August
13, 2002 2:30
p.m. The
Waters of Waco Unavailing
Dealing
with Enron, Inc.
s the presidential
team meets in Waco to repristinate the face of capitalism, signs of difficulty
at a cultural level are everywhere. The Wall Street Journal informs
us that defense attorneys are having a difficult time finding jurors who
are unaffected by the desire to damage any defendant with a corporate
background. In one recent case, a poll was taken of 50 prospective jurors.
They were asked to agree or not to the statement, "Corporate executives
will lie to increase their profits." Over 50 percent agreed. It is
suggested that what we might call Enron, Inc., has had an analogous effect
on American views of business as Watergate had on views of government.
That is persuasive,
but it pays to remind ourselves that government infidelities have means
of ablution in the political world. Whatever the demoralization brought
on by Watergate, it was pretty well expunged by the resignation of President
Nixon, followed by the Democratic whiplash of November 1974. Nobody can
confidently say what would have happened to Bill Clinton if, a few months
after pledging to the American people an untruth, he had had to run for
reelection. The Clinton episode certainly told the country that the highest
official in the land can continue as chief enforcer of the law even after
spectacularly traducing the law. There are those who believe that inasmuch
as the Clinton case was sex-oriented, coming to terms with it marked an
American cultural pubescence. Everybody in sight remarked, at the time,
that what Clinton did would not have received more than a few sticks of
type if done in Europe by a chief executive.
But there is no dramatic
episode of any kind that business can contrive, or engage in, which would
alter the disposition of the juror to believe that corporate executives
"will lie" in order to increase their profits. Moreover, the
great caterwaulers will do everything they can to press their point, which
is, essentially, that capitalism is inherently corrupt. The Nation
magazine hasn't been so happy about the corporate scene since the Great
Depression. Back then, the editors could innocently wonder about Marxist
alternatives. That doesn't so much work any more, since the Marxist model
has had its own setbacks. But the library of derision is enormously enlivened,
and we cannot be surprised that the typical juror, reading in that morning's
paper about the latest corporate thief, holds the business culture as
untrustworthy.
We have then, too,
the great bards of conspiratorial evil, king of them, for a season or
two, Oliver Stone. He produced a movie a few years ago in which he asked
the American people to believe that the assassination of Kennedy was done
by other than Oswald acting alone, that the police in Dallas were in on
the fix, as also the FBI, as also the CIA, as also the doctors at Parkland
Hospital and at the White House, as also President Johnson, members of
the Supreme Court, and The World Almanac. Now the news here isn't
that Stone, the fabulist, created an engrossing fantasy, it is that 70
percent of the American people, after viewing it, concluded that indeed
the Warren Report was wrong and corrupt.
Asked for comment
on the general scene, Oliver Stone, who also directed the movie Wall
Street, gave it to us straight: "In my opinion, I think [President
Bush] has been a complete disaster on every level."
There is nothing
in the Waco Waters that will serve as an elixir to console the public
during this period of quite genuine grief over the high incidence of corporate
duplicity. To attempt consolation by the formula of Winston Churchill
("democracy is the worst form of government except all those other
forms that have been tried from time to time") doesn't give instant
relief, on the order of effecting the resignation of a president. Mr.
Bush can't do more than to say that certain growths in the capitalist
system have been identified, and that to the extent it is possible to
minister to them by legislation, that much is being done.
Beyond that, at Waco,
our governors can only reiterate their professions of faith in the American
system, emphasizing that our commercial life is an aspect of our commitment
to freedom in our political life, indeed in life itself.
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s the presidential
team meets in Waco to repristinate the face of capitalism, signs of difficulty
at a cultural level are everywhere. The Wall Street Journal informs
us that defense attorneys are having a difficult time finding jurors who
are unaffected by the desire to damage any defendant with a corporate
background. In one recent case, a poll was taken of 50 prospective jurors.
They were asked to agree or not to the statement, "Corporate executives
will lie to increase their profits." Over 50 percent agreed. It is
suggested that what we might call Enron, Inc., has had an analogous effect
on American views of business as Watergate had on views of government.
