1. The office or tenure of a dictator.
2. A state or government under dictatorial rule.
3. Absolute or despotic control or power.Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
I contend we are currently living in a dictatorship.
A bold claim, you might say. Even an outrageous one. After all, we still have elections. We still have an independent judiciary. We still have a free press (sort of). You and I can still post our opinions at this online forum and any of a million others, should we wish to do so. There are no soldiers or paramilitary forces in our streets with machine guns and bullhorns. No nightly curfews. No secret police pulling us out of our beds in the dead of night and shipping us to some nameless gulag or concentration camp.
So how can I possibly make such a ridiculous claim? Well let’s consider the evidence shall we, before labeling me just another deluded, leftist, Bush-hating moonbat . . .
(cont. below the fold)
Cross-posted at Daily Kos
What are the qualities of a dictatorship? Or to be even more precise, what are the elements that constitute dictatorial rule? Here’s my list:
1. Leader Acts in a High-handed, Peremptory, Imperious manner.
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Does anyone doubt that this is Bush’s standard operating procedure? His modus operandi? When criticized for his many failures, he rebuffs all arguments for changing either his policies or those who are the architects and executors of those failed policies.
A classic example is his continuing unqualified support for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the face of mounting public criticism about Rumsfeld’s role in managing the war in Iraq from both within and without the military. Irritated by questions reporters asked at one of his few press conferences, Bush uttered this now infamous phrase to describe himself:
“I listen to all voices, but mine is the final decision,” he said. “And Don Rumsfeld is doing a fine job. He’s not only transforming the military, he’s fighting a war on terror. He’s helping us fight a war on terror. I have strong confidence in Don Rumsfeld.
“I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I’m the decider, and I decide what is best. And what’s best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense.”
“I’m the decider” will go down in history as perhaps the most revealing statement Bush has ever made about his Presidency. Even out of context it would give one pause, with its eerie evocation of a man consumed with his own authority and power. However, remember that this outburst came in the face of an unprecedented public campaign by former Generals, many of whom had held high ranking positions, many of whom had just recently served under Rumsfeld, and all of whom were demanding his resignation. Never before in our history had so many of our military’s leaders publicly spoken out so strongly against their civilian overlords. Any other President would have at least attempted to ameliorate the situation by speaking calmly and diplomatically in public, regardless of his private opinion regarding the controversy swirling around one of his most senior advisers. Yet, Bush choose the exact opposite.
“I’m the decider” essentially means “What I say goes, and screw you if you don’t like it.” Yet his inflammatory rhetoric in this instance was hardly the first time he displayed open disdain for anyone who “wouldn’t get with the program.” From his speech before Congress following 9/11, where he told the world “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” in his newly declared War on Terror, to his famous taunt to the Iraqi insurgents threatening attacks on US troops in Iraq to “Bring them on!” President Bush has demonstrated again and again his characteristic use of rhetoric to stir the most visceral of emotions, and to encourage the most aggressive and violent instincts that we, as human beings, possess.
But it isn’t just his rhetoric. His actions also bespeak of a highhanded approach to governance, and an imperial manner in exercising his authority. Examples? Begin with laws whose legal mandates he doesn’t like, such as FISA, which he simply ignored. He also issues signing statements at the time he signs a bill into law, declaring that he doesn’t need to follow the very legislation (like the ban against the use of torture) that his signature has just made the law of the land. And when he tires of one of his former initiatives he simply refuses to request the funds necessary to fully implement them.
When Congress won’t give him what he wants he simply issues Executive Orders to achieve his goals. And in the name of National Security, he reclassifies thousands of previously declassified materials, yet turns around and summarily declassifies selective portions of a CIA National Intelligence Estimate so that the information can be leaked to the Press to discredit a prominent war critic.
All presidents get a bit haughty at times about their rights and prerogatives. None, however, has displayed such a singular disregard for the opinions of others, whether political opponents or allies, his own cabinet members or lowly protesters. And no President has so surrounded himself with sycophants and bootlickers, apologists and “yes men” as this one has. But acting like a King doesn’t necessarily qualify you as a dictator. So let’s move along to my other indicators that demonstrate President Bush has moved beyond past Presidential excesses into the dangerous territory of despotism.
