On the Internment of American Prisoners: VII

The suspension of the right of habeus corpus, a legal right that every school child can trace back to the year 1215 when the English forced bad King John to sign the Magna Carta is about to occur in the land that claims to be the world's most exemplary democracy. When, recently, I opined to a friend that this country desperately needs a third party, he came back with, "Don't you mean a second party?" In that quip lies the tragic crossroads at which this nation now finds itself. With very, very few exceptions, the haircuts and coifs that now adorn the two houses of the U.S. congress are essentially indistinguishable from one another. They may disagree on some of the details of the current economic arrangement that slowly impoverishes the majority of our citizens, and they may disagree on certain less than pressing moral issues like gay marriage but whether it is the Clinton variety of corporate take-over or the Bush variety makes very little fundamental difference. When the U.S. allowed Israel to fight its proxy war in Lebanon, where even after a cease-fire was agreed upon a million anti-personnel weapons descended upon the south of that tragic land, not a single voice could be heard in opposition to that war. At least we had Senator Wayne Morse during the Tonkin Gulf resolution, at least then, there was one voice raised in opposition. Now there is no opposition. The suits with the free haircuts have gotten fatter and fatter and have overseen the nation through to the dissolution of the system. The U.S. system of government simply no longer works. The checks are not checking and the balances are not balancing. An imperial presidency, essentially a serial monarchy with a unicameral house cannot claim to be a true democracy. Our so-called two party system has long had inherent within it the flaw that it allows the clearly absurd notion that all acceptable political opinion is contained within its self-proclaimed two-fold limits. What the recent mishandling of American governance has revealed is that democracy only has a prayer of succeeding in a parliamentary system with multiple parties, the need for coalitions to form, the right to recall a leader in whom the nation no longer has confidence or trust. The story of the U.S. presidency since Dwight Eisenhower left office warning of the military-industrial complex is one of unrelenting violence and scandal. Kennedy is assassinated. Johnson is forced, by virtue of his stubbornly pursuing a murderous war, to decline a second term. Nixon, threatened with impeachment, is forced to resign. Ford is a mere caretaker replaced by Carter, yet another interim caretaker. Reagan clearly should have been impeached for his abrogation of the constitution in the Iran-Contra scandal, as should his former CIA chief and successor, Bush, who was also clearly complicit. Clinton is impeached, only to be replaced by Bush, a man clearly unqualified for the office who was thrust into power-with a majority of the American people having voted for his opponent--by an antiquated electoral system, ballot box rigging, and an ultra-conservative Supreme Court. With the possible exception of President Carter, whose role it was to make us forget the nightmare of the preceding years by introducing a dose of old time religion into the oval office, a role that sent the nation into deep psychological depression, no U.S president since 1963 could have survived a parliamentary vote of confidence. Rather than bring us stability, our stubborn adherence to a constitutional framework that no longer works has brought us full circle to the bad old days. Yes, it is now 1214 and there are just a few voices crying in the wilderness. Not enough right now, it seems, to institute a true democracy.