Letters to the Editor
-
A couple of things
The pattern is clear: when neoconservatives fall out of office, they consolidate wealth and non-governmental power for a longer-term institutional countermovement. Their natural allies in the energy industries and military contracting sector provide very effective respites for reconsolidation of morale and organization, grooming of future leadership, and creation of "astroterf" political movements.
DCLaw1
They do this in the NSA wiretapping/Iran-Contra off-the-shelf/Vietnam Black Water arena too. Whenever Congress stops a domestic file gathering, like they did to TIA, the proponents form a series of startup companies, gain expertise gathering "customer information and market analysis" for business, and offshore their snooping (RAHS) until it is safe to bring it back. But this time, DCLaw1, I really think they are playing their hand for permanence. They know how to eavesdrop and have implicit permission to do so, they know the media will reign in any question of election results based on exit polling, they may not declare themselves permanent despots but they can certainly pull it off. Or like you say, move to the think tanks and wait for the next cycle.
Again, the question to ask is Where is the press!??
Todays top story at google:
Pakistan's Supreme court has reinstated its chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, four months after Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf suspended him.
It's a good thing our military swears fealty to the Constitution rather than the CIC but you would think that the fact that the USA is one now one step closer to being a military Dictatorship would garner more attention.
Paul Dirks
Are you complaining that it isn't apropos? A bunch of lawyers in ill-fitting suits stage a protest march, get their heads busted by the military, and successfully lecture a military dictator on the rule of law. Sorry, but that takes more cajones than anyone has here.
One of the issues was people disappeared in cooperation with, if not at the request of, the Bush people into an outside the rule of law prison web and torture. It may topple the government -- not into democracy, as the lawyers hope -- but into a civil war in a nuclear state, where the other side is, unlike in Iraq, the real al Qaeda backed by the Taliban.
And the U.S. has already said it is keeping open the possibility of military action -- near the Iranian border. They won't probably ask for Congressional permission, they believe that the unitary executive has already received a permanent and all encompassing authorization of use of military force and no longer needs permission until the last terrorist on the planet expires from heat stroke fifty years from now.
And finally, on a lighter note...
I'm glad Glenn highlighted that quote about the emanations. I choked on my tea last night when I read it. Got visions of Carol Lam springing from Bush's forehead with a horsehair crested helmet and spear.
-
too bad Nancy Pelosi is playing politics with the rule of law
Their wrongdoing is extreme, and only equally extreme corrective measures will suffice.
Yes, but Nancy Pelosi doesn't want to impeach. See, she thinks that 2008 will be a Democratic wipeout if Bush and Cheney are still in power, so she's taken her oath of office off the table.
-
By the time you get to a military coup it's too late
I'm trying to think of all the times that a military coup has resulted in the restoration of a democracy.
Hmmm . . . (I'm open to suggestions).
Since the President is going to veto any and all legislation that would be worth anything, and since it seems to take a supermajority in Congress to pass a bill (When did that happen? And what good is a Congressional majority if you now have to have the other two branches of government in your pocket before you can do anything?) why don't we just spend the time impeaching Bush and Cheney instead?
And let's try not to worry quite so much about how it would reflect on Pelosi.
-
The Lineage of Tyranny
There are alot of threads here. So first, the 'similarities' between this administration and those of Reagan and Nixon: Of course they're similar- in many cases they are the same people. Republicans may not believe in biological evolution, but they sure are familiar with the evolution of strategy and ideology. These same people and ideas who were slapped down during the Nixon collapse did not just go away- they learned. They skulked in the background, regrouping and re-tasking their strategies during Reagan and BushI. They resurfaced and were resurgent during the Clinton administration- finally cresting over Washington during the 2000 "elections".
Like big cats behind a fence, these people have tested the legal, political, and social boundaries of our government- always pushing as far as possible- overreaching wherever they could. The've been doing it since Nixon, learning from their failures and returning to test their re-jiggered strategies.
Nixon was disliked by the media? Voila, the Reagan Administration de-regulates the media industries- allowing for a consolidation of ownership, removing the impetus of competition from the industry, making control and influence easier while obliterating any incentive to push back against the system.
The Neocons continue the work Nixon started, testing Constitutional checks and balances to the breaking point- finding out just how much control Congress can really assert over the executive- playing the clock out. Like the detainment cases that are suddenly abandoned when the courts come close to an actual ruling, they stall and delay judgement as long as possible, operating in the indominable Grey Area of Government Accountability. The situation here is no different- they will do as they wish until Congress forces their hand. They will delay at every step of the process, secure in the knowledge that 8 years was all they were ever gonna get. Impeachment is truly the only recourse- one that is effectively eliminated by their ability to split the Congress.
So, I agree with Glenn's impression that there is nothing truly new here to get upset about, again . They will continue to push the extreme limits of our governments current functionality. They have learned well how to operate within the vague delineation of power our current system truly provides. All notions that our system works as it should- all based on history- are irrelevant, because they assume the civil adherence to tradition that has kept our system functioning since its inception. No more- there is no civility, no compromise. They will work the system until it breaks, either for them or against them. These are the men who will continue to act, in the face of any opposition, until the rest- the observers of history, those who reason and justify and compromise- act themselves.