James Wagner

only welfare programs for corporations are moral in the American political ethos
Could they make the nexus any more clear?
A special government board earlier this week rejected a $1.8 billion loan guarantee request by troubled United Airlines. On friday, House Speaker Dennis Hastert blasted the move to deny a federal bailout of a major employer in his home state of Illinois.

“This is clearly a wrongheaded decision for our nation’s economy on so many grounds,” Hastert said in an usually strongly worded statement.
Hastert, a Republican, led a high-profile lobbying campaign on behalf of Chicago-based United, which employs 83,000 people and could be headed for bankruptcy court in the coming days.
He discussed the matter with President Bush and his senior economic advisers, including ousted Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, in the weeks before Wednesday’s decision by the Air Transportation Stabilization Board.

The only surprise is the government’s initial rejection of the request, especially in the face of such pressures. Yes, the issues are complex, the good guys are not facing off neatly against the bad guys, and the story isn’t over yet. We can be certain however that the big money will make the decision in the end, and most of the messiness will not be visible to us.

–that the man sometimes described as the President of The United States is capable of awesome profundity. To wit:

“Sometimes, Washington is one of these towns where the person—people who think they’ve got the sharp elbow is the most effective person.” —New Orleans, Dec. 3, 2002
“These people don’t have tanks. They don’t have ships. They hide in caves. They send suiciders out.”—Speaking about terrorists, Portsmouth, N.H., Nov. 1, 2002
“If you don’t have any ambitions, the minimum-wage job isn’t going to get you to where you want to get, for example. In other words, what is your ambitions? And oh, by the way, if that is your ambition, here’s what it’s going to take to achieve it.”—Speech to students in Little Rock, Ark., Aug. 29, 2002
“Nothing he [Saddam Hussein] has done has convinced me—I’m confident the Secretary of Defense—that he is the kind of fellow that is willing to forgo weapons of mass destruction, is willing to be a peaceful neighbor, that is—will honor the people—the Iraqi people of all stripes, will—values human life. He hasn’t convinced me, nor has he convinced my administration.”—Crawford, Texas, Aug. 21, 2002

Sleep tight.

Fortunately we have already seen an enormous number of articulate essays expressing outrage that Henry Kisssinger has been appointed to head the outrageously tardy formation of a commission charged with investigating the terrorist attacks of Sept.11. Here‘s another.
Unfortunately, nothing will come of this outrage and we will remain saddled with what the world will see as a cover-up constructed by political insiders and presided over by a man who has managed to ensure that most of his own sordid career remains a closed book, a man, incidently, who currently cannot travel outside this country without risking subpoena or arrest in connection with war crimes for which he is alleged to be responsible. Nice start for reassuring the world of our virtue and innocence.

The “war crime” charge against Kissinger became something of a scare in London earlier this year. During Kissinger’s visit to Royal Albert Hall, human rights activists staged a protest, some banging drums and chanting “evil war criminal” outside. Peter Tatchell had just lost a court fight to have Kissinger jailed for the “killing, injuring and displacement” of some 3 million Vietnamese and Cambodians during America’s military involvement in Indochina. Earlier, the Spanish judge who prosecuted Gen. Augusto Pinochet for crimes against humanity had tried to get permission to question Kissinger in the case. Specifically, the judge was interested in Kissinger’s possible knowledge or involvement in a plan Latin America’s military regimes had employed to get rid of their opposition. The British Home Office denied the judge permission to question Kissinger during his visit to London.

By golly, it had just never occurred to me that following through with a promised statutory pay raise would undermine the “war on terrorism.” Still, our leaders must certainly know what they’re doing, seeing that they’re not against all effective pay raises, notably the virtual elimination of taxes for the very very very rich and the generous removal of the estate tax which so burdens the future security of the spawn of America’s multi-millionaires. The argument seems to be that we will win the war only if those famously patriotic folks get more dough, while the rest of us pay with our huge reserves of savings, freedom and blood.

Citing a state of national emergency brought on by last year’s attacks, President Bush on Friday slashed the pay raises most civilian federal workers were to receive starting in January.
Under a law passed in 1990, federal employees covered by the government’s general schedule pay system would receive a two-part pay increase: a 3.1 percent increase, plus an increase based on private-sector wage changes in the areas where they work.
Bush said Friday the latter type of increase [about 18.6 percent in the D.C. area] will not be given.

This ukase is only among the first of an endless number we can expect in coming years, “because the terrorist threat continues.”