The commentary you are about to read first appeared on DelphiForums on January 8th, in the forum called “Decon’s Palace of Dissent.” Here’s a little more information about the author:
DECON66 has a left-leaning forum on Delphi. About twice a month he writes blazing editorials. No neocon or Kool-Aid drinker is safe from his wrath. Decon brings a historical perspective to his analysis. He sees, for example, Bush’s trampling on the Constitution as the almost inevitable extension of Nixon’s and suggests that Bush will be much harder to rein in than Nixon was.
Decon is also a reader of BooMan Tribune, and gave his permission for this to be reprinted here. I thought it was well worth sharing.
Will it be “Never Again!” AGAIN?, by DECON66
After the crimes of Watergate and the revelation of lies leading to the insane war in Vietnam, President Ford, the Congress [both Democrats and Republicans] and most of the American public, in unison, back in 1974, uttered the declaration, “Never again!”
To prevent a reoccurrence of the crimes of Watergate, the attack on the rule of law by President Nixon and other subversions of the Constitution, the House of Representative was about to vote Articles of Impeachment against President Nixon, but Nixon resigned in August of 1974 to spare himself from the humiliation and possible prosecution if found guilty. Further, President Ford dissolved CREEP [Committee for the Reelection of the President]. CREEP was the extralegal, secretive fundraising group of criminals created by President Nixon to assure his reelection in 1972 no matter what the cost. Ford vowed that the Republican National Committee would resume control of election activity and operate within the law.
To Prevent President Nixon or any future President from waging a war not declared by Congress, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution on November 7, 1973. It was passed over Nixon’s veto. Under the War Powers Resolution, if the President is engaged in a war not declared by Congress, Congress can remove the armed forces from hostilities within 60 days. It was the War Powers Resolution that enabled the Democratic majority to cut off all funds for the Vietnam War in December of 1974. By that time, there were no ground troops in Vietnam, but American civilians and sundry personnel were still there.
In 1974, it seemed that a vigilant Congress, an alert and independent news media, an outraged public and prominent politicians who refused to allow the subversion of the Constitution could preserve democracy even against the gangsters assembled by Nixon. That was then.
Much has changed over 30 + years and especially since the Presidency of George W. Bush. The Republican dominated Congress abdicated any desire to perform its Constitutional duty of oversight. Most of the media is owned by a small handful of corporate giants. The abolition of the fairness doctrine by the FCC under Ronald Reagan in 1987 enabled conservatives to dominate radio, TV and newspapers while eradicating any liberal or contrasting views. Any reporter who wants to do any serious muckraking in the Bush era finds himself out of a job. Some columnists or reporters who want to earn extra money by writing favorable reviews about the Bushies are quietly bribed. The public was pacified with nonstop propaganda, creature comforts and juvenile & ghoulish TV entertainment. Last but not least, on July 1, 1973, the U.S. Army became all-volunteer. The draft was abolished. Nixon realized that the draft had been fueling much of the anti-Vietnam War protests. In March of 1969, he set up a Presidential commission to construct a plan to end the draft. Nixon’s machination to defuse the anti-war protests didn’t happen fast enough to enable him to continue the Vietnam War. But it became a huge public relations benefit in waging wars in the post-Vietnam era.
The crimes of Bush make Nixon, by contrast, seem like a garden variety common criminal. Despite the accelerated shift into fascism under Bush, there seems to be revulsion in the air.
The revulsion against Bush’s using 09/11 as a fear mongering device to justify his grab for power, reckless economic policies and attempt to wage perpetual war in Iraq came to its first climax on November 7th when the Democrats regained control of both the House and the Senate. The dye is now cast. Bush wants to send more troops to Iraq, not less. Congress and the President are on a collision course.
Because only one third of the Senate was up for reelection in 2006, the Senate probably doesn’t reflect the extent of America’s belated revulsion against Bush as much as the House does. The polls, many of them biased in favor of Bush, indicate Bush has no more than a 30% overall approval rating and far less for his handling of the Iraq quagmire.
Let’s assume that, whether by impeachment or by some other means, Bush is forced to acquiesce on Iraq and Congress prevails against Bush’s attempt to become a dictator. Let’s assume, as in 1974, there will be that collective sigh of relief of “never again!” The real question then becomes what will prevent a future President from doing what Nixon and Bush did? Why did the reforms of 1974 prove impotent in preventing the neocons from prevailing in 2001? Will the probable reining in of Bush only be a temporary palliative?
Unfortunately, the giant American corporations, growing steadily in their power and influence since the 1880’s, are too powerful to allow any chimerical return to political and economic democracy. The only event that could crack their stranglehold is an understanding by vast numbers of Americans of what is wrong with corporate ideology and why corporate economic monopoly is the quintessence of injustice.
The ideology that uniquely bedevils the U.S. is the malignant concept of exceptionalism. America, according to this doctrine, is uniquely virtuous. Its virtue is due to democracy [or the façade thereof], free market capitalism and Christianity. Therefore, the use of military force is always inherently justified. The two great instances of failure, Vietnam and Iraq, were just unfortunate occurrences of incompetence by venal politicians. Until Americans are cured of this particularly pathological nationalism masquerading as virtue, future wars of aggression will still be possible.
26 years of intense, nonstop propaganda, beginning with Ronald Reagan’s Presidency, have convinced most American of the virtue of near-unfettered free market capitalism. They don’t understand that right-wing megacorporations see the world as something to be strip-mined to achieve the greatest profits in the least amount of time. Meagacorporations care as much about their employees as Bush cared about the African-Americans who drowned in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. The superrich are not about to relinquish their power.
To this day, most Americans don’t think oil was the major motivation for invading Iraq. Most Americans are utterly unaware that negotiations are currently in progress with the Shiite-dominated Iraqi Parliament to guarantee the big oil companies [BP, Shell, Exxon, etc…] a 30-year contract with huge profit margins.
Unless enough Americans get educated, the political and economic crimes of Nixon and Bush will repeat themselves until the U.S. is no longer an imperial power.