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Non-Tech : The ENRON Scandal -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mephisto who wrote (1141)	1/24/2002 9:22:45 PM
From: Patricia Trinchero	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5185

DataLounge Editorial: Enroning on Empty Wednesday, 23 January 2002 Republicans have been fond of saying there's no blue dress in the Enron debacle, and they're right. This isn't a sophomoric political sex scandal, after all. The kind of legalized bribery exemplified by Enron's purchase of elected officials in Washington goes to the very heart of American democracy. The Enron mess threatens to expose the inner workings of an administration that was supposed to save the nation from the moral lapses and compromises of the Clinton era. These were the God-fearing good guys, the grown-ups, the white haired men with faithful and obedient wives who were taking their proper role at the helm of this great nation. That the principal players in this game of greed, entitlement, patronage and good-ol'-boyism are also the sworn defenders of a narrow and exclusive religious conservatism designed to save the country from Godless Democrats and homosexuals (you know who you are), is hardly incidental. It gives a gay outfit such as ours the excuse to cover the whole mess. That said, we can loudly proclaim that the true scandal of Enron is not that the company got the kind of legislative favors and dressed up kick-backs $6 million in political contributions paid for -- but that it did so legally. For mere millions donated to the livelihood of smiling lawmakers -- coupled with some millions more in salaries, patronage and other billable services -- Enron was able to influence changes in federal law that opened the floodgates to more than $100 billion in revenue in a little under two years. While California flickered into darkness, the energy-trading company quadrupled its income. It even managed with the help of influential friends in Congress, to avoid paying income taxes for four out of the last five years on profits so earned. In fact, it got several refunds. With rates of return like that, it's a wonder it doesn't happen more often. The sad truth is, of course, it does. It happens all the time. Nervous Republicans waving their arms with claims that that Enron influence peddling is a bipartisan scandal skip over the uncomfortably stubborn fact that donations made to Democrats are dwarfed several times by those given to their chubbier friends across the aisle. Overview of this issue > Politics & Gay Vote Web Sites > GayVote.com Other Data Lounge stories > Washington DC HomoRama's web listings & events > Washington DC Send this article to a friend Corpulent cigar-toking felines in the GOP insist they have broken no laws, yet as any American without a vested interest in the status quo would agree, changing laws that give corporations permission to reap billions in exchange for campaign donations isn't what most of us mean by representative democracy. Yes, it's a Congressional scandal, but as the set and sour faces of Karl Rove and Karen Hughes make plain, the new Bush administration is up to its startled eye balls in sticky black goo. In the Bush White House, (former) Enron CEO Kenneth Lay enjoyed close personal relationships with the George Bushes, both Senior and Junior, Vice President Dick Cheney, the attorney general, the treasury secretary, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, the commerce secretary, the chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Bush's economic advisor and White House Senior Advisor Karl Rove. In the meantime, the Enron revelations give Vice President Cheney a new reason to remain in an undisclosed and secure location. A series of meetings he held with Lay last year when he was crafting a new energy policy have been widely held to be favorable to what was then Enron's bottom line -- not that it's any of your business. The Bush administration continues to fight General Accounting Office requests to find out who else Cheney was meeting with when his bold new plan for our oil rich future was being devised -- or what, exactly, he and Lay agreed to. Contrary to dismissive assertions being made by some respectable publications (The Economist being just one), the Enron mess doesn't begin and end with dummy companies and lax accounting standards. And contrary to assertions made by cabinet officials, its implosion is hardly proof that the unregulated market is doing its job. Enron did not grow rich making better products. It achieved its wealth by exploiting changes in government energy policy that it had a heavy hand in creating. It then rewarded its meek benefactors with donations that kept the machinery, in Washington at least, humming efficiently. The influence Enron bought fleeced the pockets of a connected few clustered around bartops in Houston, while California's homes and businesses were being starved for electricity. Residents of the most economically powerful and populous state in the country were left to curse in the dark as Enron and its patrons made a tidy bundle, and all of this was done with the full and eager cooperation of elected officials in the United States government. No power shortage for the well-wired political elite in Texas and Washington, that's for sure. As far as scandals go, that ought to rank a little higher than a chubby intern in a beret.