Clowntime is Over: The Last Stand of the American Republic
Crossposted at Empire Burlesque
So now, at last, the crisis is upon us. Now the cards are finally on the table, laid out so starkly that even the Big Media sycophants and Beltway bootlickers can no longer ignore them. Now the choice for the American Establishment is clear, and inescapable: do you hold for the Republic, or for autocracy?
There is no third way here, no other option, no wiggle room, no ambiguity. The much-belated exposure of George W. Bush’s warrantless spy program has forced the Bush-Cheney Regime to openly declare what they have long implied – and enacted – in secret: that the president is above the law, a military autocrat with unlimited powers, beyond the restraint or supervision of any other institution or branch of government. Outed as rank deceivers, perverters of the law and rapists of the Constitution, the Bush gang has decided that their best defense – their only defense, really – is a belligerent offense.
“Yeah, we broke the law,” they now say; “so what? We’ll break it again whenever we want to, because law don’t stick to our Big Boss Man. What are you going to do about it, chump?” That is the essence, the substance and pretty much the style of the entire Bushist response to the domestic spying scandal. They are scarcely bothering to gussy it up with the usual rhetorical circumlocutions. The attack is being led by the fat, sneering coward, Dick Cheney, who has crawled out of his luxurious hidey-holes to re-animate the rotting husk of Richard Nixon and send it tottering back onto the national stage. Through the facade of Cheney’s pig-squint and peevish snarl, we can see the long-dead Nixonian visage, his grave-green, worm-filled jowls muttering once more the lunatic mantra he brought to the Oval Office: “If the president does it, it can’t be illegal.” This is what we’ve come to, this is American leadership today: ugly, stupid men mouthing the witless drivel of failed, dead, discredited, would-be petty tyrants.
But not even Nixon was as foul as this crew. When he was caught, he folded; some faint spark of republican conscience restrained him from pushing the crisis to the end. He was a vain, stupid, greedy, grasping, dirty man with blood on his hands, but in the end, he did not identify himself with the government as a whole. He did not say, “l’etat, c’est moi,” he had no messianic belief that the life of the nation was somehow bound up with his personal fate, or that he and his clique and his cronies had a God-given right to rule. They just wanted power and loot – as much of it as they could get – and they pushed and pushed until the Establishment pushed back.
It has long been evident, however, that Bush and Cheney do believe their clique should by all rights rule the country – and that anyone who opposes their unrestrained dominion is automatically “anti-American,” an enemy of the state. For them, there is no “loyal opposition,” or even political opponents in any traditional understanding of the term; there are only enemies to be destroyed, and herd-like masses to be manipulated. They believe that their dominion is more important than democracy, which they despise as a brake and hindrance to the arbitrary leadership of an all-wise elite – i.e., them. They are the state; a police state.
Elections are just necessary evils, a way to manufacture the illusion of consent, shake down corporations for big bucks and calibrate the loyalty of courtiers. Democracy is simply another system to be gamed, subverted, turned to factional advantage – in precisely the same way that Enron gamed the California electric grid. This accounts for the strange, omnipresent tang of unreality that permeated the last three national elections, in 2000, 2002, and 2004. It’s because they were unreal: the results were gamed, sometimes in secret, sometimes in plain sight; the “issues” and rhetoric were divorced from the reality that we all actually lived and felt – and the outcomes were as phony as an Enron balance sheet.
Dominion seized on such sinister and cynical terms will almost certainly be defended – and extended – by any means necessary. That is the great danger. The Bushists have already pushed on further than Nixon ever dared; will they “bear it out even to the edge of doom”? This is the crux of the matter; this is the crossroads where we now stand. Will the American Establishment push back at last? Will they say, This far we will go, but no further; this much we will swallow, but no more?
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.
