Democratic Underground - Don’t Let “The Appearance of Normalcy” Dissuade us from Taking Back our Country Before it’s Too Late

When Tyranny displaces democracy it generally doesn’t do so suddenly, but rather tends to occur over a long period of time in a long series of steps. That’s what happened when the Roman Republic transmuted into the Roman Empire; and that’s what happened when democracy in Germany gave way to Nazi tyranny in the 1930s*. The Founding Fathers of our country recognized this fact, and they consequently provided us with a Constitution with numerous safeguards to prevent our democracy from transmuting into tyranny. But George Bush and Dick Cheney have ignored and trashed our Constitution as never before in the history of our country. Americans need to recognize this and counteract this attack on our nation before it is too late.

Naomi Wolf, in her new book, “The End of America – Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot”, discusses in detail the warning signs** that signal our nation’s veer towards fascist dictatorship, why most Americans are blind to those signs, and things we can do about it. The book is short, very readable, well written and documented, and very likely may turn out to be one of the most important books ever written. In this post I’ll describe Wolf’s explanations as to why it’s so easy for most Americans to miss the danger signs, and then I’ll talk about movements to turn back the tide in our country.

* -- “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”, written by investigative journalist William Shirer in 1968, is an excellent chronicle on this subject. It is long (about a thousand pages), but is eminently readable and exciting. I provide a brief discussion of the parallels between Hitler’s regime (largely taken from Shirer’s book) and the Bush/Cheney regime in this post, which was written two years ago and therefore omits some important similarities that have arisen since then.

** -- Wolf’s 10 warning signs are already functioning in our country. Though I listed them in my last post, I’ll list them again here, since they’re so important:
 Invoking of an external threat
 Development of a paramilitary force
 Creation of a secret prison system
 Surveillance of ordinary citizens
 Arbitrary arrest and detention
 Harassing of citizens’ groups
 Targeting of dissenting individuals
 Intimidation of the press
 Equating dissent as treason
 Subversion of the rule of law

Why our country’s transition to fascist dictatorship is so difficult for most Americans to see

I usually like to put these things in my own words, but I can’t say it any better than how Naomi Wolf said it:

Americans tend to think of the shift to fascism in terms of scary set-pieces: the boots on the stairs, the knock in the middle of the night… crematoria smoking in the distance. We are so used to seeing depictions of the most sensational aspects – the gulag, the death camps – that we don’t pay much attention to the fact that there is often an incremental process that led these societies to become places where such things could happen. The view that fascism looks from the start like a nation-wide prison camp rather than a fairly normal society can be comforting. It’s natural to wish that the two realities were so categorically different that, of course, “It couldn’t happen here”.

But as would be dictators consolidate power … things proceed fairly routinely in many areas for many years. In the beginning the horror… is usually elsewhere, taking place while other people are going about their normal daily round…

I’ll interject here that the “horror” that Wolf notes to be “usually elsewhere” currently exists out of the sight of the vast majority of Americans, yet is indeed a horror for those who have been arbitrarily arrested, locked up indefinitely without charges or trial, and tortured in George Bush’s “War on Terror”. The number of such prisoners has been variously estimated to be several thousand. Wolf continues…

At first, Nazi Germany would not have looked, on the surface, so unrecognizable to us. Germans still, for a time, saw an independent judiciary; lawyers – even human rights lawyers; working journalists… criticism of Nazis… professors still teaching critical thinking… newspapers of all political colors… As the shift was first taking place, things looked, in many ways, superficially, like an open modern society. Even later in the game, violent dictatorships keep many of the trappings of a civil society. What they do not have … is freedom.

Americans do not get this at all, but other countries who have experienced dictatorships either near them or over them do get it… The fact that we are unaware that a dictatorship can be incremental leaves us terribly vulnerable right now. Even educated American people think that if the press is publishing and the Congress is legislating, all is well; but those things are often happening right up to the point of no return in a closing democracy – and they keep happening, in neutered form, even after a violent dictatorship has been established.

At first, it can simply look like people weighing their words. At its turning point, it can
simply look like a high profile arrest for “treason” or a handful of arrests for espionage – even as tourists still flock to monuments…

Grassroots movements to turn the tide

Two citizen’s movements that were created with the purpose of turning back our slide into tyranny are the “American Freedom Agenda (AFA)” and the “American Freedom Campaign (AFC)”.

