US Diary: let's bend over for King George (and suck his winkie, too)

1. Cheney Really Wants US Dictator -- by Andrew Greeley

In the winter of 1933, before Franklin Roosevelt's first inauguration on March 4, there was a clamor in the United States for a military dictatorship. The banks were closing, a quarter of Americans were unemployed, rebellion threatened on the farms. Only drastic reforms, mandated by the president's power as commander in chief, would save the country. Something like the fascism of Mussolini's Italy -- viewed benignly by many Americans in those days because it worked (or so everyone said) -- would save the country from communist revolution.

As Jonathan Alter reminds us in The Defining Moment, his brilliant book about FDR's first 100 days, men as different as William Randolph Hearst, financier Bernard Baruch, commentator Lowell Thomas and establishment columnist Walter Lipmann argued for the necessity of dictatorship to reorganize the country's economy.

The call for a military style dictatorship is the ultimate temptation to the greatest treason of a democratic society. Fortunately for us, FDR resisted the temptation and reformed the American economy by a mix of gradualist changes (like Social Security) and magical "fireside chats." Unfortunately years later he yielded to the temptation to a military dictatorship when he interned Japanese Americans simply because they were Japanese. In the first case he resisted the demands of the American people. In the second he caved in to their racist demands.

The United States is caught up in a new campaign for a military dictatorship -- rule by a military chief with absolute power. The White House, inspired by Vice President Dick Cheney, has argued that in time of great danger, the president has unlimited powers as commander in chief. If he cites "national security" he can do whatever he wants -- ignore Congress, disobey laws, disregard the courts, override the Constitution's Bill of Rights -- without being subject to any review. Separation of powers no longer exists. The president need not consult Congress or the courts. Moreover the rights of the commander in chief to act as a military dictator lasts as long as the national emergency persists, indefinitely that is and permanently.

Many, perhaps most Americans, don't mind. The president is "tough on terrorists" and that's all that matters. What is the Bill of Rights anyway? George W. Bush, his supporters will argue, is a good man, even a godly man. He won't misuse the powers, even if the power he claims is no less than Don Hugo Chavez exercises in Venezuela

The Supreme Court in its ruling about a Guantanamo detainee just before Independence Day was a sharp rebuke to Cheneyism. It dealt with only one case and left the president wiggle room. He could consult with Congress about new legislation that would provide more rights for the detainees in a military trial. But that violates Cheney's first principle that the commander in chief doesn't have to consult with anyone on matters of national security. If the president was consistent with the Cheney theory and the Alberto Gonzales memos, he should defy the Supreme Court and insist that he has the right to establish whatever judicial process he deems proper for these potentially dangerous people without any interference from anyone. He may still do that.

Republicans who will seek re-election in November already suggest they will run against the court's decision. The court, they will tell the American people who want the detainees to be shot at sunrise tomorrow, is soft on terror, just like Democrats in Congress. They could probably get away with this nonsense because fear will cause the voters to forget that this is the Republican court that elected Bush.

Richard Cheney is a vile, indeed evil, influence in American political life. He is a very dangerous person who would if he could destroy American freedom about which he and his mentor prate hypocritically. His long years in Washington have caused him to lose faith in the legislative and judicial processes of the government. The country, he believes, requires a much stronger executive. Such concentrated power would have been necessary even if the World Trade Center attack had not occurred. He uses the fear of terrorists as a pretext to advance his agenda of an all powerful president, a military dictator. So long, of course, as he is a Republican.

(Email to: agreel@aol.com)

2. Crowning Our Napoleon in Rags -- by Steven Laffoley

Great Republics don't fall. They're just given away.

Consider France. In 1799, facing a crisis of internal corruption and external military threat, the democratic leaders of France modified their constitution to create stronger leadership, and then elected military hero Napoleon Bonaparte as their First Consul. Napoleon did not disappoint. He dazzled the French people by being - in the modern parlance - a "war president," immediately attacking and defeating Austria.

And the people cheered.

