Enron Without Euphemisms

Say what you will about Rick Santorum as a presidential candidate, he definitely has changed the political climate. Before Santorum, we were discussing important things like the fact that the economy is still in the bucket and unemployment is sky high. But since he entered the race, social issues have taken over and the subject is fucking. Who is fucking who, how they’re fucking, what we should think about them fucking, and how to avoid the consequences of fucking. Besides being a terrible waste of time and distracting our country from the real issues we should be focusing on, the entire abortion debate is based on euphemisms and evasions. And that is what we’re talking about, isn’t it? The “aspirin between the knees” comment, the Komen/Planned Parenthood kerfluffle, the current brouhaha over forcing Catholic organizations to buy birth control, etc. All this talk about “women’s health” and “reproductive rights” is basically just providing political cover for abortion.

The fact that the pro-abortion people need words like “women’s health” to discuss abortion tells me they fear the actual discussion of abortion. The abortion lobby enjoys finding the statistical outliers, such as fifteen year old rape victims, to explain why abortion is so necessary. But the fact is, if they want to support abortion, they should at least have the moral courage to say: We support abortion because we enjoy hot, steamy sex and we want to be able to avoid the consequences of an unintended pregnancy. I would have more respect for that position since it doesn’t buy into sex shame. It doesn’t seek the sympathy of its opponents as does the “fifteen year old rape victim” or whatever who, ostensibly would never think about having sex because she’s an innocent victim and her pregnancy had nothing to do with the need to be penetrated. It is a very pro-woman message. Though I do not believe in abortion in any circumstances, I could better support the abortion people if they’d quit with the prudish, scolding tone that they accuse us pro-life people of adopting and just say girls like to fuck too and we don’t wanna have a baby. That’s a totally legit position. Sheila and a few others might remember my CGWLTF organziation from 2001. Conservative Girls Who Love To Fuck. There’s no shame in it. Just say what you mean and mean what you say.

The abortion discussion is surrounded by linguistic and logical landmines. For instance, Bill Clinton once said he wants abortion to be legal, safe and rare.

Well, why should it be rare if there is nothing wrong with it? Even the abortion people seem to accept by default that there is something craven about their position. If they’d just say, “Yes, we accept that the glob of cells is indeed a baby, but we want don’t want to be the mother to that baby,” I’d have much more respect for them – it would at least show they’re thinking. They’re being honest.

But the abortion debate refuses to acknowledge the sex drive of women, and as long as it does that, it will be controversial.

The only thing at least as controversial about sex – particularly women’s attitudes about sex – is money.

We are a decade into the Enron discussion and certain lies are starting to ossify into the culture, and as long as we let those lies continue, we’re never going to understand what happened at Enron. The discussions are starting to be layered in tulle fog so thick you can’t really see the edges anymore. And I think people – the ETF, journalists, and bystanders – tend to like these sweet little lies that make the discussion of Enron more palatable to the general public. So much easier to discuss Honest Services if we don’t have to discuss the morality of someone like Jeff Skilling. So much more enjoyable to talk about the Enron execs went to prison than to question whether they were actually guilty of anything.

Ken Rice’s Ferrari is a perfect example of what I mean. When he was testifying during the Skilling/Lay trial, the mention of his stupid Ferrari was de rigueur in any report about his testimony. Why? Because the Ferrari is shorthand for “rich” and the fact that he was testifying against Skilling and Lay meant that he was that most beloved of all American characters, the redeemed bad guy. He might drive a Ferrari but at least he had it taken away from him so he’s not quite so rich anymore. See, he’s just like us!

The discussion about Ken Lay’s condo and his vacation homes accomplished the same thing, but since he was still in possession of those things when he passed away, he was just a bad guy. A rich bad guy. But at least he was dead so the government still won.

I believe that like the abortion debate is really hiding the central fact that women love to fuck – a fact that is not quite polite to mention – the debate about Enron disguises a deep vein of hatred for rich people. It is class warfare, and every other vocabulary term, rhetorical device, and lie is in effort to both reveal the fact that the executives were rich while also making it socially acceptable to hate them for some other reason, such as “honest services fraud” or “conspiracy to commit wire fraud.”

Those things didn’t happen. The evidence bears that out.

Class warfare and the decades-long demonization of business executives culminated in a witch hunt. Historically, in witch hunts, something has happened which have the people frightened. In the Salem Witch Trials, recent vicious Indian attacks and burgeoning political fighting between groups, had everybody ready to believe in witches. In the Inquisitions, a horrible plague and constant warfare made the people willing to believe that witches were causing the problems. With McCarthy, a world war and the specter of the nuclear bomb, made people willing to believe that commies were sneaking around everywhere.

Enron occurred before the public was aware of how fragile trust-based financial organizations are. It occurred right after the trauma of 9/11 and during a time when big business had been routinely demonized for decades. When Enron, the 7th largest company, went bankrupt, the government was desperate to show people that such a thing could not happen in America. So the government determined that it had to prove that a large American corporation could go bankrupt only through criminal activity, not through the normal play of market forces and business decisions. If Enron had occurred a few years later, Enron might have been bailed out by the government — instead, the government tried to placate the fear of the masses by accusing innocent people of criminal wrongdoing. It was a nearly classic witch hunt.

We cannot trust the Feds to do the right thing, and (worse) we cannot trust the press to be the watchdog of the people against the state. When the press supports the state against the individual, you have a scary and dangerous situation. And that is what has happened with the Enron cases. The more journalists write about the collapse, the more obfuscation surrounds the reality of the situation. Instead of illuminating what really happened, they only add to the body of acceptable truths – that’s why you know that Ken Rice had a Ferrari but you can’t tell me without googling what he pleaded guilty to.