Congress in Search of a Bordello
By James Petras
December 24, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- In
accordance with the Congressional
Accountability Act of 1995 (CAA) the Office
of Compliance (OC) compiled and published
shocking statistics listing (1) the number
of settlements paid to its employees and
interns after allegations of abuse by
legislators; (2) the total amount of dollars
paid by US Treasury to the victims of
Congressional workplace abuse.
The US taxpayers were made to pay millions
of dollars in financial settlements for
hundreds of incidents of Congressperson
abuse, including gross sexual harassment,
against interns, staff and office employees,
of both sexes. This ‘slush and shush’ fund
was hidden from the American people. Many
abused victims were paid-off and intimidated
into silently watching the elected officials
parade themselves as paragons of virtue and
champions of their voters.
The data, published by Congressional Office
of Compliance, covered a period starting in
1997 to November 2017. In that period, 264
victims of abuse, some by a number of
Congresspersons, came forward with their
complaints. The US Treasury secretly paid
over $17 million dollars to the victims
while the identities of the abusing
Congresspersons are not identified and are
protected under the 1995 statute.
In other words, the members of the US
Congress, including serial sexual abusers
and uncontrolled bullies, have shielded
themselves from public exposure, so they
could continue preying on their employees
with impunity and without any personal
material loss or humiliating exposure to
their families. Thus protected, they could
expect to be re-elected to abuse again and
the taxpayers would pay their secret
‘pay-offs’!
Political
Party Leadership in Congress and the
Protected Abusers
An examination of the political party
affiliation of the Congressional leaders and
the Presidents during this 20-year period of
abuse reveals that both parties were engaged
in shielding offenders and perverts among
their ranks.
During the first 10 years (1997-2007),
Congress was controlled by the Republican
Party. Under their leadership, the Treasury
secretly paid over $11 million in
compensation to the victims.
Democrats controlled the ‘House’ during the
next three years (2008-2011) when the
Treasury paid over $2.5 million dollars. As
a result of this perverse form of
‘bipartisan cooperation’, abusive officials
from both parties were free to abuse,
humiliate and exploit their employees and
young interns with impunity.
In the last five years (2012-2017),
Republicans, once again, controlled the
House and oversaw the secret payout of over
$3.5 million for ‘bipartisan’ abuse.
Moving from monetary payment to the number
of abused employees, we find 133 were
subjected to abuse under the Republicans
(1997-2007), 48 under the Democrats between
(2008-2011) and another 73 victims under the
latest period of Republican control
(2012-2017). All victims, who came forward
with their complaints, faced a gauntlet of
procedural intimidation, ‘counseling’,
‘cooling off’ periods and legal restraint to
remain silent.
If we examine Congressional abuse on a per
capita basis, Republicans abused on an
average, 13 victims a year while the
Democrats harassed 12 victims a year. There
is a comforting level of uniformity and
continuity of abuse in the US political
system under both Republican and Democratic
control of Congress. This indicates a
shared political culture and practice among
America’s ‘Solons’. Whatever wild-eyed
rhetorical ideological differences, both
parties cooperate with great civility in the
abuse of their employees.
Indeed, the sense of feudal privilege over
employees, viewing workers and interns as
peasants, invoking the once outlawed ‘droit
de seigneur’, pervades the Halls of
Congress. This culture of feudal abuse, so
common in the private sector, in giant
corporations, Hollywood and the media, has
metastasized to the centers of US political
power, leaving untold thousands of
brutalized victims and their helpless loved
ones to deal with the long-term effects of
humiliation, bitterness and injustice. For
every abused young employee, treated like a
serf by an all powerful legislator, there
are dozens of helpless family members,
fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters and
spouses, who must deal with decades of
silent resentment against these abusers.
None of this is surprising given how both
parties have been financed and controlled by
corporate leaders, Hollywood moguls and Wall
Street speculators, who have exploited and
abused their employees with impunity until
the recent ‘Me-Too’ movement erupted
spontaneously. Given the transformation of
the workplace into a kind of neo-feudal
estate, the ‘Me-Too’ movement may be seen as
a latter-day ‘Peasant Revolt’ against the
overlords.