How will the Establishment deal with this direct challenge? The past few years give little grounds for hope: the Democrats spineless, conflicted, co-opted and corrupt; the Republicans slavish, bellicose, cruel and criminal; the media timorous, witless, corporate-controlled; big business absolutely rolling in gravy from the autocrat’s larder; academia cowed, silenced, ignored, demonized; the military acquiescent in criminal aggression, top-heavy with time-servers currying autocratic favor. Only the courts provide some stray sparks of hope, although they too are now loaded with political sycophants, corporate bagmen and knuckle-dragging throwbacks produced by the Right’s decades-long devolution of American jurisprudence. Prosecutors like Patrick Fitzgerald and Elliot Spitzer “keep hope alive,” but their efforts will mean little in a system where lawlessness at the top has been countenanced by the rest of the Establishment. And in any case, the outcome of their work lies ultimately with the Supreme Court – the same court that shredded the Constitution in awarding power to Bush in the first place, and which is now led by a Bushist apparatchik.
Still, you don’t go through a constitutional crisis with the Establishment you want; you go through a constitutional crisis with the Establishment you have. And this sad, sick crew, ladies and gentlemen, is all we have. If they swallow the spy scandal, if they don’t push back now – and I mean really push back, not just make a lot of harrumphing noise or hold a few toothless hearings or get a couple of underlings offered up as ritual sacrifices to save the Leader – then we will have well and truly and finally lost the Republic that Franklin, Jefferson and Madison gave us so long ago.
The next few weeks will show us if there is still some hope of restoring the Republic through the old institutions, or if we will have to follow the course laid out by Bob Dylan some 40 years ago: “Strike another match, go start anew.” Who knows? Maybe we can make a better republic next time: one not born of blood, greed and fury – those all-too-common elements of human organization – but made from a new compound of mercy, justice, communion and liberty. Still imperfect, of course, still corrupt – because that’s our intractable human nature – but with our worst instincts restrained by enlightened, ever-evolving law, and the predatory ambitions of the rich and powerful reined by elaborate checks and balances.
It’s just a dream, of course; probably a vain one. But we will need some vision to guide us if, as seems likely, we must soon set forth into the unknown territory of an openly declared American autocracy.
Very good. I didn`t read it all, but now I have to. I`ll also be looking for your diaries, & also go see any past diaries.
Kagro X whose diary I`ve been following at Dkos asked if I could cross post his diariy here at Booman. I think his sugestions are good & involve active & imaginative participation. Would you please check his diaries out & cross post them here. I have no idea how to do that. I do think, though, that many people here at Booman would like to input their ingenious ways to further the guerilla misson that Kagro X advocates.
Thanks & now back to your Clowntime… diary
“It`s all over now, Baby blue” Dylan
.
Harley Davidson?
When I rode a Harley, it was a ’45 knucklehead, because they’ve got
virtually no chrome.
Source of bio knucklehead … ?
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
No, the “knucklehead” designation refers to the shape of the heads ie; a closed fist showing the knuckles. Production from 1936-1947, then came the “Panheads” as the heads were shaped like a pot or a pan. I guess they could have been called “potheads”. Then there`s shovelheads, blockheads and always the “flatheads”.
It`s me again. Damn, that`s some good writing.
It may be a novel idea but how about something as an ideal of equal justice for all?
Whaddya think? Too radical?
This is great! I’m glad to see you posting here, sometimes I would forget to visit Empire Burlesque. Never thought I’d meet anyone who listened to as much Dylan as me. I love to read your stuff, ghandi – you definitely belong here in the frog pond.
Just to let some of you folks know – I have said this in the past – I (ghandi) am Chris Floyd’s webmaster. In August of this year, after years of reading his work – I decided to email him and offer my services for free. In my opinion, Chris’s pennings buried in blogger.com on a default template in an absolute swarm of blogs was wrong.
Having studied journalism and worked in the media at a number of levels in the past, I can really appreciate his reportage – his analysis and style. I know my limitations as a writer and felt I could better contribute to the progressive movement online by giving Chris a framework with which to better elevate his work. I am a Canadian living in The Netherlands.
Chris lives in Oxford UK, where he works as a researcher and editor for the University – but he is from Tennessee. He has been writing his column in Russia for the Moscow Times and the St. Petersburg Times for several years but it’s not a fulltime job as one would imagine if he were working in the US media.
In that sense, he has no one to really answer too, no overlord editor with irate advertisers and has been free to write with a critical eye on the Bush Regime in Russia. And he has… even on September 12, 2001.
