A Cancerous Tumor in the Body Politic: Time for Surgery

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http://crisispapers.igc.org/essays-w/tumor.htm

 

A Cancerous Tumor in the Body Politic:

Time for Surgery

 

By Bernard Weiner, Co-Editor

The Crisis Papers

 

August 16, 2005

 

 

When White House Counsel John Dean in 1973 told Richard

Nixon that there was a " cancer growing on the presidency, " it wasn't

totally clear if he was referring to the Watergate coverup inside the

White House, or to the felonies committed by Nixon's closest aides,

or, without coming right out and saying so, to the President himself.

 

But, clearly, something toxic was eating away at the

President's legitimacy, Dean was suggesting, thus putting Nixon in

potential legal jeopardy. Something had to be done to protect the

presidency, if not the President, from the mortal danger symbolized by

that cancer metaphor.

 

Nothing remedial was done; the coverup grew worse -- one

lie and deception and crime piled on another -- and the cancer killed

Nixon's presidency. With the Congress about to impeach him, he

resigned in disgrace.

 

That medical metaphor is much on my mind these days, and

not just when thinking about the Bush presidency. Someone close to our

family recently was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast

cancer. Something potentially deadly was growing inside her body.

 

 

WHEN TUMORS MUST BE REMOVED

 

The tumor had to be removed, and it was excised a few days

ago. She appears to be recuperating well, but now steps will have to

be taken (chemo, radiation, change in diet, etc.) to ensure that the

cancer does not spread and that it will never return.

 

Going from the microcosmos to the macro, today there is a

cancer growing in the body of the American polity. Its aggressive

nature has forced its way into the social and political fabric of our

lives, and is destroying both from within.

 

This destructive malignancy was not removed at the first

opportunity and has now spread and infected the entire culture and

political apparatus. It is running rampant and is strangling the

foundation upon which our nation rests, the Constitution. It has

leaped national boundaries and is attacking other nations beyond our

shores.

 

These foreign invasions and occupations are connected

vitally to the domestic outbreak at home. It's a closed loop, with one

infection feeding the other, and vice versa. (Oddly enough, attacks

from foreign terrorists seem to aid the power-cancer internally.)

 

But unlike in the time of Watergate, these days there are

no journalistic radiologists, such as Woodward and Bernstein, to

identify the malignancy, no skillful oncologists, such as Constitution

scholar Sen. Sam Ervin, to diagnose it, and no Congressional surgeons,

such as Ervin and Howard Baker and Peter Rodino, to remove it through

impeachment and conviction.

 

 

SLOW-GROWING MALIGNANCIES

 

The American corpus, which just a few years ago, was

relatively strong, is riven with social, political, economic and moral

disease. The cancer, barely noticed by most Americans, was growing

slowly all this time, away from direct public scrutiny, building its

support network, infiltrating into various organs of power (the media,

think tanks, propaganda ministries, electoral systems, education), and

then, after decades, when the moment was ripe, the cancer erupted in

the highest halls of power, in the White House.

 

The remedy of tumor removal/amputation -- via the surgery

of impeachment -- could begin the process of healing. But this cancer

is notoriously aggressive in maintaining itself in the face of

assaults -- in this, it's reminiscent of an organized criminal

enterprise -- mainly by growing and spreading into new areas where it

attempts to control the situation.

 

At moments, when it appears to be cornered, it exudes a

toxic slime over its most notable critics and opponents. Examples:

Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke, John McCain, John Kerry, Cindy Sheehan,

et al. A new candidate for those crosshairs is Patrick Fitzgerald, the

Special Prosecutor who potentially could indict much of the inner

circle of the Bush Administration in the Plamegate/Iraq War scandals.

 

There is also the possibility that the body politic, so

turned off by the outrageous aggressiveness of the bullying cancer --

and the high costs of supporting its foreign wars abroad with blood

and treasure -- will create enough antibodies to drive out the

malignancy in a periodic election in, say, 2006 and/or 2008. (This

assumes that the agents of the cancer no longer will be controlling

the voting machines and computerized vote-counting processes.)

