--- Begin Message ---
-Caveat Lector-
A Day at the American Enterprise Institute
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Didn't have anything good to do earlier this week, so decided to spend
the day at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
AEI is the granddaddy of the big corporate front groups. Their job?
Re-engineer the political economy to the liking of their corporate paymasters.
Last year, AEI took in $23 million from corporations, corporate
foundations, and wealthy individuals.
Need to undermine the antitrust laws?
Hire AEI scholar in residence Robert Bork to spew his ideology.
Need to slander the United Nations?
Hire AEI scholar in residence Jeanne Kirkpatrick to do the dirty work.
AEI, Heritage, and Cato, the big three corporate fronts in our nation's
capital, have done immeasurable damage to our democracy, advancing
corporatist and extremist right-wing views.
We wanted to know: is it the power of their ideas, or is it their power?
After spending a day at AEI, we suspect it's the latter.
In the morning, we caught a session titled: Europe: Anti-Semitism Resurgent?
Looked around the audience. There was Bork. There was Kirkpatrick.
They were there to listen to what was supposed to be a debate between
two right-wingers, Ruth Wisse of Harvard University and John O'Sullivan,
of United Press International.
But there was little debate.
Everyone agreed that the issue wasn't anti-semitism, as traditionally
defined, but anti-Israel views.
In fact, Wisse and O'Sullivan had now effectively redefined the term
anti-semitism to mean anti-Israel.
We had suspected this, but didn't get a confirmation until a questioner
in the audience asked Wisse about Billy Graham's 1972 conversation with
Richard Nixon, memorialized on the White House tapes, and made public
earlier this year by the National Archives.
In the conversation, Graham says to Nixon that "a lot of Jews are great
friends of mine."
"They swarm around me and are friendly to me," Graham says. "Because
they know I am friendly to Israel and so forth. They don't know how I
really feel about what they're doing to this country."
And how does he feel?
Graham tells Nixon that the Jews have a "stranglehold" on the country,
and "this stranglehold has got to be broken or the country's going down
the drain."
"You believe that?" Nixon says.
"Yes, sir," Graham replies.
"Oh boy," Nixon says. "So do I. I can't ever say that but I believe it."
So, the questioner wanted to know whether Professor Wisse considered
these sentiments, as expressed by Graham, and widely publicized earlier
this year, to be anti-semitic.
No, they are not anti-semitic, Professor Wisse says.
Not anti-semitic?
No, anti-semitism exists today in the form of "political organization"
against Israel.
Inference: the religious right in this country, as long as they organize
politically to support Israel, can say and think whatever they want
about Jews.
Not anti-semitism.
We went for a walk in the rain, a reality check with nature, and then
back in to catch another AEI panel, this one titled: "Does Excessive
Regulation Threaten Subprime Lending?" featuring Gary Gilmer, the vice
chairman of Household International, a finance company which just last
week was slapped by a group of state attorneys general for engaging in
predatory lending -- basically ripping off the poor with outrageous
interest rates and fees.
The company paid $484 million to settle the case.
Household is one of the largest sub-prime lenders in the country.
While sub-prime lenders provide credit to borrowers with damaged credit,
some of these lenders have engaged in predatory practices whereby
consumers -- even those with good credit -- are targeted to borrow money
on disadvantageous terms, including high interest rates, steep bank fees
and payments for undisclosed insurance products.
The high costs serve to increase the consumer's debt burden and reduce
the equity in the consumer's home.
You would think that the company would have a sense of humility after
being so publicly spanked for engaging in such wrongdoing.
But no.
Instead, AEI gives the company's vice chairman a forum to attack the
same state laws that his company allegedly violated and that led to the
$484 million payment.
Tough state laws that seek to curb predatory lending, like one passed
recently in Georgia, have the finance industry in a tizzy.
The finance companies say they are refusing to make loans in Georgia,
perhaps as part of a drive to get that law, and other similar laws repealed.
Maybe it's time to simplify the entire legal morass in this area by
bringing back the usury laws -- by mandating a simple cap on interest rates.
The usury laws were erased in the early 1980s after a heavy lobbying
effort by finance companies like Household.
We raised the possibility of bringing back the usury laws with the AEI
panel members, but they unanimously thought it was a bad idea.
We went outside again, to get some fresh air. The rain had turned to a
cold drizzle. In anticipation, we returned for the day's final panel,
titled In Defense of Empires.
Deepak Lal, a professor at the UCLA, argued that imperialism should not
be perceived as a negative phenomenon. Empires provide international
order. Empires promote prosperity by integrating separate areas into a
common economic space. Empires are good.
After picking up the materials, listening to about 30 minutes of
Professor Lal's talk -- with no mention of the violence necessary to
create and maintain empires -- we walked out, back into the rain.
And we thought: maybe it is all harmless to talk this way. It's almost laughable.
Nobody can believe this stuff, can they?
Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
Multinational Monitor, http://www.multinationalmonitor.org. They are
co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the
Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1999;
http://www.corporatepredators.org).
(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
This article is posted at:
http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2002/000132.html
_______________________________________________
Focus on the Corporation is a weekly column written by Russell Mokhiber
and Robert Weissman. Please feel free to forward the column to friends or
repost the column on other lists. If you would like to post the column on
a web site or publish it in print format, we ask that you first contact us
([EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED]).
Focus on the Corporation is distributed to individuals on the listserve
[EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your address to
corp-focus, go to: <http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/corp-focus> or send an
e-mail
message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with your request.
Focus on the Corporation columns are posted at
<http://www.corporatepredators.org>.
Postings on corp-focus are limited to the columns. If you would like to
comment on the columns, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http://archive.jab.org/ctrl@;listserv.aol.com/
<A HREF="http://archive.jab.org/ctrl@;listserv.aol.com/">ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
--- End Message ---
