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February
5, 2002
Dita Sari
Why
I Rejected the
Reebok Human Rights Award
February
4, 2002
Eric Miller/Beth
Daley
Five
Weapons Systems
That Bilk the Taxpayers
Kenneth
Roth
Dear
Condoleezza,
You've Misstated the
Geneva Convention
Robert
Jensen
The
Occupation Must End
Shahid
Alam
How
Different Are
Islamic Societies?
David
Vest
Everybody
Says I Loathe You
John Chuckman
American
Politics of Grief
February
3, 2002
Zoltan
Grossman
War
and New Military Bases
February
2, 2002
Francis
Schor
Carlucci's
Strange Career
February
1, 2002
Dr. Susan
Block
The
Great Ashcroft Cover Up
Jeremy
Voas
Why
We're Suing Ashcroft
David
Vest
10
Things I Know About Him
January
31, 2002
Rahul
Mahajan
The
State of the Union:
A New Cold War
Dave Marsh
Miles
Copeland, War
and the Future of Music
John Pilger
The
Colder War
Alexander
Cockburn
American
Journal:
Killer Dog, Weird Couple
Dr. Susan
Block
Blowback
and Daniel Pearl
January
30, 2002
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Linda
Lay, Hill and Knowlton and the Tears of a Clown
Jack McCarthy
Free
Noelle Bush!
Michael
Ratner
Memo
to Bush: Adhere to
the Geneva Convention
Jay Moore
Proud
to be an American?
Susan
Block
The
Great Pretzel Swallower
and Guantanamo Porn
January
29, 2002
Gary Leupp
Why
This War Was, and Remains, Utterly Wrong
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Birds of Kandahar
Patrick
Cockburn
Afghan
Opium Trade
Back in Business
January
28, 2002
Larry
Chin
Brosnahan
for the Defense
Mokhiber/Weissman
Tyranny
of the Bottom Line
George
E. Curry
Civil
Rights Nominee Called Affirmative Action "Racist"
Sen. Russ
Feingold
Campaign
Finance Reform?
Think Enron
John Chuckman
Liberal?
Media?
January
27, 2002
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Enron's
Drip, Drip, Drip
Tom Turnipseed
MLK
Jr.'s Dream Perverted
January
26, 2002
Norman
Madarsz
Adieu,
Bourdieu
January
25, 2002
National
Lawyers Guild
Know
Your Rights
Alexander
Cockburn
You
Call This Terrorism?
CounterPunch
Wire
Cal
Energy Crisis Hoax:
It Wasn't A Shortage,
It Was a Shakedown
Tariq
Ali
Kashmir,
Klinghoffer,
the Kurds and Chomsky
Nadine
Strossen
Protecting
MLK Jr.'s Legacy:
Justice and Liberty After 9/11
January
24, 2002
Robert
Fisk
Turkey
Targets Chomsky
Dean Baker
Lying
on Top:
Ken Lay One of Many
David
Vest
Idiot
Wind
January
23, 2002
Terry
Waite
Guantanamo
Prisoners:
Justice or Revenge?
Molly
Secours
The
Case of Abu-Ali:
Racism and the Death Penalty
Robert
Jensen
Speak
Out, Get Slimed
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
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
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EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
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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 New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
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
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
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February 5,
2002
The Enron Creature
by David Vest
Far from being a sideshow that threatens merely
to keep the White House "off-message," the Enron scandal
moves daily closer to being perceived as emblematic of the whole
point of the Bush administration. It is increasingly clear that
efforts to "prevent another Enron" need to be directed
not merely to other high-flying companies but to the national
economy as a whole.
One need only look at the roster of Bush appointees to see the
extent to which people who came out of the Enron mentality (even
if they did not personally help run the company into the ground
while looting it) are now running the country. They are the same
people who, according to Ari Fleischer, "looked at that"
and concluded that the fall of Enron would have "no more
impact on the overall economy."
The problem is not that Enron and other companies like it bought
access to the White House. The problem is that these Frankensteins
of business were able to buy the White House itself and thought
they owned the country. The problem is that Bush is their creature.
Here is the basic equation to bear in mind: Ken Lay and Jeffrey
Skilling are to Enron as Bush and Cheney are to the U.S. economy.
The Bush agenda is to do to the nation what Ken Lay and his cronies
did for Enron -- loot it for the benefit of the people at the
top. Loot the economy, loot the environment, loot the public
wallet, leaving ordinary citizens to foot the bill and clean
up the damage, like ruined Enron employees.
That is why Lay and company were invited to write Texas' environmental
regulations when Bush was governor there.
That is why Gale Norton was made Secretary of the Interior upon
Bush's accession to the presidency.
That is why there is concern that the conquest of Afghanistan
will serve as prelude to the siphoning of Central Asian oil and
gas reserves with a trans-Afghan pipeline, a great sucking sound
thought to have originated in Sugar Land, Texas during Governor
Bush's term.
That is why massive tax cuts for the wealthiest of the wealthy
-- including a $254 million refund for Enron, a company that
didn't even pay taxes in four of the past five years -- are the
centerpiece of the Bush economic program.
That is why Lay and company were invited to write national energy
policy.
That is why Cheney ("Yeth, master") will not -- cannot
-- dare not -- come clean about his meetings with energy executives,
any more than Lay now dares offer testimony (or answer questions)
without invoking the Fifth Amendment or scoring an immunity deal.
When Bush told Congress and the nation that "the state of
our union has never been stronger," it was impossible not
to think of Lay telling Enron employees that the company was
in great shape, even as he and his fellow executives were dumping
their stock.
If we judge the state of the union by the status of our civil
liberties, has it ever been more precarious?
A budget surplus the size of many Enrons has disappeared since
Bush took office, much of it handed over to the rich in tax cuts.
Many among the unrich have lost not only their investments but
their jobs and their savings. Images of Enron employees walking
out of the building with their personal belongings in cardboard
boxes offer a disturbing premonition of people vacating foreclosed
homes. (For years Bush has been longing to do with Social Security
what Lay did with the 401K plans of Enron workers.)
Governors and legislatures in most states search for ways to
cut public services. The fate of the environment, from the Alaska
National Wildlife Refuge to the dwindling forests of the Pacific
Northwest, is hanging by a thread. The reproductive rights of
women are in the hands of John Ashcroft.
Even if the pretzel-scarred creature (Bush), said to have "bonded"
with the American public, must now turn on his creator (Lay),
it may only signify that Enron's unpardonable sin was letting
itself get a little too far ahead of the curve.
It has been a long time since the creature has been able to read
"Thomas the Tank Engine" to the children. Does the
creature miss those days? Or is he listening keenly for the first
sound of peasants massing with pitchforks and torches, coming
unbonded and heading toward the castle?
He will most assuredly be listening intently for investigators
whispering into the ears of subpoenaed witnesses, "Who can
you give us?"
My money's on Igor.
David Vest
is a regular writer for CounterPunch, a poet and piano-player
for the Pacific Northwest's hottest blues band, The Cannonballs.
He can be reached at: davidvest@springmail.com
Visit his website at http://www.mindspring.com/~dcqv
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