Recently, I had the chance to see a sneak preview of the new documentary about Jack Abramoff called “Casino Jack and the United States of Money“. Directed by Alex Gibney, it profiles the man whose corruption now defines the pinnacle of Newt Gingrich’s “Contact With America“.
Rising through the ranks of the College Republicans in the 1980s, Abramoff believed in the evils of government regulation and the power of capitalism. After the 1994 election brought Republicans to power in Congress, he became a lobbyist (for Preston, Gates, & Ellis) and the journey began. The Republicans who were elected that year quickly forgot about the promises they made to eliminate corruption and instead used their new-found power as a mechanism to enrich themselves.
The documentary details how Abramoff helped businesses in the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI) run sweatshops with captive labor. The CNMI became a strategic locale for American businesses because – as a U.S. territory – clothes made there could have a “Made in the U.S.A.” label. Abramoff was successful at directing money made from these sweatshops towards Tom DeLay and others in Congress in order to keep the CNMI from falling under the same labor regulations as the rest of the United States. The result was that large numbers of imported workers came to the CNMI and were forced into indentured servitude. The film includes California Congressman George Miller describing how one laborer offered to sell him his kidney in an attempt to pay his way back home.
I also recently saw the HBO docudrama “You Don’t Know Jack“, the story of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the Michigan doctor who assisted terminally ill and severally disabled individuals who wished to end their lives on their own terms. It retold his story from when he first started helping out patients in the early 1990s to his quixotic attempt to challenge the assisted suicide law at the national level, which ended with him being sent to jail for 8 years.
As a student at the University of Michigan in the mid-90s, I attended a speech on campus with both Dr. Kevorkian and his attorney Geoffrey Fieger. This was at a time when they’d already won several legal victories and it didn’t seem that any prosecutor would be able to stop Kevorkian from continuing to assist new patients who wanted his services. After both men spoke, they opened up the floor for questions. Following a few uneventful questions, a man in a wheelchair approached the mike and launched into a fearful tirade against both men. He was furious that Dr. Kevorkian wanted to end the lives of disabled people. Kevorkian tried – unsuccessfully – to explain to the poor man that he was grossly misinformed about his work. By this point in my life, I was already familiar with how religion can exploit fear to deceive people, but it was still jarring to see this poor man railing so furiously against an imaginary demon.
Kevorkian was hounded by the religious right throughout the 90s. In the minds of the self-proclaimed “pro-life” movement, he was interfering with God’s will. In reality, those who believe that an individual should suffer for the sake of another person’s religious convictions are the farthest in the world from having any claim to moral superiority. This should be obvious even without historical comparisons, but highlighting the contrast between Jack Abramoff and Jack Kevorkian provides an even clearer view of the moral bankruptcy of the religious right and the detrimental effect that it’s had on American society.
One of the most interesting chapters in the Jack Abramoff story involved his dealings with various Indian tribes. His bilking of millions of dollars from native Americans is what led to his eventual downfall, but it was an earlier scam with his old College Republican colleague Ralph Reed that I found more fascinating:
Abramoff’s work for the tribes included rubbing out competition to their casinos from neighboring tribes or other forms of gambling. It was for this service that Abramoff hired Reed’s Century Strategies. Reed’s job, as Abramoff’s partner Michael Scanlon put it, was to “bring out the wackos” – to create the appearance of overwhelming popular opposition to rival casinos or other forms of gaming.
This dynamic was always at the heart of why the Republican Party built up the religious right. They knew that the fearful and gullible could be manipulated in order to discredit more moderate politicians. The folks who were whipped up in opposition to gambling had no idea that their opposition was being used merely to protect the market share of a different tribe’s casino.
By the time Abramoff was indicted, he was just skipping the middleman and manipulating the fears of Indian tribes directly. He was taking millions of dollars from several tribes, promising access to powerful people in Congress, but often delivering nothing.
This legacy continues today with the Tea Party movement, which is just an updated version of that dynamic adjusted for today’s politics. The teabaggers have absolutely no idea what they actually believe – other than that Democrats and progressives are evil and need to be stopped. And because of this, they can be easily duped at every turn.
This isn’t an indictment of all conservatives or all religious people, it’s just a realization that our collective moral compass has been thoroughly out of whack for a long time. Most people who have rallied to the cause of the religious right are genuinely good people who’ve been exploited. But the success of this exploitation has turned unfettered capitalism into a religion and actual Christianity into a quaint anachronism.
In the end, Kevorkian spent more time in prison than Abramoff will. The man who was never a threat to anyone was locked up longer than the man whose entire career was about exploiting the powerless for money. And during the 1990s, while Jack Abramoff was enabling an entire U.S. territory to become a haven for slave labor, the folks who called themselves “pro-life” and claimed to have moral superiority over us heathens were far more concerned about an old doctor who was merely allowing people to have greater control over their own life and death.
It’s easy to be overly cynical about what the religious right has done, and how gullible its members were (and still are), but this movement has certainly had a profound affect on the health of our nation. At the heart of the religious right is control. And the strong desire of many religions to exercise greater control over our moral choices has long been exploited by those who want greater freedom in making economic choices. The end result is a society where those of us who advocate for greater control of our moral choices are punished more than those of us who make economic choices that result in the lack of freedom for many.
and yet the “left” senators murray and cantwell continue to fund this:
http://www.thenewstribune.com/.....ation.html
Lee,
Helluva post. I particularly appreciated this line: ” . . . the success of this exploitation has turned unfettered capitalism into a religion and actual Christianity into a quaint anachronism.”
