PART 1 OF 3
CHAPTER 16
Labor Day USA was one for the books. Record crowds came out in city after city, but it wasn't just the turnout that made the day so memorable, it was the quality and substance of what was conveyed across the land.
In St. Louis, Missouri, a quarter of a million people lined the streets to watch the floats, the pageantry, the fife and drum corps, the flags and banners. Beyond the superficial sights and sounds -- sidewalk vendors selling snacks and balloons, activists handing out buttons and bumper stickers -- the deeper message was clear. In the union contingents, the labor rank and file marched proudly, surrounding their leaders, not following them. Along the parade route, other union members in the work clothes of their various trades held up giant murals of men and women working in the steel, auto, coal, textile, and construction industries. These full-color, historically precise murals had been loaned to the specially constituted Missouri Mulers for Labor Justice by the Wall of America, a nonprofit collaborative that was portraying the entire history of American labor in what would eventually be combined into one massive painting, 120 feet long and four stories high, to be housed in a nineteenth-century Connecticut textile factory that was being converted into a permanent museum. The visual power of the renderings awed the densely packed crowd and drew attention to big placards mounted behind them, featuring each of the Seven Pillars of the Agenda for the Common Good, with a website address for those wanting further information. News photographers and television cameramen bounded back and forth recording the extraordinary display while the spectators used their cell phones to transmit these images of beauty and truth to friends and relatives across the country and around the world.
The members of Congress from Missouri and southern Illinois had been invited to be present on the parade platform. Like all the politicians and "dignitaries" who'd been asked to attend the Labor Day parades around the country, they were given to understand that they were there to look, listen, and absorb -- with one exception. If they'd already endorsed the Agenda or were now willing to do so, they'd have two minutes to speak about their support and the reasons for it. Under no circumstances were they to march in the parades. They could only be there on the platform, either coming out for the Agenda or standing out like silent sore thumbs. This was a new Labor Day, a Labor Day of, by, and for the people, and the workers wanted action, not cheap posturing. If the politicians weren't going to march for the Agenda in Congress, why should they be invited to strut their hypocrisy on the avenues of St. Louis or any other city? As for the politicians, the opportunity to make a statement before such huge crowds was either a public relations dream or a nightmare, depending on where they stood on the Agenda.
The climax of the Labor Day parades across America was the reiteration of support for the Agenda from already committed legislators, along with new declarations of support from the hitherto uncommitted. It would have been a brave soul from Capitol Hill who showed up, sat down, and remained silent. Naturally, no one in that camp was stupid enough to appear, but the names of the absentees were read aloud over the public address system. In Missouri and Illinois, the number of committed legislators rose from 20 percent to 45 percent, and in other states the percentages varied widely. The results were a little disappointing to the parade organizers, but they realized that some lawmakers probably thought they were being hustled into an intimidating situation and didn't want to be show horses. Others may not have been willing to commit to the whole Agenda because they had reservations about some of the bills or wanted to fine-tune others.
Nonetheless, the wide coverage of the parades and the labor leaders' clear-eyed responses to questioning on the Sunday morning talk shows were an impressive tribute to the organizers, and especially to the indefatigable Ann Mora of the California Nurses Association. With half a dozen nurse colleagues, she had journeyed to each of the fifty states, using shame, guilt, and pride to blast the unions out of their defeatist mind-set, as she'd done earlier at the AFL-CIO. All over the country, the unions contributed millions of dollars, much of the money raised at potluck suppers as urged by Ann, to make Labor Day a raging success, with a long arm reaching to Washington, DC. More than 10 million Americans marched in the parades, not all of them in the big cities by any means, and millions more men, women, and children crowded the sidewalks and eagerly took the posters, bumper stickers, Seventh-Generation Eye buttons, and DVDs handed out by the junior parade marshals drawn from the "Read all about it!" brigades. Other young women and men circulated with clipboards for anyone wishing to sign up and join the movement or receive timely information about what they could do in the fall. The marchers had already registered their names and addresses with Parade Central and had been well briefed, showing in their demeanor and interactions with reporters and neighbors that they knew exactly why they were marching. Ann herself spoke at the New York City parade, 1 million strong.
The Labor Day events this year went far beyond the parades and platforms. There were concerts featuring the great classic protest songs from the historic struggle for unionization, going back to the days when it was defined as a struggle against "wage slavery" and the plutocracy's definition of labor as a "commodity." Many young people learned of these songs and the dramatic efforts they described for the first time in their lives, since in the past half century "organized labor" had been all but moribund and anything but organized.
In general, one of the delights of this Labor Day for its vigorous, visionary organizers was the youth turnout. Young people in their teens and twenties packed movie theaters to see a wide selection of the best films on labor battles with management, such as Norma Rae, and came away discussing what they had seen. Productions of plays like Odets' Waiting for Lefty also enlivened the weekend's festivities. There were special events for preteens where workers demonstrated skills that had long preceded the mesmerizing Internet. Sailors in the merchant marine showed them how to tie all kinds of knots. Carpenters showed them how to fashion simple tables and chairs, while metalworkers dazzled them with welding displays and glassblowers entranced them with their ancient art. Surgeons held them in fascination with a mockup of a broken hip and how they went about repairing it. Cooks and chefs concocted appetizers, main courses, and desserts that were enthusiastically sampled. The world of work came alive in all its dailiness and necessity as the youngsters watched wide-eyed. They saw how seeds were planted and how crops were harvested to make the packaged food they took for granted in the grocery store. They saw how paper was made and turned into magazines, newspapers, and books. They were shocked by movies showing the sweatshop working conditions in China and Indonesia and Vietnam where their iPods and cell phones and shoes were manufactured, and the poverty of the workers and children who hand-made the baseballs and soccer balls they played with. On television news, the world of work was largely reduced to statistics about unemployment or layoffs, but these young people got a bracing dose of reality that they wouldn't soon forget.
