Going Roque | Category Archives: Reform

Tokenism 101

Last week, whether you parked at the 50 Yard Line or rolled on the Informative Avenue, the GOP’s much-vaunted new Latino outreach efforts did not appear to be going well. Even Senator Don Young’s non-apology apology for casually tossing out a racial slur – “in my day, the word meant something different,” which, no it didn’t – indicated a much deeper problem.

Similarly, when Rand Paul went to Howard University last week, he offended the audience by assuming that they – elite students at a top university – did not know that Frederick Douglass was a Republican, while appearing to forget entirely about the Republican Party’s more recent racial history. According to Jamelle Bouie,

At no point did Paul acknowledge Nixon’s Southern Strategy, Lee Atwater’s racial demagoguery, or Ronald Reagan’s decision to denounce “welfare queens” and embrace “states’ rights” while campaigning in Philadelphia, Mississippi—where three civil-rights workers were murdered by white supremacists. Instead, he focused his time and attention on the 19th-century history of the GOP…I’m not sure Paul deserves any praise for his performance. It would be one thing if Paul had gone to Howard eager to listen as well as speak. Instead, he condescended with a dishonest and revisionist history of the GOP. “He didn’t say anything I didn’t expect,” said one student, a senior majoring in sociology and economics. I couldn’t agree more.

The modern Republican party believes that the only kind of racism that truly exists is reverse racism, and that affirmative action exemplifies this. However, this point of view results in considerable cognitive dissonance, as it requires overlooking basically any statistical or objective form of measurement (income levels, educational achievement, professional advancement, incarceration rates, political offices, and so forth) in favor of more…dubious explanations. Mitt Romney, in addition to his infamous 47% comments, offered one such insight after he was booed by the NAACP: “…if they want more stuff from government tell them to go vote for the other guy – more free stuff.”

“They,” meaning considerably more than 47% of the country (including 93% of black voters, 71% of Latinos, 73% of Asian Americans, 69% of Jewish voters, 67% of Native Americans, 76% of gay voters, 60% of youth under 30, and 55% of women), were not buying what the Republicans were selling. Due to these staggering deficits, Republicans find themselves with a particularly shallow bench of minority talent. Yet somehow, the powers that be within the GOP have decided that it is not their product, the actual policies, that voters have rejected; the problem lies only in the packaging.

However, with this dearth of qualified conservatives of color, over and over again Republicans have pulled up unripe backbenchers (Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson) who promptly embarrassed themselves on the national stage – because if you don’t believe in affirmative action, chances are you won’t execute it very well.

If Republicans intend to win over any voters outside of their core white male demographic, simply re-wording their mission statement more politely won’t cut it. Nor will sprinkling in a few Spanish words, or having them read by a person of color; it’s a form of condescension that is both blatant and deeply offensive. According to reporting by Buzzfeed,

One former RNC field staffer, who is Hispanic, described a culture of cynicism among his predominantly white colleagues when it came to minority outreach. He said that in his office, whenever they were notified of a new Republican outreach effort, they would pass around a Beanie Baby — which they had dubbed the “pander bear” — and make fun of the “tokenism.”
“Any kind of racially specific campaign activity was often treated with skepticism by white staffers,” he said.

I know that feel, bro.

Lifestyles of the Rich and Shady

Video: In this animation, see how investors can create companies and trusts in offshore jurisdictions, where an estimated one-third of the world’s worth resides. The Washington Post, April 6, 2013.

Oligarchs, politicians, and one-percenters around the world went into panic mode today as the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) released details from a multi-year investigation of a mammoth leak of documents that describe the dirty dealings associated with offshore companies and trusts in a number of notorious offshore tax havens.

The ICIJ’s analysis of the coordination between shady offshore banks and large, equally shady European giants like HSBC and UBS on behalf of wealthy elites from around the world uncovered a massive, methodical, and frequently illegal transfer of trillions of dollars per year from nations to individuals. While politicians in the US and Europe lament their deficits and resort to austerity, the “…cross-border flows of global proceeds of financial crimes total between $1 trillion and $1.6 trillion a year,” landing in one of many unregulated hideaways where both ill-gotten gains and those who scammed, stole or extorted them are shielded.

The collapse of the Greek and Cypriot banking systems, the Russian Magnitsky Affair, and a shocking variety of other scandals and meltdowns are directly rooted in this deliberate effort to shield criminals from accountability, taxation and prosecution. While the techniques used by large banks, island governments, and unethical accountants are quite complex, the ICIJ provides a comprehensive breakdown of the specific workarounds tavailable to the very wealthy.

By the numbers: economist James S. Henry claims that between $21 trillion and $32 trillion of wealth is hidden in offshore tax havens – equal to 1/3 of the world’s wealth, according to the Washington Post, or approximately the entire economies of Japan and the United States combined; ICIJ found that “Among the 4,000 U.S. individuals are listed in the records, at least 30 are American citizens accused in lawsuits or criminal cases of fraud, money laundering or other serious financial misconduct.” 2.5 million documents have been leaked by confidential informants to the ICIJ. 86 reporters representing The Guardian, the BBC, Le Monde, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Norddeutscher Rundfunk, The Washington Post, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and dozens of other media outlets in the ICIJ have been sifting through the documents, using both data mining and more traditional investigative techniques, for over 15 months.

While not every individual and corporation who banks in the Caymans is laundering money, evading taxes, or perpetrating financial fraud, every category of high-level financial crime requires an offshore account. By not recognizing the regulations, laws, or judicial rulings of any country, a network of tiny islands around the world have created a shadow system for the often-illegal flow of money from corrupt politicians, embezzling executives, and tax-dodgers.

