The Brink (U.S.)

I recall a lot of paranoid conversations in 1967 and early 1968: about how the FBI and CIA were spying on dissidents, antiwar demonstrators were being bugged, and even that LBJ was preparing to declare martial law in the U.S. and cancel the 1968 elections.

Some of it turned out to be true---the FBI and police not only spying on antiwar and other dissident groups but becoming undercover members and even provocateurs urging these groups to commit violent acts.

But as hard-headed as LBJ was, and as willing to lie and twist arms, he wasn't going to turn the U.S. into a totalitarian dictatorship. When Eugene McCarthy started getting votes in primaries, and RFK got into the race, he didn't send tanks into the streets. He even got out of the way of what was to come, which unfortunately was Nixon.

And even though Nixon subverted the Constitution and was reportedly willing to have his political enemies killed, when his back was against the wall he didn't arrest Congress and send out the troops; he resigned.

Now it all seems like paranoia, although it can also be argued that at least in Nixon's case, if he'd thought the military would follow his orders anymore, he might have done it. But with the Bushites now in power, none of this seems beyond the pale. There are just too many signs that the Bushites are gearing up for a real assault on constitutional government, and the cancellation of the 2008 elections fits right into the apparent timetable. So much of what they've done was unthinkable that this seems just the next unthinkable step.

So far they have gotten away with their pilot project in Guantanamo without getting burned in Congress or at or in the polls. They've taken away basic civil and human rights, and developed their techniques for torture and isolation. Hitler did this as well with early concentration camps, and nobody protested very much. Later they were afraid to. But even the extermination camps for the Jews were partly a test of the technologies involved; the ultimate goal was to eradicate all the races that Hitlerites declared undesirable--the Slovaks were next.

We're seeing signs. Nat Parry reminds us of these news stories that escaped wide notice:

...there was that curious development in January when the Army Corps of Engineers awarded Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root a $385 million contract to construct detention centers somewhere in the United States, to deal with "an emergency influx of immigrants into the US, or to support the rapid development of new programs," KBR said. [Market Watch, Jan. 26, 2006]

Later, the New York Times reported that "KBR would build the centers for the Homeland Security Department for an unexpected influx of immigrants, to house people in the event of a natural disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space." [Feb. 4, 2006]

Parry points out that nobody, including the Times, asked what those "new programs" could possibly be. Read the rest of his report, and decide how much is paranoia, and how much possibility.

He also points out that Senator Lindsay Graham has been talking about the President's powers to hunt down "Fifth Columnists," a designation almost as arcane as "sedition," which was heard last week when the Bureau of Veteran's Affairs accused one of its employees of it when she wrote a letter to the editor of a local newspaper critical of Bush.

Readers here may recall posts noting that Smirk was talking an awful lot about new uses for the military within the U.S. It was his answer to hurricane relief (echoed today in response to Congressional criticism of Katrina response. FEMA is fine and Homeland Security is dandy--what we need are troops and mercenaries.) It was his answer to a possible pandemic. (Instead of a better, or just less neglected and politicized public health system.)

And as big a stink as has been raised about at least three programs that spy on American citizens, two of them through the White House, it hasn't done real damage. The clamor has been inconsistent and unfocused. The Bushites still act as if no one can stop them--they are the Smirk's smirk writ large. And so far, they may well be right.

Paranoids are good at patterns. And there are patterns to be made of how the Bushites are transforming the government and its relationship to corporations, media, etc. that leads logically to the final step of dictatorship. Maybe that's why none of the Bushites seems to care who the 2008 nominee will be. Maybe that's why Karl Rove no longer cowers from subpoena from Fitzgerald, or why the White House doesn't fear more revelations of corruption. Because they've got a plan to make all that irrelevant?

There's plenty that's different today than in 1968, or in other more apparent great crises in the U.S. past. A lot of it favors the ability to impose a dictatorship and smother dissent. Some of it doesn't. We got through the last few crises without a single leader emerging, like FDR or Lincoln, but with notable leadership in the Congress (Watergate) or in the streets (Vietnam.) Where's it going to come from now? That is not at all clear.

Has the luck of this Republic run out? I would have said it will be tested, along with the luck and plunk of the human race, over the next decade as the Climate Crisis becomes unignorable. But the fateful point may be coming sooner. Much sooner. This may be the Big Brink of 2006-08.