After reading “Bush Postpones 2008 Election” in
The Nation yesterday, though I felt that it was amusing, witty, and interesting, it didn’t seem to me to be worthy of posting at this time, because 2008 is too far away. There are just too many important things going on now to worry or think very much about 2008.
But the article seemed so real to me. So I thought about it some more. And finally it occurred to me that the point of the article is not to get us to think about what we can do to prevent a hijacking of our democracy in 2008, but rather is (or should be) to get us to think about what we can do to reverse the hijacking of our democracy right now.
The process of turning democracy into tyranny doesn’t necessarily happen quickly. Milton Mayer describes in his book, “
They Thought They Were Free – The Germans 1933-45”, how a German colleague of his explained the rise of Hitler to him:
What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.
This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.
With that in mind, I thought about how George Bush and his gang of thugs have repeatedly demonstrated through their actions contempt for the laws and the Constitution of our country. And I thought about how little outrage that contempt has aroused in most Americans and in our Congress.
And then I asked myself: As long as most Americans are not outraged by the Bush administration’s claim that it is not subject to our nation’s laws or Constitution, and as long as our Congress sees no crisis in those claims, then what reason is there for believing that the scenario in Gillers’ article, or something equally as bad, will not come to pass?
Here are some excerpts from Gillers’ article:
Bush Postpones 2008 ElectionThe NationJuly 31, 2006
By Stephen Gillers
President Bush, citing his authority as Commander in Chief of the armed forces and his inherent constitutional power over foreign affairs, today ordered a postponement of the 2008 presidential election in order “to protect the American people in our war on terror…. Mr. Bush told the nation that the election will be “rescheduled as soon as a change in leadership does not create a security threat and not a second later”…
“Elections are important,” the President acknowledged. “I know that. I believe in elections. I'm President because of an election, sort of. But protecting the nation from another 9/11 is more important than holding an election precisely on time”.
The President noted that as Commander in Chief he had already approved telephone wiretapping without court warrant, incarcerated alleged "enemy combatants" indefinitely without trial and, in a February 2002 order, now rescinded, had authorized the armed forces to ignore the Geneva Conventions when "consistent with military necessity," so long as everyone was treated “humanely”. “If I can do all that, I can defer an election,” the President said. “Look, as between not voting on time and getting locked up with all those Geneva rules and such, which is worse?”
In a Washington press conference following the President's speech, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales laid out the legal basis for his department's conclusion that the President could postpone the election…
In a speech on the Senate floor, Joseph Lieberman (IND-Conn.) supported the President's decision. “While I do not believe we should lightly suspend the exercise of the franchise,” he said, “protection of the nation cannot be and must not be a partisan issue. As Americans, we can all agree that security is the most important job of a President. We can have a country without an election, but we cannot have an election without a country. It's as simple as that.”…
Asked if he expected a court challenge to the President's decision, Mr. Gonzales said he was “resigned to the prospect that some may cynically try to use this for their own political advantage
After reading the article or the above excerpts, consider three very plausible assumptions regarding the weeks prior to the 2008 elections (or the 2006 elections for that matter) : 1) that there appears to be a high likelihood of a Democratic victory; 2) that George Bush and his gang are worried about the possibility that Congressional investigations following the election will put a great big black mark on their reputations at best, or land them in prison at worst; and 3) that the American people and Congress have not shown more outrage over the Bush administration’s ignoring of our laws and trampling on our Constitution than they previously have.
Given those assumptions, what reasons do we have to doubt that Gillers’ scenario or something equally as outrageous will come to pass?