Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda

I have been reading about a big fight involving much of corporate America in a battle that is to come before the U.S. Supreme Court. The corporations are claiming that shareholders in companies that commit securities fraud should not be allowed to sue banks, accountants, law firms and any suppliers that might have participated in a fraud. Perhaps you remember that it was accounting firms, consultants, vendors, investment bankers, lawyers, and others who had knowledge of the deception that allowed Enron to defraud stockholders. The hopes of Enron investors are riding on the outcome of this case.

While cleaning out some files from a file cabinet recently, I ran across a printout of Jim Jubak’s “50 Best Stocks in the World.” The date was March 27, 2001. Jubak writes a money column for MSN, in which he makes recommendations for the future of stocks. As I looked over the list, I spotted the name of Enron as one of the 50 best stocks. The price of the stock on that date was $59.60, down from an all-time high of $86.13 per share. At that price, it was considered a bargain.

Had I bought 1000 shares of Enron at that time, the cost would have been $59,600 plus the cost of commissions. After declaring bankruptcy, the value of a share of Enron fell to an all-time low of 35 cents. Thus, an investment of approximately $60,000 in Enron stock would have been worth about $350.

On the other hand, a stock not included among the 50 best stocks of 2001 - Google - was selling at that time for about $335 per share. Thus, 200 shares would have cost a little over $67,000 plus commissions. It was just announced a few days ago that Google stock is now worth over $600 per share and is expected to climb to $700 a share early next year. By next year, that stock could be worth up to $140,000.

Many people saw their life savings go up in smoke when Enron failed. When Ken Lay became aware of the declining fortunes of the company, he unloaded his own stock, making $70 million immediately. Then he froze the workers’ stock in the company’s pension plan so they couldn’t withdraw their funds. They could only watch as the value of Enron stock dropped to thirty-five cents a share. They had lost not only their jobs but also their pensions.

Ken Lay (“Kenny Boy” to his friend George W. Bush) was the chairman and CEO at Enron. He had given $1.9 million in soft money to the national political parties, more than three quarters of it to the Republicans. His most intimate and costly connection was with the Bush family. Lay was the co-chairman of President Bush's re-election campaign in 1992 and chairman of the Republican national convention in that year. He supported the gubernatorial and presidential campaigns of George W. Bush from the start. The largest donor to the current President's political career, Lay and Enron had given George W. Bush $575,000 in political money.

Lay also had ties to Dick Cheney. When Enron's 100-plus person lobbying staff in Washington couldn't get what they wanted, they called in Kenneth Lay. He had private meetings with Cheney to tell him what the nation's energy policy should be; he submitted a list of names of who should be appointed to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Ken Lay even got to pick the chairman of FERC.

The policies and inaction of FERC ultimately were to cost California’s energy users over 42 billion dollars in overcharges, due to energy providers gaming the system.

I thank my lucky stars that I didn’t buy Enron stock in 2001; but at the same time, I curse my decision not to buy stock in Google.

Meanwhile, let's cast some more light on the influence that big money can buy in our nation's capital:

How to Woo a Woman




I have just finished reading an article about a “charm school” in Manhattan that teaches men how to woo women. The three-day seminar, including nighttime coaching, applies management science to matters dealing with the human psyche. The coaches are from a company that calls itself Charisma Arts, and the cost for the seminar is $1600.

The men attending the “boot camp” tend to vary in physical attractiveness and professional success. They all have one thing in common - they are lonely, frustrated, and lacking in self-confidence. All of them feel that they lack the dating skills needed to attract and woo women.

The men are taught how to set a mood for wooing, how to engage a woman in conversation and, most importantly, how to let a woman know what their intentions are. A woman wants to know what a man expects of her: is he just looking for a friend or does he have a romantic interest in her. Does he find her attractive? According to the article, the men are told that a good line to use in conversation might be, “Wow, not only are you funny and intelligent, you’re really sexy, too”

After about five hours of instruction and role-playing, the men are finally prepared to go out on the town and approach women - with their coaches close behind instructing them on how to approach different women and strike up conversations.

The first night out, one of the men observed a woman browsing in Barnes and Noble. He struck up a conversation with her, and they talked for about 45 minutes. But the man didn’t know how to advance the conversation into asking her out. He went back to his coach and told him what happened. The coach instructed him to be honest with her. So he went back to her and said his friend had suggested that he should ask her out for coffee. Would she agree? She consented and they had coffee at a nearby place. They later ended up text-messaging each other that evening. We are not told the outcome of this budding romance.

Another man attending the seminar was not successful the first night out. He couldn’t relax as he approached a woman and his conversation sounded forced and mechanical. The second night, however, he was more relaxed and confident as he approached a woman wearing a jacket with big brass buttons. “There,” he thought. “That is my opening for conversation.” He went up to this attractive woman and said, “Hi” followed by his first name. She said “Hi” and gave her first name. Then he intoned, “I love your jacket. I have never seen one like it before.” From there they began to engage in conversation that eventually merged into something they had in common - an interest in art and architecture. After about 45 minutes, he lightly touched her elbow and said, “Wow, not only are you funny and smart; you’re sexy, too. She blushed and said, “Really?”

