Deep Thoughts: INVISIBLE DICTATORSHIP (how America is a dictatorship cross-dressed as a democracy) - serial essay by Adam Ash

VII. THE PRESIDENT AS INVISIBLE DICTATOR

18. Who is the dictator?

Since 2000, when a minority candidate became president, we’ve had a government startlingly different from the norm. This most unique of administrations sticks out like a penis at a lesbian singalong.

This administration is unique because it’s the first to openly challenge laws promulgated by Congress. Such usurpation is evidence of a dictatorship, as clearly as maggots are evidence of a corpse.

This administration is unique because it has reneged on treaties like the Kyoto Protocols and the Geneva Convention with unilateral arrogance.

This administration is unique because it’s openly dictatorial towards other countries. Previous administrations have acted dictatorially in secret -- hiding their misdeeds from Americans, like a dictator burying corpses at night in mass graves. We used to mess Latin America around as much as Russia messed around Eastern Europe -- killing the locals, training their army officers in torture, overthrowing their governments, backing the most hideous dictators – but we did it in the dark.
The Bush/Cheney administration, on the other hand, has openly professed brazen new doctrines like “pre-emptive war” and “extraordinary rendition” (kidnapping suspected terrorists anywhere in the world and dumping them in countries where we know they’ll be tortured, sometimes doing it to innocent people).

At the same time, Bush/Cheney have been openly dictatorial in our own country, with brazen new practices like warrantless domestic spying; the classification of people as “enemy combatants” to get around democratic laws of habeas corpus; and the presidential claim to be above the law by signing laws with “presidential signing statements” that give him the power to break a law he signs.

No wonder this administration is also uniquely divisive. The country is split down the middle between those who regard Bush as a worthy successor to Reagan -- and those who think he shouldn’t be allowed to run a toilet concession.
Let’s take a look at Bush/Cheney, who’ve disturbed the balance between “democracy” and “dictatorship” more than any other ruling elite since our Founding Fathers, whose “democracy” ignored slavery and the genocide of America’s natives (the Founding Fathers were OK with killing Indians, just like the Bush administration is OK with killing Iraqis).

19. The nine ways in which Bush behaves like a dictator

1. Bush voids laws by attaching signing statements to them.

Since he assumed office, Bush has signed over 750 laws passed by Congress with presidential signing statements. No president has come close to using this many. Bush’s statements say that he, as president, will decide whether and when he’ll apply a law. He has the unilateral right, as president, to violate it. No president has used a signing statement to void the law he signs. President Bush considers himself above the law -- the mindset of a dictator. He says he’s the one who decides how much power he has; he says he’s free to usurp the power of Congress.

2. Bush lies.

Bush has been caught out in more lies than a turd sports flies. He told his electorate that the government has to get a court warrant to wiretap, when he knew his administration was breaking this rule. He said nobody expected Hurricane Katrina to breach the levees, when he’s on tape listening to experts telling him to expect it. Worst of all, he lied us into war. He bent CIA intelligence out of shape to spread the falsehood that Iraq had WMD. Afterwards, when he was caught out, he claimed that intelligence got it all wrong, not him. But all along, the CIA had huge doubts, British Intelligence said the document that claimed Iraq wanted to buy uranium from Niger was a forgery, and German Intelligence told the CIA that “Curveball,” the Iraqi who claimed Saddam had chemical WMD, was a total flake. Bush used the Big Lie Technique, so beloved of dictators Hitler and Stalin, to lie us into committing the murder of between 30,000 and 100,000 Iraqis, and over 2,000 young Americans. Taxpayer-funded propaganda and punditry, and Orwellian language, are part of this technique -- like calling an environment-gutting bill the Open Skies Act.

3. Bush shreds habeas corpus.

The Bush administration can arrest anyone and lock them up indefinitely without a trial by classifying them as “enemy combatants.” To house these prisoners, Bush builds concentration camps like Guantanamo, and prisons like Abu Ghraib, where they can be tortured. He also establishes “black sites” (CIA prisons) in other countries where detainees are interrogated.