2. Suppression of Dissent and Intimidation of Legitimate Opposition.
In most dictatorships, violence against one’s political opponents is the means by which a dictator assumes and maintains his or her control. Military coups that overthrow civilian governments are the best example of this process. But that is not invariably the case. Often dictatorial regimes have arisen after a party or faction has gained control of a country’s government by what was viewed at the time as legitimate means. Hitler in Nazi Germany was appointed Chancellor under the Weimer Republic by President Hindenberg. Alberto Fugimori, the President of Peru who assumed dictatorial powers in the 90’s, was elected democratically. So what’s most relevant to a discussion of whether a leader is, or is not, a dictator, is not how he achieves power, but what he does with that power after acquiring it.
However, one thing that all dictatorships have in common, whether on the left or on the right, is the active suppression of dissent, and the marginalization of any legitimate sources of political opposition to the ruling regime. Intimidation of political opponents need not be accomplished through overtly violent means. Instead, political opposition is far more often intimidated under the guise of law enforcement, and the pretense of protecting the state from external threats to its security.
People have been arrested at campaign events and Presidential appearances for merely wearing the “wrong tee shirt, or denied access to a Presidential event for which they had tickets because they had the wrong bumper sticker on their car. As part of the renewal of the Patriot Act, Bush and the GOP controlled Congress even had a law passed that makes it a felony to exercise your free speech rights outside limited “free speech zones” at any event designated an event of national significance.”
Even more chilling has been the government’s active spying upon, and secret files regarding, groups that oppose President Bush’s policies on the War, on environment, etc. Not only that, but such groups have been listed as terrorist organizations and “national security threats” in government files and computer databases. People who had merely discussed going to New York City to protest the Republican National Convention were visited by Federal agents and interrogated in their homes about their plans.
3. Elimination of Civil Liberties.
The diminution of our first amendment free speech rights have been discussed in Section 2 above, but the fourth (protection against unreasonable searches and seizures), fifth (no person may be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law), sixth (right to an attorney, right to a fair trial by jury) and eighth (cruel and unusual punishments prohibited) amendments have also been shredded by Mr. Bush.
The massive data mining and warrantless eavesdropping programs that are being carried out against millions of Americans as I type these words make a mockery of our right to free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Yet, whenever Bush and his helpers deem there is a connection to “terrorism” no matter how attenuated, they disregard those rights. This prying into our personal lives has rightly outraged Americans recently, but in fact, this activity should be the least of our worries.
Why? Because Bush has declared that anyone he considers to be a terrorist can be incarcerated without bail, without recourse to an attorney, without being informed of the charges, if any, against them, and without the right to a trial to determine their guilt or innocence. In fact, we’re holding thousands of such people throughout the world, some at places we know about (like Guantanamo Bay) and others at secret locations around the world, and many in US facilities, picked up after 9/11 for the crime of being foreign. Despite the fact that the Supreme Court has ordered that the prisoners at Guantanamo be extended due process rights and a trial, Bush and the Pentagon have largely ignored that decision.
4. Violations of Human Rights.
Torture. Murder. Rape. Imprisonment without cause or justification. The use of incendiary chemical weapons against civilian populations. Turning over prisoners to countries known to employ torture, i.e., extraordinary renditions. The pursuit of Aggressive War in violation of the UN Charter.
5. Muzzling of the Press.
Admittedly, much of this has been done by the major news outlets themselves, as they self censor in order to >maintain good relations with their sources in the Bush administration, to obtain political favors such as government approvals for more media consolidation, or simply out of sheer political bias (e.g., Fox News, Washington Times, the Op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal, Any newspaper owned by Robert Murdoch, Sinclair Broadcasting and its member stations). Nonetheless, the Bush White House has taken extraordinary steps recently to intimidate and threaten journalists from publishing stories unfavorable to the administration:
Gonzales delivered a . . . warning to the news media, that the administration is dusting off the 89-year-old Espionage Act as a legal justification for prosecuting journalists and their sources when stories appear citing classified information, such as the New York Times article about Bush authorizing wiretaps of some American communications without court warrants.
