Three years ago I began this blog with a question: what the hell is going on? I watched as the country I love and served veered to the right under the sway of Neo-Conservatism and its practitioner's policies of FUD. Dark times indeed, but I fear darker times are yet to come.

John Dean, former White House Council to President Richard M. Nixon, recently wrote a book called Conservatives Without Conscience. In it he discusses the traits of authoritarian personalities and those of the people who follow them. Mr. Dean, having served President Nixon during the Watergate Era has a unique perspective on this. He is deeply concerned that America is in danger of falling too far into the thrall of despotism(google video).

As a bat-shit crazy conspiracy geek I have my own unique perspective: Mr. Dean is dead wrong. The United States is in no danger of becoming a right-wing dictatorship. We're as close to that today as we will ever come. The good news is that America will avoid the anti-democratic police state of George W. Bush's blurry-eyed, God and freedom dream (Remember when he didn't “do the vision thing"? Good times). The bad news is that no one has told the fringe yet.

There are people in our nation today who strongly support the dogma of the New American Century. Come November, while Neo-Cons in Washington are packing up there desks, shedding paperwork, and planning their golden triangle moves out of policy and into industry or academia, the fringe will be seething.

For the past decade extremists in American have been placated. Those born to wave the flag have done so with impunity, reveling in daily displays of American military might. And here I'm not talking about flag-ribbon magnet SUV driving soccer moms from the suburbs. I mean the real wackos, of which there are many. These people love America, don't get me wrong, but they love our nation in an icky, unrequited way (see One Hour Photo). Under the right circumstances these Americans can be dangerous. Circumstances we are likely to experience over the next two years.

Should the Bush regime, and by extension the GOP, fall from grace with the general electorate, terroristic extremism not fascism will be the danger America faces. In his book Mr. Dean discusses the followers of authoritarian figures, and specifically how these individuals have a tendency to follow too strongly and for too long. What then will their reaction be once their politicians have been defeated at the polls? We've already experienced some of what we can expect.

In their child-like minds they will rationalize violence against their own "misguided" country. Bombings, assassinations, intimidation. In a word: terrorism.

Can it happen here?

Labels: FUD, John Dean, neocon, new american century

America is at a crossroads. Expect this trite but true little bit of rhetoric to be a central theme in 2006. The message will be pounded in the brains of the American voter by every Democrat worth their salt from now straight through until November 2008.

Some have already started preaching the word, but not everyone appreciates the strategy. After all, if the DNC makes the case that the upcoming elections are not between the right and the left, but rather between the past and the future, what will become of all those Dems who have gone along for the ride this far? Aren't they part of the past? I'm looking at you Hillary. Sorry, but 2008 isn't your year.

Aside from the sour grapes, I think this is a winning strategy. Using the future as a launching pad for the elections is brilliant. Don't polarize the nation with a debate on abortion. Shit the neo-cons and their fundy pals are trying to roll us back to arguing evolution. Responsible science initiatives (i.e. breaking that "oil addiction"), and a firm stance on consumer rights with regard to digital media are issue that the average American can understand. Gas tanks and iPods.

Lets get this one right. We may not have another chance.

Labels: 2006 mid-term election, 2008 Election, Hillary Clinton, neocon

I'm not a sports fan. Never have been, really. So I'm not as accustomed as some to the experience of loosing. Oh, I've lost before - games, races, contests, etc. - but watching a team you supported loose is something different altogether. Especially in politics.

The feeling is worse than loss. It's closer to rejection. Dealing with that has been difficult for most of us who don't support the current Administration. I still havn't seen a major catharsis in the any-one-but Bush community. It's January, and I think we're still floating free. There is no singular voice of leadership in opposition to the Bush Administration to rally behind. Howard Dean was the closest we came until the pep-rally scream incident was played by the media, the right, and the entrenched left for all it was worth. But Dean might yet have his say.

Here's hoping.

At any rate, analysis is not acceptance. Nor is it particularly constructive at this point. The NeoCons are shaping our future today. That's a fact. Waiting until 2008 for another cheap compromise ticket is not an option I'm particularly looking forward to. And to be honest, ranting and raving at every injustice, inaptitude, and outright deception perpetrated by BushCo just doesn't sit well with me either. To do so would be repeating the mistakes of the past. They are framing the argument everyday, and we are left with nothing but our own tails to chase in the echochamber of our blogs. Hence my prolonged silence here.

Fortunately, things change.

