– Thank You –
Opening Statement
It’s long been a question of doubt as to whether our political system is flawed, open to malleability from exterior forces. But when confronted with the question one often acts delirious and says no, not in the United States. It happens in other countries, everywhere else but the U.S! To assert that argument makes one question the persons agenda. We should be able to live in a country where corporatism does not exude presence on public manners and politicians are unbridled by corporations. What we can do is disavow from such people who irrationally erase the line between the countries needs and the needs of that person or that persons confidants.
Mental Retribution
In a sound homosapien a feeling that often arises in a situation is one of payback. Say for instance you are baking a cake and don’t have enough dough to finish. You don’t really want to go back to the store after being there only a few hours beforehand so you follow an easy alternative and visit your neighbor. The neighbor kindly agrees (usually…) and you head off to your house to finish your cake. Absorb that story and allow me to classify a person who blurs the lines I described above.
Our Vice – President, who, if you didn’t know, is a penguin ( you have to watch Dana Carvey’s new special to know what I’m talking about):
In a CBS news story1, Mr. Cheney believes he has “severed all [his] ties with the company” and “gotten rid of all [his] financial interest”.
He then claims he has no “financial interest in Halliburton of any kind” and that he hasn’t now “for over three years”.
Though when we look at the legitimacy of having no ties to his former company, a Congressional Research Team (who did not name Cheney/Halliburton by name) deemed that unexercised stock options and deferred salary “are among those benefits described by the Office of Government Ethics as 'retained ties' or 'linkages' to one's former employer.”
Now we have a broader view of Vice – President Richard Cheney. Counter his claim with having no links to Halliburton with having the U.S Army Of Corp Engineers award a no-bid contract to extinguish oil well fires in Iraq to Kellogg Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton. The contract was granted under a January Bush administration waiver that, according to the Washington Post, “allowed government agencies to handpick companies for Iraqi reconstruction projects.” 2
Closing Statement
What I intended to prove above is that there are cases where an individual can exert his past history with a corporation to take advantage of the current situation. It is the same thing that can, has, and will continue to happen when corporations contribute money to PAC’s, 527’s or the actual campaigns themselves (either by the CEO or all the board members of the company contributing as private citizens rather than company executives).
Why? Because politicians (who are people just like you and me) feel and believe that they are obligated to payback for something they believe helped their needs, whether it be dough for baking a cake or money to help win a campaign.
1 – CBSNews [dot] com/stories/2003/09/26/politics/main575356 [dot] shtml
2 – commondreams [dot] org/views03/0403-10 [dot] htm
