Chris Floyd - Empire Burlesque - High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Imperium - Clowntime is Over: The Last Stand of the American Republic

Chris Floyd - Empire Burlesque - High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Imperium - Clowntime is Over: The Last Stand of the American Republic

So now, at last, the crisis is upon us. Now the cards are finally on the table, laid out so starkly that even the Big Media sycophants and Beltway bootlickers can no longer ignore them. Now the choice for the American Establishment is clear, and inescapable: do you hold for the Republic, or for autocracy? There is no third way here, no other option, no wiggle room, no ambiguity. The much-belated exposure of George W. Bush's warrantless spy program has forced the Bush-Cheney Regime to openly declare what they have long implied -- and enacted -- in secret: that the president is above the law, a military autocrat with unlimited powers, beyond the restraint or supervision of any other institution or branch of government. Outed as rank deceivers, perverters of the law and rapists of the Constitution, the Bush gang has decided that their best defense -- their only defense, really -- is a belligerent offense. "Yeah, we broke the law," they now say; "so what? We'll break it again whenever we want to, because law don't stick to our Big Boss Man. What are you going to do about it, chump?" That is the essence, the substance and pretty much the style of the entire Bushist response to the domestic spying scandal. They are scarcely bothering to gussy it up with the usual rhetorical circumlocutions. The attack is being led by the fat, sneering coward, Dick Cheney, who has crawled out of his luxurious hidey-holes to re-animate the rotting husk of Richard Nixon and send it tottering back onto the national stage. Through the facade of Cheney's pig-squint and peevish snarl, we can see the long-dead Nixonian visage, his grave-green, worm-filled jowls muttering once more the lunatic mantra he brought to the Oval Office: "If the president does it, it can't be illegal." This is what we've come to, this is American leadership today: ugly, stupid men mouthing the witless drivel of failed, dead, discredited, would-be petty tyrants. But not even Nixon was as foul as this crew. When he was caught, he folded; some faint spark of republican conscience restrained him from pushing the crisis to the end. He was a vain, stupid, greedy, grasping, dirty man with blood on his hands, but in the end, he did not identify himself with the government as a whole. He did not say, "l'etat, c'est moi," he had no messianic belief that the life of the nation was somehow bound up with his personal fate, or that he and his clique and his cronies had a God-given right to rule. They just wanted power and loot -- as much of it as they could get -- and they pushed and pushed until the Establishment pushed back. It has long been evident, however, that Bush and Cheney do believe their clique should by all rights rule the country -- and that anyone who opposes their unrestrained dominion is automatically "anti-American," an enemy of the state. For them, there is no "loyal opposition," or even political opponents in any traditional understanding of the term; there are only enemies to be destroyed, and herd-like masses to be manipulated. They believe that their dominion is more important than democracy, which they despise as a brake and hindrance to the arbitrary leadership of an all-wise elite -- i.e., them. They are the state; a police state.Elections are just necessary evils, a way to manufacture the illusion of consent, shake down corporations for big bucks and calibrate the loyalty of courtiers. Democracy is simply another system to be gamed, subverted, turned to factional advantage -- in precisely the same way that Enron gamed the California electric grid. This accounts for the strange, omnipresent tang of unreality that permeated the last three national elections, in 2000, 2002, and 2004. It's because they were unreal: the results were gamed, sometimes in secret, sometimes in plain sight; the "issues" and rhetoric were divorced from the reality that we all actually lived and felt -- and the outcomes were as phony as an Enron balance sheet. Dominion seized on such sinister and cynical terms will almost certainly be defended -- and extended -- by any means necessary. That is the great danger. The Bushists have already pushed on further than Nixon ever dared; will they "bear it out even to the edge of doom"? This is the crux of the matter; this is the crossroads where we now stand. Will the American Establishment push back at last? Will they say, This far we will go, but no further; this much we will swallow, but no more? Some of us have been writing for years about Bush's piecemeal assumption of dictatorial powers. We have watched in rage and amazement as the Establishment meekly accepted Bush's repeated, brutal insults to democracy. Time and again, I've quoted the words of the Emperor Tiberius, after the lackeys of the Senate grovelled to do his bidding: "Men fit to be slaves." In one sense, then, the Rubicon was crossed long ago. Yet "we live in hope and die in despair," as my father always says. In the back of the minds of many an embittered