The Sarah Palin/Michelle Bachmann Teabaggers have taken all the compassion out of Christianity. These people would spit on Jesus Christ, with his long-haired, sandal-wearing, unmarried group of friends who talked about peace, love, and understanding, and who never said a word about abortion or gays. Imagine that. Puddy and Cynical would turn away from Christ in an instant if they were actually to meet the fellow. Puddy, Cynical, and their ilk are primarily political folks, not religious. They would disagree, but their proclamations prove otherwise.
@1 So?
Some of the clergy who used to be at the forefront of the “religious right” have dramatically changed their course, having come to the conclusion that “when you mix religion and politics, what you end up with is…politics”. Others, unfortunately, continue to soldier on ever further into Elmer Gantry territory, progressively shredding the Second Commandment (Catholics and Lutherans) or if you will, the Third (everyone else) into little pieces, pissing on them, and casting them to the wind.
Can’t help but wonder if American Apparel, with its deliberately tacky duds modeled by apparent crack whores, does its manufacturing in the Marianas…
@4
Some of the clergy who used to be at the forefront of the “religious right” have dramatically changed their course, having come to the conclusion that “when you mix religion and politics, what you end up with is…politics”.
Exactly. This is not an indictment of religion itself, but an indictment of how religion and politics have merged into one – in the pursuit of power and greed.
@5
The labor loopholes were eventually shut down, so the CNMI is no longer a haven for sweatshops and prostitution…
Check out some PZ Myers:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyn.....#trackback
The link is to a situation that is not at all political on the surface, but you can see how religious fervor takes the place of rationality. It’s easy to imagine, when confronted with a really bad situation with only unattractive options, you would turn to magical thinking as an out. It’s also easy to think that habituating such non-skeptical, non-critical thinking could lead one to be easily manipulated, which is a central prerequisite for the religio-political industry.
Interesting to see this in application this past summer, as the wingnut crowd was called out to make sure insurance companies continued to receive enormous profits from denying claims and refusing coverage to anyone who might actually need it.
This is also the Seattle Time’s editorial policy when it comes to it’s primary competitor: the internet. The Times is trying stir up a backlash from the wingnuts against two of the most successful internet companies, Google and Craigslist. It argues that one has become a monopoly of sorts, and the other has become a nefarious pimp. But it’s not exactly working – the Seattle market is a too tech-savy to buy into those arguments. Elsewhere, it might buy some traction from people who are still afraid of “the internets”.
It seems to me that these two Jacks were and are very different but both acted in the name of religion … or whatever words Lee wants to use of deeply held beliefs that transcend science.
The problem with Abramnoff is that he is a hypocrite. He uses religion rather than believes in it.
Kevorkian lives his beliefs and, in a manner very Christian, chooses to suffer for those beliefs.
Where Lee and I differ is in regard to people who are as devout as Kevorkian but whose beliefs lead them to oppose Lee’s.
@10 No one has a problems with your principled beliefs.
The heartache starts when you start imposing your beliefs on others. It continues when the debate becomes partisan.
Abramoff helped businesses in the Northern Marianas Islands run sweatshops with captive labor.”
Gee, cheap labor conservatives trying to reinstate slavery on American soil, who wudda thunk? Why would any worker vote Republican?
ArtFart @ 4
Exactly. The separation of church and state protects religious people. Too bad that lesson needs to be relearned every few generations.
“Most people who have rallied to the cause of the religious right are genuinely good people who’ve been exploited.”
That hasn’t been my experience. Adherents of the religious right I’ve known have been greedy, exploitive, dishonest assholes who try to hide their selfishness and moral failings behind the covers of the Bible.
@1
So let me get this straight.
Senators should accept the illegal actions of soldiers just because they’re soldiers? Did you actually read the article? The event is “under investigation.” Are you suggesting that Congress de-fund and de-commision only the portion of the military that deals with criminal justice among the ranks? So Long MPs. We don’t need you. Tribunals, nah, they don’t need any stinkin’ money. The brig on a ship? Hell, that would make a nice rec room.
If it is found that these three soldiers violated the Uniform Code, Geneva Conventions or any U.S. Law then they need to go to prison. Period.
That’s the law. Curious tha righties so love to forget the law if they can wrap it in a flag of “support the troops.”
There’s irrelevent and monumentally stupid comments and then there’s notaboomer today taking it to a whole new level.
# 13: Yep, we agree on that point. When churches bind themselves up with politics, they quickly become enslaved by thse same politicians.
small world……i was at Preston in Seattle when Jack was with PGERM in DC.
the worse part is the people really don’t care about Jack or his kind….the people get what the people want.
and they want more american dancing idols and less knowledge of thier government.
ever read Jack’s credits as a movie producer???
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0009106/
knowing he gave money to these films…it should come as no suprise really.
!! Jason
I think you make the common mistake others do in this society .. assuming that ll religions sre evangelical.
Actually, if your eliminate the two huge religions that originated out of the Roman Empire .. Christianity and Islam, evangelism .. esp if the sword waving variety is pretty rare.
More commonly the conquerors want to keep their Gods to themselves or, in the case Confuscianism and Buddhism the Gods are peripheral to ethical and legal codes.
Judaism is the transitional example. Leaving aside biblical mythology, Jews, as w know ourselves from the actually history of the last 250 years, have never practiced evangelism.
Ass for Buddhism, few are aware of this but the Ching Emperor was Buddhist .. this is actually where China got its claim to Tibet. When he conquered China, the Emperor added Buddhism to the culture btu left indigenous religion alone.
Try imagining a conquering horde of Buddhist monks .. does not make any sense!
@17
The documentary did show clips from Abramoff’s movie (with Dolph Lundgren!). The MST3K folks should have done that one.
Very good. One of the best articles about this theme I ever read.