All in all, it was a Labor Day that shook America. Commentators marveled not only at the turnouts but at the variety and vitality of the speakers and the power of their arguments for a new economic order where the people would be supreme over the corporations and sovereign over their government. It was a day when working-class dignity took a stand and left the country feeling that this stand would not be denied in the coming weeks and months.
***
High above Manhattan, in a private dining room on the 103rd floor of the Bank of the Globe building, fifteen Goliaths, as they were known in the slang of the business world, gathered for an emergency dinner meeting on Labor Day evening. These powers behind the throne of international business operated at a rarefied level far above that of Lobo's CEOs. They were new to the agitations of the Meliorists because of their global preoccupations and a knowledge base about what was going on in the world that relied on unexamined assumptions rather than empirical observation. Now they were trying to appear in casual self-control as they watched a bank of live screens showing the culminating Labor Day events around the country, but they were visibly rattled. Long ago, the Goliaths had written the United States off as a large but steady-state economy. What you saw was what you were going to get. The big money was to be made in the Third World and in parts of the former Soviet Union. The Bank of the Globe was already reporting that 70 percent of its profits came from outside the United States even though it was the second-largest bank in the country. Why? Wild profit margins overseas. Fractional costs. Little countervailing power either in government or civil society, if the latter existed at all.
The Goliaths talked while they dined.
"When you boil the whole day down." said Hugh Mongous. "it seems to me that the message is 'Workers of America, unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains!' Sound familiar, my brethren?"
"Are you joking, Hugh?" said Stan Selitoff. "It seems to me that they just want a piece of what we owe them. If you think a Marxist-type revolution is what they're pushing, revolution must be going down deep into the minor leagues. They're not trying to replace us or seize the reins we hold."
"Unless they're taking it in stages. Do they have a theorist?" asked Manny Tentacles.
"Not as far as our staff can tell," said George Gargantua. "Unless you think these Meliorists are doubling as theorists or economic philosophers. The problem I see is the spillover effect into the Third World. I'm not worried about Canada or Western Europe. They'll just look at what's happening as the US playing catch-up with them after years of neglecting labor, health insurance, electoral reform, and so on."
"No theorist, no beliefs. No beliefs, not to worry," Manny remarked.
"That gives me an idea! Damn, this avocado salad is good!" said Sy Clopean. "Why not launch a global ad campaign that paints the Common Good Agenda as just what George called it -- a modest catch-up, no big deal after thirty years of no gains for those who will benefit if these bills get through Congress. We can also inform the countries of South America, Asia, and Africa that the Agenda will increase US labor costs and put their economies in an even more competitive position."
"Hold on!" expostulated Cole Ossal. "As an American, you're talking economic treason. And you're running an American company to boot!"
"Who says I'm running an American company?" Sy retorted. "When it comes to big multinationals like the ones we all run, there is no nationality. Callus global straddlers or anational corporations."
"I like Sy's idea," Stan said. "It will pretty much take care of our concerns and responsibilities. The Washington trade groups have been asking us for big bucks to fight the Meliorists, and we keep telling them that it's their fight, not ours. Now we have an initiative to back us up here, a very credible argument that we should all take care of our own business priorities first."
"You mean, essentially, domestic takes care of domestic and international takes care of international, right?" asked Hugh.
"Exactly," Stan said, "though I don't suppose it will hurt to throw our domestic brethren a bone by getting some big foreign companies to announce that they're suspending planned investment projects in the US indefinitely, until they get a better read of the business climate after this congressional term. Do we have a consensus, gentlemen, for our new global economic order?" He laughed as his colleagues around the dinner table nodded their vigorous assent, some with their mouths full.
"Then I guess that does it," Hugh said. "We've had a distasteful day watching the masses, so let's continue with our dinner. I think we've earned a little epicurean relief."
***
The Tuesday after Labor Day marked the return of the 535 denizens of Congress and their thousands of staffers from an August recess that was either bruising or energizing, depending on their views. An army of freshly tanned and rested lobbyists was waiting for them with their checklists and political cash registers, but the lobbyists knew the ring of the cash registers was beginning to sound a little tinny. Congressional Quarterly reported that 54 percent of the House and 55 percent of the Senate were already committed to the Agenda for the Common Good in writing and that the Bulls' approval ratings were continuing to decline.
Attendance at the pro-Agenda public events of August had reached magnitudes that could only be accommodated by the largest indoor arenas in the country -- the Target Center in Minneapolis, the Boston Garden, Madison Square Garden in New York. Each time one of the Meliorists made a surprise appearance, the audience went wild, as if Shakira or the Rolling Stones were performing. Clearly, the Meliorists had become the justice equivalent of rock stars.
