LAME DUCK TIME

By H. R. Coursen

Historical analogies are usually misleading and invariably self-serving.

One hears the Vietnam-Iraq equation over and over again. But Vietnam was a gradual devolution, not a quick military victory followed by a radically unplanned occupation. We never won in Vietnam and, at night, we lost the territory we had gained during the day. We have destroyed Fallujah in order to save it, true, but that merely points at the ahistorical ignorance of the neoconservatives in charge. In Vietnam, we always had another side with which to negotiate if and when we chose to do so. Now, in Iraq, we are, it seems, hoping to create a legitimate authority that can then tell us to get out. It is a bizarre way to conduct a foreign policy, but in 2004 the opposition candidate, Mr. Kerry, was on record as agreeing with it. As in 1968, when we were forced to choose between two prowar candidates, this was a bizarre way to run an election. That is, unless the lack of choice was intentional.

And, of course, one hears the ominous warnings about the coming of fascism to America. The police state has always been a threat, from the Alien and Sedition Acts, to Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus, to the Red Scare, and, later, the viciousness of McCarthyism, and, still later, the infiltration of anti–Vietnam War groups by our own government and the investigation (and possible assassination) of Martin Luther King by our own government. Now we have the Patriot Act, the official advocacy of torture, the suspension of all civil rights for whatever category the government invents, and secret presidential “findings” that can find about anything they want to find. The image of King George in a Nazi armband, then, is not all that far-fetched. And it seems that it would not cause the uproar in this country that the photo of Prince Harry evoked in Great Britain.

Here, however, is an analogy to ponder. Hitler’s “National Socialism” was an oxymoron. The nationalistic impulse toward territory, “living room,” and a powerful military could not cohabit with the need for social reforms within Germany. So Hitler did the logical thing. He knocked off the socialist wing of his party, Ernst Rohm et al., in the “Night of the Long Knives” in 1934. They did not inhibit him thereafter. Hitler had opposition, true, but Von Fritsch of the General Staff, was dispatched with an easy backhand as Hitler marched on to September 1939.

The Bush administration has created a similarly oxymoronic basis for power. Clearly, Cheney has orchestrated an oligarchy within which industry rules. Contracts go to the big corporations, and environmental regulations are dissolved for them. They breathe a different air and drink a different water than the rest of us do. Their taxes will be lowered, and their estates will be passed on, untaxed, to their heirs. Bush was elected, however, by pious Ohioans who turned out in November to oppose gay marriage, which somehow threatens the institution of marriage itself. These people apparently believe that prayer in school will remove rocket fuel from the aquifer and that the teaching of creationism will cure type-II diabetes. (Of course, the Democratic candidate modestly refrained from pointing out the fallacy of this kind of magical thinking to them.) But now, this vast constituency that voted for Bush wants that gay marriage amendment. Or, they say, they won’t support Bush’s plans to dismantle Social Security and make its Wall Street managers even wealthier than they are now.

Is it to be oligarchy or theocracy? Bush faces a trade-off. I sense that he will see that his Social Security scam will not work out. Too many of us who live on it feel a direct threat that is not the same as bad news from Iraq or talk of global warming. Therefore, the Christian right will lose anyway, having voted for Bush and then having offered a trade that Bush won’t make. Bush will go for oligarchy if he is forced to make a choice. If someone could name one “Christian” action he has ever taken, that would be news. (His falsetto mocking of Karla Faye Tucker’s plea for clemency does not count). The oligarchic model will best serve his effort to dismantle every piece of progressive legislation ever passed, going back to the Forest Protection Act of 1891. That is his goal. It is not accidental that the EPA and the FDA have ceased to function effectively recently, indeed have acted contrary to their designated missions.

Cheney is shrewd enough to let Bush know that Frist and DeLay have both been exposed as hypocrites in regards to Terri Schiavo. Cheney is also shrewd enough to know that McCain has surrendered every principle he might ever have held dear in his quest for the 2008 Republican nomination, and that Colin Powell, for all of his ostensible “morality,” never acts upon it. And Cheney can see that the opposition party lacks all leadership and any voice of articulate opposition.

Bush and his cronies will have to be fought every step of the way, from Social Security, to “missile defense”—whose proponents need a nuclear-armed North Korea to justify the program—to opening wilderness for exploration and exploitation, to his arrogation of all international agreements, to his opposition to a minimum wage for the least among us, to Bolton’s mission to wreck the UN, to the judges that Bush has recklessly renominated. Each successful battle will erode Bush’s supposed “mandate” and prove to him and to the world what he really is—a lame duck. But we cannot look to others to fight for what is left of an America worth defending. We are going to have to do it one person by one, in a committed, nonviolent, and persuasive way. It may not be too late.  

 

5 1/2" x 5" 2008 Wolf Moon Calendar just $10.00 each
More Info

More Info

© Wolf Moon Press 2002-2008 all rights reserved.

Submission Guidelines