4. Bush promotes torture.

The CIA has captured suspects and sent them to countries where they knew they would be tortured, an outsourcing of torture called “extraordinary rendition.” Bush fought tooth and nail against the McCain anti-torture bill. When it passed almost unanimously, he signed it with a signing statement saying that he could break this law when he felt like it. Under this administration’s policies, many US prisoners have been tortured and died from their treatment. This has been done to complete innocents. Bush shares the promotion of torture with dictators like Hitler and Pol Pot. The Red Cross is denied access to detainees. It’s interesting that only a handful of army personnel at the lowest level have been convicted for torture, while all the torture implicated higher-ups have gone scot-free – General Miller, presidential adviser John Yoo, Attorney-General Gonzales, Donald Rumsfeld, and the President himself.

5. Bush spies on US citizens.

The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) prohibits domestic surveillance without a warrant. But President Bush signed a secret executive order authorizing the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless electronic eavesdropping on US citizens. They’ve spied on thousands of us. Nobody has been prosecuted yet. Why are they doing it? Why don’t they ask for warrants? Is it because they know they’re unwarranted?

6. Bush is crazy for secrecy.

On November 1, 2001, Bush issued Executive Order 13233, which negated the 1978 Presidential Records Act by allowing presidents, vice-presidents and their heirs the power to prevent many document releases. In this way, Bush protects his Dad from being implicated in many national security scandals of the 80s – secret arms sales to Iran, covert supplies of chemical weapons to Saddam, and cocaine trafficking with Nicaraguan contras. Moreover, 55,000 pages of released records have been reclassified.

7. Bush claims to be an instrument of God.

When asked if he ever discussed Iraq with his Dad, Bush replied that he communicated with a higher power -- God. He has told people that he believes God chose him for his job, and that he is doing God’s work. Such messianic self-belief smacks of a dictator’s supreme arrogance.

8. Bush has reduced Congress to lackey status.

Congress is in the hands of pliant Republicans. The courts are filled with a majority of Republican-appointed judges. The checks and balances established by our Constitution are gone. Bush bestrides Washington like Caligula.

9. Hush uses terrorism to excuse his behavior.

All dictators like to scare their people with stories of enemies and terror. The President has said we’re in an eternal war against dangerous terrorists who threaten us all. Meanwhile, your chances of drowning in your bathtub are better than croaking from a terrorist act. By fostering a perpetual state of crisis and emergency, Bush is able to exercise greater control. It gives him an excuse to operate like a dictator and abridge our rights.

20. The invisible dictatorship masks incompetence

Every day Bush/Cheney build their foundation for an expanding dictatorship. They may call it the power of the “unitary executive.” Others have called it the “imperial presidency.” Still others see it as “a CEO mentality.” But the proper word for it is dictatorship.

We’ve listed the most fundamental ones. And skipped a number of other dictatorial tendencies. For example, the habit of a dictatorship to be so fixed on ideological purity and cronyism, it executes with massive incompetence.

In this regard, the Bush/Cheney list is endless. The Katrina response made the most headlines. Then there’s the awkward illegal outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, to punish her husband for exposing as BS the sale of uranium to Iraq by Niger. There’s the FBI tracking activist groups like Greenpeace and Catholic Workers. There’s the hampering of the 9/11 investigation. The attacks on science and research. The limiting of responses to requests under the Freedom Of Information Act. The many no-bid contracts to Cheney crony Halliburton. The K Street project, which forced business groups to appoint lobbyists who were Republicans, otherwise they don’t get a hearing. Jack Abramoff. The mishandling of the Iraq War. Inadequate body armor for our troops. Faith-based initiatives that break down the wall between church and state. Putting us into debt to China. Tax cuts for the rich. Screwing up the environment. Etcetera.

Today a majority thinks our country is moving in the wrong direction. If this particular wrong direction -- the growing Bush/Cheney dictatorship – were public knowledge, Americans would be way more concerned than they already are.
George Orwell said: “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” If the Bush/Cheney dictatorship continues to expand, the time for revolutionary action may come soon. The Declaration of Independence says this about the rights of Americans: “… when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government …”
A recent protester held up this slogan: “Somebody give Bush a blowjob, so we can impeach him.”
That says it. That very much says it.

While Congress is in Republican hands, the dictator will be above censure. He cannot be impeached.

But what about the American people? Hey, don’t look to us. We’re the happy serfs on the plantation, mired in ignorance, blind and powerless, a great big impotent penis looking for its own constipated butthole to bonk.