No, it can't happen here

An ACLU Freedom of Information Act suit succeeded in springing a secret White House manual on how to keep any dirty hippie protests from disrupting Our Leader's orderly public appearances, as reported in White House Manual Details How to Deal With Protesters by Peter Baker Washington Post 08/22/2007:

Among other things, any event must be open only to those with tickets tightly controlled by organizers. Those entering must be screened in case they are hiding secret signs. Any anti-Bush demonstrators who manage to get in anyway should be shouted down by "rally squads" stationed in strategic locations. And if that does not work, they should be thrown out.

But that does not mean the White House is against dissent - just so long as the president does not see it. In fact, the manual outlines a specific system for those who disagree with the president to voice their views. It directs the White House advance staff to ask local police "to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferably not in the view of the event site or motorcade route." (my emphasis)

I like to kid my Austrian friends about a popular saying there, "Ordnung ist das halbe Leben" (order is half of life).

But they have a sense of humor about it. And, when it comes to political events involving the most senior government officials, well, they don't just arrange Potemkin events like the White House sets up to showcase Dear Leader Bush's greatness. I reported about a year ago - with actual original material from first-hand observation, even! - about a political rally for the Austrian conservative party, the Österreichische Volkspartei (ÖVP) in our California Governor's hometown of Graz.

As I observed then, Austrian political practices seemed quite exotic for someone from our model American democracy that we take pride in being the model to the world. (The extent to which any other countries in the world see it that way is another question.)

The serving government officials of the time who appeared there in person included Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel; Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser and Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik along with the Defense Minister, the Economics Minister and the Interior Minister (more-or-less the Attorney General in American terms).

As I wrote then:

The most amazing thing about it to me probably didn't seem unusual to most people there. It was that here was the head of government, appearing in a partisan rally along with some of the most senior members of his government. And, unlike the strictly controlled partisan appearances of Dear Leader Bush, the rally was completely open to the public.

Even an unsympathetic foreigner like me could attend. And the place wasn't crawling with uniformed security personnel or burly guys in dark suits and sunglasses. No sharpshooters visible on the rooftops.

Perhaps most unusual of all in comparison to Dear Leader's approach, there was a protester in the crowd who occasionally shouted out something negative. He was standing about thirty yards from the stage when the Chancellor was speaking. There were two security guards who were standing discreetly to either side of him. But they didn't try to drag him out of the crowd or arrest him or beat him up or anything even when he shouted out dissent against the Chancellor. The head of government was actually allowed to hear one of his voters shouting out criticism!

An amazing thing for those of us who have become acclimatized to the way today's Republican Party handles things.

The speeches themselves weren't especially notable, except again for an American, who couldn't help but notice that the horrible, awful menace to Western Civilization from The Terrorists was not a central theme of the speeches. There was much more talk about health care and employment issues. The Foreign Minister used her few minutes to promote Europe, i.e., supporting the European Union. Chancellor Schüssel and Herr Minister Yuppietwit [Grasser] focused more on stock conservative bromides, like how if we just cut taxes for the wealthy and restrict the opportunities of kids from working-class families to go to college, everything will get better.

There was also quite a bit of patriotic hype about how great Austria is. Though by American standards of over-the-top patriotic and nationalistic rhetoric, it was pretty tame.

Sad to say, it's hard to picture that happening here in America right now. Here, demonstrators who might distract from the adoration of Our Leader are treated differently, as the Post reports:

The lawsuit was filed by Jeffery and Nicole Rank, who attended the Charleston [West Virginia] event wearing shirts with the word "Bush" crossed out on the front; the back of his shirt said "Regime Change Starts at Home," while hers said "Love America, Hate Bush." Members of the White House event staff told them to cover their shirts or leave, according to the lawsuit. They refused and were arrested, handcuffed and briefly jailed before local authorities dropped the charges and apologized. The federal government settled the First Amendment case last week for $80,000, but with no admission of wrongdoing.

Now, I take it for granted that no party is going to let their rallies be shouted down by protesters, nor should they. But the Bush practice has obviously gone far beyond that, to the point that his staff try to shield Dear Leader from having any direct exposure to live dissent at all among his subjects.

Today's authoritarian Republican Party increasingly operates on the Benito Giuliani definition of freedom from back in 1994:

Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.

You have free speech so I can be heard. (from 'Freedom Is About Authority': Excerpts From Giuliani Speech on Crime New York Times 03/20/1994

For more than one reason, I generally avoid using the word "fascism" to describe contemporary political movements or arguments. So I would have chosen a different title for Chris Hedges' book on the Christian dominionism in America than American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America (2006). But his book contains a number of "case studies" on individuals, some prominent and some not, that I'm sure will be a valuable resource for other researchers.

One facet of Christian dominionism that discusses is how common words can be redefined in such groups in an almost cult-like manner. For many fundamentalists, as he describes, the entire concept of freedom - including political freedom - becomes defined as submitting to the will of God. As interpreted, of course, by His faithful representatives like Pat Robertson or Sam Brownback. Or, as Giuliani put it, "Freedom is about authority."

On this general topic, check out the comments by Digby (Hail Caesar 08/20/07) and David "Orcinus" Neiwert (Right-wing reductio ad absurdum 08/20/07) about a frank proposal from a columnist, Philip Atkinson, at the conservative Web site Family Security Matters, for a Bush dictatorship. I had never heard of Atkinson before that. And the Web site pulled his post and all his other columns. But the Digby link has the full article. He wrote:

The inadequacy of Democracy, rule by the majority, is undeniable - for it demands adopting ideas because they are popular, rather than because they are wise. This means that any man chosen to act as an agent of the people is placed in an invidious position: if he commits folly because it is popular, then he will be held responsible for the inevitable result. If he refuses to commit folly, then he will be detested by most citizens because he is frustrating their demands. ...

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.

The simple truth that modern weapons now mean a nation must practice genocide or commit suicide. Israel provides the perfect example. If the Israelis do not raze Iran, the Iranians will fulfill their boast and wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Yet Israel is not popular, and so is denied permission to defend itself. In the same vein, President Bush cannot do what is necessary for the survival of Americans. He cannot use the nation's powerful weapons. All he can do is try and discover a result that will be popular with Americans.

I'm not suggesting this is a glimpse of some massive Republican plot. But it is a literate example of how authoritarian thinking can lead to the desire for being rid of the ambiguity of all this troubling democracy stuff, where citizens are expected to think for themselves and take some responsibility for their government. (In the rightwing world, the notion that "Israel" is looking to commit genocide on Iranians, even though the writer seems to like the idea, has a meaning going beyond any foreign policy question, i.e., promoting the idea that The Jews are savage and amoral.)

In a moment like the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks - which made for a pretty long moment - authoritarians can have a chance to push for a "tyranny of the majority", when they happen to be in the majority. The more normal case, though, is for them to be in the minority. And that means their usual position is one of whining about how screwed up all these decadent democratic ideas and practices and popular programs like Social Security are.

Christian fundamentalism also encourages this habit of thought. Fundamentalists normally see themselves as God's Elect and destined to be a permanent minority in an un-Godly world. There's nothing inherently authoritarian in that. But in practice, that can and often does translate into trying to apply their religious certainty to political issues as well, and regarding the very process of compromise inherent in democratic government as un-Godly in itself. The variety of thought known as Christian dominionism particularly encourages that approach.

Tags: authoritarianism, bush, republican party