by professorpan » Thu Feb 09, 2006 1:20 pm
An excerpt:<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/06/02/int06005.html">www.buzzflash.com/intervi...06005.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Mark Crispin Miller: This idea that Bush/Cheney surely never would protract their rule through fraud—talk about a faith-based notion! Look at what we now agree they’ve done! We concede that they lied us into a losing war. We concede that they did nothing after many warnings prior to 9/11. They didn’t even quietly arrange the reinforcement of the cockpit doors on US airliners. We concede that they did not nothing to prevent the devastation of New Orleans by Katrina, and that they then did nothing after the deluge. We concede that they plotted to expose a secret agent who was working to protect the USA from terrorist attacks. We concede that they insist on torturing anyone they like. We concede that they have countless numbers of us under surveillance, and that it’s illegal, and that Bush thinks he can do it anyway. We concede that they are packing the Supreme Court with far-right extremists who would give this president the powers of an emperor.<br><br>We concede all this—but not that they would commit election fraud (again)! “My goodness, no, they’d never do that!” Where does such self-delusion come from? Subverting our democracy is not just one more of this administration’s many crimes; it’s their essential crime. It’s what they’re all about. It’s how they got themselves positioned to commit their countless other crimes. And it’s not just what they did to place themselves in power, it’s what they’re now continuing to do, so that they never lose that power again.<br><br>That refusal to confront the evidence, and to concede that Bush & Co. were not elected, is certainly not based on reason. It’s based, rather, on deep denial and fearful ideology. It’s based on the absurd conviction that it can’t happen here. But anyone who tells himself that it can’t happen here has failed to grasp the meaning of this great republican experiment. Our whole system of government is based on the assumption that it can happen anywhere, at any time—that it can happen here, and surely will unless we keep this system going with all its checks and balances. The Framers studied history, and saw “it” happening repeatedly, wherever power was concentrated in one person or one body or one mob. That’s why they designed the system as they did. And that’s why BushCo’s slow destruction of that system is so very dangerous, and why we must fight back in every way we can. But we can’t accomplish anything until we face the facts. <p></p><i></i>