Sheldon Whitehouse: Clean Out Corporations From Government

[babylonsister]

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/node/37841


Sheldon Whitehouse: Clean Out Corporations From Government
By karoli Friday Jun 18, 2010 7:00pm
Video at link~

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After using the MMS as an example of a "captive agency", he launches into one of the most eloquent and passionate arguments I have ever heard for what our government should be, what good government can do for the people who are governed, and what steps we need to take to return to that standard.

This government of ours, founded in a revolution pledging the lives and fortune and sacred honor of those early patriots; this government of ours, which has raised for more than two centuries the promise of freedom in human hearts; this government that lifts its lamp aloft to brighten the darkness of chaos and despair in far distant corners of the globe; this government, whose finely tuned balance, crafted by the Founders, has seen us through Civil War and World War, through westward expansion and Great Depression, through the light bulb and the Model T and the Boeing 747 and the iPod; this government of ours, formed by Washington and Madison, Jefferson and Adams, and led by each of them, and later led by Abraham Lincoln and by Harry Truman and by Theodore Roosevelt and by Franklin Roosevelt and by John Fitzgerald Kennedy; this American Government of ours should never be on its knees before corporate power, no matter how strong. It should never be in the thrall of corporate wealth, no matter how vast.

This American Government of ours should never give the American citizen reason to question whose interests are being served. Never.

In this complex world of ours, government must protect us in remote and specialized precincts of the economy. In those remote precincts, few people are watching, but big money is made. We must be able to trust our government, both in plain view in front of us, and in corners far from sight, to be serving always the public interest, not doing the secret bidding of special interests, of corporate interests because that is where the big money is at stake.

Have we now learned, have we now finally learned, with the financial meltdown and the gulf disaster, the terrible price of all those quietly cut corners? Have we now learned what price must be paid when the stealthy tentacles of corporate influence are allowed to reach into and capture our agencies of government? I pray let us have learned this. Let us have learned that lesson. I sincerely pray we have learned our lesson and that this will never happen again. But let's not just pray.

He concludes with a solution: Clean it up.

In this troubled world, God works through our human hands, grows a more perfect union through our human hearts, creates a beloved community through our human thoughts and ideas. So it is not enough to pray. We must act. We must act in defense of the integrity of this great government of ours, which has brought such light to the world, such freedom and equality to our country.

We cannot allow this government that is a model around the world, that inspires people to risk their lives and fortunes to come to our shores--we cannot allow any element of this government to become the tool of corporate power, the avenue of corporate influence, the puppet of corporate tentacles.

I propose a simple device in this country of laws--not men, of rule of law--and that is to allow our top national law officer, the Attorney General of the United States, to step in and clean house whenever an agency or element of government is no longer credibly independent of the industries and businesses it is intended to regulate.

When a component of government is deemed no longer credibly independent of the corporations or industry it is supposed to regulate, I suggest that the Attorney General be allowed to come in and clean up, hire and fire and take personnel action to ensure the integrity of the personnel; to establish interim regulations and procedures to ensure the integrity of the process; to audit permits and contracts and ensure they were not affected by improper corporate influence, and if they were, to rescind them where they are not in the public interest due to that improper corporate influence; to establish an integrity plan for that component of government, all subject to appropriate judicial review where private rights are affected. Then the Attorney General can get back out, with his or her job done, sort of like an ethics trusteeship or receivership.

And reminds of the damage already done:

If the financial catastrophe and the gulf catastrophe and whatever other catastrophes lurk have any meaning at all, it is that business as usual is no longer enough to stem the tide of corporate influence--insidious, secret corporate influence--in agencies of the U.S. Government. It is an institutional problem--relentless, remorseless, constantly grasping and insinuating corporate influence. It will never go away. It will only worsen as corporations get bigger and richer and more global, and there has to be an institutional mechanism in place to resist it so that it no longer takes a catastrophe to call the failure of governance of an American regulator to proper attention.

[global1]

1. Does That Include The Senate, The House & SCOTUS?........

"I propose a simple device in this country of laws--not men, of rule of law--and that is to allow our top national law officer, the Attorney General of the United States, to step in and clean house whenever an agency or element of government is no longer credibly independent of the industries and businesses it is intended to regulate."

For that matter - does it include the White House?

[Laelth]

2. k&r for the Great Sheldon Whitehouse.