So I work behind the scenes for Empire Burlesque and have done some special projects on the site below – and I tend to focus on research, design, coding and the general tuning up of the engine in the back. Though I have posted some of my own writings here as well. I am explaining this so people don’t get Chris and I confused. I do repost his work in a number of places and under my profile here – I explain that I am not Chris. Anyway – happy seasons to all and let’s hope (and work hard) for light on the New Year’s horizon.
click here
Click Here
Click Here for Video
Click Here for Audio Podcast
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Image warning.
OK ghandi…
You are still ok by me, even if you are NOT a musician.
AG
Actually I am – albeit a rather lousy one who drones endless wailings of Neil Young and Marley. However Chris is quite good – if you are a Dylan fan – I am sure you will appreciate his lyrics.
Here’s some streaming MP3’s.
http://www.chris-floyd.com/components/com_tmplaylist/tmplaylist.html
Thank you for doing this. I kept forgetting to go to his blog, and I am so happy to see him being posted here. Question: any chance he may be able to respond to comments here? I suspect his postings will attract more and more attention, and it would be really nice to get to interact with him. Even without that, though, it’s great to get to read him here. He’s a great writer and thinker, imo.
I know he comes here because I email him the links of all the places I post after he writes but he’s not a member.
He does have a thing about defending himself if someone takes him to task. If you would like to do that you can at Empire Burlesque – you don’t need to register to comment. You will get a reply there if you have a question.
He told me he used to write excruciatingly long replies to people who threatened him at the Moscow Times when he got critical of Bush in the aftermath of 9-11. I would love to read some of those. Laugh.
I post his work here because I really think his expatriate view is unique as is his background.
If any members would like a copy of Chris’s PDF eBook – “Empire Burlesque – High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Imperium”… email me with your username – and I will email you a free copy or provide a link.
All I ask is that you provide a short critique when you are finished.
What a generous offer. I just emailed you. It would be great if enough people here read it that we could then discuss it.
As for “taking him to task”–not me. When I read him, I just keep nodding my head, Yes.
Please keep ’em coming! I first encountered Chris’ writing at Counterpunch some years ago, & have always appreciated the articulate perspective.
I’ve been posting snippets from Robert Duncan’s poems addressing the Vietnam war during the 60’s. He often conjures the figure of the Hydra, “whose scales are men officized — ossified — conscience/no longer alive in them,” a multi-headed, self-regenerating beast in which one sees “his false faces in which/authority lies/hired minds of private interests/over us” (“The Multiversity, Passages 21, Bending The Bow“).
Try reading “Uprising, Passages 25,” (also in Bending The Bow)substituting the names Bush for Johnson, and Kerry or Clinton for Goldwater, for a prescient read on the situation today.
Here’s a repeat, whose end rhyme you might appreciate:
This is wonderful. I want to send it to my congressman & senators and ask — So? What are YOU going to do?
I’ve sent them letters — and received no response. None at all, not even autoresponders.
So, I’d say that we’ve got no protection. That we’re going to go down without a fight. Because that’s the kind of government we’ve got now.
We might possibly get rid of Bush, like we got rid of Nixon, but how do we change this oligarchy to a democracy?
Follow the money and remove the illegitimate use.
Stop the ‘revolving door policy’ of govt-private sector-govt that enables undue influence in sustaining the exploitations.
We don’t.
Remember…it has ALWAYS been an oligarchy.
Bet on it.
AG
Ah, Mr. Floyd.
The music of the seers.
Trust a musician to know how to sing.
One thing, though…
Be of good cheer.
All is NEVER lost, and the establishment with which we must go to war…the establishment that we have, crude, venal, selfish and shortsighted though it may be…is doing a FINE job of finally boxing these incompetent motherfuckers in, tying a good stout twine around the box and then throwing them into the Potomac. Leak after leak after leak over the last year, the redirection of Station WOMD (Weapons Of Mass Distraction…the media) AT them rather than being used in support of their plans, masterful use of a long game quarterbacked by Patrick Fitzgerald and coached by…coached by who? (A question that will probably NEVER be answered, but I believe his initials are C. I. A. The police force of the old establishment no matter WHAT functionary is figureheaded into place as its executive.), the clear and unambiguous “No” message that was recently sent from at least a large portion of the regular military establishment and delivered by their boy in Congress, John Murtha…and don’t forget those so far mysteriously unreleased Abu Ghraib photos. Lions and tigers and bears and homosexual rape and pedophilia and such oh my!!! In color!!! The last salvo, if necessary, the end of the fireworks display that is plainly still building towards its inevitable, booming climax.
