WB: The Totalitarian Temptation

July 3, 2006

Billmon:

[N]ow that the conservative movement has been revealed as a criminal conspiracy, and an extremely powerful one at that, is it unreasonable to argue that extraconstitutional means may be both necessary and justified to bring the conspirators to justice?

I don’t really mean that. I know enough about history to know where that kind of thinking leads. But I wouldn’t mind if the right wingers think I mean it.

The Totalitarian Temptation

Posted by b on July 3, 2006 at 06:57 UTC | Permalink

Comments

The likes of a David Addington, John Yoo, Stephen Cambone or an Alberto Gonzales to function in any public role must be hampered for good once this aberration of democracy in America blows over. Advocates and enablers of torture should not have tenure in any publicly responsible role in society. The right and wrong of it is not a matter of opinion or argument. Since when is torture not a crime? You certainly would not want to have any of these guys come back in 10 – 20 years time as the Watergate and Iran-Contra crew have in the current disaster of a government

Posted by: YY | Jul 3 2006 8:25 utc | 1

hat tip steve jones

Posted by: annie | Jul 3 2006 8:48 utc | 2

The sulker crowd doesn’t think first, much less twice. They are at a pre toddler level of development and all they know is they want that government teat.

Posted by: razor | Jul 3 2006 12:34 utc | 3

They won’t think twice, because they don’t intend to lose any key elections.
I’ve been around campaigns most of my life, starting as the kid of one of the campaign managers of Mikulski’s first House and Sarbanes’ first Senate runs. And I said during the summer of 2004 that I’d never seen a campaign run as badly as Bush/Cheney’s that year. They did everything wrong, from the type of events, to who was at them, to the heavyhanded attempts to weed out any dissenters ahead of time, to the message itself. At every step I kept saying they were running like they knew it didn’t matter; like they knew they couldn’t lose.
Are the e-machines fixed? Well, it certainly seems they’re fix-able. But fixed? I have no idea. Maybe it’s just that this crowd has enough confidence in their numbers, in their ability to divide the country, drive their side to the polls and keep just enough of the other side away. How they’re doing it is up for debate, and it could be a combination of a lot of different things. That they believe they can keep doing it at will seems to me to be beyond any doubt.
Just as I said when I called New Orleans deliberate murder: the only person who commits a crime that big and that obvious is one who is past worrying about getting caught, one who has come to the conclusion that caught or not, the fact is he can never be punished. The only way these guys could believe that is if they don’t intend ever to be out of power.

Posted by: mats | Jul 3 2006 13:28 utc | 4

Clinton didn’t need any extraordinary powers, he just needed enough courage and wisdom to use the traditional ones. As one simple example, if the President is being hounded by a special prosecutor who is openly violating grand jury secrecy and conspiring with 4rth circuit judges and the President is too hapless, weak, and cowardly, to have the FBI arrest or at least expose illegal leaks, he is worthy of the deepest contempt for failing to protect the nation. Similarly, if the President sees widespread illegal vote manipulation during the election of his successor, but is too self-absorbed and worried about his future prosperity to do anything at all, then he is a scumball. The problem with the Democrats is that they REFUSE to exercise legit power to prevent the Republicans from consolidating extra-ordinary powers.
They are like the Centre Party in 1930s Germany who believed that they could grant temporary powers to Hitler.

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 3 2006 13:43 utc | 5

Bush believes that America is special, deserves special exemptions from international law and special treatemnt. Bin laden also believes that America deserves special treatment, the two just differ on the sort of treatment it deserves.
And given our recent track record, who will come to our aid if another nation or a “coalition of the willing” decides that America is in need of “regime change”?

Posted by: ralphieboy | Jul 3 2006 13:46 utc | 6

Who are the Republicans in the Senate who, normally, would stand as a bulwark against authoritarianism? And, what can we do to help THEM speak out without fear?

Posted by: ferd | Jul 3 2006 15:04 utc | 7

Bush believes that America is special…
Actually, Bush believes he is special. Always has. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about Americans. Ask current and former NOLA residents.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 3 2006 15:40 utc | 8

But I wouldn’t mind if the right wingers think I mean it. And it might not be a bad thing at all if they got the idea there are many in the Democratic Party thinking along just those lines.
The right already DOES think you mean it, Billmon. That’s the whole point.
The Pug leadership has spent decades labeling liberals as ‘FemiNazi, gun-banning, jack-boooted, Stalinist, (insert your favorite authoritarian meme here) appeasers of Communism/Socialism, Totalitarianism, Eco-terrorism, Islamo-facism (whatever that is) and every other ‘ism’ that can in any way be rationalized as a grave threat to a white guy’s God given right to go duck hunting.
The Thugs COUNT on this indoctrinated fear of the archetypal Liberal Authoritarian BogeyWoman (read Hillary) to keep their base down on the farm. So, the Goopers continue to pretend to defend ‘freedom’ against some bizarre notion of Psuedo-Liberal Fascism – all the while institutionalizing the real thing.

Posted by: Night Owl | Jul 3 2006 16:04 utc | 9

I used to think of Bush as just one more Republican president. As a successor to Billy C., continuing many of his policies. As an American President who would continue and possibly escalate US foreign policy, but that, I thought was partly the signs of the times, history grinding on. The Iraq invasion, for example, was predicted when Billy C was Pres. I used to be, and still am, rather scornful of Democrat Bush-bashing which went beyond the anglo-saxon tradition of insulting and demeaning opponents (unknown in Switzerland so difficult for me to judge), as if Bush was the only problem. Somewhat in the line of this (short) essay by Lakoff, though I couldn’t ascribe to the implicit gulf between ‘conservatives’ and ‘progressives’ (these last hardly mentioned in the article) he seems to ascribe to. I also never really bought the “bush is incompetent” meme, as by definition presidents in democracies are executives – though they have leeway, and in the US more than in other places. And I am still convinced Kerry would have been an absolute disaster. Call that intuition as I don’t want to argue.
But bit by bit, I have changed my thinking on this point. Partly due to MoA. I now see Bush’s personality – insecure, domineering, cruel – as playing a larger role. Bush’s problem right from the start, was being a weak president, and someone not in fact forceful or determined or with any vision. Before 9/11 he appealed to the conservative base, kept a low profile, etc. – say. Everyone here knows all about that. Both before and after, he was ‘taken over’ by the neo-cons, and his presidency might even, some say, have been engineered by them. Anyway, powerful men can only be taken over when they wish to be, or are forced; a rudderless Bush was willing (I believe only after some time) and he became a puppet, in the sense of someone not capable of measuring, manipulating, and controlling the various forces he was subject to. The neo cons appealed to his vanities (Iraq as a vanity war!), the power he could wield (absent real power), etc. And in that way fraternity boy cruelty became a mainstay of US policy. As a mainstay, and vanity frill, it had to be made public, gradually. (E.g. first mainstream articles about rape in Iraq appeared recently.)
While not completely contrary to what one may broadly term ‘neo-con’ objectives (corporations on the rampage with a lunatic fig leaf) the seepage of petty control and cruelty is, I think now, largely an outcome of Bush’s personality. The neo-cons would certainly have preffered no gaping schisms to appear – e.g softie lefties yelling about Abu Graib and loony heartlanders approving torture – all this is best kept away from public discourse – let’s get on with things. Rummy and the like have no interest in torture (boring and ineffective), or torture scandals, it is all a waste of time, tangential to reality. Except insofar as it keeps people busy – there is certainly that.
Then, a weird symbiosis takes hold, and the different parties agree to agree…
With another Republican president, things might have been quite different.
To sum up, the totalitarian temptation may be an accident of history, not terribly serious, as it is unecessary.
Lakoff
Tough topic, I’m sort of burbling on, here.

Posted by: Noisette | Jul 3 2006 16:43 utc | 10

I wish Billmon would stop using the word “conservative” in describing those who are assaulting the Constitution and rule of law. I counted seven times he used the word in this article.
More and more, words like left, right, middle, liberal and conservative have confused meanings.
Noisette,
I think Rummy and the neocons had an interest in torture- they were in trouble in Iraq and needed info fast, any way they could get it.
Of course, they had no interest in the scandals or public discussion.
I agree that with another Republican President things could have been different, but that is the point, the Republicans chose Bush, not the people.

