Politicians: Corporate Courtesans

By Deanna Spingola
May 31, 2008

 

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 George W. Bush has done to America what he did to Texas! Bush is another politician on a serial list of corporate courtesans. Clinton preceded him. Who will follow him?

 

Bush announced his candidacy for the Texas governorship on November 8, 1993 with a campaign based on self-reliance and personal responsibility rather than dependence on government. [1] (Bush: 1993 financial statements).

 

With Karl Rove’s genius (compassionate conservatism, religious-rhetoric, strategized staging) and huge corporate contributions (no campaign limits in Texas), Bush was elected Texas’ first Republican governor (January 17, 1995 to December 21, 2000) since Reconstruction. [2] Campaign wizardry diverted voter-focus to moral issues (not the government’s business). Bush said he was “humbled and honored” that so many people responded to his message. [3]

 

Ken Lay and Enron attorney, Joe B. Allen, were Bush’s “top fund- raisers” and would be Bush’s “top corporate contributors” in 2000. [4] Thomas Hicks, of HM Capital Partners LLC, had donated $146,000 to Bush’s gubernatorial campaigns. Richard Rainwater had donated $100,000. [5] Hicks paid lobbyists ($50,000 to $110,000) to enact legislation to create the University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO), a Public-Private Partnership, privatizing the university’s abundant financial assets of $13 billion. Hicks was already on the Board of Regents due to his contributions to Governor Ann Richards. Hicks gave Bush a belated $25,000 [6] for which Governor Bush appointed him the UTIMCO chairman. [7] Other board members had contributed between $7,000 and $141,000. [8]

 

Under Hicks’ direction and without public oversight, $525 million was invested into crony corporations including: [9]

Carlyle Group, Maverick Capital Fund ($210,273 to Bush's gubernatorial campaigns), Bass Brothers Enterprises ($215,000 to Bush, financed Harken Oil's Bahrain venture), Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (joined Hicks in a $1.5 billion takeover of Regal Cinemas), Evercore Partners (joined Hicks in a $900 million buyout of television stations), American Securities Partners (received UTIMCO funds several months after selling 11 radio stations to Hicks). [10] [11]

 

Carlyle Partners II, the defense contractor’s fund, got $10 million. Bush worked for Caterair, a Carlyle subsidiary, the year before. George H. W. Bush was also associated with Carlyle. [12] Hicks undoubtedly received sufficient management fees through these “investments” for his 1998 purchase of the Texas Rangers for $250 million. [13] [14] All assets, public or private, are vulnerable to politically-facilitated transfers into corporate coffers. President Bush has repeatedly attempted to privatize Social Security. See this site for additional corroboration on Bush’s value system.

 

In 1997, Bush signed legislation authorizing Texas cities to “impose new taxes to finance sports facilities.” Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk and City Manager John Ware promoted this tax bill which cost voters $230 million for a new upscale arena for the Hicks-owned Mavericks and the Dallas Stars. Richard Rainwater (Crescent Realty) had a stake in the Dallas Stars, principally owned by Ross Perot Jr. Afterwards, City Manager Ware went to work for Hicks. Mayor Kirk's wife owned $500,000 in stock options in a Hicks company. [15] Within six months, the Bush political fund received: “$37,000 from Hicks, $11,000 from Rainwater’s Crescent Realty and $5,000 from Ross Perot Jr.” Hicks and Perot developed hotels, stores, restaurants, and office space on the fifty acres adjacent the arena. [16]

 

In addition to “funneling” UTIMCO money to cronies, the Texas' Teacher Retirement System (TRS) which manages the pension fund (over $100 billion) for the state's 800,000 public school teachers was also targeted for Bush cronies. [17] On September 5, 1995, Bush appointed Ronald G. Steinhart of Dallas as the presiding officer of TRS. [18] Without any public bids on two of the sales, the Fund sold two office buildings and a mortgage on a third to Rainwater’s Crescent Real Estate Equities Company (created 1994) in 1996 and 1997 at a $70.4 million loss. “At the time of at least one of the sales, Bush owned about $100,000 worth of Crescent stock.” [19] Harvard Management Company, a Harken investor, also benefited from bargain real estate from the Texas Teachers Retirement System. [20]

 

Bush’s 1998 gubernatorial re-election fundraising efforts set a record – $25 million. [21] He was the first Texas governor to win consecutive four-year terms. Corporate contributors depended on Bush to protect and even lie under oath for them. “By the end of 1999, the Bush campaign had raised $69 million, which exceeds the total amount raised by both Clinton and Dole (not counting Federal matching funds) combined for the entire 1996 presidential race.” [22]