When Yoko stepped onto the stage at the Oakland Coliseum, there was a near riot of acclaim. Had any of the CEOs been scanning the crowd in front, they would have spotted the enthralled, catatonic face of Lancelot Lobo, who had come out on an afternoon flight from JFK and returned on the redeye to be back at the office bright and early so as to avoid arousing suspicion. The obsession lived on.
The Meliorists' increasingly confident and savvy allies in Congress had worked with the Bulls to complete the extensive hearings on the various parts of the Agenda by the end of July. During August, sufficient staff had remained on the job to complete the committee reports with majority and minority views. That meant the committees could now schedule the first meetings to mark up the legislation and vote on sending it to the House or Senate floor. The Double Z resumed their tireless daily trek to congressional offices so that they could provide steady feedback to Promotions, Analysis, and the Meliorists themselves.
Just as Congress was settling back into its routine, Lobo blanketed the airwaves with the opening salvo of his investment strike strategy. It was Lobo at his ferocious best. The ads were verbal velvet gloves conveying iron-fist determination. Using data from the Commerce Department, and an advertising firm with a far subtler touch than Horatio Hadestar's, he analyzed proposed or tentative investments geographically and then saturated the local media with suspension announcements from one company after another in region after region. Naturally, local television, radio, and newspapers gave the announcements top billing. In a reversal of his previous strategy, Lobo made sure that as many of the companies as possible were situated in localities represented by the Bulls, on the theory that the Bulls would be so furious at the Meliorists that they'd dig their heels in on the Agenda.
For example, Zintel Corporation suspended negotiations for locating a billion-dollar computer chip factory on the outskirts of Dallas, Texas, in the district represented by Sid Swanson, longtime chairman of the House Labor Committee. The suspension of a large hotel, condo, and retail store development near Atlanta would surely get the attention of Senator Duncan Dredge, chairman of the Finance Committee, which handled all matters involving tax legislation, public investment, and business subsidies. Senator Dredge, up for reelection, had already touted his role in bringing these jobs to Georgia in his campaign literature. Back in August, the seventy-six-year-old senator had met with William Gates Sr. and told friends he was charmed, but he probably wasn't charmed any longer.
In addition to the suspension announcements, Lobo launched some national media displaying silver-haired, avuncular spokesmen -- actually paid actors -- delivering a somber message about dislocating our great economy through risky social engineering promoted by disgruntled has-beens from the business world. Three labor unions broke ranks and supported the campaign of fear, with actors playing workers who declared in one-minute spots that they didn't want anyone experimenting with their livelihoods either. The tag line was the demand that Congress "stop the Meliorist Mania."
A day or two after Lobo's first ads broke, the syndicated cable and radio hosts picked up on them and began devoting the entirety of their allotted time to another round of guests and talk denouncing "the bleeding heart Common Goodism that would wreck our free enterprise system," in the hyperbolic words of Bush Bimbaugh. Not to be outdone, Pawn Vanity trumpeted in hysterical tones the probable job losses in every locality struck by a suspension announcement. He called for congressional investigations. Immediately! The Wall Street Journal put out a special edition with maps of the localities and profiles of the communities and profuse statistics on how the suspended investments would have alleviated unemployment and other local problems.
Lobo's last-gasp smear campaign was fully underway, flooding the airwaves and the right-wing blogs with ruthlessly false and lurid accusations against the Meliorists by name and against anyone associated with them, including their congressional allies and the "subversive" new CUB and Congress Watchdog organizations. The lecturers were compared to the Wobblies -- members of the Industrial Workers of the World, so many of whom were maliciously prosecuted as Communists after World War I. It was a mass media convulsion, a final desperate lunge of the deluders, distracters, deriders, defamers, and would-be destroyers of the social justice movement.
A puzzled, uncertain stock market steepened its slide by the day. The baying pack kept up its jeremiads against the Meliorists and darkly wondered whether "these ex-business tycoons" were making big money by selling short. Bush Bimbaugh and imitators evinced a sudden touching concern for the trillions of dollars in worker pensions invested in stocks and how the retirement of "millions of hardworking patriotic Americans" was in jeopardy.
It was a full week before Promotions started a comparable media counterattack, though it put out short rebuttal press releases right away. Barry's top lieutenant, Evan Evervescent, came up with a sharp idea. The Double Z had been working closely with the progressive members and staff on each of the pertinent committees, helping them to write their sections of the committee reports on two levels: the quantitative data and evidence supporting passage of the bills, and the human abuse, fraud, and devastation resulting from the conditions the bills were designed to reform. Citing House and Senate committee reports had an authoritative ring in the public mind, so Evan saw a chance for a double whammy here: he could rebut the yahoos with "official and verified heartrending material" and at the same time focus the public on the congressional process regarding passage of the Agenda.
