May 2002 | Hightower Lowdown
Bush's Corporate Government
by Jim Hightower
He’s elusive and deceptive, working the back alleys of constitutional government, and slipping deeper into the dark shadows of authority than others have dared. He’s — Super Agent Man!
What is it with George W. and his gang of super-secretive White House authoritarians? Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ridge — they’re always trying to hide something from We the People, as though they don’t quite get the concepts of democratic sovereignty, the People’s right to know, and an accountable executive. Is he George W....or King George the W?
First is the silliness of Bush and Dick Cheney trying to hide the list of people the administration huddled with to write its energy policy. Their policy absolutely reeks of Big Oil and other corporate energy barons, so whom do they think they’re fooling by acting like its a state secret that they let energy executives from the likes of Enron and Exxon write their legislation? In a democracy, the names of those who write public policy clearly has to be a matter of public information, yet, like a two-year-old clutching his list and shrieking "mine," George W. has turned this into a constitutional confrontation with Congress and the public.
Similarly the White House won’t allow our Homeland Security Czar, Tom Ridge, to testify publicly about what he’s doing to us in the name of security. "None of your business," George shouts out of a White House window.
The worst is Pentagon honcho, Don Rumsfeld, who’s not only conducting an unlimited war on terrorism, but also is at war with the public’s right to know. He goes all out to prevent any independent media assessment of his conduct of the war, imposing unprecedented secrecy and haughtily asserting that he’ll tell us what he wants us to know. Instead of information, he feeds us propaganda that, again and again, we later find out to be lies.
That’s the problem of having a government run by former corporate executives — they think they’re above questioning, and they can’t be bothered by democracy.
Jim Hightower is a columnist and author. To subscribe to The Hightower Lowdown, send $15, and your name, and address to: Lowdown, P.O. Box 20596, New York, NY 10011. Visit his web site for more info.
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