View From The Left Coast

Clearly our “elected� officials are no help, when we are assigned opposition candidates like Hilary Clinton, who is happy to take money from Mafiosi in return for clemency, or from good ol’ Jack Abramoff, happily backs the war for oil, Alberto the Torturer, etc, etc. Damn near all of them are on the take. Even the few, like Mike Thompson, who dare to vote against the money, and give back Abramoff’s filthy lucre, are running scared from Cheney’s foxy network of overt and covert (Lincoln Group) “press� outlets. The problem with Congress is not that the Republicans control it: the problem is that both parties are dominated by money. That being the case, corporations are not just persons. . .they are SUPER persons.

I recently got the 2006 Notice of Annual Meeting and Proxy Statement for AT&T, which includes a few interesting things. First, there is a statement that the former SBC Communications (now AT&T) has now bought back another of the Baby Bells it was forced to sell after antitrust litigation 22 years ago. I think that makes three out of five it has recaptured. The “busted� trust is unbusting itself.

Second was the statement of compensation for the directors. During the past three years, the CEO was paid between 15 and 20 million dollars. Each year. I think that does not include deferred payments. Not as much as Kenny Lay was making from Enron, but his family won’t be skipping meals.

Finally, there is a proposal that was put forward by the shareholders, opposed by “your directors�, that the company disclose how much shareholders’ money it donates each year to various political entities, and the business rationale for doing so. The shareholders quote the Center for Responsive Politics as reporting SBC donated over $1.4 million in 2001-2 to political causes. “Your Directors,� in opposing the disclosure request, state that “political contributions, where permitted, are an important part of the legislative process.� They go on to say that the decisions about who to contribute over $1,000 to are made by the CEO, with company lawyers making sure it’s legal.

These contributions are more than an “important part�: they’re the whole game. “Your Directors� know that if this really came to light, shareholders, voters, and other annoying untermenschen might put up a fuss. The proposal will go down to defeat, of course: who is counting the votes, after all?

As for that other erstwhile protector of American freedom, the press, we got a good look at why they aren’t much help this past week when the good folks who run St. Joseph’s Hospital showed how corporate “spin control� is done: you hand feed the press with your version of “truth�, and if somebody presumes to tell a different story, like the North Coast Journal did, you destroy the evidence. Hell, it worked for Kenny. In this case, Judy Hodgson once again showed what the press is SUPPOSED to do: find out the real truth for themselves, rather than relying on canned news.
The Times-Standard ran a story about the folks who own the Reporter giving $20,000 to a Georgia candidate with ties to Bush, Karl Rove, Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon. There’s Realpolitik for you! Another couple of years and that story won’t run at all.

There ARE a few real Americans out there, trying to stop us from turning into another Nazi Germany, but damn few. So far, too few.