Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 2 Num. 28

("Quid coniuratio est?")


L.J. DAVIS INTERVIEW

L.J. Davis, author of an article offering a good look beneath the surface of Arkansas politics ("The Name of Rose", The New Republic, April 4, 1994), was interviewed by phone by David Inge of the local PBS-connected radio station on August 4, 1994. What follows is my transcription of that interview.

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[...L.J. Davis continues...]

All of this has been goin' on under everybody's nose, in Arkansas, and everywhere else, and there's a whole lot of culpability all over the place -- including culpability on the part of my colleagues and myself for not having caught it!

CALLER #3:
Uh-huh [understands]. Is that issue not even being addressed in the medical, the proposed medical health care reform?

-+- All People Are Good -+-

L.J. DAVIS:
Um, it... The proposed medical health care reform, despite the interest of the Justice Department in stamping out medical fraud -- attorney general Reno's number 2 priority, and rightly so... But the legislation appears to be being written (hasn't been written yet, so we don't know) as though, once again, "All people are good". That... No investigator, federal or local, that I have talked to (and I've been talkin' to a lot of them) thinks that this health care bill is gonna be anything but an invitation to keep right on looting.

By the way, this goes on to such an extent that on a yearly basis, according to the most conservative estimates that I've got from the officials, we could fight between 8 and 13 Gulf Wars every year!

CALLER #3:
Well the Gulf War cost what? $50 or $60 billion?

DAVIS
Um, not really. We... George Bush actually did something that Sergeant Bilko had long wanted to do -- run the war for a slight profit? A lot of that bill was paid for by our allies, including the non-participating Japanese.

CALLER #3:
What specific amount are you talking about then?

DAVIS
I'm talking about, if you factor out how much it cost to keep...

CALLER #3:
I mean, how much would the amount be? For the medical insurance fraud.

DAVIS
Oh! Between... going from the conservative to the high? Between $80 and close to $200 billion a year.

CALLER #3:
And the total national health care bill is estimated at what? $900 billion?

DAVIS
It's gonna hit a trillion this year.

CALLER #3:
So you're talking maybe anywhere between 10 and 20 percent...

DAVIS
That's right.

CALLER #3:
...of all health insurance costs are in the area of fraud?

DAVIS
That's right.

CALLER #3:
They're doing relatively nothing about it.

DAVIS
Uh, the Justice Department is, as I say, doing its best. But the Justice Department is dealing with an FBI that was fairly gutted during the Reagan and Bush years.

CALLER #3:
Uh-huh [understands]. Thank you very much.

DAVID INGE:
One more caller here. Line number 3. This is in Urbana. Hello?

CALLER #4:
Hello!

INGE
Yeah.

CALLER #4:
Yes. I am Pakistani! And I am a doctor. And you can get drunk on 4 drinks. And...

DAVIS
Well, yeah. You can! I've...

-+- A Racist Alcoholic -+-

CALLER #4:
...To continue: I think that you're probably an alcoholic! And if anybody notices me when I get off the plane here -- all of the people who get off the plane, we... some of us... my dear colleague, Dr. Singh, wears a turban. I hope we don't, don't cause some kind of a "whatever it is"!! I think you are... I think your whole racism is absolutely disgusting!!! And I...

DAVIS
Doctor, may I point out...

CALLER #4:
...think absolutely ridiculous!

-+- A Call From A Scotsman -+-

DAVIS
Doctor, may I point out that these are not any of your countrymen, just any of your countrymen that are getting off the plane. These are people that the comptroller of the currency of the United States has specifically stated must never be allowed to enter the American banking system.

As for the Indonesians getting off, they are not just any Indonesians. They are known associates of the dictator of the country.

We're not talking ordinary people. I mean, if a Scotsman who happened to own a, or be associated with, an immense, corrupt, or questionable financial institution got off the plane, I suppose we'd have a call from somebody named "Mr. McLaren" accusing me of not liking Scotsmen!

I'm talking about a very specific kind of guy!

INGE
Well we're down to the point here... We have maybe a minute and a half. And I guess...
DAVIS
I guess that [unclear] of mine backfired!
INGE
Well. We'll have to leave that, I guess.

Um. How does... You know, what do you come away with? Maybe I can just ask you, you know, personally, as you think about President Clinton and the Clinton administration... I mean, as a result of what you have done, what (and other people, they can read what you've written and they can make their own judgement) -- What do you come away with?

-+- Very Serious Questions -+-

DAVIS
What do I come away with. I come away with very serious questions about the President's character. Very serious questions about his judgement and the judgement of his wife, in the associations that they have. We never even got into the family's association with the state, a prominent investment banker who was also the state's most flamboyant cocaine addict! Talk about addicts! I mean, a guy that no Governor in his right mind should be associating with.

And this has been a pattern, throughout the political history of now-President Clinton. Yes, I'm disturbed and I have questions! I can't draw conclusions, because, as I say, we do not know the man's mind. (And the Congress is certainly not helping us work out his thought processes.)

INGE
Well, I guess at that we will have to leave it. I want to thank you very much for talking with us. We appreciate it. And you know, perhaps sometime in the future we might get a chance to talk again.
DAVIS
O.K.!
INGE
We thank you for your time, very much.
DAVIS
Listen, thanks so much for having me on!
INGE
O.K.
DAVIS
O.K.

I encourage distribution of "Conspiracy Nation."


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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt. Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et pauperem. -- Liber Proverbiorum XXXI: 8-9

Brian Francis Redman bigxc@prairienet.org "The Big C"

"Justice" = "Just us" = "History is written by the assassins."