In today’s political climate, the analogy is quite clear: if there were no Osama Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, would G.W. Bush deserve his job?

Might it not be possible that the War on Terrorism serves as an ideal cover-up for a horrendous conspiracy of corruption within and among our most prestigious corporations, our military-industrial complex, and money-grubbing politicians?

C-Span recently featured a Ralph Nader presentation as to how best to deal with the Enron’s, WorldCom’s, Xerox’s et al who choose to rob the public in general. Aside from regulatory reform (which most of Capitol Hill approaches as if they are walking on eggs) Mr. Nader poses a most pointed question/suggested new approach:

Question (rhetorical): “Where were the watchdog resources of AT&T, Sprint, and other telecom competitors as these businesses were astonished by the unprecedented profits being reported by WorldCom?”

WorldCom’s major competitors were certainly in a better position than the public at large, than most of WorldCom’s minor shareholders and most of WorldCom’s own employees, to suspect the financial reports and to suspect that someone was “cooking the books.”

If power is measured in terms of money, can we now presume that it is the “fat cats” who truly control our country?

Have we, without any public knowledge whatever, suddenly evolved from democracy to oligarchy?

Bill Mabe
Suquamish.