So I’m watching the endless Enron hearings and I’m wondering just how long the charade will go on; these politicians are doing everything they can to accuse and convict the capitalists of capitalism without actually saying so. Rather than question the system which produced, nurutured, fell in love with, and then destroyed Enron (making the already wealthy wealthier), they are content to yell at a few balding sacrifical lambs on C-SPAN.
Time to “close the loopholes” (and “accidentally” open up a few new ones) to prevent this travesty from ever happening again. Hmm, does it ever work? “This” has been happening for the last hundred years in the United States of America. Innumerable books have been written, innumerable speeches given. Each time, the politicians, the press and the public find a new Kenneth Lay and a new Jeff Skilling to take the needed fall — an elixir to cure “unethical” behavior for the benefit of the economy, even though the rest of the corporate world does and is encouraged to do exactly the same things. Enron and its “scandalous” siblings throughout history are only special because they are too successful at monetary rape, so much so that they make waves among the populace — thus requiring some kind of answer from the political structure and the jet setters in order to preserve the economic imbalance between the rich and everyone else and between the west and the exploited “emerging” nations.
Yes, watch Enron and its execs get crucified for the benefit of the audience in a made-for-television hearing while a thousand other multinationals skillfully make the same “mistakes” but with better public relations. Meanwhile, the very same execs actually pocket millions. Of course few in the general public are critical enough to sit up and say “Wait a minute, if what Enron and its scandalous predecessors have consistently done is legal, common, and even expected… could it be that the problem lies with the fundamental values behind these corporations, rather than in a few ‘loopholes’ that congress is still trying to close? Maybe the problem isn’t that the corporations are always ‘one step ahead’ of the loopholes… Maybe the problem is capitalism…”