Autocracy

High Water urges readers to check out Chris Floyd's recent column. I concur.

We've said it before, and we'll keep on saying it: A country whose leader has the power to imprison any citizen, on his order alone, and hold them indefinitely, in military custody, without access to the courts, without a lawyer, without any charges, their fate determined solely by the leader's arbitrary whim -- that country is a tyranny, not a democracy, not a republic, not a union of free citizens.

...What we are witnessing is the mutation of a democratic republic into a military autocracy: Bush bases his claim of arbitrary power on the president's constitutional role as commander-in-chief of the U.S. armed forces. Although there is nothing in the constitution that warrants the extension of military command to cover arbitrary rule over the entire citizenry, and certainly nothing that countenances the abrogation of basic rights and liberties on the unchallengeable say-so of an all-powerful leader, the "commander-in-chief" argument nevertheless serves a useful purpose for the autocrat, creating the illusion of a limited and temporary suspension of liberties -- a drastic but necessary "wartime" measure.

...Bush's dictatorial powers of arrest and imprisonment are only part of an unprecedented expansion of militarized state power into every aspect of American life, coupled with an unprecedented level of secrecy surrounding government activity. These changes are meant to be permanent -- and they are meant to remain under the control of the Bush Regime and like-minded successors. It is absurd to believe that Bush, Cheney and the rest of the junta are constructing this vast machinery of dominance only to risk turning it over to any political adversary who genuinely opposed empire, plutocracy and rule by a privileged elite.

It is equally absurd to believe that these new, unconstrained powers will not be abused. The very fact of their assertion is itself an abuse, a perversion of the freedoms that Bush has sworn -- falsely -- to uphold. They are a far greater threat to the foundations of American liberty than even the most horrendous attack by murderous criminals. No foreign terrorist can strip the entire American system of its basic freedoms -- the inviability of the citizen, the right to due process, the constitutional separation of powers, the people's right to know what their government is doing in their name.