They would occupy a gated stratosphere far above the madding crowd while their political hirelings below look after their earthly interests. After three decades of engineering a winner-take-all economy, and buying the political power to consummate their hold on the wealth created by the system they had rigged in their favor, they were taking the final and irrevocable step of separating themselves permanently from the common course of American life. Mencken got it right: “Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.”įourteen years later, we can see more clearly the implications. But that fall, operating deep within the shadows of Washington’s Beltway, American business and political mercenaries wrapped themselves in red, white and blue and went about ripping off a country in crisis. If ever there was a moment for shared sacrifice, for putting patriotism over profits, this was it. As for post 9/11 Democrats, their national committee used the crisis to call for widening the soft-money loophole in our election laws.Īmerica had just endured a sneak attack that killed thousands of our citizens, was about to go to war against terror, and would soon send an invading army to the Middle East. With words reminding us of Harry Truman’s description of the GOP as “guardians of privilege,” the Republican majority leader of the House dared to declare that “it wouldn’t be commensurate with the American spirit” to provide unemployment and other benefits to laid-off airline workers. It was a disgusting bipartisan spectacle. They wanted to give coal producers more freedom to pollute, open the Alaskan wilderness to drilling, empower the president to keep trade favors for corporations a secret while enabling many of those same corporations to run roughshod over local communities trying the protect the environment and their citizens’ health. They sought a special tax break for mighty General Electric, although you would never have heard about it if you were watching GE’s news divisions - NBC News, CNBC, or MSNBC, all made sure to look the other way. “Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.” - H.L. And it wasn’t only repeal the mercenaries sought they wanted those corporations to get back all the minimum tax they had ever been assessed. They even made an effort to repeal the alternative minimum tax that for fifteen years had prevented companies from taking so many credits and deductions that they owed little if any taxes. What did they want? The usual: tax cuts for the wealthy and big breaks for corporations.

But in the nation’s capital, within sight of a smoldering Pentagon that had been struck by one of the hijacked planes, the predator class was hard at work pursuing private plunder at public expense, gold-diggers in the ashes of tragedy exploiting our fear, sorrow, and loss.

Here in New York, we still were attending memorial services for our firemen and police. In the fall of 2001, in the aftermath of 9/11, as families grieved and the nation mourned, Washington swarmed with locusts of the human kind: wartime opportunists, lobbyists, lawyers, ex-members of Congress, bagmen for big donors: all of them determined to grab what they could for their corporate clients and rich donors while no one was looking.Īcross the land, the faces of Americans of every stripe were stained with tears.

Bill moyers welcome to the plutocracy