Reprinted from The FUNdamentalist (May 1996)
When street criminals die they are either not noticed or the corporate media gives a hint of good riddance to those who made neighborhoods unsafe and unsightly. When a corporate (read: legitimate) criminal dies the media heaps up endless praises as if they are arguing for the deceased’s canonization to sainthood. This is exactly the kind of coverage we got from the corporate media with the death of Clinton Commerce Secretary Ron Brown.
The Wall Street Journal called Brown the “darling of corporate America” and the Uncle Tom of syndicated columnists, Carl Rowan, said “he (Brown) rose above barriers.” Indeed he did. Brown rose above certain racial barriers in the early 80g’s while stumping for the law firm of Patton, Boggs, & Blow. One of his clients was Haiti’s “Baby Doc” Duvalier. Brown made sure that the brutal Duvalier regime had continued access to Washington, despite domestic and international pressures to the contrary. In a 1983g memo that Brown sent to Duvalier we can get a flavor for the relationship of these two Black men, “My current role as deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee has served us well in these efforts, while my contacts with my counterparts in the Republican Party assure continued access and excellent relations with the government of President Reagan.” (The Uses of Haiti, by Paul Farmer, pg. 223) Here we can see how Brown rose above barriers to help Duvalier to repress his Black population.
Jesse Jackson, who more often than not, displays his true colors says of Brown, “We must remember Ron Brown – freedom fighter, social servant, patriot, dream-maker.”Let us recount an instance that reflects such eulogizing of the darling of corporate America.
In 1980g, again his law firm of Patton, Boggs, & Blow became servant of a group of freedom fighters in Guatemala, known as Amigos del Pais. “The Amigos, once described as the ‘John Birch Society of Guatemala’, are a group of landowners which financed death squad activities.” (CounterPunch V.2, No.8) This was during the Lucas Garcia regime where 3,900 people were killed in the fl1′st 10 months of 1980g alone. Not to be swayed by human rights abuses Brown sought other business in Guatemala. In 1982g, while the regime of Rios Montt was beginning its counterinsurgency campaign directed against the majority Mayan population, Brown signed on the Guatemalan Sugar Growers. The head of the Growers was Julio Herrera, a member of the second wealthiest clan in the country. Also associated with the Growers was Mario Sandoval Alarcon, founder of the Mana Blanco (white hand) death squad. Referred to as the grandfather of the death squads, Sandoval got his start with the Movement of National Liberation party in 1953g, when he received CIA money to help oust the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz. (Unfinished Conquest, by Victor Perera, pg. 45) This is what no doubt gained Ron Brown the title of freedom fighter.
Federico Pena, the Sec. of Transportation, gushed about Brown by saying “His warmth was genuine and you could feel it.” Pena would know, in the early 90g’s Brown used his political/corporate connections to get Pena money to finance the Denver Airport, that from the beginning has had numerous problems and has cost the taxpayers of Colorado millions of dollars. This is certainly what Brown is best at… .going to bat for corporate interests. It should not have been a surprise to us then that Clinton named him as Sec. of Commerce in 1993g..
The death of Brown and some 22 other corporate flacks on April 3 should have signaled to us the true allegiance of Ron. Brown and the Clinton administration. They were flying to the Balkans to broker deals for US investors after years of bloody warfare that Brown’s boss endorsed and even supported with ongoing weapons sales. As the April 1 issue of CounterPunch demonstrates, the corporate interests represented on the trip with Brown were all huge financial donors to the Clinton campaign. Some of the more notable are AT&T, Bechtel, Boeing, Enron and Northwest Airlines. This fatal trip reveals the fundamental motive of US foreign policy: support or create instability and then intervene, with corporate CEO’s and bankers wearing a humanitarian face, when a country is too weak and divided to say no. (see the most recent issue of Covert Action Quarterly, the example of the Balkans is looked at in detail.)
i point out these things not because i am cold hearted or like to diss on people after they have died. The point being that there needs to be an honest depiction of people, especially people who put themselves in the public eye. It is a healthy activity to engage in critical discernment and accountability of people who claim to represent us. The corporate media did none of this.
“If you are not careful the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”
- Malcolm X
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