dissident, there has been a spark of hope that somewhere down the line, one of the many, many Bush outrages would somehow take hold, gain critical mass, and force the Establishment to act, to rein in the renegade, break him, box him in if not remove him from office. For let's be clear about this: only the Establishment -- the institutional powers-that-be -- can break an outlaw president. Millions marched in the street against Nixon and the system; whole city quadrants went up in flames in those days; but none of this was decisive in the corridors of power. (Nor to much of the American public, to be frank; after Kent State, after My Lai, after Cambodia, Nixon was still re-elected in a landslide.) It was his insult to the institutions -- the Watergate break-in of Democratic headquarters, the subsequent cover-up and subversion of the legal system, the defiance of Congress -- that led to his downfall. He pushed too far, tried to grab too much -- and the Establishment pulled him short. And it will have to be the Establishment that breaks Bush -- or he won't be broken. All the blogs in the world won't bring him down, no matter how much truth they tell, how much bloodsoaked Bushist dirt they expose. Yes, perhaps if we had millions of outraged citizens marching in the street day after day across America, a sustained mass movement and popular uprising for liberty and democracy, this might obviate the need for Establishment action. But we all know that such marches are not going to happen. If there was sufficient fire for liberty and democracy in America, there would have already been a popular uprising -- and Bush would never have garnered enough public support to keep the election results close enough to be fudged. No, it will be the Establishment -- or no one. That's why the spy scandal is so pivotal. Because it is a direct, open and unignorable challenge to the institutional life of the American Establishment. In it, the Bush Regime is saying to the various powers-that-be, especially in Congress and the courts, but also to centers of power and influence outside government: you no longer have any power. All real power is now in our gift. Your laws, your institutions, your traditions, the whole complex infrastructure of checks and balances that have sustained society are now essentially meaningless. As in ancient Rome, we will keep the old forms, but the life of the state has now passed into the hands of the autocrat and his court. His arbitrary will can override any law -- although of course, strong law will still be applied to his enemies, and to the riff-raff in the lower orders. How will the Establishment deal with this direct challenge? The past few years give little grounds for hope: the Democrats spineless, conflicted, co-opted and corrupt; the Republicans slavish, bellicose, cruel and criminal; the media timorous, witless, corporate-controlled; big business absolutely rolling in gravy from the autocrat's larder; academia cowed, silenced, ignored, demonized; the military acquiescent in criminal aggression, top-heavy with time-servers currying autocratic favor. Only the courts provide some stray sparks of hope, although they too are now loaded with political sycophants, corporate bagmen and knuckle-dragging throwbacks produced by the Right's decades-long devolution of American jurisprudence. Prosecutors like Patrick Fitzgerald and Elliot Spitzer "keep hope alive," but their efforts will mean little in a system where lawlessness at the top has been countenanced by the rest of the Establishment. And in any case, the outcome of their work lies ultimately with the Supreme Court -- the same court that shredded the Constitution in awarding power to Bush in the first place, and which is now led by a Bushist apparatchik. Still, you don't go through a constitutional crisis with the Establishment you want; you go through a constitutional crisis with the Establishment you have. And this sad, sick crew, ladies and gentlemen, is all we have. If they swallow the spy scandal, if they don't push back now -- and I mean really push back, not just make a lot of harrumphing noise or hold a few toothless hearings or get a couple of underlings offered up as ritual sacrifices to save the Leader -- then we will have well and truly and finally lost the Republic that Franklin, Jefferson and Madison gave us so long ago. The next few weeks will show us if there is still some hope of restoring the Republic through the old institutions, or if we will have to follow the course laid out by Bob Dylan some 40 years ago: "Strike another match, go start anew." Who knows? Maybe we can make a better republic next time: one not born of blood, greed and fury -- those all-too-common elements of human organization -- but made from a new compound of mercy, justice, communion and liberty. Still imperfect, of course, still corrupt -- because that's our intractable human nature -- but with our worst instincts restrained by enlightened, ever-evolving law, and the predatory ambitions of the rich and powerful reined by elaborate checks and balances. It's just a dream, of course; probably a vain one. But we will need some vision to guide us if, as seems likely, we must soon set forth into the unknown territory of an openly declared American autocracy. .
