Paranoid conspiracy theories
Oct. 18th, 2002 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plutherusSo I read in the Chronicle yesterday that Timothy Belden has become the third Enron executive to plea guilty to money laundering, fraud, and conspiracy for his part in the artificially engineered California energy "crisis". It has been proven in court that Enron, along with others, deliberately lowered supplies in order to grossly inflate prices, and intentionally caused the "rolling blackouts" so people would pay them, despite the fact that they were perfectly capable of generating much more energy than they were. Last year, during the crisis, when the signs were all there that that's what was happening, I pointed it out and was told I was a paranoid conspiracy theorist. Despite proof after proof that this sort of thing goes on, nobody believes that anyone is doing it *now*. "Well, yeah, the CIA was caught selling drugs a few times, but each time they apologized, fired a couple of agents, and promised not to do it again. You're just over the edge if you think they might be doing it *now*." "Well, sure the people currently running the federal government were caught selling weapons to Iran in a deal to free the hostages and using the proceeds from the sales to illegally fund the Contras after Congress forbade it, last time they were in charge, but surely you don't believe these *exact same people* would be doing anything illegal *now*." After all, Ollie North took all the blame, and Bush The First pardoned most of the people involved in order to shut down the investigations. Ugh.
Note that the three Enron convictions above are unrelated to the ongoing investigations into their crooked bookkeeping. No, this was just them ripping off the people of California. That's forgivable. But they also ripped off several millionaire investors by faking their profit statements. *That's* what they're going down for. (Oh, yeah, and screwed over all their employees by bilking them out of their retirement by freezing their accounts so that the top people would have a higher value for their stock when they cashed out). Cheney, of course, is still hiding all his records of involvement, and the White House has threatened to arrest the people trying to serve him with subpoenas, but I'm sure that's not an indication of any wrongdoing, I'm sure that there's a valid national security reason for that.
Related to that, Arthur Anderson was found guilty of fraud costing us (taxpayers) several billions of dollars, and was fined $500,000 for it. $500,000? What the hell is that? That's 1/20,000 of the amount of money they made last year. That would be like fining me $4.00. To tell you the truth, if I was found to be doing something illegal and fined $4.00 for it, I don't think it would shock me enough to completely change my processes. But then, I don't have the Vice President as my spokesman!
$500,000! I spent that much on software licenses *last week*.
Oh, yeah, and speaking of conspiracies, how's this: Bush, in a completely unprecedented, but not unexpected, move, informed California that he will use the federal government's power to regulate interstate trade to fight against our emissions laws that he thinks are too strict. By the way, a coalition of American auto manufacturers gave him $2.2 million dollars for his campaign. But I'm sure there's no relation between these two events. To say otherwise would just be a paranoid conspiracy theory.
Note that the three Enron convictions above are unrelated to the ongoing investigations into their crooked bookkeeping. No, this was just them ripping off the people of California. That's forgivable. But they also ripped off several millionaire investors by faking their profit statements. *That's* what they're going down for. (Oh, yeah, and screwed over all their employees by bilking them out of their retirement by freezing their accounts so that the top people would have a higher value for their stock when they cashed out). Cheney, of course, is still hiding all his records of involvement, and the White House has threatened to arrest the people trying to serve him with subpoenas, but I'm sure that's not an indication of any wrongdoing, I'm sure that there's a valid national security reason for that.
Related to that, Arthur Anderson was found guilty of fraud costing us (taxpayers) several billions of dollars, and was fined $500,000 for it. $500,000? What the hell is that? That's 1/20,000 of the amount of money they made last year. That would be like fining me $4.00. To tell you the truth, if I was found to be doing something illegal and fined $4.00 for it, I don't think it would shock me enough to completely change my processes. But then, I don't have the Vice President as my spokesman!
$500,000! I spent that much on software licenses *last week*.
Oh, yeah, and speaking of conspiracies, how's this: Bush, in a completely unprecedented, but not unexpected, move, informed California that he will use the federal government's power to regulate interstate trade to fight against our emissions laws that he thinks are too strict. By the way, a coalition of American auto manufacturers gave him $2.2 million dollars for his campaign. But I'm sure there's no relation between these two events. To say otherwise would just be a paranoid conspiracy theory.
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Amazing how it is only Paranoia
Date: 2002-10-18 07:21 pm (UTC)I find it amazing how many people support Tibet (with which I agree) but are unconcerned with our programs aimed at the Native American.
We can look good, without endangering the status quo by protesting Tibet, but to protest Serbia, Native Americans, Iraq, the Drug War, the War on Terrorism, etc etc -- things which we are responsible for because it is our government doing it, these are "too political" or "Conspiracy Theory". My personal favorite was being labeled anti-US government, it isn't like I want to be anti-US government, I would love to be able to take pride in my representatives and this nation.
Anyway...