Democratic Process: Another Day, Another Capitulation
by Chris Floyd
Industry Flexes Muscle, Weaker Energy Bill Passes (NYT)
 The Democratic "opposition" in Congress – you know, the party that represents the common people, good working folk and the most vulnerable in our society: the sick, the old, the poor, the children – have just effected yet
another capitulation to Money Power, gutting an energy bill that would
have required Big Oil – now reaping the most gargantuan profit margins
in the entire history of human enterprise – to pay a pittance in new
taxes.
Majority Leader Harry "Shaky Knees" Reid
The original bill would have also required utility companies to eventually produce a whopping 15 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources. These measures – displeasing to the boardroom lords and their viceroy
in the White House – were dutifully stripped out by Senate Majority
Leader Harry "Shaky Knees" Reid. So what happens now?
Why, more capitulation, of course:
- The bill now
returns to the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi predicted that it
would pass overwhelmingly early next week. A White House spokesman said
President Bush was pleased that the bill was “moving in the right
direction†and that he would sign it when it reached his desk.
" President
Bush was pleased." Well, that's really the most important thing, isn't
it? That the Leader be kept in happy countenance, so that he can care
for us with free and untroubled mind.
A hardened cynic might say
that the original bill was just a feint all along – the usual
shuck-and-jive for the Democratic base, offered up in the sure
knowledge that it would be disemboweled in good time at the behest of
the nation's true managers. A lesser cynic in a charitable mood ('tis
the season, after all) could aver that the Democrats might actually
pass a windfall profits tax on Big Oil and a few mild measures on
renewable energy – as long as no one said "Boo!" to them.
I must say
that I incline to the former view myself, but I suppose the latter is
not entirely outside the realm of possibility. But in the end, it
doesn't matter; someone is always going to say "boo" to any attempt –
however anemic – to ameliorate the ravages of the Money Power in even
the slightest way.
|
