America Has Fallen to a Jacobin Coup (Paul Craig Roberts)

[Starfury]

Even though I disagree with PCR on social issues, etc., I can't help but admire his tenacious criticism of Shrub's administration. In this article, he argues that we're no longer a democracy, drawing an effective analogy with the infamous Star Chamber. Nothing new to us, but it'd be nice if conservatives actually read this....

(...)

There is an even greater cost of the war – the legal system that protects liberty, a human achievement for which countless numbers of people gave their lives over the centuries. The Bush administration used Sept. 11 to whip up fear and hysteria and to employ these weapons against American liberty. The Orwellian-named PATRIOT Act has destroyed habeas corpus. The executive branch has gained the unaccountable power to detain American citizens on mere suspicion or accusation, without evidence, and to hold Americans indefinitely without a trial.

Foolishly, many Americans believe this power can only be used against terrorists. Americans don't realize that the government can declare anyone to be a terrorist suspect. As no evidence is required, it is entirely up to the government to decide who is a terrorist. Thus, the power is unaccountable. Unaccountable power is the source of tyranny.

The English-speaking world has not seen such power since the 16th and 17th centuries when the Court of Star Chamber became a political weapon used against the king's opponents and to circumvent Parliament. The Star Chamber dispensed with juries, permitted hearsay evidence, and became so reviled that "Star Chamber" became a byword for injustice. The Long Parliament abolished the Star Chamber in 1641. In obedience to the Bush regime, the U.S. Congress resurrected it with the PATRIOT Act. Can anything be more Orwellian than identifying patriotism with the abolition of habeas corpus?

Historians are quick to note that the Star Chamber was mild compared to Gitmo, to the U.S. practice of sending detainees abroad to be tortured, and to the justice (sic) regime being run by Attorney General "Torture" Gonzales and his predecessor, "Draped Justice" Ashcroft, who went so far as to say that opposition to the PATRIOT Act was itself the mark of a terrorist.

(...)

http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=7282

[firefox]

1. He is a converted conservative

His work appears at CounterPunch.org and about a week ago Alexander Cockburn mentioned he is a converted conservative. Now converted to what, I do not know.

[Starfury]

2. Converted to rational thought? :-) n/t

[txaslftist]

4. Converted nothing.

He's a conservative, plain and simple, in the original pre-neocon sense of the word. He's what you might call a paleo-conservative or a "traditional" conservative. He's also a bit of a libertarian and I've read a number of his essays on Lew Rockwell.com

He warned a long time ago that the neocons were hijacking the republican party, and now they've hijacked the country.

[firefox]

6. Yes he is a conservative

What I am talking about comes from this article at CounterPunch.org- http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09032005.html It is the last paragraph of the article where it says "But from the "conservative" side have come people like Jude and his old colleague, who now sails weekly under our colors, Paul Craig Roberts." He is talking about the agitators.

Most references call CounterPunch left of center, but it is primarily a muckraking website which means it exposes corruption. The article mention by the original poster of this thread is the first article I have ever bookmarked by PCR. I thought it was a finely crafted work.

The article is up now at http://www.counterpunch.org/

[HereSince1628]

3. America has fallen to totalitarian democracy

In the sense of French usage that this results in extreme central control I agree that the change has been brought about by Jacobins.

The goal of Rovian agenda is to make the US a single party state into the forseeable future. Such a Conservative Reich is free from worries of a viable opposition. Representative government becomes a sham and releases the Party to plunder the nation on behalf of the power elite.

As we have seen in New Orleans the immediate effect of servicing the power elite is to weaken the the day to day operations of government. The agencies of government, those parts of the system that actually interact with citizens thus best serve the Reich as a tool for patronage. They become more and more dysfunctional and less and less accountable.

[txaslftist]

5. America has fallen to Robber Barons.

"American Democracy" is a sad joke.

[triguy46]

7. Well, duh...

The only news here is that 4 years later, people still don't understand what they have given up. They have traded their civil rights and protections for the * view of antiterrorism, the most visible function being making my 84 year old mother take her shoes off to get on an airplane.

I think we can assume that we are being watched, that our movements here on the web are being tracked, perhaps only electronically, but tracked and monitored nonetheless. Give the repugs a few more years and it will be time for them to start the purges. El Presidente for Life has proven that the public can be fooled by even the simplest of minds.

[pushycat]

8. Data Mining enables tracking of people

and that was going on before Bush got here.

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/08/15/a_wasted_opportunity_in_war_on_terror?mode=PF


<snip> In 2003, members of Congress of both parties shut down an experimental military research program called Terrorism Information Awareness. Originally known as Total Information Awareness, or TIA, the program was run by Admiral John Poindexter, best known for his felony conviction -- later overturned -- in the Iran-Contra scandal.

TIA was an experimental effort run by the same military research agency that led the development of the Internet. This time, the goal was to develop technologies that would search hundreds of government and commercial databases, in search of patterns that might indicate criminal or terrorist activity. <snip>

John Poindexter of Iran-Contra back in action and continues to this day.

[isayitstinks]

12. John Poindexter

Does he now work for British Marine Technologies (a big U.S. military contractor)? Working on technologies known as HumanID and Bio-Surveillance?

[teryang]

9. Roberts has been a consistent critic of this regime

I've been reading counterpunch for a couple of years and he's been spot on during that period.

[shance]

10. Wasn't Paul Roberts the Assistant Secretary of Treasury under Reagan?

If so, he's come a long way.

[LibertyorDeath]

11. Kick for a must read.