[discuss-dan] from Ivins...Bush Cabinet: Corporate America

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A Cabinet That Looks Like Corporate America
by Molly Ivins

AUSTIN, Texas - Jim Hightower, an invaluable public citizen, once
suggested that politicians be forced to wear the corporate logos of
their biggest donors in the fashion of NASCAR race drivers so we'd know
who they'd sold out to.

Hightower once again has his eye on the shell with the pea under it when
it comes to President Bush's Cabinet.

The pundit corps has been swooning over the diversity of Bush's picks -
four women, a Cuban-American, two African-Americans, a
Japanese-American, a Lebanese-American, a Chinese-American and a
Democrat.

President Inclusive chooses a Cabinet that looks like America. Just one
catch: Every member is a corporate creature. In fact, the corporations
have just taken over the government. Why hire lobbyists when your CEOs
and board members are running the show? Who's left to lobby?

Until recently, Real President Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton Inc.,
the giant oilfield services firm that has been making money and trading
with Iraq, despite the sanctions, through its subsidiaries Dresser-Rand
and Ingersoll-Dresser Pump.

Courtesy of the Hightower newsletter, here are some of those now running
the country:

- Elaine Chao (Labor): an investment banker and corporate director,
former
vice president of Bank of America and board member for Northwest
Airlines,
Dole Food, Clorox and Columbia//HCA Health Care.

- Norman Mineta (Transportation): corporate VP for Lockheed Martin; also
former chairman of the House Transportation Committee, where his major
contributors were the American Trucking Association, Boeing, General
Electric, Greyhound, Lockheed, Northwest Airlines, UPS, Union Pacific
and
United Airlines.

- Paul O'Neill (Treasury): CEO of Alcoa, the aluminum giant, and
previously CEO of International Paper Co., and on the boards of Eastman
Kodak and Lucent Technologies.

- Gale Norton (Interior): formerly with the Mountain States Legal
Foundation, an anti-environmental group funded by oil companies.
Prominent
member of "property rights" groups funded by Boise Cascade, DuPont and
Louisiana Pacific; national chairwoman of the Coalition for Republican
Environmental Advocates, funded by the American Forest Paper
Association,
Amoco, ARCO, the Chemical Manufacturers Association and Ford.

- John Ashcroft (attorney general): sponsor of last year's Senate bill
to
extend the patent on the super-profitable allergy pill Claritin, owned
by
the giant pharmaceutical firm Schering-Plough, which gave him $50,000
for
his last Senate campaign. He also got $1.7 million from oil, chemical
and
paper companies that were grateful for Ashcroft's opposition to funding
environmental enforcement, voting for rollback of clean water
protections
and letting mining companies dump cyanide and other wastes on public
land.

As Hightower has observed, if you wonder why these issues didn't come up
in his confirmation hearings, consider the state of the Democratic Party
and the effects of campaign contributions.

- Rod Paige (Education): formerly Houston school superintendent, where
he
promoted corporatization. Food service went to Aramark Inc., payroll to
Peoplesoft and accounting to SAP. Last year, he cut an exclusive
marketing
deal with Coca-Cola to put machines in the school hallways. He also
brought in Primed Corp.'s Channel One, the (so-called) "educational
channel" that spends two out of every 10 minutes of broadcast time
selling M&M//Mars, Pepsico, Reebok and Nintendo.

- Colin Powell (State): on the board of America Online and was recipient
of $100,000 a speech to a list of corporations too long to believe.

- Anthony Principi (Veterans Affairs): heir to family-owned real-estate
company, also former president of QTC Medical Services Inc.; later with
Lockheed Martin and most recently president of the airless technology
firm
Federal Network.

- Donald Rumsfeld (Defense): formerly CEO of General Instrument Corp.
and
drug giant G.D. Searle & Co., also on the boards of Asea Brown Boveri, a
huge Swedish engineering firm, and the Rand Corp. Also on the advisory
board of Salomon Smith Barney, the Wall Street investment firm.

- Ann Veneman (Agriculture): lawyer with a firm specializing in
representing agribusiness giants and biotech corporations. On board of
Calgene Inc., a subsidiary of Monsanto, the first firm to market
genetically altered food. Also a participant in the International Policy
Council of Agriculture, Food and Trade, a group funded by Monsanto,
Cargill, Archer-Daniels-Midland, Kraft and Nestle.

- Tommy Thompson (Health and Human Services): former governor of
Wisconsin
whose major contributors were HMOs, hospital chains, nursing homes,
clinics, doctors and insurance companies. Phillip Morris gave him
$72,000 in campaign contributions.

- Spencer Abraham (Energy): one-term senator from Michigan who once
sponsored a bill to abolish the Energy Department. Especially active in
fight over requiring greater fuel efficiency from SUVs, giving him
special
brownie points with the energy and auto industries.

- Mel Martinez (HUD): no corporate connections; formerly the top manager
of Orange County, Fla. That's Orlando/Disney World, and if you have
visited, you know that ending urban sprawl is not his specialty.

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