How America Destroyed Itself

The fact is finally dawning on the press and the American people that terrible things happen when fascists are allowed to take over your country.

And make no mistake: they were allowed to take over and destroy the Constitution because the vast majority of people either actively supported Bush and his gang of criminals; were cowed into deference through the fear of terrorist boogeymen or the ridicule of Fox News and the Rush Limbaugh blackshirts; didn't have the moral courage to stand up and say "No more!"; or, probably most often, were lost in a make-believe world of American Idol and Monday Night Football.

Even if we can escape the nightmare and restore the Constitution and the rule of law, what will we tell future generations about the shame and horror of the last eight years? How will we explain doing nothing of consequence in opposition while two presidential elections were stolen via massive-but-targetted electoral fraud and a war of aggression was waged in our name?

Pulling US Democracy Back From the Brink

Faced with ruthless GOP fascism on one side and cowardly Democratic collaboration on the other, Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald lays out the case for an urgent effort by Americans from across the political spectrum to unite to restore the rule of law and drag our Constitutional democracy back from the brink.

To quote Greenwald:

While there are substantial, important differences between Republicans and Democrats, critical political debates are at least as often driven not by the GOP/Democrat dichotomy, but by the split between the Beltway political establishment and the rest of the country... [A]ll of these assaults on our core civil liberties and the rule of law are not Republican attacks with Democrats fighting against them. They are attacks launched by the political establishment against the citizenry, and they ought to be responded to as such. That's the core premise of the Accountability Now/Strange Bedfellows campaign we've launched -- that these battles have to be waged by an ideologically diverse group of citizens devoted to a defense of the Constitution and the rule of law against a political establishment which has proven it is hostile to those values.

Hear hear! Information Landmine says this new organization deserves the support of all true US patriots of whatever stripe and anybody else concerned by the national descent into madness, barbarity and lawlessness over the past seven years.

Change Fewer People Do Believe In

Larry Lessig sees the ever-increasing danger of the Obama campaign snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, the candidate discrediting himself via (though Lessig doesn't see it this way) right-shifting policy positions on a variety of issues from FISA, Isreal, Iran and gun control through to the public campaign finance boondoggle and his backtracking on a promised series of debates with Republican rival John McCain.

Indeed, Lessig - and Obama - should be concerned. For such mis-steps have served to strip much of the gloss from candidate Obama and have recently made him appear like just another politician rather than the enlightened being that so energized and enraptured his supporters just a short time ago.

In particular, Lessig warns that dampening the enthusiasm of those who have hitherto been Obama's greatest supporters is likely to end up with many of those erstwhile voters staying home on the first Tuesday in November rather than going out to the polls. Worse, as punk troublemaker and ever-astute political commentator Jello Biafra warns, the emerging Obama betrayal may have even more severe negative consequences for the Democrats - and what passes for the American left - in the longer-term:

"It’s not as though a President ‘Barack-star’ is going to wave his magic wand and suddenly Iraq is all better. My biggest worry about him is that if he wins, he’s just going to turn around, pull off the mask, and be the creature of the corporate establishment that his voting record indicates. And a whole generation inspired to get off their asses and participate will become so disillusioned that they don’t vote again."

Biafra's fears appear well-founded: 'Barack-star', it seems, has chosen to start removing the mask even before the general election.

What consequences this will have overall for Democratic chances in November remain to be seen, but this correspondent has decided to vote Green. The Republicans are hateful and loathesome, certainly, but the Democrats are arguably even worse for pretending to be righteous and just and then kneeling down before the worst, most evil and despised administration in US history anyway to help them shred the Constitution and rule of law that our forefathers fought and died for. As the last week has shown, the fascist Republicans couldn't even do it without the assistance of Democratic collaborators, including those at the top of the party hierarchy in Congress.

Enough is enough: this correspondent will no longer compromise core beliefs by voting for the lesser of any evils. A vote for the establishment, whether red or blue, is a vote for more of the same, and what's left of our Constitutional democracy can no longer afford that.

The Greatest Threat to Our Constitutional Democracy?

Dan Rather seems to get it.

Ice-T Was Right: "Freedom Of Speech, Just Watch What You Say"

Indeed, or it may mean that broadcasters choose to cut off your right to use what used to be the "public" airwaves, because now they can legally exclude candidates from debates on whatever arbitrary basis they choose, thus suffocating any attempt to effectively express dissenting opinions on a broad platform.

The fact that these broadcasters are mostly owned and controlled by mega-corporations with their own sets of political and economic interests to promote and defend - interests which are often at odds with those of the citizenry - means that this latest court ruling represents another nail in the coffin of our republican form of government.

And where were Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards on this fiasco when it came time to make a principled stand for liberty, democracy and the right to freedom of expression? If they had any commitment to such principles, shouldn't they have refused to participate in such a sham themselves? The answer, my friend, is blowin' on an ill wind.

Fascism American-style and the Death of US Constitutional Democracy

Naomi Wolf's disturbing-yet-excellent The End Of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot will be discussed in more detail in future posts. In the meantime, here is an excellent-yet-disturbing (spot the trend?) interview with Ms. Wolf that really lays out just how serious and imminent the threat of real - not rhetorical, but genuine - fascism is to US Constitutional democracy.

The hour is late: stand up against Bush, Cheney, the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, Fox News and the Democratic appeasers in Congress before the flame of liberty is extinguished forever.

Or, as an increasingly-obscure early-to-mid-'80s Californian right-wing (oh, the irony!) New Wave band once said: "WAKE UP! IT'S NINETEEN-EIGHTY-FOUR!"