Presidential Leadership and Abuse in the
Workplace
Several Presidents have been accused of
gross sexual abuse and humiliation of office
staff and interns, most ignobly William
Jefferson Clinton. However, the
Congressional Office of Compliance, in
accord with the Congressional Accountability
Act of 1995 does not collect statistics on
presidential abuses and financial
settlements. Nevertheless, we can examine
the number of Congressional victims and
payments during the tenures of the various
Presidents during the past 20 years. This
can tell us if the Presidents chose to issue
any directives or exercise any leadership
with regard to stopping the abuses occurring
during their administrations.
Under Presidents William Clinton and Barack
Obama we have data for 12 years 1997-2000,
and 2009-2016. Under President George W
Bush and Donald Trump we have data for 9
years 2001-2008 and 2017.
Under the two Democratic Presidents, 148
legislative employees were abused and the
Treasury paid out approximately $5 million
dollars and under the Republican Presidents,
116 were abused and Treasury and over $12
million dollars was paid out.
Under the Democratic Presidents, the average
number of abuse victims was 12 per year;
under the Republicans the average number was
13 per year. As in the case of
Congressional leadership, US Presidents of
both parties showed remarkable bipartisan
consistency in tolerating Congressional
abuse.
Congressional Abuse: The Larger Meaning
Workplace abuse by elected leaders in
Washington is encouraged by Party cronyism,
loyalties and shameless bootlicking. It is
reinforced by the structure of power
pervasive in the ruling class. Congress
people exercise near total power over their
employees because they are not accountable
to their peers or their voters. They are
protected by their financial donors, the
special Congressional ‘judicial’ system and
by the mass media with a complicity of
silence.
The entire electoral system is based on a
hierarchy of power, where those on the top
can demand subordination and enforce their
demands for sexual submission with threats
of retaliation against the victim or the
victim’s outraged family members. This
mirrors a feudal plantation system.
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However, like sporadic peasant uprisings in
the Middle Ages, some employees rise up,
resist and demand justice. It is common to
see Congressional abusers turn to their
office managers, often female, to act as
‘capos’ to first threaten and then buy off
the accuser – using US taxpayer funds.
This added abuse never touches the wallet of
the abuser or the office enforcer.
Compensation is paid by the US Treasury.
The social and financial status of the
abusers and the abusers’ families remain
intact as they look forward to lucrative
future employment as lobbyists.
This does not occur in isolation from the
broader structure of class and power.
The sexual exploitation of workers in the
Halls of the US Congress is part of the
larger socio-economic system. Elected
officials, who abuse their office employees
and interns, share the same values with
corporate and cultural bosses, who exploit
their workers and subordinates. At an even
larger level, they share the same values and
culture with the Imperial State as it
brutalizes and rapes independent nations and
peoples.
The system of abuse and exploitation by the
Congress and the corporate, cultural,
academic, religious and political elite
depends on complicit intermediaries who
frequently come from upwardly mobile
groups. The most abusive legislators will
hire upwardly mobile women as public
relations officers and office managers to
recruit victims and, when necessary, arrange
pay-offs. In the corporate sphere, CEOs
frequently rely on former plant workers,
trade union leaders, women and minorities to
serve as ‘labor relations’ experts to
provide a progressive façade in order to
oust dissidents and enforce directives
persecuting whistleblowers. On a global
scale, the political warlords work hand in
glove with the mass media and humanitarian
interventionist NGO’s to demonize
independent voices and to glorify the
military as they slaughter resistance
fighters, while claiming to champion gender
and minority rights. Thus, the US invasion
and occupation of Afghanistan was widely
propagandized and celebrated as the
‘liberation of Afghan women’.
The Congressional perverts have their own
private, secret mission: to abuse staff, to
nurture the rich, enforce silence and
approve legislation to make taxpayers pay
the bill.
Let us hope that the current ‘Me Too!’
movement against workplace sexual abuse will
grow to include a broader movement against
the neo-feudalism within politics, business,
and culture and lead to a political movement
uniting workers in all fields.
James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York.
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