F A C I N G S O U T H

A progressive Southern news report July 9, 2004 - Issue 83

Facing South is published 40 times a year by the Institute for Southern Studies and Southern Exposure magazine. To join the Institute and get a year's worth of Southern Exposure and Facing South, visit www.southernstudies.org

_____ INSTITUTE INDEX - Remember Enron?
DATELINE: THE SOUTH - Top Stories Around the Region
PERSPECTIVE: WILLIAM GREIDER - Ken Lay, Enron and the US Public
_____ INSTITUTE INDEX - Remember Enron?

Amount of contributions that Enron gave to President Bush's 2000 campaign: $623,000
Rank of Enron among Bush's biggest campaign contributors in 2000: 1
Out of 8 recommendations Enron made to Bush Adminisration's energy task force, number adopted: 7
Amount that Georgia state pension plan lost due to Enron's 2001 bankruptcy, in millions: $127
Amount that 20,000 Enron workers lost in retirement savings, in billions: $1.2
Amount that top Enron executives made in stock sales before the bankruptcy, in billions: $1.1
Amount that Enron Chairman Ken Lay personally made, in millions: $217

Sources on file at the Institute for Southern Studies.

_____ DATELINE: THE SOUTH - Top Stories Around the Region

BUSH TIES PUT ENRON BACK IN THE SPOTLIGHT
The indictment of President Bush's one-time friend and financial backer Kenneth Lay put the spotlight back on Bush's ties to big corporate donors as he heads into the final months of the U.S. presidential campaign.
(Reuters, 7/8) NORTH CAROLINA MAY BECOME BATTLEGROUND STATE
With U.S. Sen. John Edwards being selected Tuesday as the running mate for presumed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, North Carolina may become the state that swings both ways. A recent Mason-Dixon poll showed a Kerry/Edwards ticket narrowly beating Bush/Cheney.
([Broken link deleted by editor.]) LATINO VOTE KEY IN 2004
The Latino community, the largest racial minority group in the United States, could be key in deciding whether Republican George W. Bush or Democrat John Kerry wins the November 2 presidential election. Of almost 40 million Latinos living in the United States, some seven million -- 6.1 percent of the US electorate, and one million more than in the last presidential election -- will be eligible to vote.
(AFP, 7/5) PROMISE OF 1964 CIVIL RIGHTS ACT UNFULFILLED
When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, it capped years of struggle to have Congress enact legislation that would explicitly outlaw discrimination. But the advent of school re-segregation and a persistent class divide between white and black Americans make the Act's goals elusive.
(A HREF="http://tinyurl.com/2ordt">BlackPressUSA) BUSH OPPONENTS HANDCUFFED FOR WEARING T-SHIRTS
On July 4, President Bush celebrated America's freedom in a rally in Charleston, West Virginia. But a couple from Texas, in town on business, were hauled away in handcuffs for wearing T-shirts saying, "Love America, Hate Bush."
(Charleston Gazette, 7/9) NEW ORLEANS IS CHEAPEST PLACE TO DATE
New Orleans isn't just the home of Mardi Gras and good Cajun cooking. According to Match.com, it's also the cheapest place to take someone out on a date. The website's "Cost of Dating Index" ranked cities by six kinds of dates: Coffee Date, Drinks, Lunch, Movie (and ice cream), Romantic (dinner, theatre tickets and flowers) and Professional sporting event.
(Match.com) _____ PERSPECTIVE: WILLIAM GREIDER - Ken Lay, Enron and the US Public

The Nation
July 8, 2004

Ken Lay finally took the "perp walk" down in Houston with his hands cuffed behind his back--an inconvenience for him and also for his old Texas buddy, George W. Bush. Lay is the former Enron chairman who built the house of cards.

He is now indicted on eleven criminal counts of securities fraud in the 2001 collapse of his funny-money empire. The scandal was spectacular but lost its front-page glow long ago. Too bad for the President that this had to happen just now, when Bush is desperate for a few "good news" stories.

According to the indictment, Lay harvested $217 million in profit by dumping shares in the company's wildly inflated stock, selling at the top while he continued to lie to investors, employees and everyone else who believed in the miracle energy corporation.

Lay brought his minister with him to federal court, and the preacher invoked "God's blessing" for those who had been hurt. That's a nice touch -- may God look after the millions who were bilked out of billions -- but the gesture also reminds us of the President's holiness rhetoric. Bush looked after Ken Lay and the other corporate moguls on the upside, while they swindled the country on an epic scale. Now this task is assigned to a higher power.

The event should provide refreshing fodder for Democratic oratory at their upcoming convention. The Enron leader did not spend the night in jail, but was released on $500,000 bond (a pittance even though his wealth has diminished greatly). One can already hear Veep candidate John Edwards incorporating these facts in his "two Americas" theme: Some Americans get thrown in the slammer, some Americans get to go home.

The President will probably say this case proves that the wheels of justice are turning properly, but the processes are likely to turn slowly. Ken Lay says he wants an early trial, starting in September, to clear his name. I doubt the federal prosecutors will oblige. That would keep the Enron story on the front pages through the heat of the President's fall campaign.

Above all, Lay's belated indictment reminds one of the limp response of Washington politics--Democrats included--to this historic financial crime. Enron, WorldCom and scores of other busted corporations, aided and abetted by Wall Street's leading bankers, represent the largest, most fraudulent assemblage of corrupted practices since the epic meltdown that followed 1929. Trillions were lost and the economy was deeply wounded, not to mention the families who lost jobs and savings.

The federal establishment responded to all this with alarmed rhetoric but did very little to reform the fundamentals of corporate law or financial regulation. The swamp of insider conflicts of interest and semilegal double-dealing continue in the system, despite some modest changes. Maybe Lay's indictment will put the subject back on the table, but don't count on it. Ken Lay faces trial, but most of his co-conspirators, especially from Wall Street, got away and remain at large, doing new deals and counting their blessings.

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Bill Greider is National Affairs correspondant for The Nation, where this article first appeared.
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