 

The Texas Chemical Council (TCC) and it members contributed $2.2 million in the Texas elections of 1996 and 1998. More than $1 million went to members of the Texas legislature. Governor Bush received the most TCC-affiliated money ($115,871). The Senate Natural Resources Committee Chairman got $24,900. TCC members paid $8.7 million to 222 lobbyists just in 1999. DuPont (released more than 40 million pounds of toxins in Texas water, land and air) paid 21 lobbyists up to $1.2 million. According to the EPA, the TCC trade group released 187 million pounds of toxic wastes into the Texas environment in 1996. [23] Despite their claims, power-seeking politicians don’t care about the environment.

 

That’s how the socially-incestuous, tit-for-tat, ruling-class elite obtain power, exploit public funds and confiscate land, money, guns and children. Corporate cronyism allotted Bush, the “Crown Prince of Privatization,”[24] “the largest presidential war chest in American history (at least $117 million) for 2000, due to bundling, a tactic for circumventing federal election campaign limits. [25] This was in addition to what each of the parties raised.

 

A breakdown for 2000 for Bush contributors: Drug Companies: $10,074,000; Real Estate: $3,661,372; Construction: $3,472,821; Agribusiness: $2,148,624; Gas and Oil: $1,463,799 and Automotive: $1,019,581 for a total of $21,840,197. [26] Contributions for 2004: Agribusiness $3,937,700; Defense Sector: $654,988; Energy: $3,938,588; Construction: $7,305,421; Real Estate: $28,169,889; Health Care: $8,527,909; and Transportation $4,045,459. [27] Bush collected well over $374 million, $194 million from individuals for 2004. [28] Consider how these industries have benefited – especially construction in New Orleans, Iraq and Afghanistan. “The presidential candidate who raises the most money the year before the election gets the nomination every time since 1996.” [29] If that is true, then Obama will get the Democratic nomination (Obama $264,492,301, Clinton $193,492,741). [30] Panamanian-born McCain will receive the Republican nomination while the media suppresses eligible candidates. Bush didn’t steal the election in 2000 and 2004. His corporate cronies stole it from the American people, with compliance from Gore and Kerry. [31]

 

Lose the idea that “elected” officials serve the public interests. Most politicians are corporate courtesans. Voters determine nothing, corporate checkbooks dictate. George Washington said “Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.” View another example of how corporations buy political influence.

 

Through the largest corporation-benefiting tax cuts in Texas history, Governor Bush emasculated essential government services and effectiveness by reducing revenue by about $2.6 billion, perhaps a trial run for the country – intentionally depriving the government of operating funds. [32] Bush promised a $484 billion tax cut in his run for the presidency, how deceptively appealing to overburdened taxpayers. [33]

 

Corporations gain huge benefits through Trade Agreements, building blocks to world government, the ultimate goal – a world government and a world currency. Because of aggressive deregulation policies perpetrated during Reagan’s CFR-filled administration, agribusiness metastasized. At the 1983 Economic Summit in Williamsburg, Virginia, President Ronald Reagan said: “National economies need monetary coordination mechanisms, and that is why an integrated world economy needs a common monetary standard … but no national currency will do – only a world currency will work.” [34]

 

Zbigniew Brzezinski (CFR, Trilateral Commission) said … “some international cooperation has already been achieved but further progress will require greater American sacrifices. More intensive efforts to shape a new world monetary structure will have to be undertaken, with some consequent risk to the present relatively favorable position.” [35]

 

Despite massive objections against Trade Agreements, politicians cater to corporations. George H. W. Bush (CFR and Trilateral Commission) and his son, George, promoted the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), approved under corporate-owned Clinton. It took effect on January 1, 1994. This plan would predictably “weaken American and Canadian environmental laws and further exacerbate the wretched conditions in Mexico” where the peso crashed while toxicity soared. [36]

 

House votes against NAFTA would have “killed the trade pact.” Gore’s “team” approached Republican, Newt Gingrich, and “elicited a promise” that he would “produce” 132 votes for NAFTA. Congressional bribery just for NAFTA, known as “pork barrel promises” cost the American taxpayers $50 billion. NAFTA passed but cost the Democrats control of the House and Senate in 1994. By 1997, U.S. job losses amounted to about 394,835, mostly women, Blacks and Hispanics. The figure increased to 600,000 by January 1, 1999. Wages in Mexico sank by 29 percent. [37]

 

