[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Fw: moyers 3

[Al Kagan]

While most of us probably won't agree with Moyers about the war, his 
analysis of what is happening in Washington is worth reading.

>Delivered-To: akagan at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu
>Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2001 17:07:34 +0200
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>Subject: Fw: moyers 3
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>Here is a hard-hitting speech by Bill Moyers about the corruption in 
>Washington DC using the Sept 11 attack as cover for plundering 
>America.
>-----------------------------
>Bill Moyers at the Environmental Grantmakers Association Brainerd MN 
>October 16 2001
>
>We have also been reminded that despite years of scandals and 
>political corruption, despite the stream of stories of personal 
>greed and pirates in Gucci's scamming the treasury, despite the 
>retreat from the public sphere and the turn toward private 
>privilege, despite squalor for the poor and gated communities for 
>the rich, we have been reminded that the great mass of Americans 
>have not yet given up on the idea of 'We, the People.' And they have 
>refused to accept the notion, promoted so diligently by our friends 
>at the Heritage Foundation and by Grover Norquist and his right-wing 
>ilk, that government-the public service- should be shrunk to a size 
>where they can drown it in the bathtub (that's what Norquist said is 
>their goal.) These right-wingers at Heritage and elsewhere, by the 
>way, earlier this year teamed up with the deep-pocket bankers who 
>finance them, to stop the United States from cracking down on 
>terrorist money havens. As TIME Magazine reports, thirty industrial 
>nations were ready to tighten the screws on offshore financial 
>centers whose banks have the potential to hide and often help 
>launder billions of dollars for drug cartels, global crime 
>syndicates -- and groups like Osama bin Laden's Al-Quaeda 
>organization. Not all off-shore money is linked to crime or 
>terrorism; much of it comes from wealthy people who are hiding money 
>to avoid taxation. And right-wingers believe in nothing if not in 
>avoiding taxation. So they and the bankers' lobbyists went to work 
>to stop the American government from participating in the crackdown 
>on dirty money, arguing that closing down tax havens in effect leads 
>to higher taxes on the people trying to hide their money. I am not 
>kidding; it's all on the record. The president of the Heritage 
>Foundation spent an hour, according to the New York Times, with 
>Treasury Secretary O'Neill, and Texas bankers pulled their strings 
>at the White House, and presto, the Bush administration folded and 
>pulled out of the international campaign against tax havens.
>
>It didn't take long for the wartime opportunists-the mercenaries of 
>Washington, the lobbyists, lawyers, and political fundraisers-to 
>crawl out of their offices on K Street determined to grab what they 
>can for their clients. While in New York we are still attending 
>memorial services for firemen and police, while everywhere 
>Americans' cheeks are still stained with tears, while the President 
>calls for patriotism, prayers and piety, the predators of Washington 
>are up to their old tricks in the pursuit of private plunder at 
>public expense. In the wake of this awful tragedy wrought by 
>terrorism, they are cashing in.
>
>Would you like to know the memorial they would offer the almost six 
>thousand people who died in the attacks? Or the legacy they would 
>provide the ten thousand children who lost a parent in the horror? 
>How do they propose to fight the long and costly war on terrorism 
>America must now undertake? Why, restore the three-martini 
>lunch-that will surely strike fear in the heart of Osama bin Laden. 
>You think I'm kidding, but bringing back the deductible lunch is one 
>of the proposals on the table in Washington right now. There are 
>members of Congress who believe you should sacrifice in this time of 
>crisis by paying for lobbyists' long lunches. And cut capital gains 
>for the wealthy, naturally-that's America's patriotic duty, too. And 
>while we're at it, don't forget to eliminate the Corporate 
>alternative minimum Tax, enacted fifteen years ago to prevent 
>corporations from taking so many credits and deductions that they 
>owed little if any taxes. But don't just repeal their minimum tax; 
>give those corporations a refund for all the minimum tax they have 
>ever been assessed.
>
>You look incredulous. But that's taking place in Washington even as 
>we meet here in Brainerd this morning. What else can America do to 