The “American Freedom Agenda” is a group of prominent conservatives, led by former Deputy Attorney General under President Reagan (Bruce Fein), the Chairman of the American Conservative Union (David Keene), and former Republican Congressman Bob Barr. It advocates the impeachment of Bush and Cheney and the establishment of Congressional committees to investigate and put an end to the abuse of executive power through so-called “executive privilege”. On impeachment, the AFA has this warning:

The founding fathers expected an executive who tried to overreach and expected the executive would be hampered and curtailed by the legislative branch... They (Congress) have basically renounced - walked away from their responsibility to oversee and check.

On January 20th, 2009, if George Bush and Dick Cheney are not appropriately held to account this Administration will hand off a toolbox with more powers than any President has ever had, more powers than the founders could have imagined. And that box may be handed to Hillary Clinton or it may be handed to Mitt Romney or Barack Obama or someone else. But whoever gets it, one of the things we know about power is that people don't give away the tools.

The “American Freedom Campaign” gives us an opportunity to sign up for updates on the latest news regarding our loss of democracy and efforts to restore it, and also requests that we sign the following pledge expressing our commitment to this issue:

We are Americans, and in our America we do not torture, we do not imprison people without charge or legal remedy, we do not tap people’s phones and emails without a court order, and above all we do not give any President unchecked power.

I pledge to fight to protect and defend the Constitution from assault by any President.

AFC asked all candidates for president to sign the pledge. In response, all 8 declared Democratic candidates for President, plus one Republican candidate (Ron Paul) either signed the pledge or wrote and signed their own letter in support of the AFC campaign.

Additionally, Ron Paul recently sponsored the American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007, which would reverse many of the Constitutional abuses of the Bush/Cheney regime. You can go to this site to ask your Representative to co-sponsor his legislation.

The legislative agendas of the AFA and AFC

Both groups advocate a legislative agenda for restoring our Constitution and halting our march to tyranny. That agenda includes:[br />
For the restoration of freedom of the press guaranteed by our First Amendment to our Constitution
 Clarifying that journalists have the right to publish classified information without fear of imprisonment

For the restoration of our Fourth Amendment prohibitions against arbitrary searches and seizures
 Prohibit government from intercepting e-mails or phone calls or breaking and entering one’s home without court-issued warrants

For the restoration of “due process of law” guaranteed by our Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments
 Restore the right of detained suspects to be charged and brought to trial.
 Restore the right to challenge the legality of one's detention (habeas corpus)
 Prohibit the use of secret evidence in criminal trials
 Prohibit the use of “enemy combatant” status to detain anyone outside the battlefield and the rule of law
 Prohibit the President from kidnapping, “disappearing”, and holding anyone in secret detention
 Prohibit government use of “state secrets” to deny a fair and open trial to anyone
 Prohibit listing people as “terrorists” based on secret evidence
 Substitute juries for military commissions, except on the battlefield, where absolutely necessary

For the restoration of our Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and inhuman treatment
 Prohibit torture and cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment
 Prohibit the use of evidence obtained under torture
 Prohibit collaboration in torture (i.e. extraordinary rendition) with other governments

For the restoration of Congressional power as a check and balance against excessive and abusive executive power
 Challenge the Constitutionality of Presidential “signing statements”, used to violate laws enacted by Congress
 Prohibit the use of “executive privilege” to prevent Congressional oversight of executive activities

What we are likely to end up with if the American people and Congress don’t wake up

Naomi Wolf explains what is likely to happen, at best, if we continue down our current path:

Home grown American versions of the same steps that all dictators have advanced may yet create an America in which all institutions are intact – but functioning weakly; in which citizens have in theory the right to dissent, and some may do so mutedly, but most are afraid to exercise that right robustly; in which the press is subdued, the opposition is pulling its punches, and the people are worried about expressing their true opinions because it may cost them their jobs, or worse…

Sound familiar?

If we fail to act, we could face an America in which we still have Friday night football games… but an America in which people who publish classified documents might go to jail and people who go to jail might not come out the same… an America that looks much the same on the surface – but in which we no longer have real freedom. It could easily become an America that is quieter and more frightened. And a quiet, frightened American citizenry does mean the end of the America the Founders created.

For a little while, we still have the power to stop that from happening…

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