Labels: 2004 election, 2008 Election, bloggers, blogging, neocon

In managing any addiction, the very first step is to accept that you have a problem. My name is Ernest, and I’m a Political Science junkie.

My computer is on before my coffee pot – it's the last thing I turn off before going to bed (typically right after scanning several news sites just one last time for the night).

Clearly I have a problem.

Quitting is not an option. Political Science has been so much of my life for so long, I don’t know that I can survive without it now. It’s not a love, it’s a necessity. I need it more than food, water, or money.

I struggled for a long time with my addiction; I suppressed it, I denied it. But that time is over. From now on I will control my needs, and I will direct them.

This is no longer a reactive blog. I will not sit here and allow my country to be high jacked and steered into oblivion by neoconservative fanatics. I am an American: A free citizen with a voice and a vote, and I will use them both to hinder, to delay, and to stop the current administration from doing any more irreparable harm to our nation.

I dedicate this blog to change. The first step on the path back to America will be the 2004 Presidential Election. George W. Bush must not “win” that election.

No real alternative to the Bush administration will emerge from the Republican party. Their members have long since been beaten into submission. Not even John McCain can break the administration’s strangle hold on American conservatives – of which I am one.

Third party candidates will have their day, but this is not it. The 2004 election is too important for the long term future of our country to experiment with alternatives. Vote Green, or Reform, or Cool Moose at home – but reserve your presidential vote for someone who can win.

I’ve examined the Democratic field of contenders – it’s not pretty. Even worse, by the time next November rolls around, America is going to be ass deep in shit. Our troops will be engaged in Iraq, the North Korean problem will still persist, and at home our economy will probably be about as vibrant as it is today.

We need change like we’ve never needed it before. The election in November is our last best chance to get it. Governor Howard Dean of Vermont is the candidate who can give us what we need. Expect to see his name more on this blog in the future.

Have no fear, I’ll still be devoting plenty of time and energy to foreign policy and current events (I said I was taking the first step in overcoming this addiction), but I’ll also be paying very close attention to Dr. Dean. I hope you will do the same.

Labels: 2004 election, bloggers, blogging, George W. Bush, howard dean, neocon

The United States continues to ignore diplomatic options in its handling of the North Korean problem. Time and again our administration has ignored pleas from the international community and policy experts within our own government to engage North Korea in a meaningful dialogue before the situation escalates beyond non-military resolution.

Today, as the U.S. makes the most of the North Korean intercept of one of our reconnaissance planes - which is a much more common occurrence than most of the American public likely realizes - the administration has further isolated North Korea by deploying long range bombers to Guam.

Add this to the fast track deployment of an untested missile defense system on our west coast, and the administration’s long term policy plans for the region begin to come into focus. But there’s something here that just doesn’t sit right for me: Guam.

I understand that these are long range bombers, but why Guam? Why not Japan? Hell, why not South Korea? If the administration is honestly attempting to intimidate North Korea into compliance with the non-proliferation treaty while refusing to debate a non-aggression pact, why not put those bombers right in North Korea’s backyard?

I have a couple of thoughts on this.

First, it may be that Japan doesn’t want to play host to these U.S. forces due to fears of North Korean retribution. This makes sense, but seeing as how Japan would probably be a target of North Korean aggression should a conflict occur anyway, I find it unlikely that Japan would refuse the back-up protection.

Secondly, it may be that the administration is sensitive to inadvertently touching off a conflict with an increasingly skittish North Korea by pushing too hard, too fast. Given the complete lack of subtly in the administration’s past policy calls, I doubt this as well.

That leaves us with a third possibility – the one I consider most likely: North Korea’s missile technology is much more advanced than our administration is willing to admit. If this is true, and targets in South Korea and Japan are within range, then Guam is the only place we can put our bombers.

This would also explain an unusual story from the Korea Times today that stated that a warhead launched in a North Korean missile test was found in Alaska. If true, this has dramatic implications for our current foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific region.

I’d like to believe that the Alaska story is a bit of over-zealous reporting on the part of the South Korean press, but the Guam thing is really bugging me.

I sincerely hope that I am very, very wrong on this. If I’m not, and the administration continues on its present course, there will be a nuclear crisis in a matter of months. It doesn’t matter which nation is the ultimate victim of that crisis; it may be the U.S., it may be Japan or South Korea, it may even be North Korea itself. The bottom line is that it doesn’t have to happen at all.

Unless our administration pulls its head out of its ass, expect to become well versed in the economic consequences of fighting a two-front war in the very near future.