The man later told the group that his date allowed him to kiss her on their first date.

Better Dead Than Fred

Fred Thompson, with that good ol’ boy persona he projects while on the campaign trail, looks at a picture of Ronald Reagan and says, “I will do what the fellow right there did.” Fred, I knew Ronald Reagan. He was a former president of mine. Fred, you are no Ronald Reagan.

No, the easy-going, no-nonsense Fred Thompson, the former “Law and Order” TV star and veteran of more than 20 movies is no Ronald Reagan, also a veteran of numerous movies. Have you noticed that the Republicans decry Hollywood values while at the same time they embrace Hollywood stars for their Party? To his resume, Thompson can add that he was a successful lawyer and lobbyist. A 1996 profile in “The Washington Monthly” described Fred Thompson as "a high-paid Washington lobbyist for both foreign and domestic interests.” Lobbyist? Fred, we already have 20,000 lobbyists in the nation’s capital. Do we need another one as president?

What is the platform that Thompson is running on? He thinks “the presidency is not a complex job - it’s really simple and it has to do with what’s good for America." Here are a couple more hints of the vision he will bring to the presidency: “Let’s keep doing what works and quit doing what doesn’t work.” “Tax cuts …work.” (Applause)

In his acting career, Thompson has often been cast as a person in power. He has played the roles of a military official, the White House chief of staff, the head of the CIA, a Senator, and even a President of the United States (Ulysses S. Grant). As he once explained his style and success: “I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be, and I finally became that person."

Well, who knows? Fred might have the qualifications to become our next Republican president. He has a commanding presence in his imposing 6-foot-5 frame , a deep voice, and a straight-talking manner. He talks in the language of the voters - his speeches resonate with them. He doesn’t challenge the voters; he comforts them with his common sense approach to the complex problems of Washington. He might even win the 2008 election. One Republican voter said, “He believes in the things that I believe in.”

If you like the masculinity and “toughness” displayed by George W. Bush in the role of a cowboy President, clearing brush on his ranch or playing the role of a fighter pilot landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier in the Iraq War, and you long for another authoritarian leader, you will love the faux masculine power projected in the absurd play-acting of Fred Thompson. That is, if you prefer illusion to reality.

Is the United States Becoming a Fascist Nation?

How does one turn a free and open society like the United States into a dictatorship? Creating a democratic form of government is long and difficult; ending one is short and easy by following a tried and true formula that is a blueprint for success. When a military coup occurred in Thailand, within a matter of days their democracy was closed down. The leaders of the coup declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over the media, issued restrictions on the freedom of speech, tightened some limits on travel, and arrested activist leaders. This blueprint has proved to be successful in many different countries at many different times in history.

Last month a new book appeared, titled “The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot”, written by Naomi Wolf, a Yale graduate and a Rhodes scholar. In the book, Wolf maintains that the Bush administration has already initiated the ten steps necessary to turn the United States into a fascist state. Americans, having been raised in freedom, find it difficult to consider that they might ever lose that freedom. But as our government under the Bush administration has chipped away at the checks and balances that were placed in the Constitution to keep us free, our freedom is now in danger. In her book, Wolf lists the ten steps that the Bush administration has already put in place with the actions taken by our government to implement those steps.

Step 1. Create an internal and external enemy that could bring terror to the nation - "War on Terror"/ Battle between Good and Evil (We are good; "they" are evil); Al-Qaeda; Iran; Syria; Global War; Clash of Civilizations/ Terrified citizens accepting restrictions on their freedoms/ U.S. Patriot Act

Step 2. Create a gulag or prison system outside the law where torture can take place - Guantanamo Bay/Abu Ghraib prison/ Make citizens feel safer with troublemakers, spies, "enemies of the people" or "criminals" being sent there/ Later, civil society leaders, opposition members, labor activists, clergy and journalists - are arrested and sent there as well/ Rendition of prisoners/ Anti-Nazi pastor Martin Niemöller, who had been seized as a political prisoner: "First they came for the Jews." Most Americans don't understand yet that the destruction of the rule of law at Guantánamo set a dangerous precedent for them, too/ Establishment of military tribunals that deny prisoners due process tends to come early on in a fascist shift

3. Create paramilitary groups to terrorize citizens - contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars have been issued for security work by mercenaries such as Blackwater at home and abroad/ In Iraq, some of these contract operatives have been accused of involvement in torturing prisoners, harassing journalists and firing on Iraqi civilians/ Hurricane Katrina, the Department of Homeland Security hired and deployed hundreds of armed private security guards in New Orleans/ endless war on terror means ongoing scope for what are in effect privately contracted armies to take on crisis and emergency management at home in US cities

4. Create an internal surveillance system - secret police spy on ordinary people and encourage neighbors to spy on neighbors/ convince a majority that they themselves are being watched/wiretap citizens' phones, read their emails and follow international financial transactions/ use “national security” as excuse for surveillance while its true function is to suppress activism and dissent

