History's Brutal Lessons

I've hesitated to broach this angle on the subject of executive power, but the relentless assaults by the Bush administration on our civil liberties under the excuse of wartime necessity is pushing us dangerously close to the brink of a precipice from which there is no recovery without disaster and mass suffering.

Last year, I returned to my onetime home of Berlin, Germany, to revisit a city which hosted me for over four years. It had been nearly 30 years since I had been there, and the Cold War had ended, the country was united, and Berlin had reclaimed its status as an international capital city.

It was a marvelous reunion, but I'll leave the tourism and cultural report for another time. What I was most struck by were two exhibits, one entitled "The Topography of Terror," and the other "Legalized Robbery." The first covered the manner in which the Nazi regime legitimized its oppression, imprisonment, and execution of dissidents, all the way to the extreme of genocidal attacks on Gypsies, Jews, homosexuals, and other groups. The keyword here is "legitimized."

We'd all like to think of the Nazis as just a bunch of gangsters who illegally seized the power apparatus and then ran amok. But that was hardly the case. Hitler was elected. Then he used the apparatus of the state to dismantle all checks and balances and concentrate power in fewer and fewer hands. When the Gestapo kicked down a door and dragged a family to interrogation and then concentration camps, it was all done with the legal authority of legislation and the blessing of courts packed with sympathetic justices. One of the most striking images for me was a photograph of black-robed judges giving the Nazi salute as they swore allegiance to the fuhrer. Remember that judges were supposed to be independent arbiters of legality under the constitution, just like here in the US.

The other exhibit, "Legalized Robbery," was as heartbreaking as it was informative. Relics of Jews whose names had been lost were on display: letters, combs, household articles, locks of hair, rings, photographs. Again, what was most striking was the careful explanation how it was under legal authority that these people were dispossessed of their personal property, and then charged, tried, imprisoned, and exterminated, all with the blessing of law. The paperwork was filled out properly and duly signed by empowered authority. Courts jammed with crony judges presided over trials and appeals processes.

You know the rest. I just wish we could heed the warnings of history about executive authority claiming greater and greater power for fear of external threats, and now a perpetual war against a concept of terror, rather than a specific enemy. This vagueness is no error, for in attempting to constitute unlimited authority it is necessary to keep the rationale as vague and shapeless and fearful as possible.

Yes, they claim that this time it's different. But if we did not have to yield so much of our civil freedom during the Cold War when the Soviet Union had the means, method, and motivation to lob thousands of nuclear warheads upon our heads, and also permeated our society with spies, then why is it that disorganized bands of religious fanatics require even more stringent restrictions?

The reasons are clear, and it has little to do with protecting American citizens. This is about power and its seizure by dangerous people, just as it was in 1933 in central Europe. The Germans aren't afraid to face their own horrible past. Why are we so frightened to benefit from those same lessons?

More Fuel for Chimpie's Pyre

From an article in The Texas Monthly, rightly entitled "The Pimping of the Presidency":

Abramoff was so closely tied to the Bush Administration that he could, and did, charge two of his clients $25,000 for a White House lunch date and a meeting with the President. From the same two clients he took to the White House in May 2001, Abramoff also obtained $2.5 million in contributions for a non-profit foundation he and his wife operated.

Rotten from the head down, from the tail up, from the spleen out, from the skin in. Dirty, filthy, stinking, rotten.

You're Doin' a Heckuva Job, Chimpie

More good news for those who keep insisting on a war on terror that should "last the rest of our lives," since their own actions seem to be creating yet more of what they claim to want to stop.

President Bush's efforts to spread democracy to the Middle East have strengthened Islamists across the region, posing fresh challenges for the United States, according to U.S. officials, foreign diplomats and democracy experts.

Islamist parties trounced secular opponents in recent elections in Iraq and Egypt.

Isn't that swell? Of course, in Bushworld, up is down, democracy is tyranny, and torture is affection, so I guess Islamist victories over secular candidates is, what? The triumph of American values?

If you're Pat Robertson or Sen. Tom "Kill the Abortionists" Coburn of Oklahoma, then yes, indeed, theocratic fascists rising to power must be something to really celebrate. And perhaps that reveals what may be the Bushit secret agenda to roll out in the Mideast what they desire for this country--a totalitarian state run by clerics of a certain fanatical Christian persuasion.

Or it could be another case of the marvelous and stupefying incompetence of these idiots. It's hard to know. Diabolical or stupid?

Probably both.

Time for a Diaper Change at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Proof of torture, bribery scandals, admissions of illegal spying, lies leading to a horrible war, low poll numbers--on and on it goes, and still Chimpie and Company claim that everything is cool and they are going to resolutely stay the course until the country is finally trashed into the oblivion of history. But something passed under my eyes from Zogby that should have the Bushits crapping their pants. Why has the Chimperor's job approval rating slipped back below 40 percent?

The deterioration in the President’s numbers appears to be the result of eroding support among the investor class and others who supported him in his 2004 re-election bid, said Pollster John Zogby, President and CEO of Zogby International. And the problem is the Iraq war – just 34% of respondents said Mr. Bush was doing a good or excellent job managing the war, down from 38% approval in a Zogby poll taken in mid-October.

Yes, folks, the investor class has at long last realized that national bankruptcy, unlimited defense expansions, and imperial wars are perhaps not going to fatten their 401Ks quite as much as the peaceful 1990s did. They're slow, to be sure, but they do catch on, and when they do and all those low-tax-lovin' quasi libertarians realize that their privacy is pierced, their sex lives will be judged by Pat Robertson and their kids are going to be working minimum-wage jobs for managers out of Mumbai and Kuala Lumpur, suddenly the crypto-fascism of the Bushits does have a price too high to pay, no matter how much wealth it means they can pry from the tightening fists of the underprivileged everywhere else.

Tightening fists of rage against the US. To wit, according to Forbes,

Socialist Michelle Bachelet won Chile's presidential with 53.5 pct of the vote and a seven-point lead over her rival, according to partial results with most of the ballots counted.

Where have you gone, Augusto Pinochet? No, it doesn't look like good times are coming for US companies in Chile, or in the rest of Latin America. I guess decades of supporting right-wing death squads are finally completing the karmic circle, not to mention supporting an attempted coup against a legally elected leader in Venezuela, and God knows what other shenanigans are in the works to try to destabilize Bolivia, Brazil, and any other nation that decides to look after its own people instead of US business interests.

The virtue of business is that it has only a single virtue--making money for the investors--and its pretty good at it, all the way to the point of influencing/coercing the military and espionage arms of government to do dirty work for it. But when that government is run by a bunch of half-witted ideologues who also happen to be almost perfect incompetents in everything they attempts, well, the business community, under which stands the "investor class" gets rather pissed off. The Bush policies have made it popular to boycott American products, have virtually ensured the death of the US auto industry, pushed the health care system to the precipice, and failed to do anything smart about immigration, among other idiocies, that are making the moneymakers very, very nervous.

And the investor class, baby, it wants to get paid. I know--I'm one of 'em. Give me my pound of flesh you Chimpite motherfuckers!