You came at last, but too late, and with too little strength.
- J.R.R. Tolkien THE TWO TOWERS (1955)
The State exists simply to promote and protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife over a fire, a couple of
friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden -- that is what the State is there for.
And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, courts, armies, policy, economics,
[presidents,] etc., are simply a waste of time.
- C.S. Lewis
M
EREC
HRISTIANITY(1952)
5/26/06 Newsflash!
Just in from Houston, this breaking news: the jury rejected the testimony of Enron’s former chief executives Kenneth L. Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling that they did not know there were such serious problems at Enron before their company’s spectacular crash economically devastated thousands --see 2 Enron Chiefs Are Convicted In Fraud and Conspiracy Trial, by Alexei Barrionuevo, The New York Times; Enron Jury Unswayed by “I Didn’t Know”, by Vidas Bajaj and Kyle
Whitmire, The New York Times (the latter is quoted below in this Ariel Narrow font):
One after another, the jurors spoke and, in different voices, it all added up to the same thing. . . .
How, they repeatedly wondered, could Enron’s former chief executives not have known what was going on? . . .
Freddy Delgado, an elementary-school principal, questioned how the two men could testify that they “had their hands firmly on the wheel” at Enron and then say they did not know about the improper accounting and the intensifying financial problems?
After all, parents hold him accountable for their children’s welfare and safety. “I can’t say that I don’t know what my teachers were doing in the classroom,” Mr. Delgado said. “I am still responsible if a child gets lost.”
So is the President of the United States of America when thousands of his citizens are lost -- so many of whom could have been saved had so many of Our highest Federal officers turned in
less derelict job performances at the time of predicted catastrophe:
starting of course at the top with the Commander-in-Chief and continuing down the chain-of-command at least through Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff and Department of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. (See House February 2006 Report; Senate May 2006 Report.)
The jury included people of widely different backgrounds – a dairy farmer, payroll manager, two engineers, a ship inspector, county court clerk, personnel manager, retired sales assistant and dental hygienist – but they drew on their own life experiences, making clear that they thought of themselves as responsible for knowing everything about their jobs.
Certainly, richly paid corporate executives should, too?
Certainly the President of the United States of America should too. Twice before US all the forty-third President of the United States, George W. Bush, has “sworn before [US] and
Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears prescribed” -- “nearly a century and three quarters ago,” as then President Kennedy continued in his 1961 Inaugural Address (see page 58 below -- now of course that oath was prescribed by our forebears nearly two centuries and one
quarter ago. That is the Constitutionally-prescribed oath of office whereby the incoming President “solemnly swear[s] to faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States.”
(See also next two pages below; Chapter II, pages 61-65 below.)
One juror contrasted their determination with Mr. Lay’s and Mr.
Skilling’s approach to their top positions at Enron --
compare President Bush’s (biking in Crawford as New Orleans drowned), Secretary Chertoff’s (more out-of-touch even than “Brownie” as New Orleans drowned), and Secretary Rumsfeld’s (at Padres game in San Diego as New Orleans drowned) approaches to their top positions for US We the People of the United States. (See, e.g., Chapter III, page 112, 74; Chapter II, page 4 below.) .
“Those of us that have full-time jobs, we did our jobs at night when we went home so tired we hardly knew who we were,” said Carolyn Kuchera, a payroll manager. “We were responsible, we were always accountable and we always found a way to circle back around to tie up the loose ends.”
To all of Our and the world’s collective horror that interminable post-Katrina Superdome week in New Orleans, We all now know that none of the three messieurs named above share even the ordinary people of Our Enron jury’s honorable work ethic. For these jurors every day for months at great personal sacrifice to themselves and their families did two jobs when asked also to take on besides their “normal” day jobs the additional public service for US of sitting for months to determine the outcome of a significant trial in Our American commercial life.
Important, yes:
an immediate critical life-or-death matter for thousands of desperate citizens, no.
So of course the most damning difference for the three messieurs named above whose lethally derelict job performances for US are still so much at issue is that it was not the Enron jury members’ “normal” day job to perform the public service of sitting on that jury. But they did that
“extra” “civic-duty” job well anyway: besides their “normal” jobs (true patriots, they).
But it was the President’s, Secretary Chertoff’s, and Secretary Rumsfeld’s “normal” day jobs to take care of US all immediately post-Katrina landfall.
To do so was in fact their sworn duty.
So when they did not, they did not fail at doing some “extra” thing for US:
they failed miserably at doing the main thing for which We pay them.
ESSAY-BRIDGING AMERICAN HISTORY EPIGRAPHS 2
We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom --
symbolizing an end as well as a beginning -- signifying a renewal as well as change.
For I have here sworn
before you and Almighty God
the same solemn oath* our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three quarters ago.
- President John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Inaugural Address (emphasis added) January 20, 1961 *(see next page)
Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states.
I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta [Crawford]
and not be concerned about
what happens in Selma [New Orleans].
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
- Dr. Martin Luther King April 16, 1963 (emphasis added) Letter from Birmingham City Jail
If we forget what we did, we won’t know who we are.
- President Ronald Reagan January 11, 1989 Farewell Address
* * * *