“We are engaged now in an investigation about what would be the appropriate course of action in that particular case, so I’m not going to talk about it specifically,” Gonzales said. But he cited “some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility.”
Though Gonzales did not mention a specific statute, he apparently was referring to the Espionage Act, which was passed in 1917 during World War I and bars an unauthorized person from receiving defense information and passing it on to others.
The rarely used statute generally has been interpreted as applying to spies for other nations, but the Justice Department is relying on it to prosecute two ex-lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who received classified information from a Defense Department employee, who has pleaded guilty and got a 12-year sentence.
Besides the Times wiretap story in December 2005, administration officials have complained about a Washington Post story on secret overseas CIA prisons where suspected terrorists are allegedly tortured and about a USA Today story about a Bush-approved plan to build a vast database of phone calls in the United States.
6. The Employment of Propaganda and Disinformation.
Remember Armstrong Williams? Fake News videos? The Pentagon’s Iraq War Disinformation Campaign? The Swift Boaters? All those No. 3 Al Queda leaders we captured?
Me too.
7. Demonization of Political Opponents and Minorities.
Oh Bush doesn’t do this himself, much. But his supporters and minions sure do. Democrats are castigated as traitors, baby killers, lacking moral values, Christmas and Christian haters, and Islamofascist sympathizers who will let the terrorists win if they are ever allowed to govern again. Just revisit Dick Cheney’s standard attack line during the 2004 election if you don’t believe me.
As for minorities, Bush plays that card to the hilt, as well. Gays are evil, they want special rights, they have to be stopped (with Constitutional amendments if need be) before they destroy the sacrament of holy matrimony. Illegal aliens (code for Hispanics) are out to steal your job, bring crime and drugs to your suburban neighborhood and pose such a security risk that the National Guard has to patrol the US/Mexican border to stop them.
We won’t even get into all the subtle coding about African Americans they use to play to your base. Suffice it to say that racist rhetoric and positions are being mainstreamed, as Bush pits American against American, piles up the hate of one for the other, and through distraction avoids anyone looking too closely at what he is really doing behind the scenes to reward his corporate backers, and diminish our civil rights.
8. Glorification of War and the Military.
From his first speech after the 9/11 tragedy, and continually since then, President Bush has employed the image of that catastrophe to justify and exalt the military, and the manner in which he has employed it to invade first Afghanistan, and then Iraq. He continually creates photo ops for himself with troops as a backdrop for his stirring words of victory in the fight for freedom and democracy, none more famous than when he was flown aboard an aircraft carrier returning from the Persian Gulf to declare an end to major combat operations in Iraq under the banner “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!”
Bush and his spokespeople are constantly admonishing the public to support the troops and send them prayers, while also praising them for their devoted service to their country and to the cause of spreading freedom and democracy. The fact that said freedoms are being advanced at the point of guns, missiles and bombs, and that innocent civilians are often killed in the process is rarely if ever mentioned.
Military men also play a more prominent role in the Bush administration, than during previous Presidencies (even moreso than those who presided over the Cold War). The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs makes regular appearances at press conferences and on the weekend TV news punditfests to promote Bush administration policies. Commanders in Iraq, from General Tommy Franks, through Generals Sanchez and Abazaid have also acted as publicists for Bush’s “stay the course, everything just keeps getting better and better” policies in Iraq. And Air Force General Michael Hayden has just been appointed as the new Director of the CIA. The scope of the Pentagon’s powers and responsibilities have greatly expanded under Bush as well, and the Military’s budget has grown at the highest rate in our history during his 5 and 1/2 years in office.
9. Consolidation of Governmental Power in the Leader.
All I need to say here are two words: Unitary Executive.
What was once an obscure legal theory about the President’s authority vis-a-vis the two other co-equal branches of the federal government, has been implemented by the Bush administration as an action plan to justify literally anything the President deems necessary: his disregard of laws prohibiting wiretapping without warrants, the violation of our privacy rights, the practice of torture, the indefinite detention of prisoners without trial, payments to journalists to generate fake media reports and commentary favorable to administration policies, the disavowal of international treaties, the prosecution of aggressive war agaisnt hapless and feeble “enemies”, etc., etc., etc.
