The Founders Never Imagined a Bush Administration

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

By Joyce Appleby and Gary Hart

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-hart/the-founders-never-imagin_b_18613.html

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When President Nixon covertly subverted checks and balances 30 years ago during the Vietnam War, Congress passed laws making clear that presidents were not to engage in unconstitutional behavior in the interest of "national security." Then Congress was reacting to violation of Fourth Amendment protections against searches and seizures without judicial warrants establishing "probable cause," attempts to assassinate foreign leaders and surveillance of American citizens.

Now the Iraq war is being used to justify similar abuses. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, providing constitutional means to carry out surveillance, and the Intelligence Identification Protection Act, protecting the identity of undercover intelligence agents, have both been violated by an administration seeking to restore "the legitimate authority of the presidency," as Cheney puts it.

The presidency possesses no power not granted to it under the Constitution. The powers the current administration seeks in its "war on terror" are not granted under the Constitution. Indeed, they are explicitly prohibited by acts of Congress.

The Founding Fathers, who always come to mind when the Constitution is in danger, anticipated just such a possibility. Writing in the Federalist Papers, James Madison defined tyranny as the concentration of powers in one branch of the government.

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[Erika]

1. Bush has taken over as king and suspended the Constitution

and the minority bushbots applaud him. How very sad.

[Peace Patriot]

2. I disagree with your subject line, "The Founders never imagined a Bush

administration."

That is exactly what they did imagine--and tried their damnedest to prevent, by hedging round the executive power by every kind of constraint they could think of, from giving Congress and only Congress the right to declare war, to giving Congress sole control of the money, to separating everything into three independent branches, each to be a check on the other, to prohibiting the establishment of a state religion (often used by European tyrants to oppress people and start wars), and they even thought of WRITING INTO THE CONSTITUTION A *SPECIFIC* CLAUSE PROHIBITING ANY PERSON--PRESIDENT, POLICE OR ANYONE ELSE--FROM IMPEDING A MEMBER OF CONGRESS' ENTRY INTO CONGRESS TO DO THE PEOPLES' BUSINESS, because kings were notorious for using "national security" excuses to harass and detain members of parliaments! (McKinney bashers, take note!)

They could well imagine a 'Bush administration'--they were living under one when they rebelled!

Finally, they thought, with a free press GUARANTEED BY THE BILL OF RIGHTS, and universal white male suffrage (rather than just landed gentry voting--a revolution in its day), the people themselves, an informed and vigilant citizenry, would kick any president with monarchial ambitions or tyrannical behavior out of office.

And Thomas Jefferson--bless his soul!--even thought of corporate power and what it could do to destroy democracy, but, as with his anti-slavery provision (yup, Jefferson), his anti-corporate notions were overruled, and their relegation to the states (which charter corporations) gave him hope that "the people" would take care of the matter by LIMITING THE CHARTERS of corporations and RESCINDING THOSE CHARTERS and DISMANTLING corporations, and seizing their assets, when they attempted to grab too much power, engaged in monopolistic practices, or otherwise ceased serving the COMMON GOOD.

THAT is what most of the Founders could not imagine--NOT a "Bush junta" (they had excellent examples of that in the monarchies of Europe). No, it was CORPORATE RULE that they couldn't imagine. CORPORATE monarchs. CORPORATE fiefdoms. CORPORATE slave labor. CORPORATE purchase of politicians. CORPORATE lobbyists. CORPORATE monopolies of all virtually all the means of communication and news. And CORPORATE control of the tabulation of all the votes in the country with 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code and virtually no audit/recount controls--and not just any corporations, but corporations with big ties to the fascist monarch in the White House and far rightwing 'christian' causes.

They would be flabbergasted at the latter. How could "the people" have ever become so uninformed, or so inattentive, as to let THAT happen--loss of their right to vote?

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We're back to square one, folks. It's as if the American Revolution didn't happen. And we have to START by RESTORING our right to vote.

Priority No. One: Throw Diebold, ES&S and ALL election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

:think: :patriot: :think: :patriot: :think: :think: :patriot: :think: :patriot: :think:

[KT2000]

3. Great Post!

You are so right. The checks and balances were put in place exactly for a bush administration.

[Peace Patriot]

6. ...and were DEFEATED by unimaginable, out of control CORPORATE

power.

War profiteers. Global corporate predators. That's who put Bush in power--and then kept him there with Diebold and ES&S.

[FiveGoodMen]

9. But also -- unimaginably -- by a public only too willing to hand over

their rights.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

4. I took the title for the piece used at...

Huffington Post for my subject line, which I usually do when posting an editorial. I did, however, have the same thought you did---I think they did anticipate BushCo. Thanks for pointing it out.

The piece itself does not try to make a case for the wrongheaded idea in the title so I didn't consider it a big deal.

You're right about restoring free and fair elections. That IS priority one.