Posted by: Rick Happ | Jul 3 2006 18:29 utc | 11

Noisette,
I read the Buzzflash article you linked to by G. Lakoff, Ettlinger & Ferguson. Again conservatism is equated with corporatism and neocon facism. Nothing this Bush administration has done was conservative. Even the word itself, “neo-conservative”, is an oxymoron.

Posted by: Rick Happ | Jul 3 2006 20:31 utc | 12

They are “conservative” in the sense that they play well with the conservative end of the American elctorate.
I am sure that in his heart of heatrs, Bush could care less about gay marriage, stem cells, abortion rights or drug policies, as they have little to do with the neocon agenda of extending America’s dominance over the world’s resources and the flow of capital, but he has to throw these scraps out to chum his voters.
As long as he can continue to count on these people’s support, he can wreak whatever havoc on the country that he has planned.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Jul 3 2006 20:38 utc | 13

I think that Billmon puts too much faith in what he may see as the good intentions of the Democratic Party. The political class, no matter which party, are all in it for themselves: not for their constituents nor for ‘the issues’ at all.
Just like the GOP, the so-called liberals have been caught boldface lying to their base, but the base, including Billmon, still excuses those lies [and the inaction that always follows] as sincere naivete and mere incompetence. The Democrats are as ‘corrupt’ as the Republicans. They have not been as successful only because they backed the wrong horse [by opposing legislation favored by big corporate media].

Posted by: gylangirl | Jul 4 2006 1:17 utc | 14

ralphieboy,
Yeah the GOP is playing to the conservative voters – what a sham. It reminds me of poor old ladies giving money to hypocritical TV preachers.
Now that I think about it, the GOP plays the religion card too. I can’t see much religious virtue in waging unnecessary wars, ruining the environment, torturing prisoners, or even the death penalty. People are too trusting and gullible.
gylangirl,
I like your term, the political class. I sometimes don’t understand Billmon. I believe he knows the Democrats are also a guilty party of this political class. Both parties cater to corporate money for survival, but the GOP has the advantage of having constituents that are not as opposed to this corporate control. Many GOP voters believe simply that government is bad and corporations are good – or at least not as bad. They are brainwashed with this philosophy by Rush Limbaugh and all everyday. I have nothing against corporations by definition, I just think they should be muzzled and limited in their political influence. It has been especially bad in the last few years with corporate consolidation of the media. Small hometown newspapers have become a thing of the past, and so has the old saying “All politics are local.” Multinational corporations are in your face from the minute you wake up until you lay your head down at night. Nothing is local anymore.
It is now time to let the people’s rights and voices come first. I believe the Internet is everyone’s only hope to overcome this net we are caught in. It worries me to see the government getting involved in Internet monitoring and bogus information operations. Maybe we all need to wear tinfoil hats.

Posted by: Rick Happ | Jul 4 2006 2:49 utc | 15

@Rick Happ,
Unfortunately, the only way the peoples rights and voices come first is by financially and or physically threatening the power abusers – and it just ain’t gonna happen now that the media manipulates the people’s thoughts & fears into trusting that the powerful [Repubs/or Dems] are on their side.

Posted by: gylangirl | Jul 4 2006 10:10 utc | 16

the so-called liberals have been caught boldface lying to their base, but the base, including Billmon
if he’s an example of their base they are really in trouble.
sitting down with their inner circle to plan a Nixonian assault on the opposition under the guise of prosecuting the war on terrorism is basically laughable. It’s hard to even think of a Dem who possesses the nerve and iron will to power that would be required to do such a thing.

Posted by: annie | Jul 4 2006 19:52 utc | 17

Yes, annie, Billmon is definitely part of the Dem base if he [or any progressive leftie] is still willing to cast his vote for the Democrats in the hope that they will finally straighten up and fly left.
Same goes for fiscal conservative and anti-totalitarian gophers who still vote Republican despite the disappointments their party gives them.
What matters more than principles to these voters is winning elections.
Hooray for Our Team!

Posted by: gylangirl | Jul 5 2006 16:05 utc | 18

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