Clinton and Gore engaged in orchestrated opposition to manage global objectives. At the 1997 AFL-CIO Pittsburgh Convention, Clinton was pro-NAFTA, while Gore feigned an anti-NAFTA stance. This charade won the AFL-CIO’s endorsement of Gore for 2000. [38] After NAFTA, Clinton and Gore “pushed through” 200 additional trade agreements. The World Trade Organization (WTO) replaced the unenforceable treaty – General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) on January 1, 1995. The Geneva-based WTO was “created as a policeman, a global free trade enforcer.” The Cargill Corporation, Rockefeller cronies, was behind many of its policies. The WTO functions as a “battering ram for the trillion dollar annual world agribusiness companies.” It is above the law, un-accountable to any nation, and has financial levying power against “member countries in violation of their rules.” [39] The WTO opened the world to corporate predators and further “undermined environmental, labor and human rights.” [40] For an excellent exposé on agribusiness and the WTO, read this review of Seeds of Destruction.  Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is also a good read.

 

Mexico, now a slave-wage corporate slum-burb from which desperate citizens attempt to escape is a direct result of NAFTA. Meanwhile, jobless, middle-class Americans struggle to stave-off foreclosure. The successor of NAFTA, the North American Union, is the deliberate default of unmitigated immigration. Like America, Mexico’s small farmers (2 million) have been displaced and “28,000 small and medium-sized Mexican businesses have been eliminated” due to cheaper Chinese imports. Too many Mexican workers and a government policy of union-crushing have facilitated the “American-owned ‘maquiladora’ sweatshops along the border where wages typically run 60 cents to $1 an hour.” [41]

 

On April 21, 2001, at the Summit of the Americas (negotiations for the FTAA), George W. Bush stated that his Administration was “committed to concluding FTAA negotiations by January 2005. Additionally, Bush sought to obtain, from Congress, Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), “to enable his Administration to negotiate trade agreements more easily,” without oversight. [42]

 

Due to a congressional sell-out, the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), to include six countries not covered by NAFTA, passed the House on July 28, 2005 despite great opposition, completing another step in the integration of the hemisphere. Legions of lobbyists spent millions. Bush is still pushing trade agreements and currently cajoling Congress to pass trade deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama. The FTA with South Korea would be “the biggest since NAFTA.” [43] The U.S. is also negotiating a FTA with India. [44] FTAs transfers wealth and power to unaccountable multinational corporations.

 

In 2000, U.S. corporate welfare subsidies to the corn sector totaled $10.1 billion, mostly Monsanto GM Franken-food. Under NAFTA, just one of the questionable, lethally allergenic U.S. food imports includes carmine/cochineal (Mexico, red pigment from the crushed female cochineal insect), a non-essential food additive also found in beauty products and medicines. It may induce Anaphylaxis which may lead to Anaphylactic Shock, often leaving lucky survivors unaware of the actual culprit. Trade agreements co-opt FDA regulations and corporate moguls are rarely prosecuted.

 

“Three million manufacturing jobs have been lost, replaced by lower-wage service-sector jobs, while U.S. median wages are stuck near 1970s levels.” [45] Overall, the U.S. trade deficit grew from $9 billion in 1993 to almost $90 billion in 2003 and now stands at about $1 trillion per year. The income gap in Mexico, Canada and the U.S. has widened and full-time employment has decreased. [46]

 

It is deliberate! Richard Gardner, former Carter adviser and current CFR president said “In short, the house of world order will have to be built from the bottom up … an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault.” [47] Incrementally, through trade agreements, nations will integrate regionally under new governance for the regulation of taxes, travel, working conditions, environmental policies, security and wages. When objections cease, media-mesmerized citizens will accept regional government, then global government will be imposed. [48]

 

Candidates won’t address core issues. The media is corporate, not liberal or conservative. The Fairness Doctrine was rescinded in 1987 silencing dissenting voices and diversity. Equal time and objectivity were quashed. The media, once the people’s airways, is a Public-Private Partnership. Corporations determine “favorite” candidates and what “news” to report. Read more about media here.

