ENRON CONVICTIONS: BUSINESS AS USUAL

From ZNet, an essay by my favorite journalist, Greg Palast:

Lay Convicted, Bush Walks

Lay, co-convict Jeff Skilling and Enron did not act alone. They connived with half a dozen other power companies and a dozen investment banks to manipulate both the stock market and the electricity market. And though their co-conspirators have now paid $3 billion to settle civil claims, the executives of these other corporations and banks get a walk on criminal charges.

Furthermore, to protect our President's boardroom buddies from any further discomforts, the Bush Justice Department, just days ago, indicted Milberg, Weiss, the law firm that nailed Enron's finance industry partners-in-crime. The timing of the bust of this, the top corporation-battling law firm, smacks of political prosecution -- and a signal to Big Business that it's business as usual.

Lay and Skilling have to pay up their ill-gotten gains to Enron's stockholders, but what about the $9-plus billion owe electricity consumers? The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Bush's electricity cops, have slapped Enron and its gang of power pirates on the wrist. Could that have something to do with the fact that Ken Lay, in secret chats with Dick Cheney, selected the Commission's chairmen?

Team Bush had to throw the public a bone -- so they threw us Lay and Skilling -- for the crime, note, not of ripping off the public, but ripping off stockholders, the owner class.

This limited conviction, and the announcement of only one more indictment -- of the crime-busters at Milberg-Weiss -- is Team Bush's "all clear!" signal for the sharks to jump back into the power pool.

Click here for the rest.

Great point. But then, that's what I love about Palast; he's able to cut through the bullshit right to an issue's true meaning. And in this case, he does that swimmingly: the Enron prosecution was never really about justice; instead it was about making sure that the corporate class could get back to business as usual. Enron's shareholders were indeed ripped off, and it's good that there are some consequences for that. But remember the rolling blackouts in California a few years back? The ones that Bush said nothing could be done about? Enron was right smack dab in the middle of that one, fixing the electricity market to the tune of billions while energy traders joked about how they were screwing over "Grandma Millie." Like I said, it's nice that Lay and Skilling were nailed and all, but that wasn't good triumphing over evil; it was about assuring the wealthy class that investing is a safe thing to do in the United States. Business as usual. Part of that is that it's just fine to rip off people who aren't part of the investor class. Nobody in power really cares about them. And by "them" I mean me, us, and most people in the country, who, coincidentally, own either no or very little stock.

It is also important to observe that business as usual also means that the cutthroat capitalist conditions and culture that necessarily gave birth to Lay and Skilling's misdeeds still exist. There will definitely be more Enrons in the future. Maybe even right now.

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