My title makes it look like this article is more of a current news commentary than a response to America's reaction to 9-11. Alright, I'll buy that. But the Bush administration has made 9-11 so much a part of everything it does, and at the end of this article I'll state what I believe is one of the causes of 9-11; and it has very much to do with this issue!
George Bush recently made a speech on Wall Street in which he called for heightened business ethics -- including harsher penalties for corporate executives who falsify financial reports for their own benefit and to the detriment of investors. Granted, Bush's critics in places like the New York Times will tell you that the speech was long on rhetoric and short on real remedies. And one might also point out that the fallout of investor confidence threatens the economic recovery which Bush must be able to insist is the result of his deficit resurrecting tax cuts. (I won't get into a discussion on that here -- Bush might just be right when he says the economy, and thus the deficit, might have been worse without the tax cut.)
At first blush Mr. Bush's newfound belief in business ethics (his own "insider" trades are certainly questionable even if completely legal) might seem like a conversion of sorts for a tried and true corporation-friendly Republican. But, as I shall soon argue, Bush is standing behind his real constituents as he has always done, and in that he is not very far away from most Democrats.
You see, I believe it's time for a liberal like myself to speak out about the real shame of the Clinton White House. While we might be morally repulsed by his sexual shenanigans, we liberals believe there are far more important character questions than where a man puts his thing. And on many of those issues Clinton stands head and shoulders above the current president. But on business ethics he falls down hard, and we liberals need to stand up and say so.
It's a very simple matter for a liberal to point to the current rash of corporate scandals and say, "Bush did it." But the simple truth is that Bush did not do it, Clinton did it! That's not to say that Bush does not share some of the blame, since his election gave corporate America hope that things would soon swing their way, and that the shady accounting wouldn't be necessary much longer. But the era of unparalleled corporate growth, of the high performance of untested stocks which hadn't yet turned a profit, of a belief that America had turned some sort of an economic corner and that uninterrupted economic growth was possible took place on Clinton's watch. And Slick Willie didn't do a thing to stop it.
I suppose historians will long speculate on why this happened. But I have my own theories. Bill was not asleep at the switch, I believe. He allowed this corporate excess as a reward to the powers that be so that he could get away with the policies he really believed in. Of course it's also possible that Bill was simply serving his real constituency -- that the socially liberal policies of his administration were simply a way to get elected so he could give those in power what they wanted.
What is this constituency? Who holds real power in the United States? The answer should be obvious. Money IS power. The two cannot be separated. All the talk of Congress about campaign finance reform is mere political posturing. No law will ever stop money from exercising its political clout because money and power are the same thing. Political power is a warped stepchild of true power, but even it cannot be separated from money.
Who has money? The investors have money. That's how capitalism works. Who is getting stung by these corporate scandals? Investors! While little people lost a little money (half a million is pocket change in the world of investing) in these scandals, the big investors lost real money; and they aren't happy. Since investors are George W.'s real constitutency, he HAD to take action, no matter how wimpy, against the corporate executives responsible for these losses.
My point is that corporations and their executives aren't the real constituency of the Republican party. Usually Republicans do things corporate executives like because corporate executives like for their corporations to make big profits. (Big profits usually mean big bonuses for executives.) But the real goal of the Republican party, and for the most part of the Democratic party also, is to provide wealth for the wealthy -- the more the better.
Raping the earth of her resources creates wealth -- so Republicans pay only lip service to environmnental issues. The Democratic approach may be a little more sound for investors on a long term basis, but it's still oriented toward the creation and consolidation of wealth. Government regulations cost businesses money, cutting into profits, so Republicans favor reduced government regulation of business (but massively increased government regulation of the lives of workers). Again, the Democratic approach may be slightly more tilted toward the workers, but this is simply a recognition that the workers are necessary to the creation of wealth and should therefore be treated as a valuable resource.
We have a two-party system in the United States, but with both parties firmly behind capitalism, the minor differences in their approaches are really insignificant and American voters really have little choice on election day. Didn't it occur to you that the two candidates in the 2000 election were different from each other only on the extent of policies, not on the policies themselves? Gore called for a tax cut -- his was just smaller than Bush's. Bush called for a prescription drug benefit for seniors -- his was just smaller than Gore's. With the two candidates preaching the same message; with both of them scrambling for the political center; is it any suprise that the electorate split right down the middle?
Which brings me to my contention that this IS linked to the attacks of 9-11. The United States has turned capitalism into a religious crusade. We have convinced ourselves that capitalism is true and right and good and just and that no other economic system is worthy of human consideration. We have then gone into the world with the might of our wealth, the power of our high-tech military, and the weight of our overconsumption and pushed our capitalism down their throats. That religious zealots should come to resent the United States and everything it stands for should be no surprise at all. The sheer arrogance of our "Thou shalt worship at the altar of Capitalism" campaign boggles the mind when you think about it! And that the greatest symbol of capitalism, the World Trade Center, should twice be the target of their attacks is no surprise at all.
Will America ever wake up and realize what she's been doing to the world. If 9-11 didn't get our attention, and the current focus on corporate interests suggests we've hidden deeper in the sand, probably nothing will. We will continue our capitalist evangelism until we have converted the whole world, or at least destroyed those who refuse to comply.