5. Create a means to harass citizens’ groups - infiltrate and harass groups that do not support the agenda of the Party in power - set up a secret Pentagon database on members of groups involved in anti-war, environmental, and other activities/ gather information about domestic organizations engaged in peaceful political activities/definition of “terrorist” expanded to include political opposition

6. Create a list of dissidents and opposition leaders - use list to harass them, even arresting, imprisoning, and releasing them several times / once on list, it is difficult to get off the list/ US has a list called “Terrorist Watch List” / names on list include peace activists, and a constitutional scholar from Princeton University who gave a lecture highly critical of President George W. Bush for his many violations of the Constitution/anti-war marchers on list

7. Create a target list of key individuals in civil service, of artists, of pro-democracy students and professors - conform to party line or be fired/ purge of US attorneys for insufficient political loyalty/ appoint Attorney General who will support brutal and unconstitutional laws to follow

8. Create the means for controlling the press - target non-conforming newspapers and journalists with threats and harassment and later with imprisonment or even worse/ wife of Joseph C. Wilson outed as a CIA agent because he wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times accusing the administration of lying about Saddam Hussein trying to acquire yellowcake uranium/ embedding journalists and photographers in Iraq to make sure that only the “correct” stories and pictures are published/ producing fake news and documents/ muddying news reports with false information

9. Create an atmosphere in which dissent equals treason - criminalize certain kinds of speech/ expand definition of “spy” and “traitor”/ In Stalin's Soviet Union, dissidents were "enemies of the people". National Socialists called those who supported Weimar democracy "November traitors" /Under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the President has the power to call any US citizen an "enemy combatant" and seize him or her accordingly/ the President has the power to keep citizens in isolation, possibly for months, while awaiting trial/ "Enemy combatant" is a status offense - it is not even something you have to have done/ moved over into a preventive detention model - you look like you could do something bad, you might do something bad, so we're going to hold you

10. Create an incident that will permit the political leader to suspend the rule of law - The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 gave the president new powers over the national guard/ Beyond actual insurrection, the president may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack or any “other condition”/ The original 1878 Posse Comitatus Act was passed with the intent of removing the Army from domestic law enforcement

Naomi Wolf concludes the book with these statements:

“We need to look at history and face the "what ifs". For if we keep going down this road, the "end of America" could come for each of us in a different way, at a different moment; each of us might have a different moment when we feel forced to look back and think: that is how it was before - and this is the way it is now.

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands ... is the definition of tyranny," wrote James Madison {the father of our Constitution}. We still have the choice to stop going down this road; we can stand our ground and fight for our nation, and take up the banner the founders asked us to carry.”

There is a story that upon exiting the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was approached by a group of citizens asking what sort of government the delegates had created. He replied, "A Republic, if you can keep it." The brevity of that response should not cause us to undervalue its essential meaning: democratic republics are not merely founded upon the consent of the people; they are also absolutely dependent upon the active and informed involvement of the people for their continued good health.

The question is: can we keep our Republic?

If you would like to purchase this book, it can be obtained online at Amazon Prime for as little as $7.53.

Thinking Addiction

My daughter emailed this little gem to me this morning. I thought some of you might like to read it:

It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then
-- just to loosen up. Inevitably, though, one thought led to another, and
soon I was more than just a social thinker.

I began to think alone -- "to relax," I told myself -- but I knew it wasn't
true. Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was
thinking all the time.

That was when things began to sour at home. One evening I turned off the TV
and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night at her
mother's.

I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don't mix,
but I couldn't help myself.

I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau, Muir,
Confucius and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused,
asking, "What is it exactly we are doing here?"

One day the boss called me in. He said, "Listen, I like you, and it hurts
me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don't
stop thinking on the job, you'll have to find another job."

This gave me a lot to think about. I came home early after my conversation
with the boss. "Honey," I confessed, "I've been thinking..." "I know
you've been thinking," she said, "and I want a divorce!"

"But Honey, surely it's not that serious." "It is serious," she said, lower
lip aquiver. "You think as much as college professors and college
professors don't make any money, so if you keep on thinking, we won't have
any money!"

"That's a faulty syllogism," I said impatiently.

She exploded in tears of rage and frustration, but I was in no mood to deal
with the emotional drama. "I'm going to the library," I snarled as I
stomped out the door.

I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzsche. I roared into the
parking lot with NPR on the radio and ran up to the big glass doors. They
didn't open. The library was closed.

To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that
night. Leaning on the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a poster
caught my eye, "Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?" it asked.

You probably recognize that line. It comes from the standard Thinkers
Anonymous poster.

This is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker. I never miss a TA
meeting. At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week it was
"Porky's." Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since
the last meeting. I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home.
Life just seemed easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking. I think
the road to recovery is nearly complete for me.

Today I took the final step…I joined the Republican Party.

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Addendum by Whit:

Any other recovering thinking addicts out there? At our next TA meeting, we are going to watch the Fox news channel all evening. Upcoming events include viewing excerpts from the shows of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, Bill O’Reilly, Laura Ingraham, and Glenn Beck. All those recovering TA members still thinking by the December meeting will have to listen to the complete collection of speeches by Bush the Decider.