#gray davis

Gray Davis's rise to power in California was anything but speedy -- he worked tirelessly at virtually every level of state government for the better part of three decades: he was Chief of Staff to Governor Jerry Brown during Brown's first two terms as Governor; member of the State Assembly; served two terms as State Controller; and served a term as Lieutenant Governor before his own successful bid for Governor in 1998 and re-election in 2002.

I will go to my grave defending my belief that Governor Davis was a very good Governor and could have been great. The Recall that ended his political career was largely triggered by an electricity crisis that we now know was heavily influenced by market manipulation on the part of the infamously corrupt Enron Corporation. In 2002-2003, the only entity that was robbed more blindly of their rightful position than Governor Davis were the Sacramento Kings in the NBA Playoffs.

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is a documentary that isn’t only informative, it’s scary. If you’re familiar with the company and the whole affair, how the higher ups basically ran away with a fortune while the other investors and pensioners were left with absolutely nothing, you haven’t seen anything yet.

This documentary by Alex Gibney shows what can happen when capitalism is at its worst, crushing underfoot anyone who stands in the way of profits and nothing but contempt for anything that doesn’t directly result in profits. It shows the perfect storm that was created within Enron: the employees forced to claw at each other and constantly competing for their jobs, reckless spending policies, questionable management, and actions that weren’t only questionably ethical but downright evil. It'd be too crazy to believe if it weren't so very true. The footage and recordings are genuinely shocking but most frightening of all is a theory presented that explains how the corrupt heads of the company managed to rally countless amount of investors and associates in their schemes. Ever hear of Milgram's experiment on obedience to authority figures? Look it up, then watch this film. Suddenly, it all makes too much sense.

There is a flaw in the film: its hour and fifty minutes-running time. This is a complex story and you almost need a cheat sheet with the names and titles of the people involved, or to be familiar with several financial and fraud related terms such as “deregulated markets”, “pump and dump” and understanding several economic changes during the early 2000’s (such as the dot-com crash) to get it all in one sitting. The movie feels like it's moving very quickly and while it covers everything thoroughly, people who were not adults while the Enron scandal was going on will likely need to inform themselves to fully grasp everything that’s thrown at them. If the film was longer and paused a few times to clearly define some of the more complex terms, it would be a lot more accessible, though admittedly, I may be biased in this case. The film ends in a way that’s truly chilling with a quick update on the status of some of the people seen in the film and a song that perfectly caps it all off.

Every good documentary informs, but they almost always fall into two categories: the inspirational ones, who make you want to rush out and make your own dreams come true, and the ones that fill you with unbelievable rage at the injustices that are being presented. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is the latter kind, a movie that makes you realize that there are genuinely evil people out there and they aren’t necessarily slashing throats or enslaving children, they are robbing hard working people of everything they have worked for. What you will take away from the film is that these weren’t “special people” and that this is not an isolated incident that could never happen again, probably sooner rather than later. (On DVD, April 12, 2014)

I don't know if questions like these are to make me feel old or remind everybody else how old I am, but they are mean-spirited either way.

Jerry Brown, without any doubt or hesitation. I was born about halfway through his first eight-year term (1975-1983), so I can't give much of a first-hand account of that period, but his second eight-year term (2011-2019) was a masterclass in state government.