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The Quality of Mercy

DATELINE: 5 NOVEMBER, 2001

Transmitted by BILL STEVENS, USA

The Bard wrote that "The quality of mercy is not strainted..." He obviously would have been nonplussed to live in this or the last century. The "New World" was just a twinkle in Sir Walter Raleigh's eye during Shakespeare's era (the afore-mentioned "Bard," for the benefit of people educated after 1970.) So Shakespeare had not idea about America.

For Shakespeare, the notion that we would give numbers to world wars was an unthinkable. Shakespeare could not have imagined a world in which being a refugee was a way of life for the people of many nations. He would have found the tent-cities we relegate them to abhorrent. He was dreaming of a British Empire not yet extant. We live in an American Century tainted by a galloping recession, lots of people jobless worldwide, and bombs dropping like pigeon-quano on the most devastated nation on the planet Earth.

AND HOW ARE THE GUARDIANS OF OUR DEMOCRACY, THE MEMBER OF THE US CONGRESS, SHOWING THEIR TRUE CONCERN DURING THIS TIME OF NATIONAL CRISIS?

In case you missed it in the war and anthrax news, they are perpetrating the largest give-away to the rich among us Americans in over twenty years.

Here's how noted journalist Bill Moyers reported it in a recent speech before the Environmental Grantmakers Association in Brainerd, Minnesota:

"... It didn't take long for the wartime opportunists--the mercenaries of Washington, the lobbyists, lawyers, and political fundraisers--to crawl out of their offices on K Street determined to grab what they can for their clients. While in New York we are still attending memorial services for firemen and police, while everywhere Americans' cheeks are still stained with tears, while the President calls for patriotism, prayers and piety, the predators of Washington are up to their old tricks in the pursuit of private plunder at public expense. In the wake of this awful tragedy wrought by terrorism, they are cashing in.

"Would you like to know the memorial they would offer the almost six thousand people who died in the attacks? Or the legacy they would provide the ten thousand children who lost a parent in the horror? How do they propose to fight the long and costly war on terrorism America must now undertake?

"Why, restore the three-martini lunch--that will surely strike fear in the heart of Osama bin Laden. You think I'm kidding, but bringing back the deductible lunch is one of the proposals on the table in Washington right now. There are members of Congress who believe you should sacrifice in this time of crisis by paying for lobbyists' long lunches. And cut capital gains for the wealthy, naturally, that's America's patriotic duty, too. And while we're at it, don't forget to eliminate the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax, enacted fifteen years ago to prevent corporations from taking so many credits and deductions that they owed little if any taxes. But don't just repeal their minimum tax; give those corporations a refund for all the minimum tax they have ever been assessed. You look incredulous. But that's taking place in Washington even as we meet here in Brainerd this morning. What else can America do to strike at the terrorists? Why, slip in a special tax break for poor General Electric, and slip inside the Environmental Protection Agency while everyone's distracted and torpedo the recent order to clean the Hudson River of PCBs. Don't worry about NBC, CNBC, or MSNBC reporting it; they're all in the GE family.

"It's time for Churchillian courage, we're told. So how would this crowd assure that future generations will look back and say 'This was their finest hour'? That's easy. Give those coal producers freedom to pollute. And shovel generous tax breaks to those giant energy companies; and open the Alaskan wilderness to drilling--that's something to remember the 11th of September for. And while the red, white and blue wave at half-mast over the land of the free and the home of the brave, why, give the President the power to discard democratic debate and the rule-of-law concerning controversial trade agreements, and set up secret tribunals to run roughshod over local communities trying to protect their environment and their health. It's happening as we meet. It's happening right now.

"If I sound a little bitter about this, I am; the President rightly appeals every day for sacrifice. But to these mercenaries sacrifice is for suckers. So I am bitter, yes, and sad. Our business and political class owes us better than this. After all, it was they who declared class war twenty years ago and it was they who won. They're on top. If ever they were going to put patriotism over profits, if ever they were going to practice the magnanimity of winners, this was the moment. To hide now behind the flag while ripping off a country in crisis fatally - fatally! -separates them from the common course of American life.

"Some things just don't change. Once again the Republican Party has lived down to Harry Truman's description of the GOP as guardians of privilege. And as for Truman's Democratic Party--the party of the New Deal and the Fair Deal--well, it breaks my heart to report that the Democratic National Committee has used the terrorist attacks to call for widening the soft money loophole in our election laws. How about that for a patriotic response to terrorism?

"Mencken got it right--the journalist H. L. Mencken, who said that when you hear some men talk about their love of country, it's a sign they expect to be paid for it... "

Reading this detail of what our Congress has planned to help us during this difficult time, when tens of thousands of us have lost our jobs, I was trembling with rage. Though most of the details aren't getting much press, the package Moyers describes is just what our government has sent up for the President's signature. As we worry and fret, distracted by the news of terrorism, the war and a flagging economy, the Fat Cats are -- once again! - despoiling the public coffers and laughing all the way to the bank.

There is nothing right or honorable about what is being done while our backs are metaphorically turned. Not one damned thing.

As Moyers points out later in his lengthy address, now more than ever is the time for we, the people, to show a heightened degree of political courage. We need to speak out against giant give-aways like the one our government claims will be economic stimulus. Exactly who is being stimulated by this give-away and why? How will it benefit you and your family? If ever there was a time to send a e-mail to your elected representatives, now is that time. I'd suggest writing a letter... but... So use your e-mail. Express your mind on this important issue.

If ever there was time when the quality of mercy, for America's average working people needed to be proven, that time is now.

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