From Chris Floyd's post "Clowntime Is Over":
Some of us have been writing for years about Bush's piecemeal assumption of dictatorial powers. We have watched in rage and amazement as the Establishment meekly accepted Bush's repeated, brutal insults to democracy. Time and again, I've quoted the words of the Emperor Tiberius, after the lackeys of the Senate grovelled to do his bidding: "Men fit to be slaves." In one sense, then, the Rubicon was crossed long ago. Yet "we live in hope and die in despair," as my father always says. In the back of the minds of many an embittered dissident, there has been a spark of hope that somewhere down the line, one of the many, many Bush outrages would somehow take hold, gain critical mass, and force the Establishment to act, to rein in the renegade, break him, box him in if not remove him from office.
For let's be clear about this: only the Establishment -- the institutional powers-that-be -- can break an outlaw president. Millions marched in the street against Nixon and the system; whole city quadrants went up in flames in those days; but none of this was decisive in the corridors of power. (Nor to much of the American public, to be frank; after Kent State, after My Lai, after Cambodia, Nixon was still re-elected in a landslide.) It was his insult to the institutions -- the Watergate break-in of Democratic headquarters, the subsequent cover-up and subversion of the legal system, the defiance of Congress -- that led to his downfall. He pushed too far, tried to grab too much -- and the Establishment pulled him short.
And it will have to be the Establishment that breaks Bush -- or he won't be broken. All the blogs in the world won't bring him down, no matter how much truth they tell, how much bloodsoaked Bushist dirt they expose. Yes, perhaps if we had millions of outraged citizens marching in the street day after day across America, a sustained mass movement and popular uprising for liberty and democracy, this might obviate the need for Establishment action. But we all know that such marches are not going to happen. If there was sufficient fire for liberty and democracy in America, there would have already been a popular uprising -- and Bush would never have garnered enough public support to keep the election results close enough to be fudged. No, it will be the Establishment -- or no one.
That's why the spy scandal is so pivotal. Because it is a direct, open and unignorable challenge to the institutional life of the American Establishment. In it, the Bush Regime is saying to the various powers-that-be, especially in Congress and the courts, but also to centers of power and influence outside government: you no longer have any power. All real power is now in our gift. Your laws, your institutions, your traditions, the whole complex infrastructure of checks and balances that have sustained society are now essentially meaningless. As in ancient Rome, we will keep the old forms, but the life of the state has now passed into the hands of the autocrat and his court. His arbitrary will can override any law -- although of course, strong law will still be applied to his enemies, and to the riff-raff in the lower orders.
We are slowly evolving into a zombie democracy. The form is there, but the spirit, the political will, is missing. Our paralysis and impotence is really quite remarkable in light of what we now know (and we don't know the half of it). There seems to be nothing effective that we can do. Another three years for this administration to do more damage without the American people having anyway to prevent him.
As Floyd says, it's all up to the establishment, but the establishment was basically very happy to have Bush in the White House. The establishment newspaper, the New York Times, the so-called defender of the constitution and its civil rights, refused to publish the story about the wiretaps before the election last year. It published it now only because one of the story's reporters wrote a book in which the Times complicity with Bush would be revealed. Better to out oneself than to be outed.
There was in the mid seventies, but there is now no potent opposition to the right-leaning establishment's hold on the reins of power. Do we really think that the establishment cares about these wiretaps? Let's face it, the "establishment" is now dominated by the same people who supported Nixon through Watergate, Reagan through Iran/Contra, and now Bush through all of what he has done. The establishment allowed and supported the absurdities of the Clinton impreachment and made the American system appear to the world priggishly idiotic. It's this establishment that should be put on trial.
That we are so dependent on the "establishment" should bring into clear focus just how bad things are and how undemocratic, cumbersome, and unresponsive the American system is. In a parliamentary system there would have been a no 'confidence vote' and new elections. There is a machinery there that is designed to be more responsive to the will of the people in crises like the one we are now living through. We have to wait another three years--another three years for these people to further tighten their grip. Unless . . .
Unless the American electorate removes the GOP from the majority in the House in 2006. But how likely is that to happen with the gutless, directionless mentality that now characterizes the Democratic brain trust?
If the Democrats had any backbone, they would propose a Second Contract with America. To wit: If the American citizens elect a democratic congress, it promises to impeach this president.
What we're witnessing here is far more serious than Watergate and Iran/Contra. Far, far more is at stake now, and there seems to be no political will to do anything about it. A Second Contract with America would require that the Democrats make an impassioned, robust case to the American people that the future of their democracy is at stake. It's exactly the kind of thing we need to wake us from this torpid, passive acceptance that nothing is possible except to accept this inevitable drift into a police state.
Update: I think that such a contract should be clear, simple, and focus on issues that people care about. What other elements would you put in such a contract with America? If impeachment were the first item on the agenda, here are three items that I think should follow:
- To develop an economically sane healthcare system that is fair to providers but which puts the health and welfare of the American people first.
- To commit to energy independence by 2015 by pulling out all the stops to develop non-fossil fuel energy alternatives.
- To use American power and prestige to promote rather than to undermine multilateral solutions to complex matters of international security, terrorism, and nuclear non-proliferation.
I invite readers to suggest their own list or to improve the wording of this one to make it more politically compelling.