It is living off capital and good-will handed to it by past generations.
Its citizens are encouraged to assume a degree of indebtedness that places them at the mercy of Banks and economic policies.
The Administration amplifies causes of fear to persuade its Citizens to accept reductions in their constitutional safeguards.
Important institutions are permitted to fall into the hands of men for whom dishonesty, ruthlessness, bribery and coercion are a way of life.
Annual Government Expenditure approaches half a trillion dollars, extensively financed through money creation and foreign borrowing rather than revenue collection.
More than half of this amount is directed to military pursuits, necessitating that Social Services be cut and Social Security funds be diverted to current account.
Individual purchasing power is being further eroded through technological advance, the export of well-paying jobs and inflationary policies.
The focus of the American People is being diverted from rebelling against what is going on by propaganda, entertainment and other forms of escapism.
Propaganda is used to advise the Citizen that the erosion of individual freedoms is a necessary part of protecting him from terrorism.
In 2001, the only year that terrorism exerted a major impact on the US people; it was responsible for three thousand deaths. By comparison the annual loss of life in the US to automobile accidents is forty-six thousand and to suicide is thirty-two thousand.
Are the Bush policies out of whack? Consider the following:
In aggregate, The President allocates hundreds of billions of dollars annually to the Pentagon, the CIA and the newly-formed Department of Homeland Security. He excuses this outlay by intimating that it is needed to deal with the terrorist threat. Yet his Administration makes no attempt to delve into why the threat exists. Most terrorists ascribe their hatred of the US to personal experience of the invasive and often inhuman tactics that have been employed by American Administrations for decades against peoples in the Middle East, Asia, South America and Africa.
Far from addressing this serious problem in Foreign Relations, the Bush Administration has prevailed upon Congress to pass acts, which gives the President the authority to make the problem worse in foreign lands and to apply similar invasive and inhuman tactics against any American Citizen and others at home.
Could US Presidential Powers fall
into the Hands of a Dictator?
If I somehow had become the current President of the United States of America and wished to use the powers of that office to gain dictatorial control of the World’s most powerful military machine, I would persuade Congress to give me wartime powers, amplified to provide me with legal authority to investigate, arrest and imprison any US citizen, at home or abroad, without warrant or trial.
In the knowledge that most Dictators succeed in subjugating democracies only during periods of severe economic depression, I would set in motion financial policies designed to bring about such a state of affairs as quickly as possible.
Having gotten these fundamentals taken care of, I would proceed to make it impossible for me to lose the next Presidential Election. I would make every attempt to secure this objective in the traditional way – by massive use of smear campaigns, propaganda and money. However, I would also put in place fail-safe, non-detectable means of rigging the election should such action become prudent. It should not be too difficult.
For instance; according to a New York Times Article of November 13, 2003 printed under the by-line, “Maybe Hanging Chads weren’t so Bad After All”, eight million Diebold electronic voting machines have been installed for use in the next Presidential Election. The machines provide only one record of voting transactions and there is no way of detecting whether the count has been tampering with. The article claims that the software used can be modified by Diebold engineers after the machines have been certified for use in the election. It ends by saying: “Diebold voting machines appear to present an undetectable, easy and tempting target for manipulating elections”.
Were I a President whose aim it was to make myself master of the World by grasping dictatorial control of America’s military and economic machines, I certainly would place myself in a position to make use of Mr Diebold’s voting machines.
Once returned to office, I would wait for the economic collapse and, as it impacted, I would orchestrate a terrorist event so horrific that it would allow me to impose martial law on the country (as the burning of the Reichstag in 1933 enabled Hitler to impose marshal law on an economically traumatised German Democratic Republic).
Once marshal law was in place, I would quietly remove from circulation the people that had made it onto my Administration’s growing list of citizens who might oppose my actions. It would be a simple matter. I would have each one quietly arrested for treason under the Patriot Act and sent to Guantanamo Bay.
The Antidote
OK. You have to ensure that an effective framework exists to prevent me or someone like me, who might gain the Presidency, from successfully implementing a program along the lines of that outlined above. It is unlikely that a person infected by such a motive could gain the Presidency but history indicates that the possibility, however remote, must be effectively guarded against.
Americans who possess significant authority beyond the Federal Administration are in the best position to combine to ensure that appropriate steps are taken. It would be incumbent upon them to do some thinking not dissimilar to that practiced by the Founding Fathers when powerful men remained loyal to the British. Programs of courageous and decisive action may be needed – like ensuring that Mr Diebold’s voting machines are rendered tamper-proof before the election. It is at least as important today as it was in Abe’s time that “Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth”.
In case you have doubts that precautionary action is justified when traditional loyalties speak against it, take heed of another great American – Tom Paine – who, when arguing for such action during the struggle for American Independence stated: "Perhaps these sentiments are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises a formidable outcry in defence of custom”.
A person bent upon using the powers of Office for purposes other than the benefit of the American People, could be expected to hide behind such traditional sentiment.
