February 8, 2006
Dictatorship in America?
by Rodrigue Tremblay
Don't look now, but something big is
happening in the United States. A major constitutional crisis is brewing, with President
George W. Bush's push to concentrate absolute power in his hands, whenever he
decides to do so in 'times of war'. Just remember that the United States had,
in 2000, its first non-elected president.
There were clear signs that something abnormal was going on
when Bush Jr. declared, on December 31, 2002, that it was up to him alone to
declare a war of aggression against Iraq, even though the U.S. Constitution
divides war powers between the Congress and the President and emphatically
states that only Congress can declare war: "The Congress shall have
Power: To declare War,..."(Art.
1, sec. 8). On Dec. 18, 2001, George W. Bush perhaps spoke his mind when he
said: "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier,
just so long as I'm the dictator." Everybody thought he was joking. —He wasn't.
To place himself above the law, Pres. Bush has used what is
called "signing statements" hundreds of times. These are provisos he
has added to newly adopted statutes that Congress sends him to be signed. With
these statements, Bush expresses his intentions not to follow the said laws, if
he chooses not to. By decreeing that he is above the law, as long as there is a
war against terror and he is the Commander-in-Chief, Bush is in effect vetoing
in advance the new bills he signs into law. He also reserves the right to
ignore any other law on the books, if he chooses to. This is a royal
prerogative that most legal scholars consider to be contrary to what was
envisioned by the Fathers of the U.S. Constitution.
For example, Bush recently asserted that he has the power to
ignore the recently adopted McCain amendment forbidding torture, to ignore the
law that makes it illegal to conduct electronic surveillance on people within
the United States without a warrant, to ignore the prohibition against
indefinite detention without charges or trial, to ignore the Geneva Conventions
to which the U.S. is signatory, etc. Moreover, Bush has also signed executive orders
giving him sole authority to impose martial law, suspend habeas corpus and
ignore the Posse Comitatus Act that prohibits deployment of U.S. troops on
American streets.
On the precise question of illegal domestic eavesdropping
that President Bush has confessed to having authorized since 2001, and which is
being contested before the courts, it also appears that he publicly lied about
it. On April 20, 2004, for instance, Bush emphatically proclaimed that "There
are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the
United States government talking about wiretap, it requires – a wiretap
requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way…" This was blatantly untrue, and
he knew it, since he had personally authorized the National Security Agency
(NSA) to wiretap within the USA without a court order.
All this is in sharp contrast to the words of President James Madison
(1751-1836), a prominent Father of
the Constitution and the 4th U.S. President: “The [U.S.] Constitution expressly
and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war [and] the power of raising
armies. A delegation of such powers [to the president] would have struck, not only at the
fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and
well-checked governments. The separation of the power of declaring war from
that of conducting it, is wisely contrived to exclude the danger of its being
declared for the sake of its being conducted.”
In a remarkable speech, on January 16, 2006, former Vice President Al Gore, winner of the popular vote
in the 2000 presidential election and whose election was stolen from him when many
votes cast in his favor were not counted in Florida, echoed President Madison
when he said: "We have a duty as Americans to defend our citizens'
right not only to life but also to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is
therefore vital in our current circumstances that immediate steps be taken to
safeguard our Constitution against the present danger posed by the intrusive
overreaching on the part of the Executive Branch and the President's apparent
belief that he need not live under the rule of law. I endorse the words of [former Congressman]Bob Barr,
when he said, 'The President has dared the American people to do something
about it. For the sake of the Constitution, I hope they will.' "
Incredibly, the most important newspaper in the United
States, The New York Times,
did not report Al Gore's speech, even though an important public figure raised
fundamental questions about American democracy. This is not a complete
surprise, since the leadership at the NYTimes also suppressed, for one full
year, the information about the Bush administration violating the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act, by secretly and illegally spying on Americans' telephone calls and e-mail without
getting warrants. Without this dereliction of duty on their part, it is possible
that George W. Bush would not have been reelected in November 2004. Therefore,
the highly concentrated American corporate media carry a large share of
responsability regarding the relative degradation of democratic rule in the
U.S.
These are quite amazing developments for a country that has
prided itself until recently on being a model of democracy and on having a free
press. Senators and Representatives had better wake up to these abuses of power
before the Constitution-breaking 'imperial cult' of the presidency (under the
newly invented and self-serving "unitary executive theory" of
presidential power) becomes a reality. If not, they will have only themselves
to blame for having failed to do their constitutional duty.
On a more practical level, all this political instability is
bound to have serious economic consequences. The coming years risk being more
tumultuous than many can possibly envisage.
Posted by Rodrigue Tremblay,
February 8, 2006, at 3:00pm
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