Evan called on Bill Hillsman, who produced a series of ads that were funny, acidic, and so creatively specific that they made news themselves and got another play in the media that way -- his trademark. People everywhere were talking about them because they zeroed in on the injustices of their daily lives -- indecipherable overbillings, medical or hospital malpractice, depressed wages that forced them to work second and third jobs, price gouging by the oil companies, waste of their taxpayer dollars, unaffordable housing and healthcare, loss of their pensions, layoffs due to corporate flight, long waits on buses and trains to get to work, daycare that was too expensive if it was available at all, while the rich had daycare and chauffeurs for their dogs! What a stinking way to have to live! In particular, the ads directed at Bush Bimbaugh became instant website classics and the rage of college campuses. Up against the Minnesota maverick, Lobo and his propaganda were laughed out of town. It didn't help when two whistle-blowers revealed that their own companies had faked investment plans in order to suspend them.
The attack and counterattack between the CEOs and the PROs lasted for two weeks and cost both sides a bundle, but when the dust settled, the center had held. Horatio was still at the bridge, and the polls were still trending steadily in favor of the Agenda. All Lobo had accomplished was to exhaust his arsenal of fear-mongering.
Lobo knew that he and his team were just about cornered. The options were quickly being reduced to one -- the Khyber Pass. The CEOs had once again rejected his recommendation that they take up residence near Congress for September and October, so he reluctantly set about finding some worthy, aggressive surrogate CEOs or entrepreneurs, as his bosses had directed. He and his captains interviewed dozens of preselected candidates and winnowed them down to seven who accepted: Dexter D. Delete, scion of the nation's largest private detective firm, well versed in winning through silent intimidation by dossier; Sally Savvy, CEO of a trendy lingerie company whose customers included Hollywood's most glamorous female stars; Elvis Inskull, founder and jovial CEO of a chain of lucrative psychiatric hospitals; Adam Agricoloff, the self-styled third-generation Asparagus King, who owned half a million acres in California's Imperial Valley and employed thousands of migrant workers; Steve Shredd, principal designer and manufacturer of cluster munitions and late-release napalm bombs; Gilbert Grande, CEO of the venerable Arthur D. Small consulting firm, whose clients included more than seven hundred New York Stock Exchange companies; and Delbert D. Decisioner, chief executive of Conflict Resolution, Inc., a chain of arbitration centers specializing in business-to-business disputes.
Though their business specialties differed, they had many traits in common. They were right-wing, presentable, energetic, gregarious, and congenial. They wore their ideology proudly and articulately, and were able to convey a convincing apprehension about the threat posed by the Agenda. They all liked Lobo and were prepared to work closely with the strong-willed Brovar Dortwist. Lobo cleared them with the CEOs and installed them on the second floor of the hotel, which he'd already reserved in hopes that the CEOs would change their minds. He nicknamed them the Solvents -- the force that would dissolve the opposition. In mid-September they began attending intensive briefings by Dortwist's specialists on all matters and locales relevant to their assignment They were grilled in mock interviews, press conferences, and meetings with friendly and hostile legislators. Theirs was a tough challenge -- to be the human and authoritative face of the business community, spontaneously volunteering for duty, in contrast to the trade group execs who were viewed on Capitol Hill by friend and foe alike as yesterday's soup.
When Luke Skyhi heard of the arrival of these new kids on the block, he turned to his chief of staff and said, "This is good news. Lobo has planted the seeds of dissension between the CEOs in New York City and the hard-charging new dynamos down in DC. They're bound to disagree, and that will take up valuable time, blur their focus, and breed internecine disputes that will reduce their flexibility on the Hill. A Hydra is born, but it only has two heads, and they'll be paralyzing each other instead of striking out at us. Be careful what you wish for, big boys." He laughed into his omnipresent mug of root beer. "This is Lobo's biggest mistake, just watch."
***
Committee markup time for contested legislation on Capitol Hill is normally a work in regress. Formerly these markups were conducted in private among the legislators and their staffs only, but after the sunshine reforms of the seventies, the markups became public, like the hearings that preceded them. Not surprisingly, the real markup work retreated to the back rooms, where tradeoffs, deals, and legislative language were bargained over and decided. Lobbyists swarmed over these supposedly secret markup sessions, rushed to the lawmakers' offices afterwards, huddled in the congressional cafeterias, and ingratiated themselves with reporters by giving them "inside tips." Or such, at least, was the prevailing style of influence peddling before the Age of the Meliorists.
This September things were decidedly different. The corporate battlements were crumbling, and the lobbyists were scrambling to see how much they could salvage instead of how much they could get. They were also adding to their ranks as fast as they could. The drug industry, which already had the largest lobbying corps, with some 450 full-timers, was adding another hundred extracted from the state capitals. The already bursting Washington hotels were turning away guests. Suites in new condo buildings were being taken sight unseen. The demand for apartments spilled across the Potomac River into the busy Virginia suburbs. Every day there were industry-specific meetings, trans-industry meetings, meetings of manufacturing trade groups, financial trade groups, organizations of utilities, raw materials producers, food processors, real estate investment companies, communications and broadcasting companies. Lights burned even later into the night than in August, even at the AFL-CIO headquarters' where ordinarily anyone standing near the entrance around 5:00 p.m. would have been in mortal danger from the employee exit stampede.
