The Thirteen Stars and
Stripes: An Expatriate's Alarm
By Emanuel E. Garcia
06/06/07 "ICH"
-- - I grew up scorning politics, ignoring their local,
state and federal manifestations for years. The assassinations
of JFK, MLK and RFK jolted me, but I was too young to respond in
any practical way, though I remember vividly being plunged into
a transient despair about our country which was accompanied by a
fear of traveling over bridges. The Vietnam War, which I was
very fortunate enough to elude solely by dint of age, was an
abstraction despite my knowing several neighbors who served
there. It was, surprisingly enough perhaps, only through
psychoanalysis that awareness of the importance of political man
began to dawn and a portal into the machinations of state
opened. Nonetheless I considered my fibers to be imbued with the
spirit of the principles upon which America was founded and
declared and which set us apart from all of history.
Having studied the classics I knew well of the horrors
perpetrated during the grandeur of the Athenian democracy and
the glory of the Roman republic. But I really thought we were
different -- that unlike these ancient empires and the modern
totalitarian states of Germany and Russia -- the safeguarding of
basic rights, for rich or poor (and as a result of the Civil
Rights movement, black, brown, yellow or white) could always be
relied upon in principle if not consistently in practice. A
person accused of a crime, no matter how heinous, was assured by
rule of law of dignified treatment and appropriate humane
protections. The inevitable lapses that occurred -- and they
were many and notable -- occurred nonetheless in violation of
law.
The theft of the Presidential election of 2000 by our Supreme
Court did not bode well. Nor did the opacity and obstructonism
of the White House in the aftermath of 9/11. The queries of any
reasonable person -- how, for example, could an aircraft
penetrate the heart of the nation's capitol? how could the
President not be whisked away immediately when suspicions of a
terrorist attack were formed? why and how was a Vice-President
given command-and-control powers over the Eastern seaboard ? why
and how did WTC 7 implode? why was no higher governmental
official, whose responsibility was national protection and
security, not held accountable for breach of duty? why did the
President not authorize an immediate and comprehensive
investigation into the attacks? and so forth -- went unanswered.
In fact, such queries were discouraged and denounced as
subversive. When a Commission was finally appointed and the
President asked to be questioned, it was with morbid disbelief
that I learned he would only appear in the company of the
Vice-President and with the stipulation that no transcript be
preserved.
These phenomena, I concluded, were not consistent with the
behavior of an agency that had nothing to hide. The popular
stampede to cheap and bullying 'patriotism' was goaded by
willful deception and the propaganda of fear, epitomized by
Colin Powell's shameful appearance at the United Nations.
It was, however, the picture of hooded, bound and caged
prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, prisoners seized under dubious
circumstances, held without charge and legal protection --
prisoners beyond any rule of law, prisoners tortured and beaten
and force-fed and murdered and tried in secret -- that struck my
heart beyond all else. My America didn't do such things.
Then more recently the image of Jose Padilla -- confined in
near-complete sensory deprivation, driven insane -- what on
earth can justify treating anyone like this? What purpose does
this serve except to cow the citizenry with the threatening
spectacle of inhumane power that might be unleashed on us?
But far more ominous was the trail of legislation quietly
enacted that legitimizes the destruction of all that has set us
as a nation apart -- protection from unwarranted search and
seizure, habeas corpus, safeguards against military or
monarchical rule, renunciation of torture....
A quartet of laws has been signed that lays the complete legal
foundation for the takeover of our constitutional democracy.
They are the (so-called) Patriot Act of 2001 (extended in 2005);
the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (which allows for the
suspension of habeas corpus and the practice of torture and
rendition); the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007,
which facilitates the declaration of martial law and nullifies
posse comitatus by allowing the President to station troops
anywhere in the country and to commandeer the National Guard
without the consent of local authorities; and, finally, the
National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive,
signed on May 9, 2007, which in the event of a catastrophe would
place all governmental authority in the hands of the President.
If we are a nation of laws ... then in light of the laws above,
we are no longer the nation we once at least strove to be.
The convenient existence of these laws makes it therefore
increasingly inevitable that a pretext will be manufactured to
allow a tyrant to seize power absolute before the 2008
elections.
Am I crazy? Bear in mind that the illegal, unwarranted and
murderous invasion of Iraq, a huge undertaking costings hundreds
of thousands of lives (yes, even Iraqi lives count), was
achieved in scornful disregard of international and domestic
protest. It serves as a warning to the rest of the world that
those holding the reins of power in our government will not be
stopped ... and will stop at nothing.
Now nothing legal can stop these same forces from accomplishing
their mission of total dominance, democracy be damned.
Not long ago I asked the esteemed Lewis Lapham, who had just
delivered a brilliant talk on Tom Paine in Philadelphia, what
practical advice he could give to those who would oppose
fascistic governmental policies. Mr. Lapham knows as much about
world and American history as anyone alive, but all that this
most erudite mind could offer was for us "to get the message
out." More recently Scott Ritter, who surely deserves to be
included in a heroes' gallery, urges us not simply to impeach
Bush, but rather to repudiate the notion of a unitary executive
and its allied ills1. Yet Mr. Ritter fails to specify how
exactly an informed citizenry – a citizenry who cannot trust
that their votes will be tallied, cannot look to the major media
to report the truth or question authority, and who cannot count
on their congressional representatives to speak for them and set
into action the popular will -- can go about the actual process
of 'repudiation.'
Indeed, this palpable sense of political impotence is what
drives so many citizens to apathetic despair. Just how many
emails or faxes can we send to our senators and congressmen,
only to receive boilerplate pablum in reply? How many
letters-to-the-editor can go unpublished by our newspapers
before we lay down the pen?
In the years before I emigrated to New Zealand, a country
incidentally where paper ballots are mandatory and counted, I
helped to organize a meeting of thoughtful and concerned friends
to tackle just this problem: what exactly should we, could we,
do? Several gatherings produced no clear consensus, and we
resolved by default to let our aspirations be carried by larger
established entities such as the American Friends Service
Committee to whom we could donate funds. This however is simply
not enough.
We have before us the clear but formidable task of reversing the
afore-mentioned laws that pose so great a peril to our fragile
democracy – and we have little time to do so. There is, however,
a means at hand – the only one to my mind with any chance of
success.
Like Cindy Sheehan we must get up close and personal. We must
look the perpetrators, the enablers, the conspirators, the
corrupt and the lazy in the eye. We must park our carcasses in
front of every congressional office, every embassy, every
newspaper, every television and radio station, and we must let
them see our faces as we see theirs. We must ask them the
uncomfortable questions they don't wish to acknowledge. We must
challenge them, face to face, day in and day out. We must make
ourselves unavoidable to press them into the service of
political truth.
Let us choose for our banner, the symbol of our solidarity and
resolve to uphold the Constitution and the principles of a
government by and for the people, those thirteen stars and
thirteen stripes of the United States at the dawn of their
freedom in 1777. Let us hoist this first American flag outside
our homes, let us place it in our windows, let us wear it on our
lapels, let us bring it to our rallies and marches and sit-ins
and camp-outsides.
Let us remind every prevaricating politician and pusillanimous
pressman that the American Revolution is not yet over.
Emanuel E. Garcia is a citizen of the United States who now
makes his home in New Zealand.
NOTES
1 - http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070531_repudiation_not_impeachment/ Click
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