group needs donations! Lend them a helping hand by sending them a few $100 or $1000 bills ... Confederate ones! Click
here to print or download the bills. Send them to other right-wing groups as well!
And if you still want to annoy the Heritage Foundation, you can always go to their
online donation form as soon as you try to leave the page, a pop-up window appears asking why you decided not to donate. Give them an explanation, but remember to be polite!
We, the undersigned voters, know that our cherished democracy is endangered from
within by the grave and potentially fatal flaws in our voting systems exposed by the
Presidential Election of 2000.
As our elected representatives, you have the duty, the opportunity, and the privilege to
correct these flaws and to restore fair and honest elections throughout our nation. To this
end, we charge you to construct and pass a VOTERS BILL OF RIGHTS, which shall
include:
Strict enforcement and extension of the Voting Rights Act to prevent the
disenfranchisement of voters and require full investigation and criminal prosecution of
any offenders;
Standardized, easily understandable federal election ballots
Funding to replace old and unreliable voting machines to ensure that every vote is
counted fairly and accurately
Genuine campaign finance reform that bans campaign contributions from special
interests
Replacement of the Electoral College with a majority-rule election, or substantial reform
of the Electoral College to allow for proportional representation
Measures to increase voter participation by eliminating bureaucratic hurdles to voter
registration and turnout, including language barriers, physical barriers, archaic
equipment, and lack of resources
Enactment and enforcement of a VOTERS BILL OF RIGHTS will restore trust in our
government and encourage participation in our democratic processes. The linchpin of a
democracy is the process by which we select our representatives and leaders. The right
to vote is our defining right as citizens of this nation. We call upon our elected
representatives to protect our Constitution from abusive exercise of government power
by enacting a VOTERS BILL OF RIGHTS.
We pledge our full and constant support for enactment of a VOTERS BILL OF
RIGHTS. Top twenty Republican donors with global consumer brands:
1 Philip Morris - $4,554,732
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Parting Shots...  Judge Orders God To Break Up Into Smaller Deities
WASHINGTON, DC—Calling the theological giant's stranglehold on the religion industry "blatantly anti-competitive," a U.S. district judge ruled
Monday that God is in violation of anti-monopoly laws and ordered Him to be broken up into several less powerful deities.
"The evidence introduced in this trial has
convinced me that the deity known as God has
willfully and actively thwarted competition from
other deities and demigods, promoting His worship
with such unfair scare tactics as threatening
non-believers with eternal damnation," wrote District
Judge Charles Elliot Schofield in his decision. "In the
process, He has carved out for Himself an illegal
monotheopoly."
The suit, brought against God by the Justice
Department on behalf of a coalition of "lesser deities"
and polytheistic mortals, alleged that He violated
antitrust laws by claiming in the Holy Bible that He
was the sole creator of the universe, and by strictly
prohibiting the worship of what He termed "false
idols."
"God clearly commands that there shall be no
other gods before Him, and He frequently employs
the phrase 'I AM the Lord' to intimidate potential
deserters," prosecuting attorney Geoffrey Albert
said. "God uses other questionable strongarm tactics
to secure and maintain humanity's devotion,
demanding, among other things, that people sanctify
their firstborn to Him and obtain circumcisions as a
show of faith. There have also been documented
examples of Him smiting those caught worshipping graven images."
Attorneys for God did not deny such charges. They did, however, note that God offers followers "unbeatable incentives" in return for their
loyalty, including eternal salvation, protection from harm, and "fruitfulness."
"God was the first to approach the Jewish people with a 'covenant' contract that guaranteed they would be the most favored in His eyes, and He
handed down standards of morality, cleanliness, and personal conduct that exceeded anything else practiced at the time," lead defense attorney Patrick
Childers said. "He readily admits to being a 'jealous' God, not because He is threatened by the prospect of competition from other gods, but because
He is utterly convinced of the righteousness of His cause and that He is the best choice for mortals. Many of these so-called gods could care less if
somebody bears false witness or covets thy neighbor's wife. Our client, on the other hand, is truly a 'People's God.'"
In the end, however, God was unable to convince Schofield that He did not deliberately create a marketplace hostile to rival deities. God's attorneys
attempted to convince the judge of His openness to rivals, pointing to His longtime participation in the "Holy Trinity," but the effort failed when
Schofield determined that Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are "more God subsidiaries than competitors."
To comply with federal antitrust statutes, God will be required to divide Himself into a pantheon of specialized gods, each representing a force of
nature or a specific human custom, occupation, or state of mind.
"There will most likely be a sun god, a moon god, sea god, and rain god," said religion-industry watcher Catherine Bailey. "Then there will be some
second-tier deities, like a god of wine, a goddess of the harvest, and perhaps a few who symbolize human love and/or blacksmithing."
Leading theologians are applauding the God breakup, saying that it will usher in a new era of greater worshipping options, increased efficiency, and
more personalized service.
"God's prayer-response system has been plagued by massive, chronic backlogs, and many prayers have gone unanswered in the process," said
Gene Suozzi, a Phoenix-area Wiccan. "With polytheism, you pray to the deity specifically devoted to your concern. If you wish to have children, you
pray to the fertility goddess. If you want to do well on an exam, you pray to the god of wisdom, and so on. This decentralization will result in more
individualized service and swifter response times."
Other religious experts are not so confident that the breakup is for the best, pointing to the chaotic nature of polytheistic worship and noting that
multiple gods demand an elaborate regimen of devotion that today's average worshipper may find arduous and inconvenient.
"If people want a world in which they must lay burnt offerings before an earthenware household god to ensure that their car will start on a cold
winter morning, I suppose they can have it," said Father Thomas Reinholdt, theology professor at Chicago's Loyola University. "What's more, lesser
deities are infamous for their mercurial nature. They often meddle directly in diplomatic affairs, abduct comely young mortal women for their
concubines, and are not above demanding an infant or two for sacrifice. Monotheism, for all its faults, at least means convenience, stability, and a
consistent moral code."
One deity who is welcoming the verdict is the ancient Greek god Zeus, who described himself as "jubilant" and "absolutely vindicated."
"For thousands of years, I've been screaming that this third-rate sky deity ripped me off wholesale," said Zeus, speaking from his Mt. Olympus
residence. "Every good idea He ever had He took from me: Who first created men in his own image? Who punished mankind for its sins? Who lived
eternally up in the clouds? And the whole fearsome, patriarchal, white-beard, thunderbolt thing? I was doing that eons before this two-bit hustler
started horning in on the action."
Lawyers for God say they plan to appeal Schofield's ruling and are prepared to go all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.
"This decision is a crushing blow to God worshippers everywhere, and we refuse to submit to a breakup until every possible avenue of argument is
pursued," Childers said. "I have every confidence that God will ultimately win, as He and His lawyers are all-powerful."
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Issues & Alibis Vol 2 # 6 © 2/08/2002
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Et Tu Brute?