According to the Post, these crooked dealings represent an existential threat to the ability of governments to fund themselves, and lobbying efforts by anonymously funded interests, including the banking and accounting industries and a conservative nonprofit group, the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, have stymied the attempts of lawmakers to rein in the hemorrhaging of tax funds as deficits rise. Founded by Andrew Quinlan, a senior economic analyst for the Republican National Committee, and Daniel J. Mitchell, a Senate Finance Committee staffer and tax expert for the conservative Cato Institute, CF&P refuses to divulge whether their donors are based offshore. “I don’t think it matters what percentage of the money comes from which donor,” Quinlan told the Washington Post.

Thomas Ward, the cofounder of Commonwealth Trust Ltd. (CTL), one of the worst offenders on the banking rolls, shares Quinlan’s coyness. “I regard myself as an ethical person. I don’t think I intentionally did anything wrong…I certainly didn’t aid and abet anybody doing anything illegal.” Now, however, email chains in the leaked documents show that Quinlan was fully aware of many clients’ probable criminal activity.

It has long been an open secret that corrupt politicians and individuals stash legal and illegal profits in a sketchy alternate economy where they are neither required to contribute to the infrastructure that created their wealth, or answer for their crimes. It’s high time that the mask of anonymity is stripped away, and the names and actions of the ultra-wealthy are exposed to the bright tropical sunshine.

The Divine Comedy: Habemus Papam edition

Italy’s recent elections featured the return of legendarily corrupt, thrice-indicted bunga-bunga enthusiast Silvio Berlusconi in a three-way tie with a comedian and a career politician – only a few days before his conviction and sentencing on a corruption charge. The juries are still out on his other pending charges of sex with an underage prostitute and tax fraud.

Berlusconi and Benedict, 2009. Image: ALESSANDRA TARANTINO/AP/Press Association Images

Zooming into the country within a country, Italy’s legally distinct Siamese twin the Vatican also is roiled by sex-and-corruption farces and tragedies that have led to the first and only Nazi pope clicking his red Prada heels as he relinquishes the divine right to pontificate.

Because the Italian state has proven so adept at self-governance, Milanese archbishop Angelo Scola was the pre-conclave frontrunner for the papacy – until his offices were raided by anti-mafia police over corruption charges in the hours leading up to the first vote. The candidacies of Brazilian and Angolan clergy also raised the tantalizing possibility of a pope who more accurately reflects the modern, global south oriented face of Catholicism; but in the end, the cardinals split the difference and chose an Italian from Argentina, 33-to-1 dark horse Jorge Bergoglio. Beyond the personalities, however, lie deep-rooted structural issues of modernity and morality, wherein the horrific abuse of children and demonization of women has led to a subsequent global collapse of both authority and funding that must be resolved if the Holy See is to survive.

Significantly, the College of Cardinals who made up the conclave are themselves implicated in many of the worst of these abuses. Bergoglio, who took the name Francis I, also has his share of quickly unearthed skeletons, both individual and systemically shared with his brethren. For instance, per reporter Marco della Cava,

“The word that spread Friday was of Pope Francis’ actions during Argentina’s “dirty war” between 1976 and 1983, when the ruling military government abused and killed countless citizens suspected of being Communists. At issue is whether Jorge Mario Bergoglio, then a young priest in his 30s…was complicit in allowing two Jesuit priests, Orlando Yorio and Franz Jalics, to be apprehended and tortured for five months.”

Rumors swirled, fueled by different agendas – from glowing reports that the new Pope had hidden and perhaps saved the priests’ lives, to sinister assertions that he had not only given them up, but had actually participated in their brutal “interrogations.” Father Jalics, the lone survivor, issued a statement that forgave Francis, but declined to exonerate him, closing the investigation in a disconcerting but presumably final manner.

Pope Francis – because when you need to hide a German, hire an Argentinian. #conclave

— John M Palmateer (@JohnMPalmateer) March 14, 2013

As troubling as the shadowy allegations from the Dirty War are, however, non-war-crimes related revelations pose an even greater existential threat to both his papacy specifically, and the Catholic church at large. Though the 76-year old Bergoglio’s history of advocating for the impoverished in Latin America shows great promise, his conservative approach to other issues of social justice are closely in line with his demographic and peers. His attacks on gay marriage as “destructive to God’s plan” in 2010 were so vitriolic, they were widely considered to have backfired, boosting the efforts of pro-equality activists in Argentina.

Similarly, a range of experts from Bergoglio’s biographer to Vatican insiders have unanimously affirmed that when the Cardinals say they want ‘reform,’ they are not referring to ordaining women into the priesthood, green-lighting contraceptive use, or prosecuting those within the Church who covered up abuse and shuffled child-rapists from parish to parish. In other words: the anachronistic, doctrinal cancers that are currently rotting Catholicism from the inside will remain firmly in place, at least for the 5-10 years that the elderly Francis is likely to serve as the infallible mouthpiece of God.

Pope Francis waves to the crowd from the central balcony of St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. Photo: AP

If he can tackle the hornet’s nest of Italian politicians in priest’s robes within the Vatican – and that is a very large if, both in terms of sheer historical difficulty, and in the face of mounting evidence that Benedict intends to play the Putin to Francis’ Medvedev – there is a significant chance that Bergoglio can at least lay the groundwork for genuine reforms within one of the world’s oldest, richest, most corrupt and most influential institutions. If he is successful, perhaps he will allow the Italian Senate to copy his homework as they attempt to institute a prime minister who is not both a convicted criminal and a global punchline. And if not, at least Rome and the Vatican are conveniently located for access to non-stop bunga-bunga parties.