"Democracy" in America
Last week the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the FBI regarding its continued practice of spying on political dissidents. This represents the continuation of an issue that stretches back at least to November, 2003, when it was revealed that, as a matter of official policy, the FBI was spying on political activists. In response to this, the ACLU has filed a series of Freedom of Information Act requests concerning this matter; however, the FBI has thus far largely stonewalled, and has in fact illegally refused to fully comply with many of these requests. At the same time, the Washington Post reported that the FBI has been conducting what it calls "pretext interviews" of left wing activists, in which individuals have been subjected to questioning, for no reason other than their political affiliation.
Coincidentally (or perhaps not), it was also revealed last week that the Bush regime and its allies in the Senate are proposing legislation that would give the FBI the power to obtain any business records any time it wants to, without even needing to go through a judge. This removal of a judicial check against a broad police authority of the Federal Government to spy on people at will represents yet another step in a long trend of restrictions on human rights by the Bush regime, going back to the USA Patriot Act.
In the face of all of this, the ACLU has created a six question quiz to help you determine whether it is likely that the FBI has a file on you. I scored four out six. Two of those questions were for just speaking out vocally against US policies and for attending an antiwar demonstration.
It is always interesting to hear Bush pay lip service to the promotion of "democracy" in other countries. He presumptuously claims to be some sort of authority on this matter. Yet his own record on human rights and democracy is, quite clearly, anything but admirable. He only believes in "democracy" if and when it produces the results he seeks. If democracy doesn't go the way he wants, he seeks to overturn the results. Let us remember that Bush supported the 2002 aborted coup attempt against the democratically elected government of Venezuela. Let us also remember his role in the 2004 coup against the democratically elected government of Haiti. For Bush, democracy is a sham, a word that he throws around with any meaning whatsoever.
Of course, there is democracy as it relates to free elections, and then there are the general principles of human rights. Aside from FBI spying on dissidents mentioned above, we see a whole broad range of human rights violations taking place under the Bush regime. We see indefinite arrests and detentions in places like Guatanamo. We see dissidents and antiwar activists being put on no-fly lists. We see torture in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have an Attorney General who once called some of the provisions of the the Geneva Conventions "quaint" and "obsolete".
However, it would be easy to blame all of this on Bush and his fellow neocons alone. It would also be easy to overreact and say that all of these human rights violations that we see in the US mean that we are on the road to fascism. But I believe, we have to be careful about how we interpret all of this. It would be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it is all about getting the neocons out of power at all costs, which would more or less mean nothing other than supporting the Democrats. The problem is that the Democrats are very much complicit in this whole sordid mess. It is hard not to forget that the Senate Democrats voted almost unanimously (with only a single dissenting vote) for the USA Patriot Act. Yes, that includes John Kerry. That also includes Hilary Clinton, whom many liberals see as their salvation in 2008. I say, God save us from Hilary Clinton. (Clinton and Kerry also both voted for Bush's war in Iraq. Kerry and Clinton epitomize, in my view, everything that is wrong with the Democrats).
I don' t think the diminishing human rights situation in the US means that we are headed down the road to fascism, first and foremost because the ruling class in American society doesn't need to resort to such a brutal, nasty solution in order to maintain power. Instead, as long as the US maintains its veneer of democracy, with the semblance of competitive elections, the essentially corrupt and undemocratic core of American politics will be sufficiently masked such that the ruling class will maintain its hold on legitimacy.
The problems with the US political system are myriad. First of all, the US is hopelessly mired in a 18th century constitutional paradigm. We don't have a genuinely democratic method of electing a President (and the failings of this creaky mechanism led, ultimately, to the 2000 coup d'etat by Bush.) The electoral college is a relic of the slave owning era, and has no place in any democratic society. Our simple first-past-the-post electoral system for all offices is also a relic of a bygone era. More democratic methods of selecting representatives, such as instant runoff voting or proportional representation, are largely missing in the US (we do have instant runoff voting for local elections in San Francisco, but that is the exception). And what did the Democratic Party do in the four years after the debacle of 2000, which cost them the Presidency, to reform the electoral system, to make it more democratic? Nothing. Instead, they spent much effort in the 2004 election trying to keep third party candidates off the ballot. Yet, curiously, because of technicalities in ballot rules in Illinois, George Bush was going to be absent from the Illinois ballot until Democrats agreed to change the rules in that state. Democrats fought tooth and nail to keep Ralph Nader off the ballot, but they changed the rules to put George Bush on the ballot. What does that tell you? We have the case where the duopoly of Democrats and Republicans take care of their own, while excluding alternative voices from the electoral process.
