From Chalmers Johnson over at TPM Cafe:
The combination of huge standing armies, almost continuous wars, an ever growing economic dependence on the military-industrial complex and the making of weaponry, and ruinous military expenses as well as a vast, bloated "defense" budget, not to speak of the creation of a whole second Defense Department (known as the Department of Homeland Security) has been destroying our republican structure of governing in favor of an imperial presidency. By republican structure, of course, I mean the separation of powers and the elaborate checks and balances that the founders of our country wrote into the Constitution as the main bulwarks against dictatorship and tyranny, which they greatly feared.
We are on the brink of losing our democracy for the sake of keeping our empire. Once a nation starts down that path, the dynamics that apply to all empires come into play -- isolation, overstretch, the uniting of local and global forces opposed to imperialism, and in the end bankruptcy.
In her book The Origins of Totalitarianism, the political philosopher Hannah Arendt offered the following summary of British imperialism and its fate:
"On the whole it was a failure because of the dichotomy between the nation-state's legal principles and the methods needed to oppress other people permanently. This failure was neither necessary nor due to ignorance or incompetence. British imperialists knew very well that 'administrative massacres' could keep India in bondage, but they also knew that public opinion at home would not stand for such measures. Imperialism could have been a success if the nation-state had been willing to pay the price, to commit suicide and transform itself into a tyranny. It is one of the glories of Europe, and especially of Great Britain, that she preferred to liquidate the empire."
I agree with this judgment. When one looks at Prime Minister Tony Blair's unnecessary and futile support of Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq, one can only conclude that it was an atavistic response, that it represented a British longing to relive the glories -- and cruelties -- of a past that should have been ancient history.
As a form of government, imperialism does not seek or require the consent of the governed. It is a pure form of tyranny. The American attempt to combine domestic democracy with such tyrannical control over foreigners is hopelessly contradictory and hypocritical. A country can be democratic or it can be imperialistic, but it cannot be both.
If you've been reading this blog for the last year or so, this idea of the loss of the republic has been a continuous theme. It's depressing, and it's someting we'd rathter not think about, and what can we do about it anyway? At the very least, though, we can keep our eyes open.
What is astonishing to me about developments in the last couple of weeks has been the administration's we-don't-care-what-anybody-thinks-we're-going-ahead-with-our- plan-anyway attitude. It's an abuse of executive power that dwarfs anything that Nixon tried, and yet despite this administration's historical low political standing, there seems nothing anybody can do to stop them.
As bad as what we have seen so far has been, we haven't seen anything yet. It's going to get a lot worse in the next two years. These guys simply are not going to stand down. We put him in the driver's seat, and he won't be pushed aside or be told where to drive. Just wait till we attack Iran. It's seeming now very likely we will do something in collusion with Israel. Surge, smurge. The really big story in the next couple of months, I fear, will be Iran.
I'll end today with this quote from a TPM Cafe commenter
"Augustus won over the soldiers with gifts, the populace with cheap corn, and all men with the sweets of repose, and so grew greater by degrees, while he concentrated in himself the functions of the
Senate, the magistrates, and the laws.He was wholly unopposed, for the boldest spirits had fallen in battle, or in the proscription, while the remaining nobles, the readier they were to be slaves, were raised the higher by wealth and promotion....
...Meanwhile at Rome people plunged into slavery--consuls, senators, knights. The higher a man's rank, the more eager his hypocrisy, and his looks the more carefully studied, so as neither to betray joy at the decease of one emperor nor sorrow at the rise of another, while he mingled delight and lamentations with his flattery." Cornelius Tacitus "The Annals of Imperial Rome"
Bush is no Augustus, not by a long shot. He doesn't have to be. It's the underlying structural dynamics that Johnson points to that are changing reality, not the machinations of one man or even a group of them. The momentum created by this system is huge, and it would take a herculean effort by a congress even now too timid to challenge the president. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I'm not seeing how.
Late Update: See this post by David Kurtz about Cheney's role in all of this.