The Enron distraction
By Ted Lang
web
posted February 11, 2002
More than enough has already been written and commented on relative to the corporate and accounting abuses in the Enron affair. The largest bankruptcy in America's history does indeed serve, in and of itself, as a major distraction to virtually all other current events. That the liberal media's motives hang inexorably upon an imminent revelation that a member or members of the Bush administration, is or are directly and criminally involved, is appreciated by virtually all not severely challenged intellectually.
Enron is not only a major distraction as concerns both private and public sector malfeasance but has been marketed by the news media such that the obvious becomes the nebulous. For example, all are aware of the innumerable contributions made to politicians on both sides of the aisle, but where are the queries centering on the reasons such contributions were made in the first place?
The firewall of precedent invokes the sophisticated revelation that this is how things are done in the real world, so get over it! This is how the big boys play the game of politics, and there is nothing at all unusual about the power brokers exclusively dealing each other cash originating from others who are the non-players yet its potential victims.
The Clinton administration disbursed $1.73 billion to Enron through various government agencies during the nineties. Enron power brokering was aggressively touted as a clean environmentally sound alternative to the coal burning electric power generating plants in 22 states across the nation during that time. And Clinton fenced out of existence the richest, largest, clean-burning compliant coal deposits on the planet by executive order, putting the 1.7 million-acre Escalante Staircase National Monument in Utah off limits to mining. Consider the foregoing relative to Enron's involvement in the California energy crisis and the bogus Kyoto non-treaty, the latter attacking coal-burning energy generation as an anti-environmental source of severe global warming.
Not accepting the norm, but challenging it as evolving into the principal contributory factor of "campaign finance abuses" now in need of reform, the end product will once again be directed at the very innocent little people who have been the very ones victimized in the first place!
Investigators, who should be impartial and in no way connected to the money deals between Enron and Congress, should be inquiring as to the amounts, dates, and specific nature of each and every contribution made to those on both sides of both chambers of Congress! It should not be taken for granted that, "This is the way things are done." Why are these things being done? Don't the people in Congress make enough money? Why do they need additional donations? What do the donors expect in return?
Once these basic questions are posed, some things previously convoluted become quite clear. The only reason that the contributions to Congress by Enron have surfaced is due to the nature and magnitude of the scandal, which has exposed "politics as usual" to the public. But how many dollars, and to whom, and for what reasons, were given to Congress by General Electric? How many by General Motors? How many by General Dynamics? The only reason we're not asking these questions is because the corrupt system's sycophants and primary beneficiaries in the media are ignoring these aspects as though they were a non-existent facet of this outrageous debacle. Where do politicians spend most of their campaign money?
Is it possible that the Kyoto "treaty," requiring, as is the case with any other treaty proposal, a two-thirds majority of the Senate, was so aggressively touted by the Clinton administration because it had as its primary intent a quasi-monopolistic posturing for Enron's sole enrichment? Had all in the Senate, including Democrats, refused to consider this "treaty," signed only by Clinton and Gore and therefore non-binding, because of the realization of the disastrous effect it would have on our economy, or was it because many other American industries together contributed more heavily to Congress than Enron itself?
Clearly, all in Congress should recuse themselves. Isn't it telling that
the ranting attack by Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, D-South
Carolina, on the Bush administration, takes on an ironic twist against
the backdrop of this multi-faceted absurdity of events? In his feeble
attempt at humor and feigned outrage, Hollings dispatched "cash and
carry government," citing unproven Bush wrongdoings and calling for
an Independent Prosecutor so recently and vehemently objected to by Democrats
when rallying to defend Clinton. Indeed, an independent investigation
is in order -- but by whom? 
(c) 2002. Theodore E. Lang
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