By Lauren F. McCullogh
Wasn’t it thoughtful of America to bring democracy to Iraq? Some countries invade, conquer and just take take take. Not America. America’s a giver – go ahead, Iraq, you take our democracy – Lord knows it’s not doing us any good. All that freedom and liberty crap – it’s not really cutting it here in North America. You take it – you’ve got our blessing. And Iraq… good luck with democracy… it’s a little unwieldy, but I’m sure you’ll figure out how to keep it in line.
It’s unendingly ironic that we parade American democracy around the world as the best political system, yet we distort and contort it into a friendlier version of totalitarianism every day.
That’s impossible, you say?
I say the facts speak for themselves.
History teaches that any up-and-coming dictator’s first priority is to eliminate the opposition. By silencing dissenters, it’s easier to unify the country behind an agenda. With 70 years of hindsight, this objective is obvious in Hitler’s Germany. But at the time, the bigger picture wasn’t as clear.
On Feb. 27, 1933, Dutch terrorist Marinus van der Lubbe firebombed the German Parliament building. A poor and destitute German citizenry elected Adolf Hitler to office because, in a blitzkrieg of patriotism, Hitler promised to wage an all-out war on any “terrorists” who posed a threat to the “homeland.”
In his article, “When Democracy Failed: The Warnings of History,” Thom Hartmann writes that “within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation’s now-popular leader had pushed through legislation – in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it – that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people’s homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.” (www.commondreams.org/views03/0316-08.htm)
Sound familiar? It should…
The USA Patriot Act has been violating civil liberties in this country left and right since October of 2001. Under the guise of prosecuting terrorists, its covert agenda has given the government the authority to tap phones, access library records, racially profile potential terrorists and prosecute them in secret courts. But most of America hasn’t been concerned and their ignorance and apathy gave the government more power. Power to further limit freedoms.
Here we are today, living in a post “wardrobe-malfunction” world, where those who do not self-censor their speech will be censored and fined up to $500,000 per “indecent incidence.” Indecent is such a funny word – the House of Representatives just passed a law that upholds the prohibition of “the utterance of any obscene, indecent or profane language by means of radio communication.” But it’s still not really clear what “indecent” means.
In the landmark F.C.C. v. Pacifica, Justice Stevens defined the concept of “indecent” as being “intimately connected with the exposure of children to language that describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory activities and organs, at times of the day when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience.”
In F.C.C. v. Pacifica, the Supreme Court upheld the F.C.C.’s ruling that a station’s re-broadcast of George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words” monologue was patently offensive (and inappropriate for children), and therefore indecent. But since that case, it’s been hard to pin down exactly what makes something indecent.
In the same opinion, Justice Stevens emphasized that just because a society finds certain speech offensive is not enough reason to suppress it.
“Indeed,” he said, “if it is the speaker’s opinion that gives offense, that consequence is a reason for according it constitutional protection. For it is a central tenet of the First Amendment that the government must remain neutral in the marketplace of ideas.”
However, Congress’ proposed legislation does just that – it grants the F.C.C. almost supreme authority to judge broadcasted material and punish those broadcasters who are “indecent.” Nevermind that the standards for indecency are unclear at best, and that the maximum fines are exorbitant. As the White House statement said, “This legislation will make broadcast television and radio more suitable for family viewing.”
Actually, this legislation will reward broadcasters who do what the government wants them to: praise the president, tow the line and play the corporate machine’s pop tunes. Don’t criticize the President’s kooky religious agenda like Howard Stern did – Clear Channel will pull you from the air in swing states like Florida and Pennsylvania. If this legislation passes, and it seems that it will, the voice of opposition will be silenced, as Bush takes over the public airwaves with campaign advertising that falsely portrays actors as journalists, “reporting” on how wonderful the President is.
Sound familiar?
The backdoor agenda behind all this faux-morality legislation is transparent. And it poses a great threat to American democracy, whether we want to believe it or not.
Al Qaeda may have crashed planes into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, but Bush & Co. are sending American democracy on a one-way trip to extinction. Civil liberties and free speech are not just eroding – they are being pounded to bits with a jackhammer. Yes, it seems democracy will go the way of the dinosaurs. But that’s what happens when you have a President who values the Christian Coalition more than the Constitution.
It may be dramatic to compare Bush to Hitler. It may be unfair to attribute a totalitarian agenda to Bush. Bush may not seem as calculating and nefarious as Hitler was. But Hitler didn’t seem that dangerous to vulnerable Germans either. He was strong and nationalistic – he was optimistic and encouraging.
But seriously now, there could never be an American president like Hitler, you say. We’ll just see, now won’t we.
