Buchanan: Exorcism or a pact with the devil
By Jesús Arboleya Cervera
Commenting on my article about the issue of petroleum in Cuba, a reader told me that although I was “very critical of the right for its lack of sensitivity to the care of the environment, [I was] not consistent in criticizing similar concerns of Congressman Vern Buchanan” in relation to the oil exploration taking place in Cuban territorial waters.
Aside from the fact that arrogance, irrationality and intolerance, so fashionable in American politics, are not acceptable methods, not even to propel noble causes, I believe that neither Mother Teresa, with all her purity of spirit, would have swallowed the story that a healthy concern for the conservation of the environment is what motivates Congressman Vern Buchanan’s obsession with oil exploration in Cuba.
The reality is that Buchanan has long belonged to “the Green Party.” I do not mean the plants, but the dollars. Not coincidentally, he is one of the country’s wealthiest Congressmen.
Of humble origin, Buchanan developed a lucrative career as a car salesman in his native Detroit, a place where – in the food chain associated with that business – only the top predators survive. Not even the big syndicate Merrill Lynch, which is used to “knocking down” the whole world, was saved from his bites. It lent $15.4 million to the company led by the shrewd Buchanan. Barely a year later, he declared it bankrupt, pocketing the dividends, which according to the Creditors Committee, he had obtained illegally, inflating costs and benefits.
Apparently, Buchanan got his way anyway and moved to other places where the climate was more suitable, not for his lungs but for his pockets. He landed in the small town of Ocala, Fla., from where he expanded its business to the area of insurance, creating two companies in the Bahamas and Bermuda, known tax havens. These caught the attention of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which has followed him since, though with little success.
In Sarasota, where he is currently a federal representative, Buchanan became involved in a mega-condominium project sponsored by the Ritz-Carlton consortium, which, perhaps better counseled than the voters, decided to cancel the business on the grounds that the accounting reports delivered by the Congressman were unreliable.
Still, it is reported that Buchanan earned several hundred thousand dollars, reselling apartments that he bought at preferential prices taking advantage of his early access to market information.
According to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), an organization that has placed him for several years among the 20 most corrupt Congressmen in the country, it was Buchanan’s common practice to force his employees to contribute to his campaigns with the guarantee (in some cases) that he’d return the cash.
For this reason, the representative currently faces lawsuits from 14 former employees who decided to report the extortion to the courts.
Who knows how the Congressman freed this money (not a trifling sum), if we consider that the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) is investigating the partner who dealt with these transactions, which add up to about $68,000 in a single campaign, according to figures audited by the FEC.
Perhaps this explains why Buchanan easily won the last election, even though the institutional contributions he received fell by almost two thirds in comparison with the previous campaign.
To make matters worse, Buchanan appears among the politicians involved in the massive fraud scandal that led Texan tycoon Robert Allan Stanford to prison. According to the Center for Responsive Politics (CPR), Stanford invested nearly two million dollars of dubious origin in contributions to political sources in Washington, in order, inter alia, to freeze a proposed law against political corruption that ultimately was not approved by Congress.
While most of the Florida politicians who benefited from these contributions were Democrats, two Republicans stood out: Buchanan himself and his colleague Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
Buchanan’s case is not surprising in a state like Florida. In fact, none of this information was obtained from secret sources, or was the result of a document released by Wikileaks. Anyone who takes the trouble can find it with a simple search on the Internet. It has even been published by major American newspapers.
The problem is that – caught in what social scientists and hackers call “communication entropy” – the people who vote for these characters are satisfied with the family photos and fiery speeches where the pattern is demagoguery.
So, as much as we value the power of human redemption, we cannot believe Buchanan when he stands before us trying to redeem his sins and finding divine salvation at the expense of Cuban oil. At the risk of sounding skeptical, logic prompts our suspicion that, once again, this man is trying to fool God.
