by Thomas Hart

G21 Muckraker

Austin, Republic of Texas - I've been a Sanitation Engineer, that is trashmonger, a long durn time now but I never thought I'd see the day when the talk of the trailer park would be Wall Street CEOs. And not just the trailer park either, ya'll. Even The Shrub is sayin' it's time to get tough on these robber baron swindlers (forgetting for a moment, I guess, that he used to be one of them.)

I think it's gonnah be a cold day in Hell before you hear any more Republicans bragging that George Dubya runs the White House like a corporation again. Heh!

That's all well and good -- until we look at the record. And you don't have to just take ole Tom's word for this. It's historical FACT. Here's what celebrity columnist Arianna Huffington had to say about the historical record recently:

"In the last ten years, the Securities and Exchange Commission -- which, despite being the government's top corporate watchdog, doesn't have the authority to toss even the worst Wall Street cheaters in jail -- turned 609 of its most offensive offenders over to the Justice Department for potential criminal prosecution. Of those, only 187 ended up facing criminal charges. And of those, only 87 went to jail. Eighty-seven. In 10 years. And most white-collar criminals land in one of those ritzy country club prisons, where inmates play tennis and make collect calls to their brokers all day.

"So despite the PR value of pumping up maximum sentences for corporate crimes, it's not going to make much of a dent in boardroom thievery since so few of the perpetrators will ever face criminal prosecution. For a corrupt corporate chieftain crunching the numbers, the odds will still justify the crime. Doubling the penalties for those convicted of crimes that are so rarely prosecuted is not serious reform..."

All I can say is, "Hell's bells, Arianna, nobody in this country with half a brain thought it would be! Politicians ain't about any danged reforms, they's about headlines for this upcoming midterm election. " Any gossip maven worth his or her danged salt can tell ya' that Enron, WorldCom, AOL Time Warner, Halliburton and Martha Stewart are just givin' these politico crooks a chance for soundbites and headlines during a long hot summer when most folks wouldn't even be watching the news if it weren't so guldurn full of corporate dirt.

Let's face it, down here in BubbaLandd we are havin' one gut-bustin' good time watching ole Swankier-than-Thou Yankee goddess Martha Stewart a-sweatin' and a-skirmin' about gettin' her hand caught in the Wall Street cookie jar. We're lovin' it! It's about time that snooty witch got her comeuppance.

Here in the trailer park, the runnin' joke is about jail babes all over the country takin' odds on which prisoner in which prison will be sayin', "Come over here, Martha! You're my bitch now!"

But let's cut to the chase.

We all also know that George W. Bush's "corporate crimes SWAT team" is nothing but a bunch of election year window-dressing. We got folks down here in Huntsville prison, arrested while The Shrub was our danged governor, who'll do more jail time for one marijuana seed than any fat-cat CEO will do for stealing millions of dollars from the widows and orphans of America. You can take that to the bank -- as long as it's not one of them Wall Street investment banks, that is.

How is George W. Bush, or any of them millionaire Senators we got sittin' up in Washingtoon, gonnah show the cajones to really punish their own kind, the people who paid to put them in office? They ain't. WE ALL KNOW THIS!

Here's a few facts for you, my fellow Sanitation Engineers:

1. FACT: Annual budget of the Drug Enforcement Administration: $1.8 billion. Annual budget of the Securities & Exchange Commission(SEC): $513 million. (That's including the extra $100 mill' The Shrub so proudly pronouned he'd be givin' em to catch corporate swindlers.)
   
   
2. FACT: As Arianna points out, the SEC doesn't have the manpower to actually prosecute these Wall Street swindlers, it has to turn the cases over to the Justice Department. We're talking the Justice Department run by our ole pal John Ashcroft.

   Let me put it this way, before The Shrub appointed him Attorney General of this great land of our'n, HE LOST AN ELECTION TO A DEAD MAN! The people of Ashcroft's own state had the choice between Johnnie Boy and A DEAD MAN and they chose the dead man. Shouldn't that tell you something, Sanitation Engineers?
   
   

3. FACT: When the government last went after corporate crooks (remember "junk bond king" Michael Milken) back in the late 1980s, the average jail term served by the mere handful who actually got prosecuted was 36 months or less. And it wasn't hard time, ya'll, it was in minimum security prisons. Minimum security prisons is what some of us would consider about one rung above your average Motel 6.

We all know for a fact, that there is NO WAY an alleged corporate swindler like Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney, the puppet-master, is going to do any hard time, whether Halliburton did rook its investors during his watch or not.

We all know that no matter how many workers lose their jobs (over 50,000 at last count) because of these CEO, robber baron chiselers; no matter how many billions of dollars our economy has to eat (over $4 trillion in lost shareholder investments at last count); no matter how much red ink flows ----- WE ALL KNOW only a handful of sacrificial lambs will ever see the other side of stone walls and iron bars.

Rich people will not stand for it. They protect their own no matter how many little guy working folks have to suffer. Period.

As is the rule up their in Washingtoon, our nation's capital, none of the politicians are concerned one whit with what we all know. They know that they don't have to be. None of us down here in the trailer park has ever contributed tens of thousands of dollars of soft money into their re-election campaigns, none of us has the doughnuts -- let alone dollars -- to get to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom. So, the politicos know, that's why no matter how outraged we might be right now, from Houston to Atlanta, about lost jobs and such-like, we'll just take it in the chin, or the ass, again. We have to. Money talks. In the case of these corporate thieves, lots of shareholders money walked, too, from their life savings into some smiling corporate weasel's pockets.

Most of these weasels know that, like Michael Milken, they may have to pay a fine or do a little easy time for getting caught raiding the hen house. But they also know that most of their vast fortunes will still be intact when they get out of the slam with a great new tan, rested and ready to start a phianthropic foundation to show they have reformed. In five years, like Charles Keating of the Saving & Loans reaming, nobody much will remember they ever did anything wrong --- let alone exactly what it was they did. Their kids will still be able to afford attending Yale and Harvard, just like before, on the money they stole from people who believed it when their investment bankers told them to "Trust the Markets."

And the people now claiming that they're going to get tough with corporate criminals will be back sitting in the plush chairs of the Senate and House of the United States, re-elected with the blood money these weasels gave them to finance their campaigns. There will be new dirt for us to talk about and all will once again be right with the world.

THEY ALL KNOW THIS.

REMEMBER: It will take more than a few tornadoes to blow away all the trailer trash...

QUESTIONS? COMMENTS? E-mail Tom down in the trailer park. Go ahead!

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