Then, while his popularity soared, Napoleon worked to erode - slowly and almost imperceptibly - the constitutional restrictions on his power. The people and politicians of France being afraid of democracy's uncertainties, and being afraid of vague foreign military threats, readily agreed to some restrictions on their liberty, on their fraternity, and on their equality. And they readily agreed to vest greater authority in their First Consul. And, soon, the people grew comfortable with Napoleon's paternal protection.

Of course, Napoleon did have his detractors. Some accused him of invading nations for military glory and gain, but he claimed he brought these nations freedom from tyranny. Some accused him of being a brutal dictator, but he claimed he was a humble liberator. "I closed the gulf of anarchy and brought order out of chaos," Napoleon once said of his efforts. "I purified the Revolution."

And the people cheered.

So when, in January of 1804, a feeble terrorist threat emerged against Napoleon by minions of the former Bourbon Kings, Napoleon told the people he needed greater authority to protect them and to protect France from harm.

And the people agreed.

In March of that year, the French Senate - the democratic representatives of the French people - simply gave away the French Republic by offering Napoleon the title of Emperor. There was no dramatic fall, no grand laments, no spilled blood. Just nineteen words affirmed by the French Senate - "The government of the Republic is vested in an Emperor, who takes the title of Emperor of the French" - and the great French Republic just faded away to formal Empire.

And the people? They cheered.

Some two hundred years later, watching the slow erosion of American democratic rights, and watching the slow consolidation of American presidential power, it is difficult not to recall the ease with which the French Republic became the French Empire.

Consider: President Bush has already made clear his paternalism. "I'm the Decider," he has said, "and I decide what is best."

Consider: slowly and almost imperceptibly, citizens' rights and restrictions on presidential power have been eroded from the U.S. Constitution. Of the twenty-seven present Constitutional amendments, President Bush has already ignored, without consequence, at least eight of them: Amendment I, the freedom of religion, speech, press, and assembly; Amendment IV, the freedom against illegal search and seizure; Amendment V, the right to due process of the law; Amendment VI, the right to counsel and the right to face one's accuser; Amendment IX, the right not to have the Constitution used to deny or disparage rights retained by the people; Amendment XII, the right of the people to elect the President; Amendment XV, the right not to be denied rights on account of race; and Amendment XXIV, the right of all U.S. citizens to vote for the President.

Consider: when citizens have dared to ask about this steady erosion, rather than being cheered as defenders of the American Republic and of the U.S. Constitution, these citizens are dismissed by the president's minions as un-American. Even the president himself seems unconcerned by any challenge to his increasingly imperial actions and comments, saying, "I'm the commander, see? I do not need to explain why I say things."

Back in December of 1804, on the day of Napoleon's coronation, a huge, unmanned hot air balloon was launched in celebration from the front of Notre Dame Cathedral. On it were affixed some 3,000 burning lights in the shape of a crown. First traveling high above Paris, it then drifted slowly across the French countryside, dazzling the people as a potent symbol of Empire. But it didn't last. Apocryphally, and perhaps prophetically, some forty-six hours later, the balloon fell back to Earth outside of Rome, crashing roughly into a long ignored statue - a statue of Roman Emperor Nero.

As with all Empires, the French Empire ultimately destroyed itself on absolute power. But what remained in the ashes of Empire was not a rising phoenix of the new Republic. No, for a generation after the fall of Napoleon, France was mired in the despotism of second-rate Kings. Only time and the spilling of patriot blood brought the rediscovery of the French Republic.

As we watch the dark changes taking place in our country and in our Constitution, we must seriously ask ourselves: will we crown an American Emperor - our "Napoleon in rags"? Or will we grasp the hand of our fast eroding Republic, before it slips away, and recommit ourselves to the democratic principles outlined in the Constitution of the United States?

The choice - for the moment - is still ours.

(Steven Laffoley -- stevenlaffoley@yahoo.ca -- is an American writer living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is the author of " Mr. Bush, Angus and Me: Notes of An American-Canadian in the Age of Unreason”)