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On the face of it, it just makes sense. You know. Plan for the worst. Get a plan together. Think through what to do.
But declaring that you’ll be the “continuity chief” when you “detect” a catastrophic emergency whenever and whereever it may occur that will threaten the American public….I wish I were kidding about this one.
I try not to hit the panic button about everything. Henny Penny and whut all. But this gives me pause.
I don’t know…seems like something that maybe the Congress should be responsible for figuring out — not something snuck by in a sneakily worded and sneakily issued policy white paper.
My trust for this particular president is low and his hirelings are venal. They lost me before they got into office and have only proven more corrupt. So yes, when the president claims that he’s going to try to respect the other branches of governance as a matter of “comity” — well, all the bells go off. We have a Constitution. We don’t have to rely on his assessment of the convenience of playing nice. The Congress will be able to meet if they get the permission of the White House Chief of Staff and the Secretary of Homeland Security…
Quick. Name the Secretary of Homeland Security. Did you know that he was the co-author of the Patriot Act? He’s also the guy who directed the FEMA response to Katrina. This is the guy you want determining whether your legislature can meet? This is the guy who you want helping to run things in case of dire emergency? I think not.
At the risk of triggering Godwin’s Law, can I just point out this gut-twisting piece of legislation that seems to me similar in intent and wording? And we all know how well that turned out.
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You’re not the first person that has compared our current administration to that of Pre-WWII Germany’s. I can’t say that I disagree with that assessment.
Comment by Neal May 27, 2007 @ 9:29 pmThere’s a couple of problems with using such an extreme characterization, though. First, it’s kind of a cheap analogy that obscures as much as it reveals. There are things about this administration that strike me as more insidious and secretive and other parts that are more bumbling and innocuous. As a historian, I’m sensitive to the ways that analogies pervert the understanding of both periods. Second, it’s sort of a “cry wolf” proposition — there’s a type of person that cries “Fascism” every time he or she feels that his or her liberties have been infringed (no matter how petty a matter). I’ve heard local cops called Hitler for kicking skaters out of the city plaza and I’ve heard cries of fascism go up when a guy was asked to make his lawn less of a junkyard. Maybe they’re right — maybe they are canaries in a coalmine and I’m silly for thinking that you give up some of your autonomy to live in a society and that not every social rule is going to break my way. But after the drumbeat of Hitler-squawk at every rally, at every turn…well, it’s a reproach that is in danger of losing its terrible descriptive power. Third, one winds up shutting the ears of allies that otherwise would be willing to listen to what one has to say. It’s easy to dismiss anyone invoking the Reich as being a “loony leftie,” and I believe in my heart of hearts that most of my fellow citizens are more united than divided…I’m reluctant to contribute to the polarization by letting my freak flag fly when a little more restraint could work better.
Still…if so many of us are coming to that conclusion…could there be a little bit of truth in it?
Comment by bridgett May 28, 2007 @ 9:19 amI’m a little less alarmed, though rather disgusted.
This administration has demonstrated a willingness to press executive authority to the floorboards. This is another example of that in action. Since this document spells out how the agencies ALREADY under Presidential authority are to act, this doesn’t require action by Congress or a change of the Constitution. Earlier administrations would probably have consulted more widely, but maybe not, before spelling this sort of thing out. This document is limited in its effects. The limits are worded into the implementation actions section of the document, where there is a constant acknowlegement that the result of these actions has to be the continuance of “constitutional government.”
There are some significant differences from the Enabling Act. Nowhere in the US Constitution is there a provision allowing the President to rule by decree, which the Weimar Constitution did allow under certain circumstances. That authority was constitutionally transferred to Hitler in 1933 by majority vote of the Reichstag. This is a white paper, not a Constitutional amendment.
The similarity, to my mind isn’t the “Bush is just like Hitler” thing. In 1933 the leaders of the other political parties succumbed to Nazi pressure and signed off on Hitler’s dictatorship. There was no will to protect democracy from someone who had declared his hatred for it. Bush doesn’t hate democracy, he doesn’t know what it means. His supporters are worse. They believe in a “divine right of the executive” and (according to John Bolton) that the President only represents the people who voted for him. Bush represents what happens when democracy fails from the bottom up, rather than the top down.
A lot of people cite Orwell’s “1984″ to describe out current situation. I’d propose looking at Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451.” In that book, democracy gave way to dictatorship because of a society that was too buried in consumer culture to care and too busy watching TV to think. (In fact, look at what Bradbury writes about the TV that Montag and his wife watch and tell me that isn’t “The Real World” – and Bradbury wrote this in 1953!)
Comment by Gerald May 28, 2007 @ 9:30 amI always think of Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron.
http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/hb.html
Comment by bridgett May 28, 2007 @ 10:12 amIt’s more like President McKinley … with a dash of Mussolini.
Comment by Nick Dupree May 28, 2007 @ 9:36 pm[...] government functions in case of a major disruption of some sort. You can find those blogs here and [...]
Pingback by I May Not Be Paranoid Enough... « We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us May 30, 2007 @ 6:04 pmBush Declares Self ‘Mega Decider’
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/gate/archive/2007/05/30/notes053007.DTL
This column is hysterical! LMAO!!!
Comment by Nick Dupree May 31, 2007 @ 1:15 am