>strike at the terrorists? Why, slip in a special tax break for poor 
>General Electric, and slip inside the Environmental Protection 
>Agency while everyone's distracted and torpedo the recent order to 
>clean the Hudson River of PCBs. Don't worry about NBC, CNBC, or 
>MSNBC reporting it; they're all in the GE family.
>
>It's time for Churchillian courage, we're told. So how would this 
>crowd assure that future generations will look back and say 'This 
>was their finest hour'? That's easy. Give those coal producers 
>freedom to pollute. And shovel generous tax breaks to those giant 
>energy companies; and open the Alaskan wilderness to drilling-that's 
>something to remember the 11th of September for. And while the red, 
>white and blue wave at half-mast over the land of the free and the 
>home of the brave-why, give the President the power to discard 
>democratic debate and the rule-of-law concerning controversial trade 
>agreements, and set up secret tribunals to run roughshod over local 
>communities trying to protect their environment and their health. 
>It's happening as we meet. It's happening right now.
>
>If I sound a little bitter about this, I am; the President rightly 
>appeals every day for sacrifice. But to these mercenaries sacrifice 
>is for suckers. So I am bitter, yes, and sad. Our business and 
>political class owes us better than this. After all, it was they who 
>declared class war twenty years ago and it was they who won. They're 
>on top. If ever they were going to put patriotism over profits, if 
>ever they were going to practice the magnanimity of winners, this 
>was the moment. To hide now behind the flag while ripping off a 
>country in crisis fatally - fatally! -separates them from the common 
>course of American life.
>
>Understandably, in the hours after the attacks many environmental 
>organizations stepped down from aggressively pressing their issues. 
>Greenpeace canceled its 30th anniversary celebration. The Sierra 
>Club stopped all advertising, phone banks and mailing. The 
>Environmental Working Group and the PIRGs postponed a national 
>report on chlorination in drinking water. That was the proper way to 
>observe a period of mourning.
>
>Furthermore, in work like this you have to read and respect the mood 
>of a country in crisis, or a misspoken word, even a modest misstep, 
>could lose you the public's ear for years to come. But the polluters 
>and their political cronies accepted no such constraints. Just one 
>day after the attack, one day into the maelstrom of horror, loss, 
>and grief, Republican senators called for prompt consideration of 
>the President's proposal to subsidize the country's largest and 
>richest energy companies. While America was mourning they were 
>marauding. One congressman even suggested that eco-terrorists might 
>be behind the attacks. And with that smear he and his kind went on 
>the offensive in Congress, attempting to attach to a defense bill 
>massive subsidies for the oil, coal, gas and nuclear companies. To a 
>defense bill! What a shameless insult to patriotism! What a slander 
>on the sacrifice of our armed forces! To pile corporate welfare 
>totaling billions of dollars onto a defense bill in an emergency 
>like this is repugnant to the nostrils and a scandal against 
>democracy!
>
>But this is their game. They're counting on your patriotism to 
>distract you from their plunder. They're counting on you to be 
>standing at attention with your hand over your heart, pledging 
>allegiance to the flag, while they pick your pocket!
>
>Let's face it: they present citizens with no options but to climb 
>back in the ring. We are in what educators call "a teachable 
>moment." And we'll lose it if we roll over and shut up. What's at 
>stake is democracy. Democracy wasn't cancelled on the 11th of 
>September, but democracy won't survive if citizens turn into 
>lemmings. Yes, the President is our Commander-in-chief, and in 
>hunting down and destroying the terrorists who are trying to destroy 
>us, we are "all the President's men" -- as Henry Kissinger put it 
>after the bombing of Cambodia. But we are not the President's 
>minions. If in the name of the war on terrorism President Bush hands 
>the state over to the energy industry, it's every patriot's duty to 
>join the local opposition. Even in war, politics is about who gets 
>what and who doesn't. If the mercenaries in Washington try to 
>exploit the emergency and America's good faith to grab what they 
>wouldn't get through open debate in peace time, the disloyalty will 
>not be in our dissent but in our subservience. The greatest sedition 
>would be our silence.
>
>

-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu
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