The game is up, and it is now just a matter of deciding how many spoils the new guys get to keep and/or which fallguys will be set up to take the blame. (Please,Lord, let it be Butch and Cheney…20 to 1 against, but we can dream, can’t we?)
Do not lay for justice, Chris. Justice is cosmic, and comes over long increments of time. (“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. ” Martin Luther King Jr. Yup. Bet on it.) Meanwhile, be happy that evolution is still in action and these chimps, this side trip proved to be merely another of life’s small experiments that did not quite pan out. (“Life will try anything once.” Jan Cox. Yup. Bet on THAT one, too.)
Short of a nuclear or other mass attack…either on us by some fools on the other side who don’t realize that they have already won as much as they are going to win this time or BY “us” on say Iran or Detroit…these people are done. I do not think that the administration has the clout with the military anymore…overt OR covert…to pull that one off, and incompetent as our security forces really are, they are dealing with some fairly simple terrorists who like to blow themselves up in the expectation of eternity surrounded by a harem of ever-renewable virgins, which is why we have had so little successful terrorist action here over the past several years. (They are exactly not rocket scientists on the other side, either, most of them. Bet on it.)
The REAL power is going to hire another cook.
Another set of CEOs.
And then go back to their life of hustle, golf and skiing in Gstaad.
They may not…make that WILL not…hire people who would please you or me for this task (I’m betting Hillary vs. McCain in the next election), but then, we haven’t paid the several generations of dues in the form of theft, murder and general bad karma that have put that “establishment” in the catbird seat.
So it goes.
And evolution stumbles on just as it always has, a drunken sailor headed back to his ship. Falling down here, then forward a few feet, mugged in the alley, stops for a drink or two, passes out, wakes up, makes it another block or so in a headlong, drunken rush, sits down abruptly lost, gets up again, back three steps, ahead four and a half, bloody but unbowed…always headed back to the mothership.
Always headed home.
So it goes.
And please remember…
Have fun.
Who needs to go to the movies?
We have a front row seat at the greatest show on earth.
The ONLY show.
Enjoy.
You have a lifetime ticket.
AG
Honest to goodness, nobody could write a screenplay as good as the real life tragidrama is these days.
You’ve nailed it. The one thing that’s keeping the establishment’s finger from pushing the button at this point is the performance of the economy. If that goes south, the big hook will come out from behind the curtain at the side of the stage real quick and this particular tragicomic act will be over.
To be replaced, as you indicated, by a “reasonable,” malleable, level-headed, bottom-line guy or gal song-and-dance routine. Unfortunately, I also think your picks for the 2008 candidates are right on target. 😛
On with the show!
Wonderful diary, and an equally wonderful response.
Between you, you’ve voiced both my fears and hopes.
Arthur, I had not thought of the MLK quote in years;
it brought tears to my eyes. I have to believe that the arc bends toward justice, and that humanity can shift from “What’s in it for me ? ” to “Who will be hurt ?” in search of the greatest good at the least cost in suffering.
I think a big cause for hope is Bush’s low poll numbers and the scandals that are engulfing the radical wing of the Republican party. Had the Iraq war gone better, we would be much farther along the road to dictatorship; but it hasn’t and we aren’t. People may be afraid of ‘terrorists’, but they aren’t afraid of Bush and Rove. I think the turning point was spring 2004 when Hersh broke the Abu Ghraib story and Richard Clarke testified before the 911 commission. Up to that point the administration had the wind in its sails, and was proceeding against the universities, which were pretty much the last effective hold-out against their regime.
We have a long way to go, but I think we can pull this one out of the fire.
We live in hope.
I am going to email this diary to my Senators Boxer and Fienstein immediatly. Best damn diary I have read to date. Please keep writing here at Booman my friend.
I will also, as soon as I get home tonight. I can’t shake it, even though I’m at work.
Should we email this diary to George and Darth?