Meanwhile, thanks to skillful Congressional redistricting, there are almost no competitive elections for the House of Representatives anymore. Virtually all members of Congress are thus guaranteed almost certain re-election, making a mockery of the supposedly "democratic" process of 2-year elections. And on top of everything else, the corporate controlled news media reveals very little and questions even less, prefering to focus endlessly on things like runaway brides and Michael Jackson rather than things of substance, such as that a recently-revealed secret British intellgence memo revealed that Bush had decided to go to war with Iraq in mid-2002 and was then engaged in finding a pretext to justify it.
At every step of the way, alternative voices are excluded from the political process, thus making a sham of the elections in the US. Both major parties are in bed with corporate America. Both parties have been cheerleaders for globalization. (For an example from the previous President, just consider that the Clinton administration had close ties with Monsanto and played a major role in promoting Monstanto's genetically engineered food technologies overseas).
And if that isn't enough to make a mockery of the electoral process in the US, we have the almost certain presence of electoral fraud in the 2004 election. The Survey Access Center, a statistical research department at UC Berkeley, concluded after the election last year that there was almost 99% certainty of electronic voting machine fraud in Florida benefiting Bush.
All of this means that elections in the US are meaningless, but they server a useful purpose. They give the corrupt political and economic system of the US the illusion of being a democracy. Meanwhile, the two ruling parties continue their rightward dance, with the neocons pulling the country ever rightward, and the compliant Democrats willingly tagging along.
In today's New York Times, even columnist Paul Krugman admitted that there was a problem, writing:
Krugman illustrates the point that many Americans, including those who detest Bush, still have faith in the US political system, its political institutions, or its political parties. But we have to ask ourselves--if one of the worst Presidents in US history, whose agenda is largely rejected by most Americans, somehow manages to finagle a second term, doesn't that tell us that something is horribly wrong with our political and economic system?
Coincidentally (or perhaps not), it was also revealed last week that the Bush regime and its allies in the Senate are proposing legislation that would give the FBI the power to obtain any business records any time it wants to, without even needing to go through a judge. This removal of a judicial check against a broad police authority of the Federal Government to spy on people at will represents yet another step in a long trend of restrictions on human rights by the Bush regime, going back to the USA Patriot Act.
In the face of all of this, the ACLU has created a six question quiz to help you determine whether it is likely that the FBI has a file on you. I scored four out six. Two of those questions were for just speaking out vocally against US policies and for attending an antiwar demonstration.
It is always interesting to hear Bush pay lip service to the promotion of "democracy" in other countries. He presumptuously claims to be some sort of authority on this matter. Yet his own record on human rights and democracy is, quite clearly, anything but admirable. He only believes in "democracy" if and when it produces the results he seeks. If democracy doesn't go the way he wants, he seeks to overturn the results. Let us remember that Bush supported the 2002 aborted coup attempt against the democratically elected government of Venezuela. Let us also remember his role in the 2004 coup against the democratically elected government of Haiti. For Bush, democracy is a sham, a word that he throws around with any meaning whatsoever.
Of course, there is democracy as it relates to free elections, and then there are the general principles of human rights. Aside from FBI spying on dissidents mentioned above, we see a whole broad range of human rights violations taking place under the Bush regime. We see indefinite arrests and detentions in places like Guatanamo. We see dissidents and antiwar activists being put on no-fly lists. We see torture in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have an Attorney General who once called some of the provisions of the the Geneva Conventions "quaint" and "obsolete".
However, it would be easy to blame all of this on Bush and his fellow neocons alone. It would also be easy to overreact and say that all of these human rights violations that we see in the US mean that we are on the road to fascism. But I believe, we have to be careful about how we interpret all of this. It would be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it is all about getting the neocons out of power at all costs, which would more or less mean nothing other than supporting the Democrats. The problem is that the Democrats are very much complicit in this whole sordid mess. It is hard not to forget that the Senate Democrats voted almost unanimously (with only a single dissenting vote) for the USA Patriot Act. Yes, that includes John Kerry. That also includes Hilary Clinton, whom many liberals see as their salvation in 2008. I say, God save us from Hilary Clinton. (Clinton and Kerry also both voted for Bush's war in Iraq. Kerry and Clinton epitomize, in my view, everything that is wrong with the Democrats).
