This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
Then came the age of George W. Bush that's the closest thing to the apotheosis what of corporate America wanted since the time of the original robber barons. For the ravenous war-profiteers, it's an age of a permanent "long war" against terrorist and "Islamo-fascist" threats that don't exist and outrageous levels of expenditures on military and "homeland security" to do it. Overall for the corporatocracy, it's big tax cuts for the rich and corporate giants at the expense of the public welfare, a crackdown on civil liberties at home to control dissent, a contempt for the need to protect the environment's ability to sustain life, and big cuts in social services in an all out war against the New Deal and Great Society programs including the bedrock Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid ones.And now in a contemptuously defiant pre-election act of infamy and indifference to constitutional law and all the Founders stood for, the Bush-controlled 109th Congress just passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 defiling the letter and spirit of their landmark achievements.
-- This act annuls the Magna Carta and sacred habeas corpus fundamental principle in it and in Article 1, Section 9 of the US Constitution guaranteeing everyone the right of judicial appeal of arrest and detention. It effectively strips US citizens of this right as well as everyone everywhere may now be designated an "unlawful combatant" at the whim of an out-of-control president. In enacting this unconstitutional law, the Greek chorus on Capitol Hill posing as a Congress annulled 800 years of what that sacred doctrine represents and took away our constitutionally protected right. It did it in a pathetic act of fealty to a depraved president any legitimate legislative body acting on principle long ago would have impeached and removed from office.
-- In a final outrageous pre-election act, the House of Representatives also annulled our right to privacy and the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures by authorizing warrantless wiretaps.
At the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin reportedly said in answer to whether the nation now had a republic or a monarchy: "A republic, if you can keep it." Prescient words from an extraordinary man, and we hardly need wonder what he'd say now. Unlike the Founders, this shameless Congress shares the guilt of a morally depraved president who believes no one has the right to challenge him, champions the use of torture and the denial of habeas and due process rights to anyone on his say alone, now (law or no law) authorizes wiretaps and illegal surveillance on anyone, and calls dissent an act of terrorism in direct contradiction to what Thomas Jefferson believed when he said: "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." Having now made a mockery of constitutional law, this Congress and president have moved the nation to within an "eyelash" of a full-blown national security fascist police state. It's given the president the right to act solely on his own authority as a virtual dictator to do whatever he pleases in the name of national security as he defines it. It simply means the rule of law has been abolished and ordinary people no longer have constitutionally protected rights.
Is it any wonder George Bush is so abhorred worldwide he's met by large (sometimes huge) protest demonstrations everywhere he goes and has to be protected by an unprecedented amount of security to keep him safe. With two years left in his presidency, this shameless man has already embroiled the country in two unwinnable wars of illegal aggression that's destroyed the credibility of the nation and made the US a moral pariah in the eyes of the world. Yet, in open defiance he's contemptuously planning new ones and continues running up massive budget and current account deficits to finance his failed agenda. The result of his disastrous six years in office is a nation's economy on such shaky financial footing any shock severe enough could push it over the edge triggering a global crash that will be the death knell of the middle class, impoverishment of the people and the end of democracy that would be sacrificed on the alter of martial law needed to quell dissent and possible rebellion.
If it happens, it will end the Founders' dream of what they fought a liberating revolution for - to create a liberal democracy and system of government to "promote the general welfare." Hartmann shows that FDR governed by that principle and created what became a vibrant middle class the corporatists and "cons" today want to destroy and are doing a pretty good job of it. Instead of using government resources to invest in essential infrastructure vital to a thriving democracy like good education, quality health care for all and a full array of social services, the Bush administration defrauded the public by its militarism and one-sided service to the interests of capital.
It did it at the expense of the public welfare and viability of the middle class that's always been the bedrock of the nation. If it's destroyed it will fulfill the con's dream to turn the country into a nation of serfs run by corporatists treating people like commodities no different than any other kind of production input used to grow profits and then discarded when no longer of use. No one will have rights or security, and everyone but the elite few will be at the mercy of a wealthy ruling class in league with government serving them alone. Hartmann explains if we want a healthy and vibrant middle class and a strong democracy we have to work for it. We must "define it, desire it, and work both to create and keep it." It can only happen when government participates in the market place as a counter-force to corporate power. Hartmann lists three ways to do it:
-- by creating and regulating the rules under which business must operate
-- by growing and protecting jobs at home with fair trade policies and ending the practice of job destruction through outsourcing to cheap labor markets
-- by providing a full array of essential social services including education, health care and a safety net for those most in need
-- and by a fourth one mentioned elsewhere in the book - with a progressive tax system requiring corporations and those most well-off to pay their fair share according to their income level as well as providing tax relief for those least able to afford it
Hartmann explains unless "we the people" take control and act in our own self-interest, the nation is heading for the kind of society an early 20th century tyrant advocated and created when he was in power. It was "a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership with belligerent nationalism." The tyrant was Mussolini, and he called it fascism. Today in the US we're perilously close to that model as democracy and people rights are threatened by a corporate-run state that's destroying civil society and everything the nation claims to stand for.
Part II - Democracy Requires a Middle Class - It can't exist without one
The Founders and Framers of the Constitution wanted to create a society with a vibrant middle class different from the aristocratic European one they rebelled against that was "of, by, and for the rich." In doing it they believed they were changing the course of European history that never had this kind of government other than what once existed imperfectly in ancient Athens. Their goal was to combine the European tradition of civilization they knew with the Iroquois nation model of democracy they studied and wanted to emulate. In this way, they hoped to create a better world than had ever before existed. It was a noble revolutionary experiment that depended on a strong middle class unhindered by corporate power like the British East India Company exercised in league with the Crown to impose unfair taxes for an advantage to help crush competition and then exploit people for profit.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