For decades the corporate supremacists had been in charge almost to the point of boredom. They'd plundered tax dollars and pillaged the government. They'd brazenly tried to take over Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. They'd demanded and won outsourcing of the most established governmental functions, such as some of those involving military services, national security recruitment, data management, and space exploration. Their domination was so complete that earlier in the year a satiric street-theater troupe had conducted tours of the US government without visiting a single government building. Instead they drove the tourists past the Chamber of Commerce building, the American Forest and Paper Association headquarters, the modernistic home of the National Association of Broadcasters, the inverted architectural specimen housing the National Association of Realtors, and the American Bankers Association edifice. But those days were over. The corporatists were now in a state of near panic.
In a state of total panic were the Bulls, who knew with greater and greater certainty that they were facing the prospect of unemployment come January. The various committees and subcommittees had reserved the usual dozens of amendments, tax loopholes, and appropriations riders that had been carefully nourished by campaign money and junkets from the merchants of greed. "Get rid of them!" the Bulls bellowed to their chiefs of staff. "We don't need these lightning rods to complicate our situation."
Meanwhile, the Meliorists' congressional allies, still trying to remain under the media radar, were methodically working the Agenda bills through markup. Before the August recess, they had succeeded in persuading the Bulls to produce majority committee reports on the legislation in neutral, analytic terms. That wasn't hard to do, given the storm the Bulls knew they were facing on their return home that month. Neutrality helped them avoid controversy. Neutrality made them appear above the fray, statesmen conveying considered assessments for the deliberation of their colleagues. In their dealings with the minority, they had reached a state of unexpressed awe, realizing that these Meliorist allies were the hands and hearts of the American people. Still, it was all upside down to them. The majority in Congress represented a shrinking minority of citizens, while the minority in Congress was speaking and acting for the majority in the country.
That said, the Bulls were no fools. Given their tenure, they had steadying reserves to draw on, and none of them more than Raymond E. Tweedy III, the prestigious chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama. Justice Tweedy, as he was known to one and all, surveyed the realm and decided it was his duty to call for a weekend retreat of all the Republican Bulls in Congress. He quickly secured the assent of his counterpart in the House, Chairman Sebastian Sorrentino of New Hampshire.
By Friday noon, three dozen Bulls had arrived at the palatial Bunkers Hotel in Virginia's fox country, a favorite gathering place for congressional leaders over the years. It was secluded, confidential by strict management decree, and oh so inviting in decor, luxury, and cuisine. But this weekend's running of the Bulls was all business. No golf. No tennis. No entertainment. Nothing but serious talk about what to do in the face of the tidal wave of popular power and the relentless internal and external pressure for complete floor votes on the Agenda before the session ended.
Justice Tweedy opened the meeting. "Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps for the first time in our long careers of public service, we don't know what to do. We are facing a barrage of what can only be called ultimatums. To be sure, they are not delivered bluntly or coarsely. They are delivered by inference, by expectation, by a gentle suggestion to look out the window and see what's coming in a daily drumbeat from all points.
"The Meliorist Agenda has been distilled into the most professional legislative presentation in my memory, together with meticulous section-by-section analysis and constitutional backup. As a longtime baleful eye on sloppy, ambiguous language in bill after bill, I quietly admire their competence. You surely noticed that the preparation of the minority during your committee hearings in June and July was most thorough and most impressively backed up by their staff, by the finest if not largest law firms, by the so-called progressive think tanks, and by the thoughtful, learned cream of the nation's law, business, and graduate schools. That is the first of their concentric circles of support.
"The next and wider circle is comprised of the institutions and grassroots organizations established by the Meliorists, with paid membership rising into the millions. The third concentric circle embraces the currents unleashed by the Clean Elections Party and its candidates. The fourth is the daily mass media and Internet attention to every thrust, every move, every advance, every everything. If we put our collective finger to the wind, can any of us doubt that this is the most powerful and encompassing gale we have yet encountered? It's like a category five hurricane, like Katrina -- you can be told it's coming, you can watch it coming on television from afar, but you have no idea what it's really like until it hits.
"For what it's worth, here's my political assessment. The Meliorists have a majority of the Congress already, but not a veto-proof majority. Unless our corporate friends engineer an unlikely rollback, that means the spotlight moves to the White House. The next month will tell if the president will have the votes to sustain his vetoes, but it's not that simple. If the momentum continues from week to week back in the districts, what's at stake is not whether we can defeat a veto override in one or both houses but whether we're willing to pay the price of a landslide that throws our party out of power, throws some of us out of Congress, and bids fair to take over the White House in two years. That is the unpleasant macro scenario. There are, however, many micro scenarios that may present opportunities more within our jurisdictional and procedural control. At this point, I seek your views at any level."
Benjamin C. Bullion, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, adjusted his spectacles on his nose. "The Seven Pillars are conceived in a way that for the most part nullifies my major institutional objection. As far as I can tell, they do not cost the Treasury. Am I right, Paul?" he asked, deferring to the chair of the Joint Budget Committee.
