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January
18, 2002
Jordan
Green
"Enron
Stole Our Future"
Walt Brasch
Enron
at the White House
CounterPunch
Wire
Human
Rights Groups Says Guantanmo Prisoners Must Be Treated as POWs
January
17, 2002
Gideon
Levy
Bulldozing
Rafah
Uri Avnery
That
Weapons Shipment
January
16, 2002
John Chuckman
The
Angel and the Pretzel
Lawrence
McGuire
Subverting
the
Geneva Convention
Kathy
Kelly
An
Open Letter to
Richard Perle on Iraq
January
15, 2002
George
Monbiot
Greenpeace,
Lord Melchett
and the Business of Betrayal
Jack McCarthy
Follow
the Pretzel
William
Blum
Atta
and the Times:
Follow the Changing Story
Edward
Said
Emerging
Alternatives
in Palestine
January
14, 2002
David
Vest
Open
Bag. Eat Pretzels.
Patrick
Cockburn
Collapse
of Georgia
Ignored by the World
Mokhiber/Weissman
Enron's
Accountants:
When In Doubt, Shred It
January
13, 2002
C.G. Estabrook
Why
We Kill People
January
12, 2002
Cockburn/St.
Clair
Forbidden
Truths
January
11, 2002
Lee Balllinger/Dave
Marsh
Neil
Young's Duet with Ashcroft
January
10, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Bush,
Enron, UNOCAL
and the Taliban
St. Clair/Cockburn
Greenpeace
to Greenwash?
Hans von
Sponek
Iraq:
Is There an Alternative
to Military Action?
Jim Lobe
Israeli
Human Rights Group Assails Army
Marina Mayakova
Russia's
Top Military Astrologer Predicts More Attacks from OBL
January
9, 2002
David
Vest
The
Super-Burqa
and the Big Tent
ND Jayaprakash
Winnable
Nuclear War?
Rafiq
Kathwari
Kashmir
Will Make Ground Zero Look Like a Bonfire
January
8, 2002
Prudence
Crowther
Sting
Like a B-52
Nelson
Valdés
Al-Qaeda
at Guantanamo Bay
John Chuckman
Dark
Tales from the
Ministry of Truth
Richard
Corn-Revere
Do
We Fear Freedom?
Joan Hoff
The
Nixon You Haven't Heard
January
7, 2002
Lawrence
McGuire
Confusing
Economic Tales About Argentina
Wael Masri
They
Are Taking
Our Rights Away
Philip
Farruggio
Better
Medicine
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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Published Oct. 15, 2001
8-Page Special Issue
War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
Search
CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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This Explosive
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Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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January
18, 2002
The Enron Model:
A Preamble for
the Constitution of the Corporations of the USA
By Tom Turnipseed
We the corporations of The United States, in order
to make more money, establish our profits with campaign contributions
and lobbying, insure a revolving door of greedy executives, provide
pink slips for our employees and steal their retirement, promote
theft from our shareholders, and secure the hatred of the people
of the world through economic exploitation, do ordain and establish
this Constitution for the Corporations of the United States.
Corporate power and its control of government
and information in the United States is transforming our great
experiment in democracy as expressed in the Preamble to the United
States into a mockery of the meaning of "We the people...".
The Enron collapse exemplifies how corporate America conspires
to change and circumvent laws and regulations meant to protect
everyday people. Most Americans are not greedy or ruthless enough
to be anywhere near the "discreet" decision making
process of Enron executives like "Kenny Boy" Lay, whose
bold and imaginative acquisitiveness gave him access to the corporate
titans of the world and their political minions in Congress and
the White House.
George Will recently wrote, "...a
mature capitalist economy is a government project." Will,
a high brow "conservative," strained to impress intellectuals
with a demeaning description of Washington as "narcissistic
and solipsistic" in his column about Enron. For a wealthy
corporate elite apologist in a country that has seen the greatest
increase in income disparity in its history over the past 20
years to admit that the bad ol' government is really a tool of
his beloved capitalism is interesting. Will went on to say,
"A properly functioning free market system does not spring
spontaneously from society's soil as dandelions spring from surburban
lawns. Rather, it is a complex creation of laws and mores that
guarantee...transparency, meaning a sufficient stream...of reliable
information about the condition and conduct of corporations."
