by Bernard Weiner

First, they came for the terrorists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a terrorist.
Then they came for the foreigners,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a foreigner.
Then they came for the Arab-Americans,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t Arab-American.
Then they came for the radical dissenters,
and I didn’t speak up because I was just an ordinary troubled citizen.
They they came for me,
and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.

(adapted from Pastor Niemoller’s 1945 quote about the Nazis*)

I’ve been steering clear of the F-word, because too many on the Left fling that term so carelessly that it soon loses its truth-punch. But things are happening, so quickly, in this country that are taking us closer to a brand of near-fascism that is frightening in its seeming acceptance by the American populace and in its implications for the future of American democracy.

In short, we appear to be at one of those moments in American history where the executive branch, using the genuine need to respond to a terrorist attack of massive proportions, is badly over-reaching in both domestic and foreign areas. (The first draft of Ashcroft’s anti-terrorism law even recommended suspension of the rule of habeus corpus, which would have allowed for indefinite incarceration without charges or trials.) The Administration figures it can get away with its current actions, and assume even more power, because the Congress and the American people are frightened and willing to bend over backwards to make sure the President has the power he needs during “wartime.”

(Of course, there has been no official declaration of a State of War by the Congress, and the Bush Administration is not about to try to get one; doing so would give the legislative branch its rightful place in the balance-of-power arrangement the founders set up in order to prevent political mischief.)

Now, whether we’re moving into the outskirts of fascism because the Bush Administration is merely confused and incompetent when dealing with issues of such moment is not clear. Equally plausible, especially given their ruthless, take-no-prisoners style as revealed in the Florida election chaos and beyond, is that they know exactly what they’re doing: attempting to enforce a harsh interpretation of justice so as to more easily cram their far-right cultural and economic agenda through a complacent Congress and public, under the cover of “national security” and “homeland protection.” (I grant that it’s possible they sincerely believe they’re doing so out of the best motives -- protecting the American people from further terrorism -- but, even if that were the case, the damage being done to the American polity and Constitutional system of government is incalcuable.)

FOREIGN POLICY

The hawks in the Administration seem to have convinced Bush that with the successes in Afghanistan -- forgetting that perhaps as many as 20,000 Al Quiada troops are holed up for the winter, in caves and in neighboring Pakistan -- it’s time to widen the war by going after Iraq, and maybe a few weaker states, such as Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, maybe even North Korea. (This plan may be put on temporary hold while the U.S. assays the military/political fallout from the quick-building war between Israel and the Palestinians.)

Why go to war against any of these countries? There is no evidence that any of the states named above has engaged in threatening activity -- no bombs exploded on U.S. soil or U.S. assets abroad, no airplanes flying into tall buildings, no biochemical attacks launched -- but, we are lead to believe, these rogue states threaten America’s vital interests merely by existing and, in some instances, by having weapons similar to ours.

Iraq may be a special case. Saddam Hussein, who Bush Sr. let stay in power, is a truly vicious, monomaniacal dictator who has been known to dabble in biological weaponry and other weapons of mass destruction. Since he kicked out the U.N. inspectors, we don’t know what mischief he’s been up to. A good candidate, so goes hawk-logic, for getting his ass whupped by the U.S., provocation or not.

Were the U.S. to bomb or invade Iraq to topple Saddam and install an opposition government, the current war coalition would collapse, and the worst stereotype of U.S. foreign policy -- of America as a giant bully not averse to arranging a Pax Americana with massive violence -- would be verified in a good share of the globe.

There might well be uprisings widely in the Muslim world, and probably the toppling of several key governments in the process, Pakistan and Indonesia being the top candidates -- either by popular revolts or, more likely, by military coups. (Let us not forget that Pakistan has nuclear weapons.)

But let us suppose that the U.S. approach is successful, and that it is able to navigate its way through the negative foreign consequences flowing from that demonstration of high-tech warfare carried out against low-tech resistance. How would you feel living in a modern version of the Roman Empire, our armies abroad enforcing a peace on several continents at bayonet point?

