LET’S PUT THE CORRUPTION ON TV
The big-money corruption of American politics will be on display at the national conventions of the Republican and Democratic parties this summer … but you can’t see it without a ticket. A very pricey ticket.
While both parties will portray themselves as heroic leaders for us common folk – and while the media establishment and its pundits will stay focused on the predictable speeches, politicking, and pageantry inside the hall – the real story will be taking place at high-dollar, invitation-only events inside exclusive clubs, restaurants, and other hideaways of the elite. It’s in these places – behind the velvet ropes that screen out all of us common folk – that you can see political and monetary power ooze, schmooze, and merge into one.
For example, maybe you’ve wondered why the banking laws of our great democracy are written in such a way that allows bankers to rob you and me – such daylight robberies as their endless and always-rising fees, so-called privacy provisions that let them sell our personal financial information, etc., etc. It will all become clear to you if you go to the swank Rainbow Room in Manhattan on the night of Aug. 30, the opening day of the Republican National Convention.
There you’ll see Rep. Michael Oxley, chairman of the Financial Services Committee, which supposedly oversees the banking industry. He’ll be the guest of honor at a party paid for by J.P. Morgan Chase, Credit Suisse First Boston, and the other big banks that profit enormously from Chairman Oxley’s willingness to legalize their robbery – banks that currently have bills before him to allow even more robbery. The banks are paying up to $100,000 each in tribute to the guy who writes the banking laws.
Why won’t even one network break away from the convention hall to cover this telling political event? Like at the Academy Awards, they could call out the names of the politicians and banking moguls as they pull up at the Rainbow Room in their limousines. Now that would be good TV!
BUSH’S ‘RESPECT’ FOR VETS
Does George W. get up every morning and gargle with a big glass of political cynicism, or is he genetically cynical, and just can’t help himself?
Take his recent radio address on Memorial Day weekend. Bush wrapped himself as tightly as possible in the flag and blathered on at length about how much he loves those veterans who have gone to war and fought for our freedom (a noble stand that he personally avoided taking when his time came, using family connections to keep himself safely out of harm’s way – but that’s another story). In his address, George told the nation that we can acknowledge the debt we owe these veterans by “showing our respect and gratitude.”
I don’t know if he gargled before delivering this radio sermon, but I do know that just hours before it, Bush’s budget office had announced that it would cut a billion dollars out of existing veterans’ health care programs next year if Bush gets elected this fall. There’s gratitude for you!
These programs have already been so shortchanged by Bush that his own secretary of Veterans Affairs has criticized their inadequacy. At present, nearly 350,000 injured and ill vets are having to wait in line to get admitted for health care because the VA system is so backed up. The average wait is more than six months! Yet, rather than cutting the backlog, as Bush promised to do when he took office, he now proposes to cut 540 VA staffers who review disability claims to speed up the line and help veterans get the care they need.
This billion-dollar cut comes on top of Bush’s ongoing attempt to close veteran hospitals across the country, his $50 million cut in medical research on new prosthetic technologies for dismembered vets, and his cutting-off of 164,000 veterans from their existing prescription drug coverage.
Is it too cynical to suggest that veterans could use a little less rhetorical “respect” from the president – and a whole lot more tangible support?
This article appears in June 25 • 2004.