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Tuesday, 03 April 2007 15:27 |
 | | Mark West |
March was a month of outrages.
Ann Coulter, who might well be described as the mother of outrages, has taken to using pointless slurs about sexual preference to refer to political candidates with whom she disagrees and then asking why those people canít just take a joke.
Next, no doubt, sheíll have to turn to racial slurs. Like a political Britney Spears, Coulter canít bear to be out of the spotlight, and will turn to the outrageous if thatís what it takes to regain the limelight.
She could just shave her head, I suppose, but I think increasingly vile talk is more her metier.
And then,
thereís Halliburton, the red, white and blue general contractor for
whom no defense-related contract was too big. Their coffers hugely
enriched by a variety of no-bid contracts, now we hear that
Halliburtonís leadership cadre has decided to head for Dubai. Now, at
least, we can have no doubts about where the loyalties of Dick Cheneyís
former firm lie; the firm is loyal not to the U.S., not to Western
culture or to Christendom; theyíre loyal to the money.
In the Emirates,
of which Dubai is one of the seven constituent states, political
parties are banned.
Trying to convert Muslims is illegal, and voting
doesnít happen. Britainís ìEconomist,î in a recent ranking, gave the
Emirates a score of 3.70 out of 10 on political freedom ó below Iran,
which scored a 3.85. Reporters Without Borders ranked the UAE 137th out
of 167 countries in their 2004 Index of Press Freedom. The nation
outlawed human slavery only in 1963, and eleven of the 19 Sept. 11
terrorists flew to the United States via Dubai.
But none of that
appears to stand in the way of Halliburtonís proposed move. Dubai, and
the Emirates as a whole, have become something like a real-world
Disneyland, with fanciful construction projects and gigantic
marble-clad hotels sprouting from the oil-rich sands. Presumably
Halliburton wants some of those construction bucks, and is perfectly
happy to abandon the red, white and blue for the green.
But I think
thereís more to all this than that. Given Dick Cheneyís, and the
current administrationís, record on civil rights and economic justice,
it isnít any surprise that the company that Cheney once helmed would
feel more at home in a country where ìguest workersî labor while the
rich besport themselves in glittering pleasure palaces, in a country
where thereís only one political party, in a country where freedom of
the press and freedom of discourse are illegal.
That sounds like Cheneyís dream-world. No wonder Halliburton is moving to Dubai.
ï
Mark West is a professor of mass communications at UNC Asheville.
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