(cross-posted from my blog)
As I have written in a previous post, the “election” of an openly Fascist President in 2008 is almost certain. The USA already has an Imperial Presidency (the politically correct term for which is “unitary executive”) and this trend will only get worse no matter which Neocon puppet gets elected in 2008. Only two candidate – Ron Paul and Mike Gravel – are real democrats (small “d”), and neither of them has any real hope of getting elected.
As Chalmer Johnson wrote in his recent book Nemesis, we are in all likelihood living the last days of the American Republic. I would submit that the day the Military Commissions Act was past by the Imperial Congress was the Constitutional Kristallnacht which marked the beginning of the end for democracy in the USA. To paraphrase Churchill, we are now already beyond the beginning of the end, though not quite at the end of the end yet. There remains one last thing which can prevent the USA from becoming a Fascist Empire: a Ron Paul – Mike Gravel ticket in 2008.
The American people overwhelmingly voted for the Democrats to stop the total calamity which the war in Iraq has turned into for the USA and what did they get in return? A so-called “surge” which is likely to bring the US troops in Iraq to around 200’000 by this Fall, and a Democratic leadership who told the Neocons in the White House that the Congress voluntarily renounces is constitutional right and obligation to decide whether the US will go to war against Iran or not. I cannot think of a bigger and more blatant betrayal of the will of the American people in the entire history of the USA.
As Chalmer Johnson puts it, the USA is now facing a crucial choice: either to persist in its efforts to become an Empire, or to accept the loss of this foolish and evil chimera and become a “normal” nation again. Not that there any chance at all for the US to become the Empire the Neocons want it to be – there is none. The real issue is whether this will happen as the result of a social awareness and choice of the US society or as the result of a Roman-style collapse impose by external forces.
The magnitude of this choice trumps all other issues. Nothing comes even close to being as important as this choice, not Social Security, not taxation, not environmental issues, not even civil liberties, even more so because the latter are directly linked to the Empire vs. Republic choice. For all its faults, the USA used to be a Republic whose internal structure was carefully crafted by Jefferson and the other founding fathers of the Republic.
Congress has clearly caved in to Neocon pressures, and so has the Supreme Court (though to a lesser degree), and the entire balance of power created by the Founding Fathers has now collapsed. From being, at least in theory, “of the people and for the people”, it the US power structure has become of the Neocons and for the Neocons.
This represents nothing short of a complete loss of sovereignty of the American people over their country.
Those who realize and oppose this cannot be easily defined as liberals or conservatives, Democrats or Republicans. What is certain is that those who wish to live in an American Republic cannot have any more hopes to be represented by either Democrats or Republicans. A third force or, more accurately, a second force is desperately needed and only Ron Paul and Mike Gravel can create it.
It might be sound tactically for Ron Paul and Mike Gravel to use the label of their respective parties to try to speak up and educate the American people, but pretty soon both of them will get the boot from the Establishment (see the Pravda-like editorial in the Washington Post) demanding their elimination from the Presidential debates). When this happens they need to join forces and run on an independent anti-Imperial ticket together. Others from both sides of the political spectrum would join them (just imagine Ron Paul, Mike Gravel, Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader standing together!). The entire peace movement could join forces with the constitutionalists and libertarians in a last ditch attempt not to promote some agenda, but to save the Republic!
Sure – this is admittedly a far-fetched solution but, as Sherlock Holmes liked to say, eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth or, in this case, the *only* option.
US conservatives and liberals would also do well to remember that the social issues on which they disagree with each other and not in the realm of the Presidency, but of Congress. It does not really matter whether a libertarian paleo-conservative like Ron Paul or a liberal like Mike Gravel sits in the White House for internal social programs. What matters is that the USA not turn into an empire externally and into a Fascist state internally. Only if these two conditions are met can the Left and the Right freely and democratically offer their respective political platforms to the American people to choose from.
Will Paul and Gravel agree to join forces together?
My guess is that this will only happen if the American people pressure them to do so, in fact demand that from them. Both Paul and Gravel are honest and dedicated people and both love their country and want to serve it. The American people need to tell that that this is what is needed from them. Any other hopes have now become futile.
