Stoopid Stuff

Liberal Democracy to Authoritarian Police State - The Direct Route

Republican legislators are outraged that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has called out the CIA for "misleading" her in briefings over the Bush/Cheney torture policies. Of course, their arguments against Pelosi's statements have very little to do with their accuracy or truthfulness in the sense that they are offering actual evidence that she is incorrect or lying. Rather, they are taking the radical position that it is simply beyond the pale for an American lawmaker to call into question the agency's perfection, apparently because to do so is unacceptable, unamerican and unpatriotic.

Eventually, when historians look back to identify those critical points where the American experiment in representative democracy collapsed, this might well be one of them. When an elected representative of the people, with statutory and constitutional intelligence oversight responsibilities, feels it appropriate to take the position that it is unacceptable to question the actions of the Central Intelligence Agency, he is essentially ceding control of Government from elected political leaders to anonymous, unaccountable intelligence bureaucrats. He is saying that the secret police should be allowed to operate without challenge, unfettered, based on the assumption that they will never take a self-serving or counter productive action because, well, they're the good guys.

Especially in light of the excesses of the previous administration, I WANT the co-equal Legislative and Judiciary branches to question every agency, demand information on every program, and exercise active oversight to the point of denying funding for questionable programs and lack of transparency. One of the truly appalling things about the Bush/Cheney years was the way the Republican - led Congress was willing to subjugate their power and authority to that of the White House. These are men and women of immense ego and great power. Under the constitution they had not only the power, but the responsibility to make themselves part of the process. Instead, they chose to act as lap dogs, nothing but a rubber stamp, the saddest kind of flaccid third-world banana republic parliamentary assembly, acting as instructed by the party elders, without any ability to influence events. These partisan hacks sold out their country, and their constituents for nothing but some political party platform. They made a mockery not just of themselves as legislators, but of the institution to which they had the rare privilege of being elected.

And now they want to take their craven, anomalous behavior as servants of the party in the name of executive power and make it, not just the way the system is supposed to work into perpetuity, but to make a powerful, independent, effective Legislative branch into some kind of subversive fifth column. For that does seem to be the takeaway from the mindless arguments they are shrieking at increasing volume.

Don't question the secret police. Let the military make the decisions, not the civilian government. Demand more surveillance, more torture, more incarceration, a militarized border, more and more military spending to support more and more wars. The irony is that on political issues there is very little daylight between the Republican party's official positions and that of the Saddam Hussein government. Just as on social issues, tolerance and diversity, the Republican party and al Quaeda have shockingly parallel beliefs and ideologies.

It's a path I don't believe the majority of Americans want to walk. But with the political cowardice and self-interest of the government and the mindless, arrogant, embarrassing idiocy of the press, there seems to be no way to change direction. We're going to be very unhappy with the nation we're creating, and yet we continue to rush headlong into a dark, authoritarian future...

posted by mikey @ 12:53 PM