I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this diary! You have laid out exactly how I FELT after Bush declared himself above the law at that press conference. It really hit me in the gut and actually sent me into a bit of a depression because I knew the end of our democracy was actually in sight. It helps a bit to have it put so powerfully into words – something I was not feeling capable of doing.
I’d love to hear you comment on the potential power of the intelligence community in combating all of this. Seems like they are the part of the Establishment that is standing up to Bushco pretty effectively. I worry about the side of this battle that I happen to be on, but for right now – that’s where my little spark of hope lies.
the whole system needs reforming. If anyone thinks that one part of the establishment’s victory over another will mean anything, think again.
Lets hope people wake up to see our broken political system, our failed fourth estate, our manipulated judiciary and yes i will say it our outdated constitution.
A beautiful diary, ghandi. Thank you very much for articulating my current sense of the situation very precisely.
For better or worse, these perceptions have compelled me to pull back significantly from political engagement, in order to tend more fully to pressing personal concerns of survival. I’ve long ignored these concerns, to my own obvious detriment, in favor of taking part in any & all political action I felt capable of.
Enough; it’s time to allow those entrusted with our representation, as balance to an unleashed executive, to do their jobs. The action I take these days mainly consists in encouraging/admonishing them to do so.
If and when I see urgent need to take part more actively,
if and when I’m truly allowed to serve myself through those who serve me in a more concrete sense,
if and when I’m fully required to bear my weight in the processes of our governance, I’ll be ready. Until then, I now feel it’s out of my hands.
Balance is key, above all things, in the distributions of our energies. Balance is stability; stability is strength. When one has lost a sense of balance through overwhelmingly outward engagement, very little pertaining to one’s self interest can be sustained — either on the personal or communal level. One’s psychic & energetic integrity falls apart; one fragments.
For now, I prepare for myself a sustainable, self-preserving way of life, in both psychic & practical matters, so that I may be ready to take my full part in the fundamental change to come, however it manifests.
In the path forward we share, all the forms of our will to empowerment will need our vigilant attention; in all manner of being, we must discover what sustains us & what depletes us, for the good of our service to the whole.
Excellent essay, thank you for posting it here. I plan to check out Empire Burlesque and ask for the book too.
I think he is exactly right, it has got to be the ‘establishment’ that brings him down. Perhaps I’m still naive, but I believe that it is still important to offer our support and show our outrage.
I too have been emailing the legislative branch. I don’t just sign one of those mass e-mail letters because I think they are discounted. And whether anyone responds or not, I’ll keep trying.
It is easy to feel helpless right now. But as Chris mentioned, we came close to the edge with Nixon and pulled out of it. I do agree that the current cabal is far far worse than Nixon. I am banking on the old adage ‘the bigger they are the harder they fall’.
I am hoping that eventually the international community bands together and tries this group for war crimes.
One thing I did–and I detail it in my diary post here ‘Merry Christmas To Me’ is to join the ACLU. I have never paid a lot of attention to them. I have certainly taken them for granted. Now I’m just glad that their voice is joined with mine –and many of yours–crying in the wilderness.
Curious, posted this once before – did not come through.
Once more dear friends…
Whoever taught us that only soldiers need fight for democracy never lived in one or never wanted to.
Remember that the weapon at our feet is the democracy for which we live and die.
It does not fully awaken often or easily, but when roused, there is not a force on this earth that can long stand in its way.
To think and speak and act for each of us ordinary citizens in this extraordinary democracy is no right, it is our obligation.
Lately I have come to view many things through the flu-colored glasses of a possible pandemic, and the return of Nian would likely set all the dice to roll. But it does not take a calamity or conspiracy to light the fires in the watchtowers.
The coincidence theorists with their helicopter hats would deny that in each country and each generation there are those that seek to rule instead of govern. This is an aspect of human nature from which our democratic institutions and founding documents give us no immunity.
While the establishment must be roused to act, they are always slow to respond and ultimately selfish in their perspective. It is only if and when they realize that we are reaching for democracy that they take measures to lift our burdens, lest we take measures to lift them ourselves and in so doing understand our power to lift other burdens as well.
I have always been intrigued by Thomas Jefferson’s comment:
“And what country can preserve its liberties, if it’s rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance?
Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two?
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
King Bush – Bullshit. OMDB.