Whenever an obscure professor complains about the war against the Taliban,
an alarm is sounded from certain quarters
about the enemy within, the supposed disloyalty of academics and the
uncertain patriotism of anybody who lacks
enthusiasm for military action. But citizens peaceably exercising their
right to dissent—no matter how mistaken
—are no menace to national security.
The real menace is posed by some of the country’s most powerful politicians,
who remain enthralled by a defunct
ideology and engorged with corporate campaign contributions.
The ideology is right-wing extremism, characterized by an aversion to
active government, financed by corporate special interests and personified
by the likes of Tom DeLay and Dick Armey. Using their authority to stifle
swift federal action, Republican Congressional leaders are daily demonstrating
how intellectually unfit they are to cope with the current crisis.
(At least that’s what they had been doing until they fled the Capitol
for safer precincts.)
Improving airport security is among the most pressing tasks of the United
States government, and it didn’t take long for
the Senate to cast an extraordinary unanimous vote in favor of federalizing
most of those functions. Such quick, united
action on a controversial matter is almost unknown in that body, where
both pride and philosophy tend to preclude
unanimity. But the bill that passed without a single nay in the Senate
has been hog-tied in the House of Representatives
for weeks because Messrs. DeLay and Armey cannot rely on members of
their own caucus to vote against it.
Having realized that popular sentiment strongly supports the Senate
position, the two Texas ’wingers predictably called
upon corporate enforcers to muscle their colleagues. On Oct. 21, according
to The Washington Post, Mr. DeLay
"summoned nearly 20 lobbyists from the airline and airport security
industries to the basement of the Capitol."
There he instructed them to urge members to reject the Senate bill
in favor of his own legislation, which would mandate
the continued employment of private security firms under federal scrutiny.
When they balked, his deputy reminded
the lobbyists how rapidly the House leadership had rammed through the
outrageous $15 billion bailout last month.
Among those present at Mr. DeLay’s closed meeting were representatives
of the newly organized Aviation Security Association, a lobbying outfit
formed by the companies which have so badly botched these responsibilities
and now fear
losing their lucrative airport contracts. Presumably nobody had the
poor taste to mention the frightening federal review of Argenbright Security,
the country’s largest airport-screening contractor. Even after Argenbright
was found guilty in federal
court of hiring convicted felons to screen baggage at Philadelphia
International Airport, and even after the disaster of
Sept. 11, investigators for the Department of Transportation and the
Federal Aviation Administration found the company
in violation of federal regulations at 14 airports this month. One
passenger at Dulles Airport in Washington got past the Argenbright screeners
with a concealed pocketknife on Oct. 12 (just nine days before Mr. DeLay’s
lobbyist pep rally). Immigration investigators found that seven Argenbright
screeners at Dallas–Fort Worth Airport were illegally working
in the United States.
The Argenbright case poses conceptual difficulties for those who persist
in arguing the absolute superiority of privatization—unless, like the House
G.O.P. bosses, they remain hypnotized by soft-money checks and the latest
handout
from the Heritage Foundation. It’s hard to say which of these influences
is worse; but in combination, they threaten to
forestall not just airport-security improvements, but many other urgent
measures to protect public health and safety.
Consider the issue of money-laundering by terrorist networks such as
Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda organization.
Until Sept. 11, the Bush administration had resisted international
efforts to crack down on offshore-banking centers
that facilitate the secret movement of illicit funding around the world.
Despite continued opposition from the banking
lobby, the White House shifted toward a saner view as New York’s own
financial center lay in smoking ruins. But Time magazine reports that Messrs.
DeLay and Armey, with support from right-wing think tanks and banking lobbyists,
"thwarted efforts to include an anti-money-laundering bill" in the
recent anti-terrorist legislative package. If liberals
were caught doing anything similar, they would be accused quite reasonably
of giving comfort to the nation’s enemies.
The point is not, however, to denigrate the patriotism of the right.
It is simply to suggest that slavish worship of the market
and demonization of government are damaging to the national interest.
There are no "free-market" solutions to the
weaknesses of our financial, transportation and public-health systems
that can so easily be exploited by our enemies.
Thoughtful conservatives like John McCain and the editors of The Weekly
Standard are able to grasp this quite
obvious fact. The American people appear to understand this, too. Those
who have sworn to defend them should
open their minds or step aside.