AS THE COUP SOLIDIFIES

“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history…. There is a tiny splinter group of… a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Eisenhower would no doubt be shocked at the changes in the political climate over the half century since he was president. Now the splinter group controlled by the Koch Brothers has become the influential Tea Party, which has enthralled and bullied many politicians into trying to do exactly what Ike said would never be done. They may be stupid — indeed, concerning a functioning modern society, they are abysmally so—but they are persistent. And their persistence has brought them to a position of power in this country where they are about to get what they want, despite the continuing popularity of the programs Ike mentioned. Do we find such a scenario in a democracy?
Barack Obama (thought by many to be President of the United States) is no socialist, having proven he can and will work with the moneyed minority, while allowing the commoners to share in the general prosperity, for the good of all. But the Tea Party, and the politicians who represent them, are having none of this. Disdaining compromise, they will rule for the exclusive benefit of their wealthy directors. The well-being of workers, the poor, sick, old (anyone without political pull) is beneath consideration. Average Tea Partiers, like everyone else who must work for a living, will suffer, though apparently they do not care at the moment. And as the coup hardens its authoritarian power, it will not matter whether Tea Partiers start to care. Resistance will be not only futile, but also very ill-advised.
Despite protests, Wisconsin’s governor and legislature have blitzed the rights of public employees to organize and bargain collectively. In Michigan, the governor can now abolish any local government he deems ineffectual, and replace elected officials with apparatchiks who will carry out his edicts. In liberal California, Republicans refuse to allow an initiative that would raise taxes to go before the voters. Congressmen, facing anger from constituents about their attempts to eliminate social security and medicare, simply stop holding town meetings. The tale lengthens of anti-democratic measures in state after state, and the people are powerless to stop it. Of course, the opposition can challenge in court, but the Supreme Court, with a standing five-to-four majority, holds that all corporations are created equal, and makes no distinction between free speech and bribery. Control of information means control of opinion, and the Court has guaranteed that those who can finance political campaigns can expect big payoffs.
Thus far, overlooking the ravages to the environment and the steadily deteriorating general standard of living, we have avoided any situation approaching 1984. But the benign nature of the coup relies on its ability to easily overcome resistance, on Big Brother’s ability to reduce the chocolate ration, soon afterward to be praised for raising it. If the coup must get ugly, machinery is available for mass arrests, surveillance, and disappearances. Our prison system is a Gulag at the ready, and though the prisons are overcrowded by current standards, many more people can be stuffed inside in an “emergency.”
Obama was unable to close the Guantanamo prison, and the military oversees hundreds of potential Guantanamos at bases around the world. Though Obama has ended “extraordinary renditions” (an admirable euphemism for kidnapping people, then taking them secretly to foreign countries to be tortured) who doubts that somewhere in the hidden bureaucracy, plans to revive the process can be implemented on short notice? The government claims the prerogative to arrest or kill anyone it declares an “enemy combatant,” and the Obama administration is as willing as Bush’s to exercise it, as the killing of Anwar Al-Awlaki in Yemen attests. As to disappearance—what about Bradley Manning’s constitutionally guaranteed “speedy and public trial?” We must remember that torture works… not to obtain accurate information, but to extract confessions. And the proponents of “enhanced interrogation” know this. Americans, like anyone else, would stop complaining and protesting very quickly, once a few of their friends, relatives, co-workers, associates, start to disappear, only to return, broken, humiliated, convicted. Or if they fail to return.
While dissent remains ineffective, as were the protests against the Iraq invasion and against Wisconsin’s anti-union laws, the coup will remain reasonably mild. But should a truly unified and organized popular resistance emerge, the power elite has the means to deal with dissent in the old-fashioned way. Already brutal measures are being taken against peaceful protesters on Wall Street, and we shall see how these events play out. Yet organized popular resistance is the only effective way to stop this coup and reclaim effective democratic government. Times that are fun to read about are never pleasant to live in.
Here we are.