DOMESTIC POLICY

Which brings us to what life would be like domestically in such a neo-imperialist arrangement. Even some right-wingers are reacting negatively to the alterations of our judicial and Constitutional system a la Bush and Ashcroft. There have been columns in the Wall Street Journal, William Safire’s blistering attack on Bush as a would-be “dictator,” ex-FBI officials willing to be quoted denouncing the Administration’s more extreme policies, politicians such as right-wing Republican Bob Barr decrying Bush’s policy excesses, editorials in the mainstream press chorusing that Ashcroft has gone way over the top.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave -- whoops!, wrong metaphor these days -- you must have become acquainted with Ashcroft’s way-out-there approach to civil libertiesm mostly, it is claimed, directed at non-citizens suspected of terrorism. That would be bad enough. But the wording of some of Ashcroft’s orders -- and Bush’s setting up of secret military tribunals -- is so vague and (deliberately?) sloppy that it wouldn’t take much to blur the distinction between citizen and non-citizen. Already -- shades of J. Edgar Hoover’s COINTEL program of the 1960s-70s! -- Ashcroft wants to begin more spying on U.S. citizens, especially religious and political organizations.

In short, the foundations for officially-sanctioned neo-fascist policies are swiftly being put into place and contemplated. And, since Bush and Ashcroft, from the beginning, have made it clear that if you’re not on the side of the war on terrorism, you’re probably a supporter of terrorists, the way is clear for cracking down on dissent internally against U.S. citizens. It’s not outside the realm of speculation that in the near-future even writing analyses such as the one you’re reading might be adjudged detrimental to the war effort and thus liable for prosecution -- or to being “disappeared” into the judidical system, with all that suggests in the way of respect being paid to citizens’ constitutional rights.

Am I being overly paranoid? I hope to God I am, that I’m misreading what’s happening. After all, Bush & Ashcroft and their spokesmen claim that their approach will NEVER overstep Constitutional bounds and everything will be handled fairly. Maybe you trust the government, especially THIS government, that much; I don’t. These guys are playing political hardball, and they appear to be aiming at any institution and individuals that dissent beyond certain boundaries.

Those boundaries are being laid out clearly for the usual sources for dissent: the media and academia. Most of the big papers and networks are now owned by huge corporate conglomerates; Lynne Cheney’s American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a well-financed conservative group devoted to curbing liberal tendencies on campuses, already has issued its first blacklist of professors it considers insufficiently “patriotic.” Many will be fired or eased out, many more will tone down their criticism -- as many journalists already have -- and the message will be quite clear: Do not dissent too vocally.

Two scary ramifications: 1) We’re only in the first year of Bush’s term; the damage he can cause to the Constitution and the body politic during the next three (or, God help us, seven) years is frightening to imagine. 2) The American people, for the most part, still appear to be lending strong support to Bush’s interpretation of the war on terrorism, although cracks are starting to show up.

So what is to be done? If there ever was a time for a rebirth of the Movement, this is the time. Street action is probably not as important these days -- and, if violence is attached to it, would be counterproductive -- as opinion-shaping and education. I’m talking here about writing letters to the editor of your local paper, calling and writing your Member of Congress and Senators, helping organize your friends and mailing lists online and urging them to act as well, contributing money to organizations resisting what’s happpening. (When I contact my legislators or newspapers, I make sure I let them know that I am in support of the campaign to break up and eradicate the terrorist networks: these guys are a bad lot, I believe, and need to be taken down, but not at the expense of the Constitution.)

The U.S. Senate is probably the place where most attention should go at the moment, given that the House is pretty well dominated by the Bush/Armey/Delay-led rightwing majority. The Democrats in the Senate, who rolled over too easily on the so-called PATRIOT anti-terrorism act, need backbone; hearing from their constituents, urging them to stand up for the Constitution and the balance-of-powers that rein in power-hungry executives, might actually work in stopping some of the more extreme actions to date, and to come, by the Bush Administration.

This struggle for peace and justice and respect for the Constitution will not be an easy one, if only because of the politicized nature of the Supreme Court majority. But it is one we must join, and, for the sake of our representative democracy, we must win.

*First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.

-- Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

Bernard Weiner, Ph. D., has taught politics and international relations at Western Washington University and San Diego State University. He was with the San Francisco Chronicle for nearly 20 years. E-mail: YonWax2@aol.com

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