Under the cover of his authority as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, Bush has literally asserted that his power and authority knows no limits since we are at war. A war against an abstract, ambiguous enemy, one in which victory can never be certain, and which may never end. A war literally against a verb: the War on Terror.
A war he declared unilaterally, of course, without any formal Congressional declaration as required by the US Constitution. But the magic of being able to declare war without having to go to Congress is that Bush gets to decide when, if ever, the war ends. Until that happy day, Mr. Bush gets to keep exercising all those exceptional wartime powers of his in order to keep us safe from the evildoers.
And to paraphrase Senator Pat Roberts, who the hell cares about civil liberties and rights and all that other freedom junk when the smoking gun of a mushroom cloud may be appearing any moment over your bedroom?
10. Exploitation of Fear by the Leader.
How many times have you heard Bush evoke “9/11” in a speech? Or that “September 11th changed everything?” Or that “the terrorists hate us for our freedoms?” How often have you heard him say that criticizing the war on terror hurts the troops and helps the terrorists? Or that we need to watch what we say and what we do?
How many terror alerts were announced in the run-up to the 2002 and 2004 elections? Plots to bomb New York, or Washington, or Los Angeles or Chicago? Or to attack shopping malls? Dirty bomb plots? Plots to use biological weapons, like smallpox or anthrax?
How many times have we heard some Middle Eastern country described as the biggest threat to our freedoms, ever? The largest sponsor of terrorism in the world? The central banker for terrorists? Only three months away from having nuclear weapons? Only forty-five minutes away from attacking London with missiles filled with deadly weapons of mass destruction?
I lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Six Day War, the Vietnam War, the capture of the USS Pueblo by the North Koreans, the Afghanistan War and and the shoot down by Russian fighters of KAL Flight 007, and I don’t ever remember this level of constant hysteria and fear before.
Nor do I ever recall a time when an American government was so quick to resolve it’s international crises through military means rather than through diplomacy and negotiations. Hell, Reagan, that greatest of Cold warriors, sat down at the bargaining table with Gorbachev, and Nixon went to Mao’s China and sent Kissinger to Paris to meet with the North Vietnamese at the height of the bombing campaign.
But instead of offering to negotiate with Iraq in 20003, or Iran now, Bush simply refuses every overture, every opportunity for peace, and ratchets up the fear machine to generate support for the only option that ever seems to be on his table: war. But that is what dictators do: focus their citizens’ on the danger posed by outsiders, play on their fears and nationalistic pride, demonize anyone who questions the relentless warmongering, and consolidate all power in their grubby little hands
The Big Finish.
Now at this point some of you who are skeptics are going to claim I haven’t really made my case that we are living under a dictatorship. You’ll say that despite everything I’ve shown you, despite all my clever (and not so clever) arguments, it just doesn’t add up to Bush = Dictator. Things just aren’t to that point yet, despite the trashing of our Constitution, the neutering of Congress, the taming of the Press, the rise of extremism, the continuing corruption and graft, the lies and more lies, and war, war and more war.
And maybe I haven’t.
Maybe Bush and the Republican Congress will go down to defeat this Fall. Maybe, under a constant onslaught of calls for his impeachment by the public, for investigations of his myriad scandals by a Democratic Congress, for prosecutions and convictions by Fitzgerald, and so on and so forth, Bush will surrender to the inevitable, call off his plans for bombing Iran, and resign (along with Cheney, of course), returning our democracy to “We, the People.” Or at least to Nancy Pelosi.
But if that doesn’t happen, and Bush continues on his merry way, torturing and killing any muslims unlucky enough to cross his path, needlessly killing men, women and children throughout the Middle East in his alleged pursuit of spreading freedom, waging war when he feels like it, wasting our taxes on handouts to his corporate buddies while running up a mountain of debts for our kids and grandkids to bear, looking through our private telephone, email, employment and medical records whenever he pleases, and shrinking ever smaller the number of places where we can safely register our anger and dismay at all that he’s done to this once great nation, I have this one question for you:
What will you call it?
