THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

THIEVES BELONG IN PRISON | 2002-07-13

The WorldCom and Corporate scams are bringing forth the usual knee-jerk reactions. Republicans want them to be a "wake up call" for corporations; Democrats want them to be a "wake up call" for legislators.

I explained in my first book, "A Plague on Both Your Houses," 1976, Republicans are the property of the military-industrial establishment and Democrats are the property of the education-welfare establishment. The American people are not represented because they do not demand to be represented.

So every crisis automatically becomes a chance to push the agenda of one establishment or the other. Democrats want more power and spending for the education-welfare establishment, which means expanding government. The ideal situation for liberals is a world in which their professors rule the planet.

Conservatives want corporations to make money, period. When I worked for the Civil Aeronautics Board under the Nixon Administration, the chairman told us, "Our goal is twelve percent return on airline investment, and that is our ONLY goal."

For Democrats, every crisis is an opportunity to expand government power and expenditures. Not long ago, the shooting spree in Colorado was celebrated over and over again by the media. That was when it was to be used to get national gun control. But when they began to find out it was largely the fault of local authorities ignoring CRIMINAL activities by the two boys, the liberal media lost interest in it.

What is going on is very simple. Regulators were set up and they were soon captured by the corporate heads, exactly the same way that the Civil Aeronautics Board quickly became the property of the airlines. Liberals get more government and corporations neutralize it routinely.

What we need is people who are against all this. We need people who send thieves, no matter how rich, to prison. That would stop the corporate fraud. More laws have nothing to do with it. More laws will produce more lawyers - the liberals favorite animal - and corporations will use those laws to make themselves even more invulnerable.

Exactly the same thing happens with regulators as with lawyers. Liberals get their shiny new agencies and corporations buy them up.

If you want to be in government, you must either be a worshipper of uniforms and corporations, in which case you go conservative, or you must see every crisis as an opportunity for more government and more government expenditures. I had to join the right because the left was worse.