Unstoppable (19 page)

Seventh
, a popular rationalization for thinking twice was brought to my attention by Fred Smith, the long-standing libertarian head of the Center for a Competitive Enterprise. “Ralph,” he said, “it isn't that we don't agree on the goals—health, safety, economic well-being and so on. It is that we disagree on the means
of getting there.” He said this in the context of our conversation as to why more convergence does not happen between LC groups in Washington, DC. Fred may be correct as far as he goes. But he may be thinking twice, since he is ignoring partial opportunities that cannot be so easily dismissed by referring to the means-ends conflict. So there is disagreement about means to ends. Well, what about, as a start, agreeing on procedures, such as insisting on due process; disclosure of government information; ending the Fast Track, no-amendment procedure for ramming trade agreements through Congress; or ending the frequent e-mail–sufficient notice for filibustering in the Senate? Senator Mitch McConnell sends an email to Senate Majority Leader Democrat Harry Reid indicating there may be “extended debate.” To Reid, that means if he doesn't have sixty votes, McConnell blocks any bill going to the Senate floor for a vote.

As for the means/ends problem, what are we to make of this counterintuitive recognition by Arthur Brooks, president of the right-wing, neocon, corporatist American Enterprise Institute (AEI), writing in the
Washington Post
in 2011? Following a predictable screed about limited government and the “fairness” nonsense, he delivered these concise words:

There is certainly a role for government in this system. Private markets can fail due to monopolies (which eliminate competition), externalities (such as pollution), the need for public goods (such as education, which is indispensable in an opportunity society), corruption and crime. Furthermore, most economists agree that some social safety net is appropriate in a civilized society. When the government focuses on these things, it assists the free enterprise system.
³

No doubt on his last point, but Mr. Brooks does leave open the possibility of disagreement over what government means are best to work toward the goals he espouses for a “civilized society.”
However, as for thinking twice, neither he nor the AEI—a large organization—has backed government antitrusters, environmental enforcers, crackdowns on corporate crimes, or the public Social Security and Medicare safety nets, which he seems to allude to in his article. Overwhelmingly, his active sensibilities have reflected piles of AEI reports demanding deregulation, the privatizing of government safety nets, and going along with big military budgets as well as tolerating endemic business fraud in Medicare, Medicaid, and other areas.

Thinking twice may also explain the actions of William Bennett, author of the big best seller
The Book of Virtues
, for a time the very definer and popular exponent of conservative values. In the nineties he was regaled by all in conservative circles, paid handsomely for lectures by many, and challenged for his orthodoxy by none. The man wrote
the
book on American cultural virtues: history, homestead, business, and religious foundations. I called him one day, having made his acquaintance earlier through his famous Washington corporate lawyer brother, Bob, who once jokingly accused me of sending him so many defendants that he paid his childrens' college tuition with the fees he collected. “Bill,” I asked, “would you agree that corporate power is on a collision course with conservative principles?” Without hesitation, he replied, “Yes.”

Since that exchange years ago, I kept wondering why he did not take the next steps. Why has he not led the way, defending his revered life philosophy and those who share it from damage, diminishment, and contamination by the omnipresent forces of commercialism and immoral manipulative marketing to adults and their children? A few sporadic appearances against commercial exploitation of children are not enough, given his stature and media recognition. There are reasons for thinking twice that are unfathomable. The Bill Bennett puzzle is one of them. I'll leave it at that!

Eighth
, some conservative leaders think twice because of a larger disagreement with the other side that spills over into a reluctance
to converge where they do agree unequivocally. In an e-mail to me, Ed Crane, the head of the Cato Institute, said it crisply:

I'm anti-corporatist but anti-statist first. You have it the other way around. Almost all the dishonesty and damage put forward by corporations is facilitated, indeed made possible, by the state. . . .

The Great Recession is primarily the fault of national planners who wanted to make every American a homeowner. The Community Reinvestment Act, Freddie, Fannie, HUD, easy Fed money and trillions of dollars of mal-investment caused by the government created this mess, Ralph. It's not the corporations, it's the government.

We oppose all corporate subsidies. . . . So we also agree on unconstitutional wars, the Patriot Act, and the Fed run amuck. . . . Finally, I prefer the First Amendment to having the government control advertising to kids, adults or pets.

As a matter of fact, I think the alliance you are seeking is not between free market conservatives/libertarians and progressives, but between populist conservatives and progressives. There is a lot in common.
⁴

Credit Ed Crane for putting a lot of judgments in a few short sentences. Clearly, we have chicken or egg differences about whether it is government or organized business that is largely the prime initiating culprit. Even so, it might be worthwhile to say a little more about the validity of his arguments.

On many planes the government is a corporate government. At or around the helms of the most powerful departments and agencies reign high officials right out of the business establishment or very close to it. Think of the Treasury Department, the Department of Defense, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of the Interior as evidence. Huge business lobbies know the government is the many-splendored provider of corporate welfare and enormous
tax escapes, while showing a willingness to adopt weak, under-funded regulations and offering huge contracts. The corporations are the seekers. Is it permissible to conclude that it's mostly corporatism, not the state, that is responsible for the big-ticket items? Even concerning unconstitutional wars, would the White House have invaded Iraq if the defense and related industries seriously objected as corporate citizens, instead of funding neocons and silently smacking their lips? Corporations have their own ideological imperatives; governments, such as ours, are not of themselves very ideologically driven. Nevertheless, neither the government, which is full of corporate executives on leave in government positions, nor its elected members, who take campaign cash from corporate PACs, are innocent. They know very well what agenda they're driving. Still, if Mr. Crane says that once the honeypot is spotted or the gold rush begins, then the state provides the goodies, he is right. But we can ask from our side: Who started the merry-go-round, spotted the honeypot, and led the prospectors?

