A
REPUBLICAN THANKSGIVING: COOKED GOOSE
This
whole sleazy story might have come out of Milosevic's Serbia:
the de facto incumbent loses an election and then mobilizes
a goon squad (of ambulance-chasing
lawyers in this case) to overturn the results. How? When
two machine re-counts didn't do the trick in Palm Beach County,
Florida, then the answer was obvious: a hand-count, whereby
Democratic election officials divined the intent of anonymous
voters, and literally jiggled and shook the ballots until
the chads (hanging, swing-door, and tri) simply fell out
from being handled so much. Republican observers of this fraudulent
process report seeing chads all over the floor in many instances.
The legal maneuvering continues, but the upshot is this: the
Republicans' goose is cooked. It just isn't well-done quite
yet. The hand-counts (only in heavily-Democratic counties,
of course) continue, in spite of Republican lawsuits and in
spite of Florida's Republican Secretary of State, Katherine
Harris, and her deadline of 5 PM yesterday for all the results
to be in – the state's Attorney General does not agree.
Al Gore's beer-hall putsch is moving right along, still on
schedule in spite of the GOP counterattack – indeed,
in an important sense, because of the peculiar weakness of
the GOP counterattack. If I were George W. Bush I would stop
announcing cabinet appointments and start thinking about forming
a government-in-exile.
A
FATAL WEAKNESS
The
Republicans' aristocratic disdain for legal action kept them
two steps behind the Democrats, who, hours after the first
results came in, moved into Florida with no less than 75 lawyers,
including the famed liberal Lawrence
Tribe, who was expected to earn his Supreme Court appointment
– and did so gladly. The irony is that the dictatorship
of the judiciary attacked so fiercely by conservatives –
who were silenced, this election season, and kept locked up
in the basement by the Bushies – will have deprived Dubya
and his fellow moderates (now known as "compassionate conservatives")
of their long-awaited triumph.
NORMAN
AND HIS ENEMIES
Speaking
of the concept of judicial dictatorship, the Democratic coup
d'etat we are witnessing reminds me of an old controversy
on the Right, one recently brought back up again by Norman
Podhoretz in his latest screed, My
Love Affair With America: The Cautionary Tale of a Cheerful
Conservative. His book, naturally enough – considering
we are talking about Norman Podhoretz here – is all about
him, his family, his intellectual journey from warmed-over
Shachtmanism
to the "neo"-conservative ideology that provided what slight
intellectual ballast the Bush campaign had to offer; but,
most of all, it is about his enemies – Gore Vidal, number
one, but also including a whole host of others: Pat Buchanan,
the paleoconservatives, the Rockford Institute, and other
right-wing "bomb-throwers" (not to mention "dangerous extremists")
who dared question the legitimacy of the Clintonian regime
early on. In November 1996, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, the
editor of First Things – up until this point a
neoconservative house organ on religion – set off a storm
of controversy on the American Right by publishing a symposium
in which a number of contributors began to sound less like
Barry Goldwater circa 1964 and more like Mario Savio circa
1968. In an introductory
essay, the editors declared:
"This
symposium addresses many similarly troubling judicial actions
that add up to an entrenched pattern of government by judges
that is nothing less than the usurpation of politics. The
question here explored, in full awareness of its far-reaching
consequences, is whether we have reached or are reaching the
point where conscientious citizens can no longer give moral
assent to the existing regime. Americans are not accustomed
to speaking of a regime. Regimes are what other nations have.
The American tradition abhors the notion of the rulers and
the ruled. We do not live under a government, never mind under
a regime; we are the government. The traditions of democratic
self-governance are powerful in our civics textbooks and in
popular consciousness. This symposium asks whether we may
be deceiving ourselves and, if we are, what are the implications
of that self- deception. By the word "regime" we mean the
actual, existing system of government. The question that is
the title of this symposium is in no way hyperbolic. The subject
before us is the end of democracy."
ROBERT
BORK, REVOLUTIONARY?
"Millions
of conscientious Americans," Neuhaus wrote, "are reflecting
upon whether this (American government) is a legitimate regime.
... Law as is presently made by the judiciary has declared
its independence from morality." Three Supreme Court decisions
of recent years had stretched conservative patience to the
breaking point: The 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Planned
Parenthood v. Casey, which failed to overturn legalized
abortion, the 1996 ruling in Romer v. Evans, which
rejected a Colorado referendum limiting gay rights, and the
1996 ruling of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which
upheld a right to euthanasia. What a rush to see stodgy old
Robert Bork, the defeated Supreme Court nominee and a hero
to conservatives, advocating civil disobedience! It was all
too much for poor Podhoretz, who wailed that Neuhaus's editorial
"offered aid and comfort to the bomb-throwers among us. I
did not become a conservative to preach revolution against
this country"! This was the signal for a mass neocon exodus
from the editorial board: three resigned, including historian
Gertrude Himmelfarb, who hissed that the First Things
editorial was "extremist, even subversive" and pompously proclaimed
that it says it "only seems to confirm that cultural conservatism
is outside the mainstream."
WHO'S
SORRY NOW?
But
who's outside the mainstream now, Gertrude? We're not talking
about a few Supreme Court decisions here: what's happening
is that they're stealing the White House, and they're
using the courts to do it – that and their control at
the local level in four of Florida's most heavily Democratic
precincts. The tried and true methods of Tammany Hall, combined
with the more up-to-date tactics employed by Lawrence Tribe
in the courtroom and Jesse Jackson in the streets, have apparently
pulled off a left-wing coup d'etat. Now is it OK to
challenge the legitimacy of the regime? Or do thieves deserve
our allegiance? Neuhaus's essential insight is, today, more
than verified: the subject before us is indeed "the end of
democracy." Now when right-wing "bomb-throwers" and other
"dangerous extremists" refer to "the Gore regime," Norm and
the neocons will have some small understanding of what us
"dangerous extremists" have in mind.