[Demeter]

5. They Also Acknowledged and Supported the Notion of 2nd Revolution

Although the founders of this nation hoped it would never be necessary, they did admit that further Revolution might be necessary in the future, if the government they established got seriously out of whack.

So about 100 years after, there was the Civil War, not quite a revolution, but damn close. Its ending was short-circuited, however, and the wounds allowed to fester. One hundred years after that came the Civil Rights and other rights movements: women, peace, etc. Again, these revolutions were short-circuited, especially the women's rights. Other groups fared much better, and one major component of the Civil War seems to have been finally laid to rest, mostly.

And it's only been 50 years since then, and we REALLY seriously need another course correction--and this one will have to deal with the fundamental issue of the corporate monster: the fiction of corporate personhood, corporate meddling in elections, corporate draining of national resources to strip the profits from the people who worked to produce them, and so forth. It would also be nice to finish the Women's Revolution, instead of waiting for all the chauvinists to die off or fail to reproduce, or their daughters to be seduced by equality.

I have a hard time imagining such a Nirvana. But I'd like to try it on for size.

[Peace Patriot]

7. I agree, and I hope this revolution is peaceful and democratic like the

huge leftist revolution that has swept South America. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Uruguay, Bolivia--and soon Peru. Nearly the whole continent. And Mexico is going to be next.

If the Latin Americans can do it--who have suffered so much--so can we.

"The time of the people has come." --Evo Morales (first indigenous president of Bolivia, elected last month, after the Bolivians threw Bechtel out of their country for privatizing the water and jacking up the prices to the poor)

[Peace Patriot]

8. SOME RESOURCES FOR AMERICAN REVOLUTION II: SOME RESOURCES FOR AMERICAN REV

Hopeful signs - latest news:

California voters sue the state over Diebold:
www.VoterAction.org--just announced--is suing the state of California and 18 Calif county registrars on behalf of 25 California voter/plaintiffs, on the illegal Diebold "certification" by Schwarzenegger appointee Bruce McPherson.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2180496

Maryland rejects Diebold:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x418263

Florida - anti-trust accusations against Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia, re: heroic Florida election official Ion Sancho:
(FLA AG subpoenas the companies:)
http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/legalissues/story/0,10801,110192,00.html
http://www.tbo.com/news/politics/MGBKSY8W8LE.html
(info & discussion:)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2183630

Utah county clerk fights back!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x419226

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More resources for American Revolution II:

www.votersunite.org (MythBreakers - easy primer on electronic voting--one of the myths is that HAVA requires electronic voting; it does not.)
www.verfiedvoting.org (great activist site)
www.votetrustusa.org (news of this great movement from around the country)
www.UScountvotes.org (statistical monitoring of '06 and '08 elections)
www.solarbus.org/election/index.shtml (fab compendium of all election info)
www.freepress.org (devoted to election reform)
www.bradblog.com (also great, and devoted to election reform)
www.TruthIsAll.net (analysis of the 2004 election)* :patriot: :applause: :patriot:
www.votepa.us (well-organized local group of citizen activists in Pennsylvania, where important legal issues are at stake, including state's rights over election systems)

The Voter Confidence Resolution
http://tinyurl.com/rlnr2 (“We Do Not Consent”)
http://guvwurld.blogspot.com (GuvWurld blog main page)
http://tinyurl.com/amryg (Voter Confidence Resolution

www.debrabowen.com (Calif Senator running for Sec of State to reform election system)
www.johnbonifaz.com (running for Massachusetts Sec of State on strong election reform and antiwar platform)

*Some tributes to TruthIsAll, who is very ill:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x417007
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x417231
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x675477

**Congressional bills:

**Russ Holt's HR 550 requires a paper ballot, bans secret software in "voting machines", and has 169 sponsors, but the audit required is too weak, it promotes centralized power over elections, it promotes electronic voting, and the secret software might be permitted to continue in the central tabulators (the bill is not clear). To sign the HR 550 petition: http://www.rushholt.com/petition.html
**Discussion of the dangers in HR 550 or any bill by the current Congress:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x421136
(Note: Senate Bill-SB 330 and House-HR704 simply require a "voter verified paper audit trail" (VVPAT), which may be best for the moment.)


Also of interest:

Bob Koehler (-- four recent election reform initiatives in Ohio, predicted to win by 60/40 votes, flipped over, on election day, into 60/40 LOSSES!--the biggest flipover we've seen yet; the election theft machines and their masters are now dictating election policy!)
www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?file=20051124ctnbk-a.txt&catid=1824&code=ctnbk

Bob Koehler's latest: "Take this box and stuff it" (3/16/06)
http://commonwonders.com/archives/col337.htm

Amaryllis (Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia lavish lobbying of election officials - Beverly Hilton, Aug. '05)
www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380340

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Throw Diebold, ES&S and ALL election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

:think: :patriot: :woohoo: :patriot: :think:

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"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it." --Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence