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Dismal
democracy under Dubya the Dumber
Expanded from the
1-21-2001 Daily Sparks (Nev.) Tribune
Updated
10-24-2010
and 3-4-2012
Those searching for portents at the coronation of Bush the Lesser need look no further than the dismal DC weather which greeted the 5-4 landslide crown prince.
As representative democracy has eroded in this twisted republic, I've begun to look for ways to accommodate living under an evolving corporate dictatorship.
In 1989, I suggested appointing casino magnate Don Carano as dictator of the City of Reno. I submit that The Don could have spent the public's money far more efficiently than the successive series of stumblefoots seen since at city hall.
Historians have long viewed the fourpeat presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt as having come closest to dictatorial power. Fortunately, FDR chose not to cash his great political popularity by trashing the Constitution. The hallowed Abraham Lincoln went as far as Roosevelt during wartime, illegally suspending large sections of the Bill of Rights.
Even the lowest swine can produce pork chops. Long after he killed off his opponents, Hitler-loving fascist Generalissimo Francisco Franco was asked if another Spanish civil war would follow his death.
"No," replied Franco, "for I shall leave a large middle class."
The old S.O.B. proved pretty smart. He knew that if you spread the wealth, few people would start shooting. War is bad for business. Spain today is a democracy with a Franco-restored figurehead monarchy.
READ MORE ABOUT IT
Phillips' prediction may come true
7-18-2004UPDATE 10-24-2010
Brass and crystal balls: GOP implosion looms closer and closerUPDATE 3-4-2012
Corpo-Dems, Labor-Greens
and golden mensches
Restorations in other countries have not gone nearly as well.
The February 2000 edition of Harper's Magazine published the year's most in-depth yet compact compendium about the shady side of Dubya. Maverick Republican historian Kevin Phillips contributed a fascinating analysis of replays gone bad.
"The essence of political restoration is neither republican nor monarchical. It depends upon the delusionary psychology of a political class willing to let its memory grow more and more clouded until it sees fit to reinstate something second-rate, after that something's replacement has become even less acceptable. This is why restorations contain an element of farce.
"Both Charles I (of England) and Louis XVI (of France), whose kingly failures began the two previous restoration cycles, were as widely disdained as the senior Bush. And the interlopers who came along to revolutionize their countries' respective governments — Oliver Cromwell and his son Richard ('Tumble-down Dick') in England in the 1650s, and Maximilien Robespierre and then Napolean in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth century France — also made themselves unwelcome," Phillips wrote.
"In both countries, the political elites came to prefer the return of an inexperienced heir. Charles II was called back to England in 1660; Louis XVIII to a re-established throne in 1815...Bush the Younger is classic restoration material...Not a few observers have described him as cocky, lazy and arrogant (like Charles II), and intellectually undistinguished (a perfect late Bourbon).
"These comparisons are not yet proven, of course, but for the first time in U.S. history, the qualifications of a frontrunner for the presidency are converging with those of the Prince of Wales: heredity and birth." Phillips noted. He recounted how the new president's "own mother once made him sit at the opposite end of the table from the Queen of England, for fear of what he might say, when he was 44 years old."
Rejoicing at the U.S. royal family's return to power may prove short-lived.
"When the restored James II fell in 1688, that was the end of the Stuart kings. When the restored Bourbons followed suit in 1830, that was the end of their house. Should a Bush Restoration implode on its own whir of cocky inadequacy, that could be a similar last hurrah not simply for the family's power but for the Republican Party," Phillips stated. (See his 1999 book, The Cousins' Wars.)
It doesn't take much to predict that George II will soon risk American lives in some foolish war. Dick and Colin are back fouling the bowels of government. Few seem to remember that the Gulf War, which continues to kill and sicken so many both here and abroad, was fought to protect the Bush family's Persian Gulf drilling rights, perhaps the most rotten of all Dubya's dastardly deals.
Saddam and the rest of the oil patch's greasy good ole boys remain in power. Foreign oil interests continue to pillage our pockets while oppressing their own people. California businesses lay off workers as the state goes dark. When the Golden State sneezes, the Silver State catches a cold.
Bush's appointment of defrocked Sen. Spence Abraham, R-Mich., as energy secretary pretty much locks in Nevada as the nation's nuclear dumpsite.
On the bright side, perhaps his appointment of the racist John Ashcroft as attorney general will revive states' rights for us, if not Florida. After all, Ashcroft publicly praised the neo-Confederate magazine Southern Partisan, a Klan-fan rag which celebrates Lincoln's assassination!
In his Harper's cover article preceding Phillips' sidebar, author Joe Conason concluded "the vast agglomeration of monied influence is what has made George W. Bush both a rich man and a potential president. Knowing how he became what he is, it's difficult to imagine Bush cleansing the soiled hem of democracy, as his advertising promises he will do. He professes compassionate conservatism, but his true ideology, the record suggests, is crony capitalism."
Indeed, Dubya offers a single cure for all ills. At any bad moon on the rise, he howls for a huge tax cut for rich campaign contributors.
German poet and dramatist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said that we become that which we despise.
To anyone who criticized Bill Clinton for breaking his promise to clean up government, remember the words of the Gipper: you ain't seen nothin' yet.
Be well. Raise hell.
Copyright © 2001, 2004, 2007, 2010 Andrew BarbanoAndrew Barbano is a 32-year Nevadan, a member of Communications Workers of America Local 9413 and editor of NevadaLabor.com. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Daily Sparks (Nev.) Tribune since 1988.
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