Seems like yesterday when criticizing George Bush was close enough to treason that the police would get involved. I remember people walking out of a Jon Lovitz stand-up routine when he made some mild crack about Bush's garbled English. I remember tirades on TV when Streisand aired her opinions of the president. I remember grumbling in the movie theater lobby after a showing of "W" about how "you shouldn't criticize a president like that." There were the Dixie Chicks, and there were the Radio bloviators out there bashing liberals as though freedom of speech were some Marxist plot. The word treason, the accusation of "emboldening" and giving aid and comfort to some amorphous enemy was given enough air time to warm the climate for real.
I remember audiences for Bush's town hall meetings being vetted to make sure flattering questions were the only ones asked. I remember protesters being herded into "free speech" zones behind barbed wire and miles from anywhere the President might be. I remember people being escorted from the premises by armed policemen simply because of a bumper sticker on the car they arrived in.
Many people persist in telling us that such things are common on "both sides" yet I do not remember anyone being escorted away from the current president for carrying signs advocating killing "his ugly wife and stupid children" nor for carrying guns. It's perhaps the most false of the false equivalences that constitute political dialogue today.
Of course if you want to tell me the courts share the blame, I'll agree. According to the Christian Science Monitor, the US Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of two Colorado residents who were excluded unwillingly from a speech by President Bush in 2005 because White House aides saw them arrive in a car with a bumper sticker that proclaimed: “No More Blood For Oil.”
Do we attribute this slap in the face for the First amendment to the Bush Police State? Certainly it wasn't the only one, but Bush is gone and the highest court seems to think we won't care that they don't care enough to hear the case.
So is it now that the freedom to have a bumper sticker on your car -- that is the freedom to criticize the government, to petition the government, to print your opinions for all to read can simply be washed away by a government that can't be bothered to listen to it? Stare decisis?
I don't know about you, but no matter how conservative, libertarian or just plain ornery you are, I don't see a way to pin this one on Obama or to try to pull a fast one with the "both sides do it so its not so bad" sidestep. If you agree that this kind of presidential power is inappropriate, you'll have to agree that getting away with it because the courts don't care is worse. So can we shut up about "liberal active courts" and recognize that this one at least has come down on the side of the police state and the Liberals had nothing to do with it?
So where's the anger? where's the admission that yes, we supported this administration and its policies and WE WERE WRONG!
Yes, it would be impossible for a sane person to find any equivalence at all here. The previous Admin generally took a decidedly police-state turn when it came to security -- I recall that the formula went something like, "Dissent is a beautiful thing, but if you criticize us within 500 yards of our person, we might just have to haul you away." The present one clearly does not. In fact, I think they go too far in the other direction, to the point where it may begin to seem normal to allow armed goons to take up positions around the chief executive. I don't credit that as free speech -- not only is it uncivil, it's a potentially lethal menace and should be recognized as such. That it's necessary even to say this is a sign of just how far we have wandered from our proper selves as citizens.
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely correct, except that you didn't go quite far enough in one statement.
ReplyDeletecriticizing George Bush was close enough to treason
No, it wasn't "close enough" - as far as the Right was concerned, it WAS treason. That was the stated attitude of the president and right wing pundits everywhere.
Some officials took to that attitude with fascinating zeal, sometimes claiming that this was the way it's always been (despite ample evidence to the contrary).
Recently, as you know, your not so humble cephalopod had a regrettable encounter with a certain Republican AG in Florida who took exception to something I said and dispatched henchmen to my door with this message: STFU.
ReplyDeleteIt is not just former President Bush with a police state mentality but a character disorder within the GOP. Bully and intimidating citizens with opposing views did not start with McCarthy either.
I refer to a little noticed footnote in American history – the alleged coup d’etat against FDR, the “White House Putsch,” that was dismissed at the time as a hoax. Hoax or not, there are historians who believe the plotters (all Wall Street barons) made a deal to escape charges of treason in exchange for dropping opposition to FDR’s New Deal. The Robber Baron legacy within the GOP starts in the 1880s. Funny how they form organizations with freedom-sounding names such as the American Liberty League, while plotting to overthrow the government and disrespect every tenet of democracy.
Perhaps in time, the tea party stooges will disband, but the plutocracy will always be with us, and they are emboldened by the recent Citizens United decision.
Whether the alleged coup d’etat against FDR was real or a propaganda piece, the bloodless coup attempt against Clinton and now Obama are very real. Regeme change by any means possible and at all cost is the only permanent and cohesive strategy ever to come from the Right in my lifetime. No mind the country should fail, should suffer: we care only to stay in power.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's true. The heresy of criticizing a president "in time of war" has been called treason and of course it's made it valuable for a president to get us into a war or keep us in a war to gain that protection.
ReplyDelete"Rally 'round the flag, boys." It's like rotten meat to flies. The only thing that amazes me is how they can turn it on and off so easily.