Feb/Mar 2002

A New Contract With The Planet

Healing After Terror
Michael Lerner

Indifference
Don Kyhote

The Globalization of Poverty
Antonia Juhasz

World Bank President's Secret Plan For Argentina
Greg Palast (Available after Mar. 1)

Letters From Argentina

The Trade Towers Without Tears
John Darling

Passcode "Redwood:" Keeping Repression in Perspective
Starhawk

The Uncooling of America
Kalle Lasn

Frankencorn Fight
Ronnie Cummins

Oil Company Advisor Chosen to Represent U.S. in Afghanistan
Patrick Martin

The Next Technology Revolution
Steve Wallis, MA

Man of Occasional Two Braids
Antoinette Nora Claypoole

The Ecology of Community
Jesse Wolf Hardin

Love and Leadership
Michele LeBien

Fearful Feelings
Peter Moore, MFCC, CGP

Cosmic Calendar
Salina Rain

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Deborah Mokma, Editor

We are in what educators call a “teachable moment.” With the Enron debacle/bankruptcy we have an excellent illustration as to why campaign finance reform is so desperately needed. The collapse of Argentina’s economy is an equally outstanding illustration of the folly of globalization via the dictates of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Wes Boyd (MoveOn.org) put it very well when he said “Enron is not a tale of accounting errors. It is a story of the powerful few buying their way into the Texas governor’s mansion and the White House and using their access for their sole advantage at the expense of employees, stockholders, consumers and taxpayers. This is a tale of corporate greed and corruption aided and abetted by ‘public servants.’”

Although the White House initially denied that Enron participated in secret meetings of the energy task force, Dick Cheney later admitted to six separate meetings with Enron executives while formulating the Bush administration’s energy policy, which includes Enron’s “wish list” on 17 key points, including: Tens of billions in taxpayer sub-sidies to the energy industry; opening the Arctic to oil drilling (with no substantial requirements for increased auto mileage or energy efficiency); a push for electricity deregulation (remember last summer’s energy crisis in California? Enron had lobbied heavily for the California deregulation plan and participated in manipulation of the California energy market, costing consumers billions); the withdrawal of the US from the Kyoto Protocol; more mining and logging on public lands; discouraging conservation policies which would lead to a reduction in the need for fossil fuels. Enron also stands to gain $254 million in rebates of back taxes under Bush’s proposed “stimulus” package.

How is it possible that a corporation was able to influence policy so heavily? At last count at least 35 administration officials have admitted they owned Enron stock “at some point.” According to writer William Pitt “All this could simply be chalked up as yet another story of corporate greed run amok, until the umbilical political and financial connections between Bush and Enron are illuminated. Enron CEO Kenneth Lay was perhaps the best financial friend George W. Bush has ever known. Lay and a number of Enron employees essentially bankrolled Bush’s 2000 Presidential campaign, going so far as to lend Bush an Enron corporate jet for trips between whistle stops. Bush had also worked very closely with Enron on energy policy in Texas. This close connection led to the Bush administration’s hiring of a number of influential individuals within Enron’s orbit for important government positions: Thomas E. White, Bush’s Secretary of the Army, was once Vice-Chairman of Enron Energy Service, and held millions in Enron stock; Presidential Advisor Karl Rove owned as much as $250,000 in Enron stock; Economic adviser Larry Lindsay and Federal Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick leapt straight from Enron to current White House jobs; Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitts was hand-picked by Kenneth Lay for the position, due to his notorious aversion to governmental regulation of any kind.” (See www.WillPitt.com, for the “Enron Series.”)

As it turns out, Enron also bought influence, and hoped for protection, by contributing to the campaigns of almost all of Washington’s elected officials. The only ones who did not receive contributions from the Enron coffer were the 12 congressional representatives who were either junior republicans or liberal democrats.

Enron has surely become the poster child for campaign finance reform! In Oregon, we have the opportunity to reclaim our government with Measure 43, which proposes to end campaign contributions by corporations and prohibit soft money at the state level. Signatures are still needed, and petitions are available by visiting www.voters.net/mind; or by contacting Lloyd Marbet, (503) 637-3549. Volunteers are essential to insure that this initiative makes it to the ballot.

Democracy works only if we participate, so let your elected representatives know how you feel by calling, writing, emailing and/or faxing them as often as you can. They also follow the letters to the editor in newspapers, so be sure and share your opinions there as well. As has been said many times: “Leaders don’t lead, they just try to stay as far ahead of their constituents as they can.” What we think does matter, as long as we let our elected officials know how we feel.

For Oregonians, Rep. Greg Walden’s web site, www.walden.house.gov, allows you to register your opinion on a variety of local and national issues. You can also contact him at (541) 776-4646/(202) 225-6730; greg.walden@mail.house.gov. Find out who your representatives in congress are, and how to contact them, with the Congressional Directory, (800) 393-1082; http://congress.nw.dc.us/dem/congdir.html. For senators, visit www.senate.gov. The League of Women Voters can also help at www.lwv.org.

According to a recent report published in the Economic Journal, there has been a staggering increase in global inequality. This study, which covered 85% of the world’s population from 91 countries, found that the richest 1% of the world have income equivalent to the poorest 57%. With four fifths of the world’s population living below what countries in North America and Europe consider the poverty line, the poorest 10% of Americans are still better off than two-thirds of the world population.

This increase in global inequality, and the recent financial failure in Argentina, are in large part due the creation thirty years ago of the World Economic Forum, a private club of corporations and a few wealthy individuals. In the early 1970’s it was understood that unregulated money could negatively affect real economic development, and many nations had rules that hampered certain kinds of investments. WEF members established the World Trade Organization to enforce a new kind of financial “globalism,” and changed the mission of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to meet the needs of the new “neo-liberal” economics that they desired, while leaving behind the original goals of helping developing nations to feed their own populations while improving education, health and local economies.

We continually hear that we are defending our nation’s values, but are all of our values defensible? Our essential concepts of liberty, equality and democracy are undeniable. But what of our desires for more and more material wealth? Can unreasonable needs ever justify the use of military action?

Until we understand that the roots of terrorism originate among the suffering of those who reside in the resource rich developing nations, which the greedy few control and profit from, we will not achieve real “homeland security.” Military solutions will only provide more profits for the multi-national corporations and the producers and sellers of weapons, and more death and destruction.

Yes, we must clean up the mess that has resulted to date, but continuing with the same foreign (read “corporate”) policy which got us into this mess in the first place will solve none of the pain and suffering terrorists and those who seek profits at any cost continue to visit upon the innocents of this beautiful planet.

Martin Luther King, Jr. understood that we cannot avoid being affected by our actions, no matter where in the world they take place, when he stated “In the final analysis, agape means a recognition of the fact that all life is interrelated. All humanity is involved in a single process, and all men are brothers. To the degree that I harm my brother, no matter what he is doing to me, to that extent I am harming myself.”

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