As for his reference to Freddie and Fannie, true, these were started by the federal government, but with the hearty and politically hefty approval of the home builders and realtors. Then, years later, they were privatized with public shareholders on the New York Stock Exchange and ended by developing a legendary lobbying muscle over Congress, possessed of all the usual indicia of big companies: stock options, high executive pay based on cooking the books, and every customary behavior and incentive known to Wall Street, right down to powerless investors. Where else could the giant Wall Street banks, that fostered by far most of the risky debt, find such congenial and compatible fall guys for their toxic paper during the subprime mortgage mania? Sure, Fannie and Freddie had an implied backup by the federal government. But so did the Wall Street banks, as we found out in 2008–2009.

Very little is done in Washington, including formulating many but not all the regulations that affect corporations, that is not
rewarding to or watered down by Big Business and its lobbyists, many of whom come from congressional or executive branch positions to cash in their know-how and know-who. Obviously, the moment taxpayer debt became an endless magnet for exploitation while the bankers' Federal Reserve was printing money and, now, lending massive sums to the major banks for near zero interest, it could be said that Wall Street had corrupted Washington, making it the possessor of a deficit-driving accounts receivable fund as well as being a last-resort bailout servant. Can anyone think the state started this dynamic? Business tied to greed and power misbehaved long before Big Government started, all the way back to the time when the principal activity and personnel of the federal government were centered on delivering the mail. By the way, the mail service was another early and productive subsidy to business.

In bringing up unconstitutional wars, the PATRIOT Act, and the Fed, in bringing these up, Mr. Crane is iterating a long-standing area of concurrence between Left and Right, but one from which no operating convergence has emerged to combat these seminal ongoing violations and aggravations of what he would call our constitutional republic. Even though these areas of compatibility exist, there is still no move by either side for convergence, though at least the Cato Institute does invite all sides to their luncheon debates and, contrary to strict free market dogma, proves that there is such a thing as a free lunch.

Crane's suggestion that the alliance sought is not with free market conservatives and libertarians but with populist conservatives is an idea that has deep roots, which I'll explore in the next chapter. Suffice it to say that our differences still allow for overlaps, such as the three major examples given by Mr. Crane.

To add to the confusion about the categories, Grover Norquist told me that “the Populist Right likes the PATRIOT Act,” and they like public “funding of their favorite baseball stadium.” Even so, he allowed that “there are some very real and large areas where
principled conservatives and libertarians and progressive critics of corporate statism can work together. He listed “civil liberties . . . the Patriot Act, opposition to bailouts of Wall Street, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc., government contracting abuses (lack of transparency) and no government funding of baseball/football parks.”

As noted, though, often certain basic differences between Left and Right outlooks seem to freeze conservatives, who will not work with liberals, even when there is an avowed similarity of interest concerning certain issues. The same is true for many liberal activists and writers.

Ninth
, LC convergence is nobody's top priority or not one that is weighty enough to elicit the effort needed to secure staff, meet, plan, and iron out how far the convergence will go when the heat starts or how to respond when the details start filling in and stumbling blocks arise. It is just so much easier to devote careers to working with like-minded people from the get-go, folks who do not have the baggage of still being your adversaries on many other directions. Intuitively, a conservative sees that as sufficient reason to think twice. Moreover, their work cup is always full.

Tenth
, incipient convergent rebellions get crushed, deferred, or punished by their respective leaders. This happened in 2011 to rank-and-file House Republicans and Democrats who viewed President Obama's attack on Libya to be clearly unconstitutional. They were certainly accurate in that conclusion. Mr. Obama asked for neither a declaration of war nor a war resolution; he did not obey the existing 1973 War Resolution Act nor receive an authorization or appropriation of funds for the military action's costs. This bipartisan alliance wanted a vote on a resolution by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) requiring the president to withdraw from the Libya operation within fifteen days.

The Kucinich resolution had surprising support, as reported by the press, at the closed-door House Republican Caucus meeting in June 2011. Alarmed, the Republican leaders quickly moved to
squelch the resistance, knowing, of course, that the Democratic leaders would not object to their stopping it. A leader of the rebellion, Republican Walter Jones, had his seat on the House Armed Services Committee taken away.

The Fate of Convinced Conveners

Bruce Fein, a prominent, Harvard-educated, constitutional lawyer who had been a deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration, is the ultimate converger. Without any agenda, he tirelessly promotes the due process rule of law and constitutional adherence that preserve the checks and balances in the federal government. For years he has been litigating, writing, and authoring materials on these themes (see
http://www.intelcommission.org
). As a volunteer adviser to both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, Fein has testified more than two hundred times before congressional committees. Yet, instead of becoming more influential, he has been increasingly marginalized except for his pro bono representation of the father of Edward Snowden in mid-2013. Many of his compelling op-eds and letters to the editor pile up largely unpublished. I have read a number of these responses to contrary editorials or opinion pieces. They are to the point—maybe too much to the point. Recently, his newly formed convergent nonprofit, the National Commission on Intelligence and Foreign Wars, has been unsuccessfully asking for funds from like-minded affluent individuals, who apparently imagine retaliations if they became involved with such collaborations.

Unlike Fein, neocons like Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Douglas Feith, who were wrong legally, morally, and strategically on brutally invading Iraq, and wrong on the costly, spreading imperial aggressions of the US government under both parties, are on the paid lecture trail, receive lucrative book deals, and are welcomed on the op-ed pages of the
New York Times
and
Washington
Post
. One of them, John Bolton, whose war mongering and State Department mischief placed him at odds with his superior, Secretary Colin Powell (who once told me he could not stand Bolton's fatuous belligerence), got different op-eds in the
Times
and the
Post
on the same day—an unheard of coterminous acceptance.