|
 On
September 8th, 2005, my article "Katrina
and the Politics of Disaster" was published.
The ink was not even dry as the article's major
contentions were vindicated. No, this does not make me
or anyone else who saw things in advance prophets. The
article's accuracy can be attributed more to common
sense (a scarce commodity these days) than anything
else. Playing solitaire will get you better acquainted
with yourself, but it will not make you a great poker
player. On the other hand, watching Chris Ferguson or
Phil Ivey play a few hands will give you an idea of
how the game is played. The same principle applies
here. Studying the cases of elite criminality and
elitist tracts will give you the uncanny ability to
predict the future.
Research reveals a certain method employed by
bluebloods throughout history to consolidate power. A
crisis is created by government action or inaction.
This crisis leads to tremendous violence and social
upheaval that in turn has the population screaming for
a solution. The government then plays the role of
savior, presenting an oppressive remedy to the
problem. Society gets onto a totalitarian trajectory
as the process is repeated over and over again. It
worked for the Illuminist-bred Jacobins in France. It
worked for the communists in Russia. It worked for
Nazis in Germany. Today, it is working for the Neocons
and other elitists hidden behind the Bush
Administration.
In "Katrina and the Politics of
Disaster," evidence was explored that seemed to
suggest that warnings were ignored and assistance was
intentionally delayed, causing the Katrina situation
to intensify. An atmosphere of lawlessness and anarchy
arose, causing people to call for Federal
intervention. We now find ourselves in the midst of
phase three as the government presents the cure for
our ills. Apparently, that cure is a shot of
totalitarianism that involves a very long needle. On
September 13th, Stewart Powell reported:
President Bush on Monday urged Congress to
examine whether the White House needs stronger
powers to deal with catastrophes like Hurricane
Katrina. Bush's backing for the congressional
inquiry raised the possibility that lawmakers might
expand presidential authority to:
- Order mandatory civilian evacuations
- Dispatch U.S.-based armed forces for emergency
search-and-rescue operations
- Grant wider leeway for active-duty U.S.
military personnel to carry out law enforcement
operations. (No pagination)
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the
government solution is the call for the military to be
used here at home. A September 17th Associated
Press article went into this feature of the
President's plan:
President Bush's push to give the military a
bigger role in responding to major disasters like
Hurricane Katrina could lead to a loosening of legal
limits on the use of federal troops on U.S. soil.
Pentagon officials are reviewing that
possibility, and some in Congress agree it needs to
be considered.
Bush did not define the wider role he envisions
for the military. But in his speech to the nation
from New Orleans on Thursday, he alluded to the
unmatched ability of federal troops to provide
supplies, equipment, communications, transportation
and other assets the military lumps under the label
of "logistics."
The president called the military "the
institution of our government most capable of
massive logistical operations on a moment's
notice." (No pagination)
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has now entered
the picture, ready to step up domestic militarization.
The changes he will suggest to the President may allow
the government to use natural disasters as a pretext
for tearing down longtime bulwark to tyranny: the 1878
Posse Comitatus Act. The Associated Press
reported:
[Spokesman Lawrence] Di Rita said Rumsfeld has
not made recommendations to Bush, but among the
issues he is examining is the viability of the Posse
Comitatus Act. Di Rita called it one of the
"very archaic laws" from a different era
in U.S. history that limits the Pentagon's
flexibility in responding to 21st century domestic
crises. (No pagination)
Katrina has been used to make the unthinkable now
thinkable. The notion that the military should be used
to police civilians would make the Founding Fathers'
skin crawl. Today, many Americans still share that
sentiment with the architects of the Republic.
However, most sit on their hands believing the system
of checks and balances will remedy the problem. The
branch most likely to step in on our behalf should bad
legislation get passed is the Judicial. Using the
power of judicial review, the Supreme Court can look
at something the President or Congress does and
declare it unconstitutional. However, the
Administration intends to short-circuit any judicial
attempts to block its acquisition of power with what
can only be described as a Supreme Court coup.
Integral to this coup is chief justice nominee John G.
Roberts.
Roberts has been a Bush political operative since
at least the controversial 2000 presidential election.
In an article for the Miami Herald, Gary
Fineout and Mary Ellen Klas elaborate:
U.S. Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts
provided legal advice to Gov. Jeb Bush in the weeks
following the November 2000 election as part of the
effort to make sure the governor's brother won the
disputed presidential vote.
Roberts, at the time a private attorney in
Washington, D.C., came to Tallahassee to advise the
state's Republican administration as it was trying
to prevent a Democratic end-run that the GOP feared
might give the election to Al Gore, sources told The
Herald. (No pagination)
The article continued:
Roberts, himself a noted constitutional lawyer,
and an unnamed law professor spent between 30 and 40
minutes talking to Bush in the governor's conference
room, sources told The Herald.
Roberts' perceived partisanship during the
recount has been enough for some Democrats to
suggest that his nomination should be rejected by
the U.S. Senate.