I don' t think the diminishing human rights situation in the US means that we are headed down the road to fascism, first and foremost because the ruling class in American society doesn't need to resort to such a brutal, nasty solution in order to maintain power. Instead, as long as the US maintains its veneer of democracy, with the semblance of competitive elections, the essentially corrupt and undemocratic core of American politics will be sufficiently masked such that the ruling class will maintain its hold on legitimacy.
The problems with the US political system are myriad. First of all, the US is hopelessly mired in a 18th century constitutional paradigm. We don't have a genuinely democratic method of electing a President (and the failings of this creaky mechanism led, ultimately, to the 2000 coup d'etat by Bush.) The electoral college is a relic of the slave owning era, and has no place in any democratic society. Our simple first-past-the-post electoral system for all offices is also a relic of a bygone era. More democratic methods of selecting representatives, such as instant runoff voting or proportional representation, are largely missing in the US (we do have instant runoff voting for local elections in San Francisco, but that is the exception). And what did the Democratic Party do in the four years after the debacle of 2000, which cost them the Presidency, to reform the electoral system, to make it more democratic? Nothing. Instead, they spent much effort in the 2004 election trying to keep third party candidates off the ballot. Yet, curiously, because of technicalities in ballot rules in Illinois, George Bush was going to be absent from the Illinois ballot until Democrats agreed to change the rules in that state. Democrats fought tooth and nail to keep Ralph Nader off the ballot, but they changed the rules to put George Bush on the ballot. What does that tell you? We have the case where the duopoly of Democrats and Republicans take care of their own, while excluding alternative voices from the electoral process.
Meanwhile, thanks to skillful Congressional redistricting, there are almost no competitive elections for the House of Representatives anymore. Virtually all members of Congress are thus guaranteed almost certain re-election, making a mockery of the supposedly "democratic" process of 2-year elections. And on top of everything else, the corporate controlled news media reveals very little and questions even less, prefering to focus endlessly on things like runaway brides and Michael Jackson rather than things of substance, such as that a recently-revealed secret British intellgence memo revealed that Bush had decided to go to war with Iraq in mid-2002 and was then engaged in finding a pretext to justify it.
At every step of the way, alternative voices are excluded from the political process, thus making a sham of the elections in the US. Both major parties are in bed with corporate America. Both parties have been cheerleaders for globalization. (For an example from the previous President, just consider that the Clinton administration had close ties with Monsanto and played a major role in promoting Monstanto's genetically engineered food technologies overseas).
And if that isn't enough to make a mockery of the electoral process in the US, we have the almost certain presence of electoral fraud in the 2004 election. The Survey Access Center, a statistical research department at UC Berkeley, concluded after the election last year that there was almost 99% certainty of electronic voting machine fraud in Florida benefiting Bush.
All of this means that elections in the US are meaningless, but they server a useful purpose. They give the corrupt political and economic system of the US the illusion of being a democracy. Meanwhile, the two ruling parties continue their rightward dance, with the neocons pulling the country ever rightward, and the compliant Democrats willingly tagging along.
In today's New York Times, even columnist Paul Krugman admitted that there was a problem, writing:
At a gala dinner in his honor, Tom DeLay cited his party's recent achievements: "bankruptcy reform, class-action reform, energy, border security, repealing the death tax." All of these measures are either irrelevant to or actively hostile to the economic security of working Americans.Seeing that there is so little difference between the parties at the Federal level, Krugman then asks the question, "So where will change come from?" His answer reflects his own liberalism. What he seeks isn't radical change, but rather just a resurgence in the very old-style reform-minded liberalism which (in rejecting radical change and seeking only to reform the existing system) sowed the seeds of its own destruction and left us with the political mess that we are in today. He still has faith in our political system, hoping that this new impetus for reform will somehow emerge out of state politics.
Yet as Mr. DeLay boasted, many Democratic members of Congress also voted in support of these measures. In so doing, they undermined their party's ability to claim that it stands for something different.
Krugman illustrates the point that many Americans, including those who detest Bush, still have faith in the US political system, its political institutions, or its political parties. But we have to ask ourselves--if one of the worst Presidents in US history, whose agenda is largely rejected by most Americans, somehow manages to finagle a second term, doesn't that tell us that something is horribly wrong with our political and economic system?
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