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Eager, as always, to make both first call at the bar and an early
getaway, the bicameral two ring circus of embezzlers, extortionists,
buffoons, car dealers, and lawyers known as the US Congress stirred
itself last week to raise its right arm and wield its mighty rubber
stamp.
With Sunday football, Halloween, and elections dangling
in front of its nose/trunk like a carrot in front of the proverbial
elephant's ass, the 109th convention of bozo millionaires passed the
Bush administration's military tribunal proposal-- finally bringing
bourgeois theory finally into line with bourgeois practice by
abrogating the "principle" of habeas corpus.
Then, warming to its task, and dedicated to keeping the mean in mean green,
Congress passed the defense appropriations bill, a cool $448 billion in
guaranteed cost overruns secured through the sale of US Treasury bonds
to Japan, China, Russia, and various petroleum exporters. $70 billion
or so is committed to ensuring that the destruction of the Iraq and its
people can continue in the style to which Americans have become so
accustomed, at least for the next 6 months.
But it was the House
committee on Commerce and Energy that provided the anti-comic relief to
this carnival of vicious venality. The committee, whose members have
received some $24 million in campaign donations from the corporations,
associations, and individuals subject to its inquiries, investigations,
and legislations, called on the former chairperson of Hewlett-Packard,
Ms. Patricia Dunn, the company's current CEO, Mark Hurd to explain
certain irregularities committed by the corporation in its
investigation into the leak of sensitive information. The
"irregularities" included the transmission of "tracer" emails to track
any secondary distribution made by the recipient, the surveillance of
employees and journalists, the use of "pretexting" (the use of
fraudulent identities and pretenses) for obtaining personal phone
records, and other tactics used so spectacularly, dismally, and
everyday by... by the US government.
In the second grandest
tradition of American corporate leadership, Ms. Dunn denied any
responsibility for the conduct of the investigation. Not only did the
buck not stop with her, it didn't start with her, and she never got to
keep even a measly quarter. Ms. Dunn was guided in all these matters by
HP's general counsel, HP's former general counsel, Ann Baskins. Ms. Baskins resigned her position on the day of the hearings.
In
the grandest tradition of American corporate leadership, Ms. Baskins
declined to testify before the committee, citing her constitutional
right against self-incrimination. While refusing to testify under oath,
however, Ms. Baskins did manage to negotiate a separation agreement
with Hewlett-Packard. In return for her cooperation with HP's unsworn
investigations and her agreement not to sue the company, Ms. Baskins
will retain her rights to vested stock options worth $3.7 million, and
the company will accelerate her vesting in stock options worth an
addition $1 million. America the beautiful for sure of thee I thing.
Hewlett-Packard
stated that in taking this strong stand against rewarding unethical and
illegal behavior by its employees, it will rightfully resume its
position as the brand name in business ethics.
Meanwhile, it's
not the crime that bothers the representatives, it's the competition.
Stings? Surveillance? Obtaining personal phone records? Sifting trash?
False pretexts? Just exactly who do Dunn, Hurd, Baskins et al think
they are? Unelected government officials? Missing the kidnappings, the
secret prisons, the digital pictures of torture emailed home, and the
disappeared bodies, the unhabeased corpses, Hewlett-Packard was really only missing one thing-- the government contract to do all those things.
Somewhere
in some corporate executive offices, some corporate executives are
wondering why they should continue to absorb the expense of supporting
Congress, which shows how little some corporate executives understand
of the political economy of modern capitalism.
One of the less
brilliant presentations used to explain and bolster Keynes theory
argues that the bourgeois economy could be maintained and the value of
money retained if half the population was put to work digging holes
into the side of a mountain, with the other half put to work filling in
the holes. This assertion ignores the criticality of use, of use value,
to the bourgeois and to all economies; it ignores the very conflict of
use and exchange value in the identity of the commodity, at the very
core of capitalist reproduction. But....
But Congress
is exactly that Keynesian exercise for corporate capitalism, just that
exercise of throwing money into holes, so that money and more money can
be taken out as Congress redistributes incomes, sanctions the
liquidation of pension funds, authorizes the destruction of countries
abroad, and the sacking of cities and populations at home. As the
committee members and their cohorts race out of DC, fright wigs on and
bags in hand, to ring the corporate doorbells, get their corporate
candy, they represent, almost too perfectly, the uselessness of capital.
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