2009

[libertango]

Naomi Wolf writes in the Guardian about the mechanics of replacing a democratic regime with an authoritarian one -- and how the Bush Administration seems to be following that playbook.

scalzi responds to the spirit of the piece (if not the specifics), by saying, basically, that it's too impractical, and besides, Bush is too unpopular (which is a subset of the first, really).

jaylake chimes in with his own response -- "(T)hese guys aren't long-term thinkers."

I wrote about this over a year ago, with the rhetorical question, "Why does Karl Rove still have a job?"

See, unlike John and Jay, I think the Bushies do think long term... Just very narrowly. When Scalzi writes, "(A)s I've noted before, the plan for the next eighteen months is a simple one: For Bush and pals to finish out their terms of office without actually admitting guilt about anything, so that when the extent of the damage is finally assessed, it'll look less attractive to punish them because they don't actually have any power any more... The goal now is simply to get out intact."

Here's the trouble with that: I don't think that's an achievable goal. I think a full round-robin of investigations and convictions of Administration officials is now inevitable once the Administration leaves. I think that will happen regardless of which party with the White House, and regardless of which candidate.

I think the Administration is, on the whole, of the same opinion.

These guys aren't acting like they're ever going to leave. They're acting with impunity, and I think that's partly because they think they're not going to be held accountable -- and there's only one way to get that done.

Now, one can say, "Even more practically than that, the military is nowhere near large enough to hold the entire of the United States..." -- as John does. But that's true now, too. One can say because the military oath is to the Constitution and not to The Man, that therefore the military will balk -- as many of Scalzi's commenters do.

But that only means one has to sell such a measure to the military as the Constitutional and legal thing to do. The path to that is fairly clear: It won't be presented as a permanent change of regime, or affairs. It will be presented as a "temporary emergency measure." And, as someone once said, nothing is as permanent as a temporary emergency measure.

If the Bushies are laying the groundwork for such a thing -- and I would argue that I, pecunium, David Neiwert, Glenn Greenwald, and others have been providing documentary evidence for that over a period of years -- then I think to refute that premise there needs to be a better response than, "La-la-la, it can't happen." You need to address specific items like the USA PATRIOT Act, and the superfluous NSA tapping, and the Executive Order of 17 July 2007, and HR 5122 (now PL 109-364), and...

...and if you say there were incremental, reasonable concerns that each of these measures addressed, and the collective picture doesn't mean much...

You've proved my point.

Insert your own Pastor Niemoller paraphrase here.

Comments

[jaylake.livejournal.com]

You may well be right. I hope to all that's holy that you're not.

I suppose I have faith (and I use that word quite carefully) in the political pendulum.

[jaylake.livejournal.com]

And one more thing...it occurs to me that conservative doctrine these days amounts to the Divine Right of Kings — whatever we do is right because we're the ones doing it. That's why you see such contradictory evidence as the stance on executive privilege during the Clinton years vs. today, or the GOP lawsuit challenging the election results in Oregon in 2000, where their arguments pretty mirrored Gore's arguments in Florida.

Pendulum

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm hoping very much for the pendulum, as well... In fact, when I first saw your headline of a "Republican coup", what I thought you meant was the GOP realizing that following Dubya any longer is political suicide, and their mass rebellion against him lest 1932 happen again. (Which I've written about both here and in the Seattle Times.)

And I have no idea how likely any of this really is. But I'm militantly agnostic on it -- I insist nobody else has any idea, either. :) So when someone comes along and says it is not possible... Well, that when my red flags go up.

[jackwilliambell.livejournal.com]

If I read it right, you have just claimed that the lack of a pattern proves there is one.

I'm going to have to get together with Sasquatch and a couple of gray aliens to hash that one out...

OTOH: If you are right, then the real meaning of the fourth amendment will be made clear to all. Not something I want to see in my own lifetime.

Patterns

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

"If I read it right, you have just claimed that the lack of a pattern proves there is one."

Hrm. No, although I can see how one might read it that way, which is my fault as a writer.

What I'm claiming is, there have been some very specific incidents and policies that amount to a pattern (see the citations I've made, or Wolf's article), but such a pattern is usually denied (see Scalzi's commenters). I'm saying the pattern has emerged incrementally.

Usually the metaphor used for this is the urban legend of the boiling frog, but I think a closer analogy is the reaction to Wegener's promotion of the idea of continental drift -- which amounted to, "We haven't seen it, so it can't be happening." It was more a question of time scale.

If one thinks about it, this denial is also a Black Swan argument. (And let me flack yet again for Nassim Nicholas Taleb and his books The Black Swan and Fooled By Randomness.) It's usually out forth this way: "President(s) X (or Y or Z) did such-and-such, which was much worse, and the republic held. Therefore nothing Dubya does could really be a threat to the republic itself, and therefore any speculation at all that he could is just partisan hysteria/speculative hogwash/apocalyptic fantisizing/what have you." Which, as I say, is just one more iteration of, "I've never seen a Black Swan, therefore Black Swans don't exist."

That theory is subject to the criticism you've made, yes... But I would point out the chasm between, "Sasquatches are unlikely," and "Sasquatches don't exist." I would also point out, again, the function of time here -- we're talking about rare events. And the flip side of what you're saying is that rare events don't happen at all, when they manifestly do.

"OTOH: If you are right, then the real meaning of the fourth amendment will be made clear to all. Not something I want to see in my own lifetime."

Depends on how the sale is made. Which was also one my points. Arguably, the current NSA wiretap program and the justification behind it already substantially overturns the 4th Amendment de facto.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I think there is a pattern, one of incremental removals of the rights of the people, "for the good of the whole."

That the movement is small steps, makes the idea of intent more likely.

If we assume that the "people" wouldn't accpet, in one fell swoop, the removal of all the things that have been nibbled away.

If one want's to point to intent, the host of "terrorist" plots, which weren't, but which justified, "doing something," to prevent the impossible from happening.

Not so much a Reichstag blaze, as a Reichstag smoulder. When all is said and done, the building is gone, and it won't be rebuilt.

I'd like to think that's not the intent, but the fact of the matter is I don't think Bush was ever, meaningfully, in charge, and that Cheny's, long-standing, antipathy to representative gov't has been the underlying mission of this administration.

It took me years to decide this, but it's the sad fact that I feel like a nutbar conspiracy theorist.

TK

Conspiracy

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

"(I)t's the sad fact that I feel like a nutbar conspiracy theorist."

To me, to show a conspiracy you have to show collusion. And that's not what I think is happening here.

It's like saying, 2+2+2=6. The individual integers of 2 probably aren't in synch with the others re motives and desires. They're all just sitting there, discretely, with their own agendas, waiting to be counted.

Doesn't mean they don't add up to 6, though.

I like the image of a Reichstag smolder.

"If we assume that the "people" wouldn't accpet, in one fell swoop, the removal of all the things that have been nibbled away."

Exactly. What I think the rationalization is (especially on Cheney's part), is that there's only one way to "save the country," and anybody not on the bandwagon is naive. That the only way to protect the Constitution is to destroy it, to use an image of the first conflict Cheney fucked up (and I think a major motivation in his desperate need to not fuck up this time, but only on his own terms).