Comments
FilmWritten by Guest on 2005-12-28 17:48:33
,,,Honest to goodness, nobody could write a screenplay as good as the real life tragidrama is these days.
Look out kids...Written by Guest on 2005-12-28 17:40:18
In reference to Helios, "....the phone's tapped anyway, Maggie says they must bust in early May, orders from the DA, look out kids
Floyd's right.Written by Guest on 2005-12-28 17:38:33
Yes,it's make or break time now.And Floyd is right;only the system can push back. If it wants to.If it thinks that eventually, this crew will threaten all its profits.
The Republic is DEADWritten by Guest on 2005-12-28 17:37:55
Personally, I think the Republic is DEAD. It's been dead ever since Dec. 12, 2000 whenthe SCOTUS basically acted in the partisan interest of 1 man and his criminal gang. The coup happened back then and we all were too naive to realize what we were in fact seeing. We can forget about the demos they're a toothless bunch of whining spineless wimps. As to the courts forget it. The media is totally subservient now. I watched in disbelief last night as one media whore after another bowed and scrapped at W's feet. It's over folks we need a miracle to save us now. The velvetta gloves are off were fucked!!
HeliosWritten by Guest on 2005-12-28 17:37:08
That "rotting husk" isn't Nixon. Nixon was a pussycat beside these monsters.....and remember, this drama hasn't unfolded yet, not by half. But Chris Floyd is absolutely correct. It is the time of what William Burroughs would call the naked lunch, where what is on the end of everybody's fork is plainly and painfully visible to all at the table. This is the defining moment---now is when we will find out which way the scales will tip. Chris Floyd is obviously a Bob Dylan fan. He takes his blog name from a Dylan album and he quotes a line from Dylan's "It's all over now, baby blue". Well Mr. Floyd, there's a Dylan song that I keep hearing in my head lately that was written forty years ago but has come back around full circle in meaning, for me at least----Subterranean Homesick Blues. I know that Dylan penned a bunch of timeless anthems, but that particular song describes America in 2005 as well as it once described the America of 1965. It seems as if we gave back every inch we had gained in four decades...and now we're losing ground.
donescobarWritten by Guest on 2005-12-28 16:47:35
Who in the "establishment"could possibly care as long as the bucks flow in and power is held on to? Political establishment? No. Corporate establishment? No The old WASP/Brahmin educational/legal establishment? No. Financial establishment? No. Go through Mills' "The Power Elite" and sort out the segments, interlocked as they are, of "the establishment." All now deeply connected, in spirit, flesh, and gold to the Bushies. WHO in the establishment even senses or sees a violation, a betrayal? And who in this many-splendored establishment gives a rat's ass about the people? Hell, not even the people care about the people. Asleep, dreaming of the next DVD and purchase at the mall, the next NFL victory for the "home team." All in the bubble, together. Economic collapse could burst the bubble. What else? "The shepherds change, the sheep remain," Nietzsche wrote. Hell, we won't even change the shepherds anymore.