 

The FCC relaxed media-ownership regulations, even beyond the 1996 Telecommunications Act, to allow Clear Channel to become the largest radio station owner in the United States. [49] Then on August 15, 2000, Bush’s crony, Thomas Hicks, owner of AMFM, Inc. received FCC approval to merge with Clear Channel Communications, [50] despite an anti-trust lawsuit.[51] The merger culminated in 2000. AMFM Operating Inc. is now a subsidiary of Clear Channel. The deal was valued at $56 billion. [52] Thomas Hicks, a substantial stockholder in Clear Channel[53], became it’s vice chair. Clear Channel's chairman, Lowry Mays, was on the UTIMCO board. [54]

 

Clear Channel owns, operates, programs, or sells time airtime for nearly 1,200 U.S. radio stations. They have equity interests in more than 240 radio stations in 32 other nations, 425,000 outdoor displays in 35 domestic markets and 29 international locales for a total of 910,000 billboard locations worldwide, owns or manages about 50 television stations and sells spot advertising for more than 3,300 radio and TV stations through Katz Media, a subsidiary. [55]

 

In March 2003, Clear Channel affiliates “throughout the United States organized pro-war rallies, under the name of Rally for America, to coincide with the Bush administration's launch of war with Iraq.” [56]

 

Daily, consumers are bombarded by enthusiastic, well-paid shills and actors advocating toys, clothes, cars, foods, beverages, electronics and other ego-appealing commodities. You will know what to request if your doctor fails to prescribe an advertised drug. If the subtly-mentioned side affects don’t kill you, you might eventually even feel better, with or without said medication. One thing is for sure, corporate profits are more than sufficient to pay for the high advertising costs.

 

Please watch this 1.5 minute video – it says it all.

 


 

[1] Notes on a Native Son: The George W. Bush Story A heartwarming tale about baseball, $1.7 billion, and a lot of swell friends By Joe Conason, Harper's Magazine, February 2000

[2] Karl Rove, the Architect, Frontline, an interview of Wayne Slater, author of Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential

[3] George W. Bush, Corporate Candidate, How Money Grows on the "Shrub" by Andrew Wheat, March 2000

[4] The Company Presidency; Enron and the Bush family have boosted each other up the ladder of success. But have their ties created a Teapot Dome? From: The Los Angeles Times; Los Angeles, Calif.; Feb 10, 2002; Kevin Phillips

[5] Right on the Money: The George W. Bush Profile, The Buying of the President 2000, Part 2 of 3

[6] The Iron Triangle: Inside the Secret World of the Carlyle Group by Dan Briody, 2003, pg. 128-135

[8] George W. Bush, Corporate Candidate, How Money Grows on the "Shrub" by Andrew Wheat, March 2000

[10] George W. Bush, Corporate Candidate, How Money Grows on the "Shrub" by Andrew Wheat, March 2000

[12] The Iron Triangle: Inside the Secret World of the Carlyle Group by Dan Briody, 2003, pg. 128-135

[14] Forbes, The Business Of Baseball, #16 Texas Rangers, April 16, 2008

[15] George W. Bush, Corporate Candidate, How Money Grows on the "Shrub" by Andrew Wheat, March 2000

[16] Sounds like Smirko and UTIMCO, Florida connects to Texas corruption through the Family Bush

[19] Right on the Money: The George W. Bush Profile, The Buying of the President 2000, Part 2 of 3

[22] George W. Bush, Corporate Candidate, How Money Grows on the "Shrub" by Andrew Wheat, March 2000

[28] George W Bush, United States Presidency, Political Campaign Contributions, Campaign Finance Information, '04 Election Cycle

[29] The Buying of the President 2004: Who’s Really Bankrolling Bush & His Democratic Challengers And What They Expect In Return, January 9, 2004

[34] As quoted by G. Edward Griffin, The Creature From Jekyll Island, 2002, American Media, pgs. 110-122

[35] Ibid

[36] Al Gore: A User’s Manual by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Verso 2000, pgs. 160-171

[37] Ibid

[38] Ibid

[39] Seeds of Destruction, the Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation by F. William Engdahl, Global Research, Center for Research on Globalization, 2007,  Chapter 11, pgs. 216-247

[40] Al Gore: A User’s Manual by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Verso, 2000, pgs. 160-171

[41] Immigration Flood Unleashed by NAFTA's Disastrous Impact on Mexican Economy

by Roger Bybee and Carolyn Winter, April 25, 2006, Common Dreams

[46] Global Exchange, The Security and Prosperity Partnership, Fourth Summit: April 21st and 22nd, 2008

[47] As quoted by G. Edward Griffin, The Creature From Jekyll Island, 2002, American Media, pgs. 110-122 “The Hard Road to World Order” by Richard Gardner, Foreign Affairs, April, 1974, p. 558 

[48] As quoted by G. Edward Griffin, The Creature From Jekyll Island, 2002, American Media, pgs. 110-122

[49] One Thing is Crystal Clear: Clear Channel is a Subsidiary of Bush, Inc., April 18, 2003

 

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