ALL
HAIL EMPEROR GORTON!
If
I was a betting man, and without any shame, I'd put my money
(if I had any) on Gore. As it is, assuming the absence of
divine intervention, it looks as if Al Gore is going to claim
the American presidency. Of course, anyone can claim
anything: here in San Francisco, we used to have a local character
who stood out in a town chock full of colorful characters:
the Emperor
Norton, who proclaimed
himself the Emperor of the United States of America, and it
was true, he had an imperial air about him, so he was
tolerated and even
honored, as the unofficial town madman. This should be
the guide of Republican legislators and other officeholders
in regard to relations with the Great Pretender. You can go
to his faux-"Inauguration" Day ceremony, and even address
him as "Mr. President" – after all, who knows what the
power-mad maniac may do if his illusions are rudely challenged?
IMPURE
THOUGHTS
Remember
that cover of Rolling Stone (or was it Esquire?)
featuring a full-on shot of Al Gore where they had to (somewhat
incompletely) airbrush out the raging hard-on clearly visible
through his trousers? What could he have been thinking
of, the more salacious among us wondered? Now, we know.
AL
GORE'S ENCORE
Having
f***k*d over George W. Bush, the grinning leering Alpha Gore
is going to turn around and perform an encore, only this time
he's gong to f**k the whole country. But there will be resistance:
a coup such as the one Gore wants to pull off requires the
unconditional and united support not only of the political
establishment, but also of the military: and I'm not talking
about the big brass, the boys in the Pentagon, or even the
mid-level officers. These are career soldiers who might grumble,
loudly on occasion, as they did during the Clinton years,
but mutiny? Don't even think about it. And yet ...
THE
WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN
There
are widespread reports of absentee ballots that never reached
American servicemen and women stationed overseas, and were
somehow mysteriously "lost" in the bulk-rate 4th-class
mail, with magazines and newspapers. Understaffing at US military
post offices means that 4th-class mail is delivered
at least a month late. According to a
startling report in WorldNetDaily by Jon E. Dougherty,
the disenfranchisement of the American military stationed
overseas is so widespread that
"Some
American military families in Germany are reportedly flying
the American flag upside down – a traditional sign of
distress – at their places of residence, as a result
of the presidential election and the subsequent balloting
difficulties. In some cases, local military police have forced
personnel to take the inverted flags down."
WHERE'S
JESSE?
Gee,
how come Jesse Jackson, the great champion of "voting rights"
and champion of "the disenfranchised" hightails it straight
to Palm Beach, and somehow neglects Germany – it isn't
just the weather, you can be sure about that. Everybody knows
that military personnel vote overwhelmingly Republican, and
if Team Bush doesn't believe this is a Democratic dirty trick,
then they deserve to lose.
A
QUESTION OF LOYALTY
The
men and women of the US military, especially those stationed
overseas, are perfectly well aware of the corruption and hubris
of their imperial overlords: they know they are standing guard
at the borders of a decadent empire that seems to be rotten
at its center. The traditional insulation of the American
military from civilian life, a trend exacerbated by the abolition
of the draft, and especially its distance from political concerns
could very well be reversed in the heat of a constitutional
crisis. If war breaks out in the Middle East, or in the Balkans,
or anywhere, will these troops willingly obey the orders
of their phony "commander-in-chief"? And I'm not just talking
about those who were prevented from voting, but those who
voted Republican or Reform (oh, alright then, and also
those who voted Libertarian). How much legitimacy will President
Gore have in their eyes? Not enough, I would venture, to pull
off a major intervention anytime soon.
LOOK
ON THE BRIGHT SIDE
There
have already been a spate of articles in the leftist press
about how great it is that the United States won't be able
to go around the world claiming to "export democracy" without
being laughed out of town and denounced as brazenly hypocritical.
Or was that George Szameuly's last column? Oh well, anyway,
I think the answer is that it is kind of a high price
to pay for such a mean little satisfaction. But I guess if
I want to look on the bright side of the decline and fall
of the American republic, then I might as well get in the
proper spirit, and harden myself to the new reality, which
is this: The DOG – the Democratic Occupation Government
– has usurped the Presidency through outright fraud.
Once in power, the DOG will launch an all-out assault on what
is left of the Constitution, abolishing the Electoral College,
crushing the rights of the sovereign states and centralizing
all power in the federal government. Now do you see
why the Democrats, and especially their dominant left-wing,
have been so insistently campaigning for gun control legislation?
The Founders knew that no would-be Caesar would dare try to
seize power over a people armed.
THAT
SETTLES THAT
Yes,
let's look on the bright side of America's decline:
the so-called Neocon-Theocon
debate is now settled, for all time, in favor of the
latter. Fr. Neuhaus, we salute you! You saw it all coming.
The great thing about the DOG is that, unlike the first phase
of the Clintonian regime, it doesn't have to be delegitimized,
either by the actions of its chief executive or the propaganda
of the Republican opposition: this time, the regime has no
legitimacy to begin with. Oh, no doubt a few Republican Senators
and members of the House majority leadership will show up
for the Inaugural Ball. But if, at the end of President Gore's
inaugural address, some fail to rise – or, worse, rise
and turn their backs on the Great Pretender – it would
signal the revival the GOP as a political force to be reckoned
with. Is this too much to hope for? With or without the Republicans,
however, opposition to the DOG is bound to develop on a massive
scale. What is needed, now, is leadership – and direct
action along the lines of a general strike. What the European
fuel tax protesters found out was that they have the power
to humble elected heads of state: someday, the Great American
Middle Class is going to discover the same thing – and
that it has nothing to lose but its chains.
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