------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Feb. 7, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
FOR A PEOPLE'S INVESTIGATION: WHO'S NOT COMPROMISED BY ENRON? By David Sole As more and more details of the Enron collapse become known, more and more people are wondering who can legitimately investigate the situation. Certainly the many congressional committees that have announced hearings must be suspect. After all, at least 71 senators and 188 representatives--Democrats and Republicans-- in Washington got either Enron money or donations from Arthur Andersen, Enron's auditors (New York Times, Jan. 19). It didn't take long for the Justice Department to become tainted in the public mind. U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft had to recuse himself from the entire affair since he had also gotten Enron's help during his Senate race. The executive branch of the federal government obviously can't be trusted. George W. Bush got big bucks from the Houston-based Enron. The Securities and Exchange Commission chief was a top Arthur Andersen officer at the very time that company should have been blowing the whistle on Enron's imminent collapse. Even the Secretary of the Army, it has now come out, worked for Enron until last summer--as head of the very division that concealed hundreds of millions in losses. In fact, the entire apparatus of the capitalist state is exposed as tainted. What is needed is a truly independent investigation--one independent of the corporations and banks and independent of the two capitalist political parties. What is needed is an Independent Peoples Investigation Commission on Enron. Who could make up such a commission? It must include representative of the thousands of Enron workers whose pensions were wiped out while their bosses bailed out with millions and millions. These workers were not unionized. But there is nothing to prevent them from forming a union now to pursue justice. The AFL-CIO ought to offer its assistance and resources to immediately organize these workers. Also needed on any commission should be the consumers who have been victimized by energy deregulation and speculation carried out by Enron and the entire energy industry. While Californians were especially hard hit with unjustified energy rate hikes, the people in every state are feeling the effects on their budgets. Environmentalists should be included, because the energy industry is one of the biggest polluters in the country and lobbies against protective legislation. Representatives of the organized working class that may also have taken losses to their pension funds with the crash of Enron must be included. And room could be made for the many small investors also wiped out in the stock collapse. Prominent individuals from the social activism and civil rights field have already come forward to speak out against the Enron outrage. Both Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have been to Houston to meet with Enron workers. These communities would contribute greatly to such an independent investigation. An Independent Peoples Investigation Commission can be seen as an outgrowth of the anti-globalization movement that erupted on the scene in Seattle in 1999. But a commission would take the movement to a higher level than just sporadic demonstrations. It would place itself in opposition to the official, corporate-dominated state apparatus, both legislative and judicial. Its power would grow in proportion to the amount of support it generated among the workers and oppressed, as well as the middle class. It could convene hearings--starting in Houston and moving across the nation. It could also link up to movements in other countries, since Enron has investments on other continents. Not only should a Peoples Investigation Commission seek to further expose the corruption in the corporate-political world, it should popularize remedies. These would include immediate seizure of all Enron officials, along with their assets, and all Enron properties. Those who lost pensions should be the first claimants on these assets; the federal government should be held responsible for whatever cannot be recovered. Direct action could grow out of a powerful, popular movement generated by the commission. Popular feeling against the oil industry in the 1970s led to public discussion of a people's takeover of Big Oil. In Detroit, a petition campaign got the City Council to put such a question on the ballot until pressure from oil lobbyists made them remove it. The United Auto Workers coordinated short work stoppages in every auto plant in the country so that workers could send protest postcards against the price gouging of the oil industry. In at least one plant this led to a spontaneous walkout for the day. The Wall Street Journal wrote several articles reporting on the "Peoples Energy Campaign," worried that it would take off and seriously threaten the private property rights of the giant corporations. A thorough investigation of the energy industry, which could grow from an Enron inquiry, might lead to the demand for a people's takeover of the entire energy industry. The corporations and their bought politicians have shown that they cannot be trusted to own, operate or regulate a field that is so vital to the life and well-being of the entire country. [Sole is president of United Auto Workers Local 2334 in Detroit.] - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. 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