COMMENTARY
The Greatest Danger
to Democracy is ... "Democracy"!
Redefining democracy in Bush America.

By Raff Ellis

In the Orwellian paradise of Washington, D.C., old George’s 1984 lexicon has been thumb-worn by neo-con newspeak. War is for peace, deadly missiles are peacemakers, aggression is preemption of aggression, invasion is defense, terrorism is fighting terrorism, and goose-stepping agreement is patriotism. And soon to enter your consciousness, if not already there: dictatorship is democracy. If you dare publicly dissent to any of this, why, as everyone knows, you are an unpatriotic, yellow, commie, terrorist-consorting, pinko radical who should go live in some other repressive country.

But, are not they who deny us this dissenting voice, in the name of protecting our system of government, the greatest danger to it? To show how far our “protectors of democracy” will go, during the last election campaign, police were allowed to herd public dissenters away from G.W. Bush’s presidential presence, into zones miles away from the camera’s view. This deformation of a cherished democratic right -- taken directly from the exemplary behavior of monarchies and dictatorships -- is an abuse, ironically, that democracy was supposed to remedy. As John F. Kennedy once noted: “…a nation that is afraid to let its people judge truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”

As initially conceived, our basic principles of democracy can be counted on the fingers of one hand: Equal treatment of the citizenry in matters of justice; Freedom from oppression; Right of due process; Right of individual privacy; and Facilitation in the pursuit of happiness as a blessing of liberty. As involved citizens we should continually test our evolving version of democracy with the litmus of these principles lest we abnegate our duty to protect and preserve our democratic way of life.

Our government, although its actions run to the contrary, continually heralds its reverence for the democratic ideal, not only for us, but for others around the globe. However, looking at our record since the end of WWII, we can see that billions of dollars have been spent to establish or prop up dictatorships in other countries. When we encounter democracy not to our liking, we rush our CIA assets in to crush it as we did with the governments in the following developing democracies: Iran, Laos, Congo, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Indonesia, Bolivia, El Salvador, Chile, Guyana, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti and Venezuela.

And that list does not account for the numerous left-wing dictatorships that were meddled with or overthrown. Most probably Spain is next because of its recent Socialist turn and negative commentary about the Iraq war. History shows us that France and England behaved the same way during the post WWI colonial period because it was always their “security interests” that took precedence over local nationalist aspirations.
Another example of using democracy to pervert itself is the warning that changes contemplated in a number of anti-democratic provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act, would “undermine our ongoing campaign to detect and prevent catastrophic terrorist attacks.”

Knowing that some of these laws won’t stand the light of day, the president and his advisors continually sneak suppressive provisions in the body of other legislation. In an older example, President Bush just happened to sign an order on the Saturday of Saddam’s capture -- snuck in under the euphoria and cover generated -- giving the FBI the power to probe any citizen’s financial records, even if the feds don’t suspect their involvement in crime or terrorism. The FBI doesn’t have to demonstrate “probable cause” and the issued National Security Letters come with a gag order that prevents the probed individual from being notified that he is being investigated or that his records have been surrendered to the FBI.

A more recent example is the REAL ID provision of the Iraq funding bill that establishes a uniform standard for state driver’s licenses, effectively creating a national ID card. The proponents of such legislation always use the argument that, “If you’ve done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to be afraid of!” But when critics of the administration, or any one who is deemed an enemy, find that their personal data has been accessed in the hopes of finding embarrassing information, that always turns out to be unfortunate but not against the law.
Recently, in Florida, the sheriff of Orange County accessed a Florida State database, which was only supposed to be used for law enforcement, to find out information about a woman who had sent a letter to the newspaper criticizing him. He then sent her a letter in return castigating her for the critique, the intimation of course being that “we know where you live!” The woman was appalled and intimidated. This, we were told, was unfortunate but not against the law.

Whenever violating our democratic rights, the powers that be have only to utter that magic phrase, “national security,” and no questions may be asked. The weasel guarding the chicken coop cannot be asked his motives or intentions because it’s a matter of chicken coop security. Isn’t this the way all dictatorships behave?
From childhood we have had drilled into us a couple of fundamental “truths” that are meant to guide us along our pursuit of the great American dream: Democracy good -- Communism bad! Capitalism good -- Socialism bad! The textbook idealism of Communism, as flawed as it might be, was corrupted by “strongmen” who turned the fledgling ideology into a power-grabbing personality cult for their own enrichment and aggrandizement, the very thing they were supposedly fighting against. Considering that Communism replaced the Divine Right of Emperors, just as modern democracy replaced the Divine Right of Kings, does it not follow that textbook democracy is also subject to the same corruption that Communism underwent?

Democracy’s greatest enemies, it seems, are the vast army of privateers, the captains of industry from the military-industrial complex whose insatiable cupidity impels them to fatten their wallets at the expense of the common weal. Typical of this heightened greed is the Vice-President remaining on the payroll of one of the government’s largest contractors, a company whose shady business dealings are constantly being investigated for, of all things, cheating the government! And if it takes lies to start a war of enrichment, well let’s arm the rhetoric, full cash register ahead!

Democracy as we knew it is in desperate danger and this danger comes entirely from within. In 1814, John Adams wrote: “There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Ask yourself if you have the will to help keep our form of government from devouring itself, a task that could easily be completed in the next four years.

Raff Ellis encourages your comments: raff@yahoo.com

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