"Right you are, Ben," said Senator Paul Pessimismo. "We're almost done with costing out all the bills, and our findings support your seat-of-the-pants assessment. The provisions having to do with what the other side calls 'shifts of power' don't draw on the Treasury at all, nor does the living wage. The CUBs and Congress Watchdogs are funded by member dues and Meliorist cash. The electoral reforms are either taxless or rely on voluntary contributions on the 1040 forms and on free television and radio time. Payments from companies for the use of public assets actually contribute to the Treasury. The main drain -- and it's a big one -- would be universal health insurance, but the opposition will counter by saying that public opinion decided in favor of Medicare for everyone long ago. They'll say that a single payer means huge savings from greater efficiencies and an end to widespread billing fraud. Federal, state, and local government already pays half of the two-trillion-dollar annual bill anyway, and big business would love to have an anticompetitive financial burden lifted from its shoulders. Finally, new taxes imposed on financial transactions in the options markets will bring a torrent of revenue into Treasury, even with the abolition of federal income tax on people earning less than a hundred thousand dollars a year. I wouldn't say this publicly, but the whole package is brilliantly choreographed for defense as well as offense."
"I wonder whether we should find this news so grim," Bullion remarked.
"Perhaps Ben has a point," said Harry Horizon, chair of the House Transportation Committee. "Our friends on the outside have a generous expectation of our ability to delay all the way and close the Agenda down before the election. Everybody else is expecting the same thing, including the media. All this makes me uncomfortable. They expect us to sit on top of a volcano that's ready to erupt. No way. Power is perceived to be unchallengeable until it's challenged. Not that our power is going to cave in like papier-mache, but we around this table know its limits better than anyone. It does, after all, come down to the votes we have in our committees, and bottling things up isn't really going to work this year. The Seven Pillars have been skillfully positioned as ideas whose time has come. I'm losing members to the Meliorist side every week."
Martin Merchant, chairman of the Senate Commerce and Industry Committee was nodding. "The Meliorists' allies have been taking regular internal polls of Congress, showing a steady increase in their votes, and they're doing another one next week. I suggest we take our own poll of ourselves. How many among us are hard-liners? How many are still prepared to say with Calvin Coolidge that 'the business of America is business' and that the Meliorists are cooking the golden goose?" He looked around the table slowly. Many of his fellow solons were smiling nervously or shaking their heads wistfully or sighing. A few were gritting their teeth.
Billy Beauchamp spoke up. "Last month all of us met with one of the Meliorists. Did they pound their fists and threaten us, shout us down, display quiet cunning and shiftiness? From my experience and what I've heard from the rest of you, the answer is no. Whatever they may have been thinking, they respected our intelligence, laid their wishes out calmly, and listened to us. If they had an attitude, it was 'What's the Big Deal? We've Earned It!' and their fervent belief that the Agenda is great for the USA. Listen, I'm from one of the most conservative districts in the country, and I've slipped below fifty percent. My opponent is a newcomer to electoral politics, nominated by a brand-new party nobody had heard of a few months ago. They're tapping into a deep vein of resentment among voters against the rich and powerful. Obviously, more than a few are our voters -- or were.
"In my judgment, the struggle this fall comes down to one question: Are we prepared to go all out, pull out all the stops with our frantic business partners, to deny the American people a decent livelihood, a rightful voice in government, and a political and economic system that will no longer betray them and abandon them? If we are, we may destroy our party's control over the three branches of government for a generation, if not longer. And that's assuming we can beat the Meliorists. We may very well end up losing to them and losing our seats in one heave-ho."
"You've all made it easier for me to speak my mind," said Francine Freshet, chair of the House Environment Committee. "As I read the tea leaves, we have two choices left: either we surrender with slow-motion grace, or we take the Bulls by the horns, as it were, and ride the Agenda wave to victory, getting some get credit for it and saving our party in the process. I don't happen to think the Meliorists are revolutionists."
Duke Sabernickle, chair of the House Commerce Committee, slammed his fist down on the table. "I've heard enough! What disgraceful defeatism, and well before any defeat can be considered imminent. Look around. We're the leadership. We're still in charge. And we still have the nuclear option."
"And what, may I ask, is that, Duke?" inquired Daniel Dostart, the energetic speaker of the House.
"The nuclear option is to choose the right time and announce adjournment. Under the Constitution, the president can order us back, but not this president!"
"Adjournment?" exclaimed several Bulls at the same time.
"Exactly. Close up shop, take off, go on some European parliamentary junket." Duke said, almost spitting the words.
"We can't do that," objected Elaine Whitehat, chair of the House Education Committee. "Aside from the Agenda, there are vital defense and health-education appropriations bills that make up about three-quarters of the government's operating budget and that still need to be reported out of committee, debated, passed, and reconciled with the other body."
"So?" replied Sabernickle with curled lip. "We'll pass 'em and then vamoose."
"It won't work," Whitehat said levelly. "The other side has anticipated you by not allowing much distance between these must bills and the Seven Pillars. Besides, anyone who votes for adjournment would be best advised to flee the country. It would be political suicide."
"What an opportune moment to pause and reflect!" interjected Justice Tweedy. "Let's break for dinner and resume on a full stomach."
Everybody nodded to that except for the furious Sabernickle, who swore under his breath, "Goddamn jellyfish!"
In the large dining room, a mustached pianist with a permanent smile and practiced fingers was playing the old standards in subdued octaves so as not to intrude on the diners' conversations. There wasn't much to intrude on. A weariness had settled over the Bulls, perhaps because each of them had hoped to hear more fire and brimstone and defiance from the others than they were feeling themselves. Some made desultory small talk about their "quality time" with their grandchildren or a recent spectacular performance at the US Open or Yankee Stadium. After dessert and brandy, they reconvened in the conference room.
