Power Politics: Bush and Big Business vs. The People

Years ago as a high school American history, government and political science teacher, I learned a ton of theories about how governments emerge, how they develop and how they fall or survive, depending on how they treat the people--and how the people must act to keep watch on their officials.

Later as a graduate student in journalism, I learned how governments court or eschew Big Business, the press and public opinion, depending on needs and goals of those who hold the government's key powers. And how the people must act to keep watch on the interplay between government and Big Business.

Still later, as a teacher lobbyist and union official, I learned up close and personal--in the halls of Congress and state legislatures-- how all these forces interact to produce what we see, hear, read and experience as citizens. And learned how the people must keep themselves informed and wary of manipulation by those players and those interactions.

But never--repeat never--in my days as an active teacher, lobbyist, unionist and tax-paying, law-abiding citizen did I expect to see the worst of those forces come together to undermine democracy in America. But that is precisely where we are with the Bush 2 Administration.

Not only are we spending billions on an unjust, unpopular war, but we're also NOT spending billions on problems here at home that are staggering the democracy. And why? Near as I can tell, for one reason more than any other: Big Business is running the show and cannot stand to see any shrinking of gigantic profits. Spending here at home would cut into their outrageous margins. Immoral margins. "Greed is good," a la Gordon Gekko.

For my money, there's an even worse, bigger problem in letting Big Business have all the power: it's THE INTENTIONAL USE OF GOVERNMENT TO UNDERMINE ITS OWN AUTHORITY.

Witness these: the Federal Aviation Authority's intentional use of its power so as NOT to regulate airline safety, thus saving money for the owners; the U.S. Labor Department's intentional turning away from labor and almost wholly siding with Big Business in any dispute involving their separate interests; the Education Dept.'s intentional overregulation/strangulation of public schools, so as to promote growth and development of private and chartered academies, thereby leaving whole segments of the nation's less privileged youth undereducated and underemployed in the future; the Environmental Protection Agency's wholesale shrinking of national parks and national wildnerness areas so as to encourage private developers to use pristine lands for use of/sale to the wealthy; the Defense Department's apparently purposeful weakening of the traditional military so as to give ever more lucrative management and prosecution of wars to private contractors, e.g., Haliburton, Blackwater, et al.

We could cite many other examples--chiefly the intentional failures of FEMA to come to the aid of Katrina victims, thereby weakening the local fabric and leaving it to monied developers for their own purposes.

But the most astonishing example of late is one not to be believed: the use of Census Bureau officials to undermine and perhaps even do away with the annual count of citizens every 10 years. The current Bureau is in shambles, for lack of money to operate sufficiently. So how does such a failure benefit Big Business? By leaving the national count to private contractors and doing away with tax-supported neutrality of figures.

Last but not least, there's this infuriating aspect of the Bush Administration's method: once Congress steps in and demands regulation, the Administration chiefs of all those business-friendly bureaus will act in ways aimed at creating maximum chaos and blaming it on regulatory exercise. "See? This is what happens when you want Big Business to be regulated" type thing.

The latest example is all the chaos around the nation's airports this week. It is NOT necessary to cancel thousands of flights to get inspections done. But you can be sure it's necessary to go to that extreme if you're wanting to shape public opinion against regulating Big Business.

We'd better wake up NOW if we want to have a country left come November. Write or call members in U.S. House and Senate and tell them to get busy with removing the chains of Big Business from the arms and ankles of Democracy. Tell them to do it now. We're dying out here!