Paranoia, the Destroyer

(Thanks to Ed Brayton for drawing this to my attention.)

Democracy certainly has its drawbacks. Ergo we have a republic with ruling power divided amongst three branches of government including a bicameral legislature. But this isn't enough for someone named Philip Atkinson who advocated dictatorship. His piece was posted last week at the website of Family Security Matters but has since been taken down. Indeed, just about every mention of him has been wiped. Fortunately, there is the Google cache so you can still read Atkinson's advocacy for making George Bush into Caesar. Here are some choice excerpts:

The wisest course would have been for President Bush to use his nuclear weapons to slaughter Iraqis until they complied with his demands, or until they were all dead. Then there would be little risk or expense and no American army would be left exposed. But if he did this, his cowardly electorate would have instantly ended his term of office, if not his freedom or his life.

If President Bush copied Julius Caesar by ordering his army to empty Iraq of Arabs and repopulate the country with Americans, he would achieve immediate results: popularity with his military; enrichment of America by converting an Arabian Iraq into an American Iraq (therefore turning it from a liability to an asset); and boost American prestiege while terrifying American enemies.

He could then follow Caesar's example and use his newfound popularity with the military to wield military power to become the first permanent president of America, and end the civil chaos caused by the continually squabbling Congress and the out-of-control Supreme Court.

That some crackpot with a developing martyr complex would write such trash is understandable. But that it was printed somewhere other than his own website flummoxes. Brayton points to this (rather sketchy) site which claims the following about Family Security Matters:

Well, it turns out that "Family Security Matters (FSM) is a front group for the Center for Security Policy (CSP), a conservative Washington think tank "committed to the time-tested philosophy of promoting international peace through American strength." (The phone number listed on the FSM website is answered by the CSP.)

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Family_Security_Matters

So now we are led to the Center for Security Policy, and who's connected to that group?

Dick Cheney, Vice President of the U.S. under George W. Bush, was an early member of Center's Board of Advisors (which is now called the National Security Advisory Council).

Twenty-two CSP advisers -- including additional Reagan-era remnants like Elliott Abrams, Ken deGraffenreid, Paula Dobriansky, Sven Kraemer, Robert Joseph, Robert Andrews and J.D. Crouch -- have reoccupied key positions in the national security establishment, as have other true believers of more recent vintage."

And don't forget Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, and Frank Gaffney.

I sincerely hope it was all a joke. But considering that Atkinson had several pieces up at the webpage, I am not so sure. I may blather on about my severe dislike of the Bush administration, but at least I don't call for ridding our country of democracy.

Getting rid of democracy was also on the mind of Dubya's grandpappy, Prescott. The BBC broadcasted a documentary about an attempted coup in 1933.

Document uncovers details of a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by right-wing American businessmen.

The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

The Smirking Chimp provides a summary:

Some of the wealthiest men in America approached Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, beloved of many World War I veterans, many of them embittered by the government's treatment of them. Prescott Bush's group asked Butler to lead 500,000 veterans in a take-over of Washington and the White House. Butler refused and recounted the affair to the congressional committee. His account was corroborated in part by a number of witnesses, and the committee concluded that the plot was real. But the names of wealthy backers of the plot were blacked out in the committee's records, and nobody was prosecuted. According to the BBC, President Roosevelt cut a deal. He refrained from prosecuting some of the wealthiest men in America for treason. They agreed to end Wall Street's opposition to the New Deal.

We didn't prosecute treason then and we can't even impeach now. Between reading these two items and listening to the audiobook of Chalmers Johnson's Nemesis, I am beginning to understand why Richard Hofstadter had to write that essay of his.

I hope to write more about Johnson's book but I am not even halfway through it yet. But what disturbs me is, as he notes, that we have 700+ military installations of various ilks around the world and a total "defense" budget of somewhere near three quarters of a trillion dollars. And remember how Gen. Tommy Franks said that he didn't think the Constitution could survive another large-scale terrorist attack? James Madison said much which explains why there's that bit in the Third Amendment about quartering soldiers – it's about standing armies. A couple choice quotes:

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.... [There is also an] inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and ... degeneracy of manners and of morals.... No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.

I'm not paranoid but I do plead for eternal vigilance. Oliver Stone is bound to gain credibility again if this stuff keeps up.