In reading this you define yourself as one of the very few Americans who are informed about much of anything at all. Billy Ball and Molly Mall haven’t a clue, and when it comes to anything even the least bit conclacapated, they shut themselves down. This has been the case in what we call the Abramoff Affair which the public (and even I, until lately) saw as nothing more than a couple of rich white guys ripping off the Indians. What’s new?
We all have our excuses as to how this Right-wing crapism came to control not only all branches of government, but our very soul. Some blame talk radio and Fox News, others say it’s the fault of the intellectually disabled Religious Right. Some believe it is the fear of terrorism turning Soccer Moms into Simpering Paranoids. Many think it has been vote suppression realized by the fiascos in Florida/2000 and Ohio/2004. And not to forget perhaps the biggest excuse, a wussified Democrat Party.
All this was put out to pasture with the airing of a recent two hour PBS documentary. All our conjecture has been wrong, the success of the Reactionary Right was dependent upon taking control of the election process by controlling its financing, bribery.
Moyers on America – Capitol Crimes of Jack Abramoff is perhaps the most important political television event since Edward R. Murrow took down Joe McCarthy fifty years ago. The sad part of this well documented program was that if I clicked past it out of boredom, I imagine so did most everyone else, leaving it seen by all of 19 people.
I am reminded of that scene in Clockwork Orange where Alex is strapped to a chair with his eyelids clamped to his forehead and force fed sound and video for a few weeks to help IT sink in. Everyone in America should suffer the same regards this PBS documentry, for if that could be managed, the only thing remaining of the Wingnut Wing of the GOP would be a few horrid footnotes in tomorrow’s history books.
Remember how the Right laughed and the Left cringed when Hillary Clinton made her claim that there was a vast right-wing conspiracy to do her and her husband in? Though both sides knew that was certainly true, the Left realized it would be grist for the conservative talkshow mill painting the First Lady as a delusional paranoid no matter the truth of the matter. And of course it worked for them. It was at that very point in time that the most corrupt political conspiracy in American history began. The players: Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, Tom DeLay and Grover Norquist, with Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed and Michael Scanlon playing bit roles.
The Abramoff Affair in itself is not much of an issue; Jack Abbamoff, Michael Scanlon and Ralph Reed were just a trio of get rich quick lobbyist crooks. The importance was that the investigation into the Indian Casino scam opened up the door on how these Right-wing lunatics took over America and held it for 12 long years.
Unlike Barry Goldwater rallying conservatives in the 1960’s with an intellectual look and book, Ronald Reagan used simplistic sound bites and emotional blather so well that the ideological Right sucked up to it so intensely they drove themselves into a rabid war stance, a war to create an American one party system in perpetuity.
In 1993, three of these little known Reagan activists; Jack Abramoff, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed took to the streets organizing loud angry ideological protests. They were so young, angry and mean they made the peace activists of the late 60’s seem to be on valium. All were also students of the Newt Gringrich school of offensive offense. They whipped up their constituents with rhetoric which they literally screamed from blow horns, microphones and obnoxious signs. Total War Against the Left! Destroy the Marxist Democrats! Taxation is Theft! Take no Prisoners! Liberal Communist Atheists! Run Them Back to Red China! Liberal Democrat Socialists! Destroy Them by Any Means! All as loud and as horribly obnoxious as it gets, brownshirts with red ties.
On the first Tuesday of November 1994 with the Gingrich Revolution becoming reality rather than just a study in bomb throwing, these three young men were catapulted to the top of the ideological heap in Washington. When Gingrich became Speaker his first act was to change the process of seniority chairmanships from time spent and gravitas earned, to a system of his personal appointments of only the most hardcore Right-wing ideologues who would do his bidding without question.
Radical Dick Armey from Texas was Majority leader, and the most extreme Right-wing lunatic in Congress, Tom DeLay became Majority Whip who quickly earned the nickname The Hammer for his ability to pound massive contributions from corporations for conservative causes and canditates. For the sake of brevity, I have to leave Newt and Dick for another day to get to the meat of this matter.
The day the Gingrich Revolution began, Tom DeLay let it be known that if the lobbyists on K Street wanted the ear of the House of Representatives they would have to pay dearly for it. They were required to cease donations to Democrats and to hence forth hire their lobbyists (for six and seven figure salaries) only from DeLay’s approved list of radical conservative friends and allies. They were also expected to funnel millions into DeLay’s long list of conservative non-profits and PACS who were his ideological friends. Tom DeLay took control of corporate money to subsidize their plan for a one party thousand year Reich.
Under the swing of The Hammer, corporations and Right-wing issue groups found their costly and often illegal contributions well spent, for it was also DeLay’s job to schedule votes on all bills in the House. Any bill not fitting into the wrapper of who paid him and his cronies was tabled to never see the light of day. There are instances of this going to such extremes that bills almost unanimously passed by the Senate disappeared in the House.
About the only group who paid their millions in bribes to DeLay and his friends and ended up with doodleysquat were the Indian Casinos. Abramoff, Scanlon and Reed ripped the Indians off for millions (while calling them racist names behind their backs) and splitting the money between themselves and DeLay’s PACS. If it were not for that greed gone so over the top that they were raking in millions in personal profit while doing just the opposite for the Casinos as they said they would, we would not know any of this. Tom DeLay would still be Majority Leader and they would still own America. The Wounded Knee of the GOP.
One name is pretty much missing in all this, but I have saved the worst for last. Grover Norquist can often be seen as a talking head on television talk shows. Always promoting the elimination of the IRS and all forms of progressive taxation, removing the cost of government from the wealthy and placing it on the middle class who pays it, and the lower class who suffer less help and benefits. It is Norquist, who every Wednesday morning in Washington since the Gingrich Revolution began, sat at the head of a long table filled with a rotating gang of the heaviest right-wing hitters in America, planning and implementing this entire scam to usurp the democratic process through election and legislative bribery.
Abramoff and Scanlon pleaded guilty and are on their way to jail. With this all hitting the fan in the middle of Ralph Reed’s primary bid for Lieutenant Governor of Georgia, it not only cost him that election, but his Christian hypocrisy destroyed his credibility to the extent he has been put out to pasture. Tom DeLay lost his job as Majority Leader, was then kicked out of Congress and is now facing felony charges in Texas and in Washington. Both of these guys have a special place in Hell reserved for putting their disgusting crap on the back of Jesus Christ no less.
The kicker is that the man who organized and implemented the plan, who kept it all going with his weekly meetings with conservative PACS and think tanks to squeeze all of corporate America into the fold, is still standing. Grover needs the lid of that garbage can he lives in to come crashing down on his head, and a large rock put on top so he never gets out of all the stink he created.