Looking for a Silver Lining

The innocuously-named Military Commissions Act of 2006 was recently signed into law by an all-too-eager George Bush. Within it, the Congress had agreed that the executive—specifically, the POTUS—effectively has the final word on the definition of torture, applicability of protections from the Constitution, as well as which information is considered too vital to the nation’s security to be communicated to either its own citizens or other members of the government. The executive has the right to declare anyone—anyone at all, including American citizens—an enemy combatant and have them arrested without charge, bail or access to a lawyer. Habeous Corpus is gone, blown away by the winds of change. In one flourish of the pen, Bush retroactively and simultaneously justified and erased all of the crimes he and his administration have committed.

The article, Treason: Who Decides? by Nat Hentoff (Village Voice), addresses the increasingly flexible definition of treason or “giving aid and comfort to the enemy”. The Bush administration has shown that it’s only too happy to slap this incredibly slippery phrase onto just about any form of disagreement. There are a lot of concrete examples of gloom and doom in the article, with many things that could happen as a result of this new law. But that’s the thing, the more strict and ridiculous and out-of-tune with mainstream thought a law is, the less likely it is to be used. It’s far more likely to just help tumble America ever further down the road to laughingstock of the world.

The worst part isn’t really a fear that America will actually become a fascist nation bent on world domination and fueled by an iron-fisted grip on dissent at home. That’s the kind of thing the Germans were really good at. Unless you can take over the world by remote control with a 64oz soda in one hand, we’re not likely to do so. No, the worst part is the sheer embarassment of having the rest of the world watch as we brag about ourselves, sell ourselves out to the loudest screamer and end up with nothing, waking up in the gutter lying in a pool of our own sick and not remembering the names of any of the bars, strippers or pals who were only too happy to relieve us of wealth, power and prestige as we rocketed down off of our high horse.

Hentoff, as do many others, discusses nightmare scenarios, in which treason is equated with dissent and people are disappeared for looking the wrong way. That takes a lot of effort, a lot of coördination and a lot of organization. Not exactly our cup of tea, so to speak. You can’t chastise America for being too lazy and too fat to get off its couch, then accuse it of trying to take over the world. A clampdown at home will only go so far, before people simply get bored with it. If enough people don’t care, no amount of government and/or police pressure will make them care.

And the internet is a remarkable equalizer—oppressers will learn quickly that their mugs will be on YouTube by morning for all of the naughty things they’ve done the night before. Not that there won’t be horrible things done and not that people won’t get hurt. It’s just that it won’t amount to anything as bad as any dystopic future novel you can mention. More “sound and fury, signifying nothing” than the “end of the world as we know it”. How can the same society that has racked up stunning losses in wars against drugs, pornography and both Southeast Asian and now Middle Eastern countries suddenly get its shit together to become a lean, mean, focused, oppressing machine? We’re at best capable of the ennervating, petty kind of oppression that’s so much in evidence in our society today.

Granted, even an optimistic read of history over the last century finds a good deal of oppression coming from our side of the pond, but imagine what the Germans could have done on our budget! Because of our inherent distractedness and lack of stick-to-itiveness, we’re actually a joke in the cost-effectiveness department. It’s only because there was such a grotesque amount of cash around that we got as much done as we did. And that’s starting to peter out. Now all we’ve got coming up is ever-increasing embarassment as door after door slams in our face and other countries pull their drapes, shaking their heads as America continues up the street, raving to itself and thumping its chest, and muttering, “you still da man”.