"What an excellent meal!" said Justice Tweedy, trying to start things off on a positive note, "Shall we continue our exchange of views?"
"Well," said Senate Majority Leader Tillman Frisk, "since our room for maneuver is contracting, the ball is more in the Senate court than over at the other body. As my distinguished colleagues in the House know full well, Senate rules allow for unlimited debate, the filibuster, the endless offering of non-germane amendments, and an armload of parliamentary obstructions that our full-time parliamentarian spends years trying to figure out and interpret from one vague precedent after another. However, given the weekly attrition of our numbers, one rule becomes paramount, in that it can dissolve all these obstructions. I refer to the discharge petition to move bills out of committee. If more than sixty percent of the vote is there, down go our historic tactics of delay and blockage."
"In the House," said Speaker Dostart, "these same discharge petitions can overcome the temporal prerogatives, shall we call them, of the committee chairs. And don't you think the other side isn't planning for that eventuality even as we sit here?"
"Of course," said Senator Frisk. "Once an idea whose time has come comes -- and this one is coming on eighteen wheels -- all bets, all old ways and means, go by the board, I hazard."
"Defeatism, defeatism, and more defeatism!" thundered Duke Sabernickle, pounding the table again. "Maybe I've had one too many dinners with our business friends, maybe it's because I'm younger than most of you and because I want to and can stay in the House longer than most of you, but aren't we the last stand of the free enterprise system, as many of you have repeatedly stated in the past? Aren't we the last stand for economic freedom against social engineering and the leftist plan for America's decline? The Seven Pillars? Hah! They're Seven Slides down the slipperiest slope in American political and economic history. I know whereof I speak in these matters. The Meliorists are always talking about 'Redirections.' What's our direction? Where is our courage? Or are we now no more than lily-livered, Janus-faced opportunists?"
A protracted silence followed Sabernickle's tirade. Then, slowly pushing back his chair and standing ramrod tall, Armand Armsbuckle, former air force captain, veteran decorated in two wars, and immemorial chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, commenced a reply to this junior Bull's unusual dressing-down of his seniors.
"As someone who has faced enemy fire and paid the price in combat, I should take umbrage at your taunts, Mr. Sabernickle, but that would only dignify them with an attention they do not deserve. Instead, I wish to make a personal statement before my colleagues. Brave as I was in war, I became a coward in politics. I didn't start out that way. I entered politics with a patriotic fervor to keep our country strong, honest, and prosperous. and a determination to respond to my constituents. As the years passed and my reelection became just about automatic, I slowly but surely came to see my constituency as the defense manufacturers who treated me so well, the helpful majors and colonels assigned to my office as Pentagon lobbyists, the corporate PACs and their handlers who made sure my campaign coffers were overflowing, the business associates who golfed with me, wined and dined me, and enjoyed my company and my family's at many social occasions."
By now the other Bulls were hanging on every word of this extraordinary confession from the normally reserved, proud chairman who commanded the disposition of half the federal operating budget.
"It was a comfortable life, full of accolades, flattery, and deference -- just so long as I was following orders from the military-industrial complex, as Ike put it so well. I learned to say yes to every weapons system, every inflated military contract, every foreign adventure, every episode of 'so sorry' collateral damage costing the lives of so many innocent dark-skinned civilians in those God-forsaken countries abroad, every fabrication by my presidents, secretaries of defense, and secretaries of state, every drain on our national budget to appease the defense budget Moloch. I learned to say yes to it all, and I did it at the behest of those desperately looking for enemies overseas both before and after the Soviet Union collapsed, and at the expense of needy people and their children, public services. and the preservation of our precious natural resources here at home.
"Like you, I have watched the awakening of our fellow citizens of all backgrounds and opinions. It made me start thinking about myself, ourselves. When I saw on one television program after another the salt of the Earth, our American people, taking stands, attending rallies, challenging the greed, power, arrogance, and imperiousness of their masters, even while knowing it could mean their jobs, their livelihoods, and their modest ambitions for their children, shame overcame me. I asked myself, What have I ever done for these people, other than giving some of them jobs manufacturing cluster bombs, napalm, missiles, artillery shells, bombers, aircraft carriers, submarines with multiple nuclear warheads, chemical and biological lethalities? Talk about weapons of mass destruction. My answer embarrassed and humiliated me.
"Like many of you, I enjoy spending time with my little grandchildren. I praise them, admonish them, play with them. They know of my position, of course. What can I say to them when, at a young age of curiosity about the world and its injustices, they sit on my knee and ask, 'Granddaddy, what have you done to help?' Do I keep quiet? Do I lie to them? Or do I tell them I did nothing because I was too busy making sure our country acquired enough weapons to blow up their entire world three hundred times over and send the rubble into outer space?
"The Meliorists were wise to avoid completely matters of military and foreign policy, including the gigantic waste and theft in military budgets. You may be thinking, since their Agenda for the Common Good excludes these areas under my jurisdiction, that this battle is none of my business. You're the ones dodging the brickbats. Things are relatively quiet over at the Armed Services Committees. But I am a United States senator, not just the senator from Lockheed-Martin, as one poster put it cruelly. I am a veteran, a lawmaker, a husband, father, and grandfather, and I am determined in this final stage of my public career to be faithful to the responsibilities inherent in those fundamental roles.