A spokesman for the governor confirmed Wednesday
that Bush met with Roberts during the recount.
Roberts was "one of several experts who came
to Florida to share their ideas," said
spokesman Jacob DiPietre. Roberts came "at his
own expense and met with Gov. Bush to share what he
believed the governor's responsibilities were under
federal law after a presidential election and a
presidential election under dispute." (No
pagination)
For some, Robert's connection to the 2000 election
make his nomination to the Supreme Court very
problematic. U.S. representative Robert Wexler summed
up critics' misgivings:
U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, a Boca Raton Democrat,
seized on Roberts' participation in the 2000 recount
and suggested it should be grounds for rejecting his
nomination. Wexler suggested the nomination
"threw salt on the wounds of the thousands of
Floridians whose voting rights were disenfranchised
during the 2000 election.
"Judge Roberts worked to ensure that George
Bush would become president -- regardless of what
the courts might decide," Wexler said, relying
on news accounts that suggested Roberts gave the
governor advice on how the state Legislature could
name Bush the winner. "And now he is being
rewarded for that partisan service by being
appointed to the nation's highest court."
(Fineout and Klas, No pagination)
Roberts was no doubt rewarded for his services with
a nomination to the Supreme Court. When Rehnquist
passed away, nomination was upgraded to that of chief
justice. Roberts has jumped the first hurdle, the
Senate Judiciary Committee. All that is left is to be
confirmed by the general senate. With a republican
majority, victory is almost a forgone conclusion. This
makes the Roberts situation even more disturbing. Why?
Unfortunately, the standard for being a great chief
justice is not making upright and moral decisions.
Instead, the standard is the ability to bring
uniformity to the Court. Eisenhower considered his
decision to nominate Warren one of his greatest
mistakes. Given the man's involvement in the cover-up
of the Kennedy assassination, Eisenhower's regret
seems justified. That notwithstanding, the man is
still considered one of this nation's great chief
justices for his ability to get all the justices on
the same page. As a result of all this, chief justices
have learned to be great politicians and work to bring
uniformity to the Court, not to bring about a moral
outcome. Therefore, chief justice Roberts would work
to bring the Court into lock step with the Bush
Administration's agenda.
However, to call Roberts merely a Bush lackey would
be inaccurate. It must be understood that this
Administration (like so many administrations before
it) is a front for some elite faction. In a speech
given by Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Seymour
Hersh, the puppeteers behind the Bush Administration
were revealed: "One of the ways -- one of the
things that you could say is, the amazing thing is we
are been taken over basically by a cult, eight or nine
neo-conservatives have somehow grabbed the
government" (No pagination). Those on the left
have misidentified this neocon cult as anti-communist
right-wingers. These poor, misguided souls have failed
to recognize the difference between being
anti-communist and anti-Soviet. The cult of
neoconservatism is, in fact, a revival of Trotskyism.
Former neocon Michael Lind revealed this fact in his
article "A Tragedy of Errors":
The fact that most of the younger neocons were
never on the left is irrelevant; they are the
intellectual (and, in the case of William Kristol
and John Podhoretz, the literal) heirs of older
ex-leftists. The idea that the United States and
similar societies are dominated by a decadent,
postbourgeois "new class" was developed by
thinkers in the Trotskyist tradition like James
Burnham and Max Schachtman, who influenced an older
generation of neocons. The concept of the
"global democratic revolution" has its
origins in the Trotskyist Fourth International's
vision of permanent revolution. The economic
determinist idea that liberal democracy is an
epiphenomenon of capitalism, promoted by neocons
like Michael Novak, is simply Marxism with
entrepreneurs substituted for proletarians as the
heroic subjects of history. (No pagination)
None other than the godfather of neoconservatism
himself, Irving Kristol, vindicates Lind's
allegations. In his book Neoconservatism: The
Autobiography of an Idea, Kristol writes:
"I regard myself lucky to have been a young
Trotskyist and I have not a single bitter memory"
(13). Left-wing activists love to charge the neocons
with being fascistic anti-communists. Nevertheless,
the neocons' crusade to tear down the Soviet Union and
Soviet-connected regimes stemmed from the fact that
they felt betrayed by Uncle Joe. Stalin had made the
mistake of attacking their idol: Trotsky.
With the neocons in control, America is sure to
continue on a socialist and statist trajectory. Future
catastrophes, both man-made and natural, will provide
the pretext for all of this. A Supreme Court with
Roberts as its chief justice will declare the
Administrations' actions completely legal and
constitutional. All the while, the very document that
is supposed to be guiding the Court's decisions, the
Constitution, will be burning.
Sources Cited
Paul D. Collins has studied
suppressed history and the shadowy undercurrents of
world political dynamics for roughly eleven years. In
1999, he completed his Associate of Arts and Science
degree. He is working to complete his Bachelor's
degree, with a major in Communications and a minor in
Political Science. Paul has authored another book
entitled The
Hidden Face of Terrorism: The Dark Side of Social
Engineering, From Antiquity to September 11. |