Of course, if the Attorney General is a Republican, this proposal won't help at all. However, presumably, while the Democrats control the White House, what Whitehouse proposes could be a useful tool for combating corporate control of government. Personally, I think greater change is needed, but until we have a better Supreme Court, greater change is not possible.

:dem:

-Laelth

[Peace Patriot]

3. Wow! What an amazing statement!

But I do have one argument with it. THE most insidious corporate "influence" is corporate control over the counting of our votes. ES&S, which just bought out Diebold, and has even scarier far rightwing connections than Diebold, now has an EIGHTY PERCENT MONOPOLY of the U.S. voting machine "market," and is running our elections on machines that contain 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls.

I would say that the first and foremost "institutional mechanism" needed to curtail corporate power is transparent vote counting IN THE PUBLIC VENUE.

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"It is an institutional problem--relentless, remorseless, constantly grasping and insinuating corporate influence. It will never go away. It will only worsen as corporations get bigger and richer and more global, and there has to be an institutional mechanism in place to resist it so that it no longer takes a catastrophe to call the failure of governance of an American regulator to proper attention." --Sheldon Whitehouse (my emphasis)

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I don't know if the Attorney General is the proper mechanism for "cleaning house" in our government agencies. The AG is certainly appropriate where criminal activity is involved. But I have some reservations about appointing another "czar"--a "corruption czar"--without first addressing the most fundamental problem in our democracy, that our vote counting has been privatized.

'TRADE SECRET' vote counting is not the only thing wrong with our filthily corrupt political system and government. But it is the worst and the most recent of several serious assaults on our democracy. It makes reform impossible. And it MUST be reversed or our democracy is over. No fire-eating AG is going to save us from corporate tyranny. No one person can. We, as a people, must save ourselves. That IS democracy. But we can't do it with UNVERIFIABLE elections--run on 'TRADE SECRET' code, owned and controlled by ONE frigging corporation with far rightwing connections that would make your hair stand on end.

I have further reservations about relying on the AG to undo four decades (since Reagan) of corpo-fascism. Consider the current AG, whose last gig was shilling for Chiquita International and getting their execs off the hook for paying death squads to murder some 4,000 union leaders on Chiquita farms in Colombia. How serious a curtailer of corporate power would Eric Holder be? And what if ES&S dis-elects Obama and puts Bush Junta II in place? Who would the AG of Bush Junta II fire in corrupt government agencies? The whistleblowers, first off. Then anyone who tries to serve the public good. Giving ONE MAN the power to invade the agencies, in a system so vulnerable to stolen elections, is very risky. First you need to strip ES&S of the capability--the EASY capability--of putting Bush Junta II into the White House. You have to hold REAL elections in which the People give a strong mandate of reform to our leaders--as with the New Deal and FDR--and then ALL OF US work TOGETHER on the problems created by the greedy, conscienceless rich elite.

Whitehouse's statements are an amazing cry of anguish from one of our best political leaders. I hear it. I share it. But I think you have to start with restoring democracy. First of all, with transparent vote counting. Then, with busting corpo-fascist media monopolies. Then, with busting other corporate monsters and restoring the sovereignty of the people. Then WE ALL work at cleansing our government of corrupt corporate powermongers and their lackeys.

Democracy is the best governmental system ever devised because it contains the inherent "institutional mechanism" to correct the course of the "ship of state" when it is headed for the shoals. Voting! In a democracy that is working according to plan, the best ideas and the best people rise to the top and serve the public good. Not the candidates with half a billion dollars in the bank who can buy the illusion of being (s)elected by ES&S. Not the corporate lobbyists who end up running our agencies. The best. The most intelligent. The most honest. The most creative. People like Sheldon Whitehouse, who are, unfortunately, in the current corpo-fascist system, mere "liberal" tokens, who are permitted to be elected to make us think that we still live in a democracy. Whitehouse should be in the White House. If our democracy was working right, he would be--and there would be many more like him in Congress and in other offices. But it is not working right, and the first cause of that is this extremely riggable vote counting system. It is not just a symptom of corporate rule. It is the mechanism of corporate rule--the final blockade to reform, quite deliberately devised by the Anthrax Congress in the same month that they gave their war powers away to Mad George (Oct. '02); the final blow--the coup d'grace--to our democratic system. We MUST fix this first. We must ALL address corporate tyranny. No one--not the president, not the AG--no one can do it alone.