Mr. Will did not tell us how our "mature capitalist economy"
can remedy the errors of Enron when the largest corporations
successfully use campaign contributions and lobbying against
laws and regulations, put their lackeys in charge of the regulatory
agencies that would guarantee such transparency, and control
the major media and the information "We the people..."
receive.
General Electric, like Enron, has been
lauded as an excellent example of an American corporation and
they also happen to own NBC, CNBC and half of MSNBC. GE is
a big defense contractor and their media subsidiaries have led
the hype of America's New War 24-7 since 911 along with other
major media, but now they are finally covering the collapse of
Enron. Enron's collapse hit so close to the corrupt core of
our corporate culture that their talking heads are demanding
jail time for Enron executives, distancing themselves from the
corporate "evil ones." Enron had an esteemed CEO
known to President Bush as "Kenny Boy" Lay, who "cashed
out" on his employees, and GE's honored former CEO, "Neutron
Jack" Welch earned his nickname for putting profits over
people by firing thousands of employees and making GE a "model
of corporate efficiency" when he took over as CEO of General
Electric.
A revolving door among executives of
Enron, their accounting/auditing/consulting firm of Arthur Andersen,
and their "outside/inside" law firm of Vinson and Elkins,
appears to have facilitated the shady deals that led to Enron's
disastrous downfall and allowed Enron executives to "cash
out" for more than a billion dollars while leaving their
employees jobless with worthless 401K plans and their shareholders
holding the bag. Several of the executives involved will most
likely face both criminal and civil conspiracy charges. The
door also revolved into several strategically high places in
government with: Enron consultant Lawrence Lindsay who was paid
$50,000, becoming the White House economic advisor; former Enron
Vice-President Thomas White, who owned $50-100 million in Enron
stock and $50,000 in stock options, becoming Secretary of the
Army; former Enron advisory-board member Robert Zoellick, who
was paid $50,000, becoming U.S. Trade Representative; and Karl
Rove, who owned $100,000 in Enron stock before he sold it in
June, 2001, becoming Senior advisor to the President. Lawrence
Lindsey did a study for the White House that concluded Enron's
collapse would not hurt the U.S. and global markets.
Harvey Pitt, an attorney for Arthur Andersen
and defender of the controversial practice of an accounting firm
being allowed to do unlimited consulting services for a client
for whom they were auditors, was appointed by Bush as head of
the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Auditing and consulting
has been cited as a contributing cause for the Enron/Andersen
debacle. Former SEC chairmen Arthur Levitt proposed legislation
in 2000 that would have forced accounting firms like Arthur Andersen
to choose whether they would provide auditing or consulting services
to clients, but not both. The proposal that might have helped
prevent the Enron/Andersen fiasco was defeated by the powerful
and outspoken opposition of Senator Charles Schumer, who received
$329,631 from the accounting industry (1995-2000), Senator Phil
Gramm, who received $200,950 from the accounting lobby (1995-2000)
and congressman Billy Tauzin, who received $143,424 from the
accounting industry (1995-2000).
Enron's total political contributions
as reported from 1989-2001 were $5.78 million with 73% going
to Republicans and 27% to Democrats. Over $700,000 went to various
members of the seven Congressional Committees who will be investigating
Enron's collapse.
Here in South Carolina, the media covers
the announced candidates in the U.S. Senate race in "horse
race" style with stories about who is raising the most money
but nothing about issues that effect the lives of everyday people
in these recessionary times. It is no longer about We the People,
it's all We the Corporations and the wealthy elite.
Tom Turnipseed is
an attorney, writer and civil rights activist in Columbia, South
Carolina.
http://www.turnipseed.net
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