Crossposted from Booman TribuneWritten by Guest on 2005-12-28 15:26:45
Ah, Mr. Floyd. The music of the seers. Trust a musician to know how to sing. One thing, though... Be of good cheer. All is NEVER lost, and the establishment with which we must go to war...the establishment that we have, crude, venal, selfish and shortsighted though it may be...is doing a FINE job of finally boxing these incompetent motherfuckers in, tying a good stout twine around the box and then throwing them into the Potomac. Leak after leak after leak over the last year, the redirection of Station WOMD (Weapons Of Mass Distraction...the media) AT them rather than being used in support of their plans, masterful use of a long game quarterbacked by Patrick Fitzgerald and coached by...coached by who? (A question that will probably NEVER be answered, but I believe his initials are C. I. A. The police force of the old establishment no matter WHAT functionary is figureheaded into place as its executive.), the clear and unambiguous "No" message that was recently sent from at least a large portion of the regular military establishment and delivered by their boy in Congress, John Murtha...and don't forget those so far mysteriously unreleased Abu Ghraib photos. Lions and tigers and bears and homosexual rape and pedophilia and such oh my!!! In color!!! The last salvo, if necessary, the end of the fireworks display that is plainly still building towards its inevitable, booming climax. The game is up, and it is now just a matter of deciding how many spoils the new guys get to keep and/or which fallguys will be set up to take the blame. (Please,Lord, let it be Butch and Cheney...20 to 1 against, but we can dream, can't we?) Do not lay for justice, Chris. Justice is cosmic, and comes over long increments of time. ("The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. " Martin Luther King Jr. Yup. Bet on it.) Meanwhile, be happy that evolution is still in action and these chimps, this side trip proved to be merely another of life's small experiments that did not quite pan out. ("Life will try anything once." Jan Cox. Yup. Bet on THAT one, too.) Short of a nuclear or other mass attack...either on us by some fools on the other side who don't realize that they have already won as much as they are going to win this time or BY "us" on say Iran or Detroit...these people are done. I do not think that the administration has the clout with the military anymore...overt OR covert...to pull that one off, and incompetent as our security forces really are, they are dealing with some fairly simple terrorists who like to blow themselves up in the expectation of eternity surrounded by a harem of ever-renewable virgins, which is why we have had so little successful terrorist action here over the past several years. (They are exactly not rocket scientists on the other side, either, most of them. Bet on it.) The REAL power is going to hire another cook. Another set of CEOs. And then go back to their life of hustle, golf and skiing in Gstaad. They may not...make that WILL not...hire people who would please you or me for this task (I'm betting Hillary vs. McCain in the next election), but then, we haven't paid the several generations of dues in the form of theft, murder and general bad karma that have put that "establishment" in the catbird seat. So it goes. And evolution stumbles on just as it always has, a drunken sailor headed back to his ship. Falling down here, then forward a few feet, mugged in the alley, stops for a drink or two, passes out, wakes up, makes it another block or so in a headlong, drunken rush, sits down abruptly lost, gets up again, back three steps, ahead four and a half, bloody but unbowed...always headed back to the mothership. Always headed home. So it goes. And please remember... Have fun. Who needs to go to the movies? We have a front row seat at the greatest show on earth. The ONLY show. Enjoy. You have a lifetime ticket. AG
Written by chris on 2005-12-28 08:42:30
Re "Re:Clowntime," I don't think we can count on the Establishment to bring down Bush; that was part of the point I was trying to make -- that you certainly can't count on those sad sacks of shinola for anything, as they have repeatedly demonstrated during the past few years. I was just saying that if Bush is to be brought down, they will have to do it; and if they don't do it now, in the face of egregious provocation, they will never do it. I don't have any real hope that they will, but, as I said, the next few weeks will show us once and for all exactly where we stand.
Written by Guest on 2005-12-28 02:52:01
Like you said after 9/11 Chris,"This is not a new evil. It's as old as the hills, and it is with us always." I think we have a long battle ahead, and the people will prevail.
Re: "Clowntime"Written by Guest on 2005-12-28 01:18:57
The "establishment" put the Jester-in-Chief where he is: so how can we count on it to remove him? And he's already attacked institutions at the core of America repeatedly--to no effect.
No easy solutionWritten by Guest on 2005-12-28 01:17:11
It has been said that once a government gains as much unchecked power as the present administration has, the only way it can be brought down is either through violent revolution or economic collapse. I would argue that the latter is well underway.