Bigger & More Repressive Government

Fifth, since a counterrevolutionary right-wing program is going to elicit serious and growing internal protest, large and properly trained cadres of police and ample prison space are necessary complements to control that other “beast”—the people—in the word usage of Alexander Hamilton. Just as the United States trained Latin American military and police in methods of fighting against “populism” in their countries, by this means helping to produce a “favorable climate of investment” by bringing into power National Security States, so a large, well-trained, and ruthless police is needed in the home country as it pushes a right-wing agenda that is contrary to the interests of a vast majority. Hence the right-wing approval of a hefty budget for the police as well as military establishment. These are both needed to help protect “freedom”—that is, the unconstrained ability of the strong to dominate, with business free to operate without government restraint, and the masses induced to serve their masters quietly and without protest. 

U.S. activists, civil libertarians, and minority communities are well aware of the fact that the Bush administration has been putting in place a repressive apparatus, complete with a legal and judicial underpinning to give it sanction. They are also aware of the increasing use of repressive tactics as the government confronts growing protest. One of the many ironies of the New World Order is the way in which the leaders of the Free World increasingly meet in remote places out of the reach of their citizenry, like Doha/Qatar, and how within each country larger and larger areas are blocked off to prevent protesters from getting within leadership or TV audience sight. (In a famous Ron Cobb cartoon of 1967 that could by updated for widespread application today, we see President Lyndon Johnson on a podium addressing “Mah Fellow Americans,” with only a sea of police in sight around and before him.) In the same undemocratic mold, agreements like NAFTA are prepared in secret and without public participation, just as WTO decisions are made in non-public meetings by unelected bureaucrats, all in the pursuit of “freedom” as defined above, which is actually reducing freedom in its common-sense and traditional meaning. The New York Times rarely if ever mentions this ironical divergence between claimed interest in freedom and complementary tactics of undemocratic decision-making and repressive and freedom-threatening treatment of protests from below. 

The future of repression looks frighteningly bright. The Patriot Act was a major step in removing constitutional protections of privacy, trial by jury, habeas corpus, and indirectly the rights of free speech and assembly. (It should be noted, however, that as in so many areas, Bill Clinton’s Anti-Terrorism and Effective Penalty Act of 1996 led the march now being advanced by Ashcroft and Bush, permitting the use of federal troops against the civilian population, thereby nullifying the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 and allowing the selective suspension of habeas corpus protections.) The judiciary has been restructured by Republican aggressiveness and Democratic weakness into an increasingly repression-supportive collective and the prospect of years more of Bush-2 court appointments is scary. Both Scalia and Rehnquist have indicated that legal protections of citizens rights are in abeyance in wartime. The evidence from Miami and other protest sites is that “preventive” police actions in violation of the law at many levels (illegal use of force, illegal arrests, mistreatment, plus, of course, denial of the constitutional rights to free speech and assembly) are becoming better organized, better armed, and more ruthless; designed to discourage as well as disrupt protests. 

The Bush party is advancing the repression agenda as fast as is feasible—witness the temporarily aborted Patriot Act II, with its enlarged and vague definition of terrorism and support for terrorism and its proposal for executive authority to deprive those guilty of terrorism, or supporting it, of their citizenship. There are no apparent limits to what Bush-Ashcroft will do in moving this country toward a fascist state if they can get away with it. Sadly, there is a strong possibility that in the not-too-distant future this country will suffer another serious terrorist event, which would provide a ready basis for a new SuperPatriot Act that would effectively nullify the Constitution. General Tommy Franks has recently suggested this nullification as a likely outcome of such a terrorist act and, as noted, the Bush war against terrorism has been well designed to elicit a terrorist response. The election of a Democrat in 2004 might slow the momentum toward a more repressive state, although in the face of major terrorist acts this would not be certain under a Lieberman or Clark administration. 

The mainstream media have done their bit for the Bush program. First, they allowed him to come away unscathed from his horrendous 9/11 security failure and to position himself as a protector of U.S. security. Second they have allowed him to undermine U.S. security by a series of illegal wars and essentially unconditional support for Sharon and accelerated ethnic cleansing in Palestine without serious criticism. Third, they allowed him to brazenly lie his way into the invasion-occupation of Iraq, failing to challenge his lies, and in fact functioning as agents of war propaganda. Their service here, and failure as public servants, may be read from the pre-invasion majority belief that Saddam Hussein was an “immediate threat” to the United States and that he was personally involved in the 9/11 attacks. Fourth, their criticism of the Ashcroft- Bush campaign to weaken constitutional protec- tions has been extremely low- key, where it exists at all, and has been easily offset in its effects on the public by their conduiting Bush fear propa ganda. 

Finally, the media have effectively become part of the Bush reelection campaign by giving his pronouncements excessive and uncritical attention and by failing to focus on his overall macro-economic performance—service to his donors by his tax, environmental, and Iraq contracting policies, and his assault on the Constitution at home and international law abroad. In a dramatic case, the New York Times (and many other papers, and TV) gave huge front-page coverage on November 28 to Bush’s quickie visit to Iraq to have his picture taken eating turkey with “our warriors.” This photo-op stunt was designed to counter the image of Bush as the man who said “bring ’em on” from Washington, DC and who had failed to give enough attention to the returning body bags. The media made this propaganda stunt work, just as they had done for warrior Bush’s landing on the USS A braham Lincoln to announce “mission accomplished.”