Friends,
Only we the progressive people of the USA can end fascism in the USA. It is here today, and it is creeping into every sector of our society from the attack on the Socialist Post Office, to the attacks on leaders advocating for the wearing of masks, to those begging for asylum, to the use of the National Guard and other federal agencies to prevent First Amendment rights and to so many other areas including an assault on science. You can argue, I am being hysterical, but we are facing an existential struggle similar to the one faced by the Spanish Republic in the 1930s. You have been warned.
Kagiso, Max
Thursday, July 30, 2020
Death of America's Democracy?
We should not fool ourselves: It could happen here.
commondreams.org/views/2020/07/30/death-americas-democracy
When looking at the possible death
of democracy in the United States, for me the question is no longer, “Can it
happen here?” The question is, “What are we going to do to about it?” (Photo:
Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
On Sept. 11, 1973, I was living in
a shantytown on the outskirts of Santiago, Chile. That morning, one of my
roommates, a Chilean journalist, unexpectedly returned home. “The military just
bombed my radio station,” she said. “There’s a military coup.”
What we had feared, yet hoped would
never happen, was now reality. The Chilean military, backed by the U.S.
government and led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, had overthrown the democratically
elected, socialist government of Salvador Allende.
Independent and progressive media
were shut down; the media that remained were subject to military censorship. A
curfew was in effect, enforced by military troops, and night-time gunshots were
common. Flickers of hope in the beginning days — that there would be a
countercoup or the international community might step in — soon faded away.
In the coming months, the
government and its paramilitary enforcers killed or “disappeared” thousands of
people. It would be 17 years before Pinochet’s dictatorship ended.
The people, united, are
sometimes defeated
I and two friends had traveled to
Chile in the spring of 1973 to learn more of an experiment that had garnered
world attention. For the first time in Latin America, Marxist socialism would
arrive via the ballot box.
We were astounded by the vibrant
political discussions in Chile, and Santiago alone had 10 daily newspapers.
Millions of people marched in the streets to support Allende and we
enthusiastically joined the demonstrations. “The people, united, will never be
defeated,” we chanted.
Throughout the summer of 1973, there
were warning signs that corporate powerbrokers in Chile and abroad wanted to
end this experiment in socialism. Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and so much of
Latin America had borne the brunt of military coups but, the argument went,
Chile was different. Chile had a long history of democracy and political
stability, and the military could never go against the constitution. “It won’t
happen here,” was a common refrain. We wanted so desperately to believe that we
mistook our beliefs for reality.
Echoes of Chile in
Portland
Although the events in Chile
profoundly influenced my life, over time they receded in my consciousness.
Until the recent events in Portland, Oregon. The videos of unidentified
paramilitary forces kidnapping citizens into unmarked vans were like a punch to
the gut, and images of the coup in Chile flashed in my mind. House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi, hardly an antifa activist, called these federal agents what they
were: “storm troopers.”
Do I think there will be a military
coup in the United States? No. But there is more than one way to stifle
democracy, from demonizing the media to mocking the rule of law, pardoning
political cronies, defunding public institutions, suppressing the vote,
tear-gassing peaceful protesters, packing the courts with like-minded
ideologues and eroding the separation of church and state. As authoritarian
leaders around the world have shown, from Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil to Recep
Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, if democratic institutions are sufficiently weakened,
authoritarianism easily co-exists with nominal democracy.
Given the widespread condemnation
of the federal offensive in Portland, Trump has pulled back — sort of — and
there are promises to end the kidnappings and use of unmarked vans. At the same
time, Trump is expanding his offensive and sending federal forces to at least
five cities, including Milwaukee.
There is a new name to the
initiative, Operation Legend rather than Portland’s Operation Diligent
Valor, and the federal forces will be focused on violent crime rather than
protecting federal property. But can we be certain that once in a city, these
federal law enforcement personnel will obey the niceties of law? They certainly
didn’t in Portland.
More disturbing, all it takes is an
executive order by Trump to completely up-end any existing understandings. The
Department of Homeland Security forces in Portland, for instance, were not
there as a matter of routine protocol. They were specifically sent after a
Trump executive order in late June.
Who knows what other executive
orders Trump has in mind?
In a July 24 opinion in The New
York Times, former senator and presidential candidate Gary Hart notes there are at least 100
documents “authorizing extraordinary presidential powers in the case of a
national emergency, virtually dictatorial powers without congressional or
judicial checks and balances.”
Little is known about these secret
powers; they are classified and approved by the National Security Council, not
Congress. But, Hart writes, “we believe they may include suspension of habeas
corpus, surveillance, home intrusion, arrest without a judicial warrant, collective
if not mass arrests and more; some could violate constitutional protections.”
Trump obliquely referred to these
powers last March when he said, “I have the right to do a lot of things that
people don’t even know about.” At the time it seemed just another of Trump’s
many boasts.
What will November
bring?
Looming over these developments are
the November elections
Trump lies so easily and
consistently that we sometimes forget to take him seriously. So perhaps it is
understandable that his statements during his Fox News interview with Chris
Wallace on July 19 did not lead to the outcry they deserved.
In the interview, Trump suggested
he may not accept the results in November if he lost. “You don’t know until you
see,” Mr. Trump said. “It depends. I think mail-in voting is going to rig the
election. I really do.”
There are ample reasons to worry
about the November elections, from voter suppression to warnings of foreign
interference. Add in the COVID-19 pandemic and it’s clear we are in uncharted
waters.
I find myself increasingly thinking
about the events in Chile in 1973 and the belief that Chile’s socialist
experiment would be protected by the country’s history of democracy. Pinochet
proved us wrong.
When looking at the possible death
of democracy in the United States, for me the question is no longer, “Can it
happen here?” The question is, “What are we going to do to about it?”
Barbara Miner has been a reporter,
writer, and editor for almost forty years, writing for publications ranging
from the New York Times to the Milwaukee Journal.
The former managing editor of Rethinking Schools, she has co-edited
numerous books on education, including Selling out Our Schools:
Vouchers, Markets, and the Future of Public Education.
Her book Lessons from the
Heartland: A Turbulent Half-Century of Public Education in an Iconic American
City will be published New Press in January 2013.
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Donations can be sent
to Max Obuszewski, Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 431 Notre Dame Lane, Apt. 206,
Baltimore, MD 21212. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at]
comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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