"During the recess, Paul Newman called and asked to meet with me, and I agreed. We've all enjoyed his movies over the years and marveled at his continuing skills as a professional racer at age eighty. What I did not know was that he fought in World War II, and that many of the other Meliorists did too. He is a thoughtful gentleman. We had a thoughtful meeting. No bluster, no posturing, no dissembling on his part. He met me elder to elder, as part of a generation whose wisdom has for too long been neither offered nor requested. He used a wonderful phrase about his children and grandchildren. For them and for their generation, he said, he wanted to be a good ancestor. He was so different from the legions of high-powered lobbyists and CEOs who come to me for their special procurements and favors. He didn't even ask me to support the Seven Pillars. He just wanted to explain personally who the Meliorists were, where they were coming from, and what they hoped to leave behind for our beloved country during their remaining years. He spoke about their past achievements and described their decision to move from success to significance, to work for a country where the rights of power are replaced by the power of rights. I never felt better than when I let him take me to dinner.
"Lest you think I'm going soft" -- the senator looked straight at Sabernickle -- "let me define what being tough means. Asserting moral courage is being tough. Waging peace is being tough. Standing up to arrogant power is being tough. And until we have the deeply just society our people deserve, doing the right thing even if it costs us in the short run is being tough. What's being soft? Not thinking through why we are in Congress is being soft. Kowtowing to the interests that fund our campaigns and our appetite for power is being soft. Rallying behind every warmongering political charlatan who sends others off to kill and die is being soft. How do I know? Because up until now I've been soft in all those cowardly ways. But no more. On Monday morning, I will hold a news conference applauding the Seven Pillars and announcing my support. I would welcome it beyond gratitude if any of you were to join with me. Thank you for hearing me out." Armand Armsbuckle slowly sat down.
In the hushed room, four chairmen looked down at the table and blew a ripple of air through their lips. Another muttered, "I'll be a buzzard's uncle." Two others leaned back and looked up at the ceiling with their hands clasped. Several kept their eyes on Armsbuckle with expressions of serenity. Harry Horizon and Francine Freshet clapped twice and broke off. Billy Beauchamp nodded with understanding. Benjamin Bullion furrowed his brow and put his fingertips to the bridge of his nose.
"Oh, for God's sake. This is too much. Iron man turns bleeding heart. Give me a damn break." Duke Sabernickle said disgustedly.
Several chairmen who had been trying to remain neutral shot him a dirty look, and one said, "Duke, you're out of order." Senate Majority Leader Frisk said quietly, "Thank you, Armand, for your service to your country," while Speaker Dostart added, "Ditto, Armand, and don't be so hard on yourself." Half a dozen chairmen who silently agreed with Sabernickle's views if not his tone instantly began thinking about how to marginalize Annsbuckle after the news conference, assuming he couldn't be dissuaded from that point of no return. Finally the chairman of the House Labor Committee, Walter Workman, who had been silent until now, said in a loud voice, "Bravo, Senator Armsbuckle, bravo!"
Justice Tweedy sensed that matters were getting out of hand. The strategic analysis and consensus he had hoped would come out of the retreat had been extinguished by Armsbuckle's announcement. And he was going public on Monday, no less. Justice Tweedy stood up gravely.
"Armand, who among us does not respect your experience and your views? Who among us has not entertained doubts over the years about the declining state of our country in the midst of growing capabilities? As events move faster and faster, I myself feel that things are spinning out of control -- just look at public and private debt levels, for example. But we came here to see if we could forge a common understanding regarding what we need to do vis-a-vis the Meliorists' drive through Congress. Not perfect agreement. Not an iron-clad united front, desirable as that would be. But common ground that permits us to move to the next level in handling this challenge. Now you tell us that on Monday the nation will watch you supporting the Agenda for the Common Good. If you go forward with your plan, you will have aborted the whole purpose of our being here this weekend. We need time to get our bearings, to determine our current power, our bargaining possibilities, the state of our allies, our options for revision. We've just returned from the hottest August of our lifetimes, and we need some time to digest that roiling month. The press, the lobbies, and our worthy opponents in Congress are all knocking on our doors for interviews, meetings, statements, committee schedules. As you noted, because the Seven Pillars do not cover the defense budget and military policies, you are not on the receiving end of these insistent entreaties. If you tie your immense prestige and credibility to the Agenda, that becomes the story of the week, followed by who knows what consequences. Can you give us another week, Armand? Let me ask all of us, how many would urge our distinguished colleague to defer his news conference by just another week?"
All raised their hands except Duke Sabernickle, who sat silent and grim-faced with his arms crossed.
"Armand?" asked Justice Tweedy.
"Your words and our long friendship touch me. I'll relent for another week, but we'll have to meet again next weekend to digest what has transpired in the intervening days. Agreed?"
Justice Tweedy scanned the faces around the table. "Does anyone disagree? ... Very well, it's unanimous. At this point, I think it best to adjourn, get some sleep, and get back to Washington tomorrow. I'll be in the breakfast room in the morning if any of you wish to exchange additional thoughts. It's been an arduous day for all of us, so thank you and good night."
***