Labels: aei, Donald Rumsfeld, neocon, new american century, North Korea

George W. Bush is not dumb. Nor is he a slack-jawed buffoon. He is, in fact, an excellent orator. This is not observed by the vast majority of us because we are plebeians not privy to the real George W. Bush. His true persona is reserved for the share holders of America Inc.

Case in point: His recent address to the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI). Bush used the opportunity of a dinner sponsored by that most prestigious of “right-wing think tanks” to outline his administration’s long term foreign policy goals (28 min. RealMedia or transcript).

As a long time foreign affairs and international relations junkie, my final analysis of those goals is this: Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

Pax Americana is no fantasy. The Bush administration is doing everything in its considerable power to ensure a global hegemony the likes of which have never been known. Following the war in Iraq, the U.S. will maintain instantaneous force projection capability throughout the world. Put simply, we will be able to deploy a significant number troops to any nation on Earth within 24 hours, and their support units will already be in place. Never before has a single nation had such power.

On its surface, this doesn’t seem a bad thing. With this type of reach, our country will be safe from any who oppose it. It becomes troubling, however, when one considers the converse: None who oppose our nation shall be safe.

If American domestic policy was a model for the world - if it did in fact represent the greatest freedoms of the world – I think most Americans would go along with the Pax Americana plan. But this is not the case. Let’s face it, America has some problems.

I could make a laundry list here of cases in which the U.S. government has over-stepped its bounds - either intentionally or otherwise - to the detriment of law abiding citizens like you and I, but I won’t. We all know how badly our government can screw-up sometimes. I’m also not going to say that any other government does everything better than ours. No such government exists. The question is, if every government is flawed, which one is best deserving of the title “ruler the world”?

The answer is none of them. No one nation should ever rule this world. Not even America.

Despite this, the goal of Pax Americana is nothing short of world domination by a single super power. It is a vision of sustainable global stability, if not global peace, under the watchful eye of the United States. The Bush administration, and those who support them, believe that the United States can be a benevolent dictator to the world. But they need Iraq first.

To this end, the administration has been struggling to convince both the international community, and the citizens of the United States, that America can be trusted to act as custodian of one of the largest oil fields ever discovered, and then walk away once a democratic government is in place in Iraq. The administration points to Germany and Japan, and our occupation of those nations after the Second World War as proof of our abilities of self-restraint. It’s an argument not without merit, but it does not apply here.

Iraq is not Germany, and it is not Japan. Neither of those nations had the ethnic and religious diversity of Iraq. Neither of them presented the long term challenges of security and factional conflict that Iraq will. The United States occupied Germany and Japan not only to protect the world from their militaristic aspirations, but also to protect those nations from being consumed by an expanding Soviet Union. We will have no such role in Iraq. Instead, the task of the occupation forces will be to keep Iraq from exploding into a million pieces before a stable government can be established. This is not World War II, this is Bosnia in the desert.

President Bush and his top generals, namely Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Shinseki, have assured us that the U.S. will “stay in Iraq as long as we have to, and not a day more.” But who will decide when it is safe to leave Iraq on its own? America will. When we have decided that Iraq is safe for democracy, we will withdraw most - but not all - of our troops just as we did from Japan and Germany. From that point on, we will pay Iraq for the privilege of hosting whatever U.S. troops remain, just as we do with Germany and Japan to this day. In short, the American military will have a permanent home in the Middle East.

Pax Americana is a brilliant plan. This whole world domination thing really has potential. And yet, it just doesn’t smell right.

Something’s rotten in the state of domestic policy. If we’re going to be benevolent dictators to the world, then that means we’ll be able to protect American freedoms here at home from all manner of threat. All manner of exterior threat that is. That’s the problem with the neat and tidy Pax worldview. It allows the most powerful government in the world to become that much more powerful. And all the while that government is chipping away at the basic freedoms of its own citizens.

This blog is filled with examples of how our rights as individual citizens are being stripped away. These instances are not separate from the role the U.S. is seeking to play on the global stage. At this point, our foreign and domestic policies are more intertwined than ever before.

Make no mistake, our government is still reacting to September 11, 2001. As a matter of fact, I think they're just getting started. Day by day the administration is moving to curtail more of our freedoms and enforce newly minted laws. It’s like a well oiled machine; Humming and spinning, its power grows with each press conference and with every news broadcast.

Be careful, world. A sleeping giant has just awoken, and the administration of George W. Bush is at the helm.

Labels: 9/11, aei, Gen. Shinseki, George W. Bush, iraq, neocon, new american century