The difference from past campaigns lies in the media mandarins' sad belief that there will actually be a genuine, open, presidential election in November 2004. This childlike faith stems, of course, from their equally fallacious conviction that the United States did not suffer a coup d'etat in December 2000 at the hands of an extremist faction of elites.
America's media leaders insist there was no coup because power was
transferred "without tanks in the streets.
Although the installation of second-place finisher George W. Bush
was engineered in a wholly unprecedented and unconstitutional manner
-- from the illegal purging of more than 90,000 eligible, predominantly
black voters from the Florida rolls by Jeb Bush to the violent mobs
of Republican congressional staffers paid by George Bush to break up
the vote recounts in Miami to the threats of military insurrection
muttered by Bush Family factotum General Norman Schwarzkopf to the
use of Republican-paid ex-CIA operatives to "correct" 15,000
Florida absentee ballots to the Supreme Court ruling that unlawfully
halted the Florida recount by citing a totally fictitious deadline
for final tallies, down to the congressional session that officially "ratified" the
election result, held in an half-empty chamber lacking the legally
required quorum -- America's media leaders insist there was no coup
because power was transferred "without tanks in
the streets."
But of course, a classic
coup is "not necessarily assisted by either the intervention of
the masses or, to any significant degree, by military-type force." It's
an inside job, carried out by factions within the elite. Who says?
The man who literally wrote the book on the subject: right-wing guru
-- and Pentagon advisor -- Edward Luttwak.
In 1968, Luttwak penned "Coup d'Etat: A Practical Handbook," which
could be the text of the 2000 Bush campaign, as John Dee reports in Lumpen magazine.
Drawing on the extensive experience of the CIA in such pranks, Luttwak says that "a
coup consists of the infiltration of a small but critical segment of the state
apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of
the remainder." True coupsters "want to seize power within the present
system" [his italics], then use the existing lines of authority and habits
of obedience inherent in legitimate government to advance their own illegitimate
aims.
Propaganda and false patriotism are key coup ingredients. Luttwak says a coup's "information
campaign" must "reassure the general public by dispelling fears that
the coup is inspired by extremist elements, and to persuade particular groups
that the coup is not a threat to them. The first aim will be achieved by manipulating
national symbols and by asserting our belief in the prevailing pieties." United
we stand!
Meanwhile,
Luttwak explains, opponents of the coup must be painted as isolated
cranks, "a few misguided or dangerous individuals," unable to "move
on" and accept the wonderful new reality. Reports of opposition must
be "withheld" whenever possible; failing that, they must be marginalized
and belittled, because "news of any resistance against us would act
as a powerful stimulant to further resistance by breaking down this feeling
of isolation."
We know that Bush never reads any book that doesn't have pictures of goats
in it, but it's clear that Dick Cheney has had a well-thumbed copy of Luttwak's
handbook in his back pocket for years. The 2000 coup was carried out along
Luttwakian lines by a small group of ideologues and elitists -- the latter
drawn largely from the energy and defense industries -- seeking to advance
their illegitimate aim of global domination by military force and control
of the world's energy resources.
These objectives were no secret. Since 1992, Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and a
gaggle of other dominionists now in power aired their plans publicly via
a web of corporate-funded pressure groups. These documents -- including
their chilling call in September 2000 for a "new Pearl Harbor" to
shock Americans into supporting rapacious dominion schemes -- provided
a blueprint that the coup-makers have followed with remarkable fidelity.
The truth was there for anyone to see. But it was ignored by the dim-witted,
well-wadded corporate media -- whose owners, drooling over Bush promises
of mega-mergers and deregulation, were easily persuaded that the takeover "was
not a threat to them."
It's dangerously naive to believe that such a gang, coming to power in
such a fashion, will allow a legitimate electoral contest to take place
next year. They have too much to lose. They haven't expended so much effort
-- and so many thousands of innocent lives -- to build this vast engine
of repression and profit only to turn it over to Howard Dean or John Kerry,
just because the stupid American people say so.
So yes, there will be an "election" -- with conventions, debates,
ads, voting, the whole schmeer. But as Josef Stalin once said: "It's
not the votes that count, it's who counts the votes." And in 2004,
most votes will be "counted" by paperless, unverifiable, eminently
hackable computer systems, privately owned and secretly programmed by Bush
supporters from the Religious Right and the military-intelligence complex.
Again, this is no "conspiracy theory"; it's all out in the open
-- for anyone who cares to look. Next week, we'll do just that. Stay tuned.
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