 

 

CANCER CELLS GROW WILD WITH POWER

 

If we've learned anything about cancer, it is that it must

be confronted and dealt with. You can't deny its existence, or wish it

away, or play nice with it and hope it will ease up on you. Cancers

are cells gone wild with their power. When such a malignancy shows up

in a human body, you cut it out, and then drive a symbolic stake

through its heart through chemo and radiation.

 

When a malignant tumor shows up in the polity, you follow

the same protocol. When the costs of denial become too great, when so

much damage and death and destruction is done in your name, then the

cancer finally has to be faced and dealt with. Society must mobilize

itself for radical surgery, and then through symbolic chemo/radiation

-- reforms, re-asserting the primacy of the rule of law and

Constitutional protections, re-establishing the checks-and-balances

established by our Founding Fathers -- try to ensure that one-party

rule, authoritarian leadership, police-state measures, " pre-emptive "

wars, torture as state policy, incipient native fascism, etc., do not

have an easy chance to re-assert themselves again.

 

But in order to reach this

Restoration-of-Constitutional-Rule era, there first must be a general

consensus on the nature of the disease, indeed on the fact that there

is a malignancy on the loose, and thus a willingness to combat it. In

the past two Presidential elections, it would appear that more than

half the population voted for someone other than the cancer-party

candidate, but the " official " election results (counted by

corporations in lockstep with those in power) said otherwise.

 

 

IMPEACHMENT IN THE CARDS?

 

According to the latest polls, the American population has

lost any faith that the Bush Administration knows what it's doing in

Iraq, and increasingly they believe that the war -- which, as the

top-secret, leaked Downing Street Memos verify, was based on gross

lies and deceptions -- wasn't worth it.

 

The public is a bit more willing to grant Bush a break in

terms of fighting terrorism, though it believes his imperial

adventures abroad are making it more, not less, likely that terrorists

will attack the U.S. again. But with the corporate-owned mass media

more or less serving as a propaganda arm for the Administration, and

with Rove and his cohorts constantly playing the fright card, the

American public, but by a smaller percentage all the time, tends to

acquiesce to Bush & Co.'s anti-terror line.

 

If Bush's war in Iraq continues its disastrous slide into

catastrophe, or if a huge number of Bush indictments come down from

the Plamegate grand jury (especially if Rove, Cheney and Bush are

either indicted outright or listed as unindicted co-conspirators),

critical mass may be achieved to demand impeachment hearings in the

Congress, especially if the Republicans were to lose their majority in

the House.

 

As a way of aiding that critical mass grow, it seems

appropriate to close this piece with the insights of the fellow that

opened it: John W. Dean. If there's anyone who appreciates what can

happen to our democratic republic when an arrogant president thinks

he's above the law, it is Dean. He wrote a book that examines the Bush

presidency in that light, " Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency

of George W. Bush " (Little, Brown).

 

Dean's reputation is that of a relatively circumspect,

mild-mannered traditional Republican, but what he has seen firsthand

and learned from others about the Bush-Cheney White House revolts his

stomach. Check out these excerpts:

 

 

DEAN: " WORSE THAN WATERGATE "

 

" Their secrecy is extreme -- not merely unjustified

and excessive but

obsessive... It has given us a presidency that

operates on hidden agendas. To protect their secrets, Bush and Cheney

dissemble as a matter of policy... Cheney openly declares that he

wants to turn the clock back to the pre-Watergate years -- a time of

an unaccountable and extra-constitutional imperial presidency. To say

that their secret presidency is undemocratic is an understatement. "

 

" Cheney formed what is, in effect, a shadow NSC

[National Security Council]...It is a secret government -- beyond the

reach of Congress, and everyone else as well...Cheney knew that

terrorism was the perfect excuse, an ideal raison d'etre, for his

'let's rule the world' philosophy. Politically, it would be much

easier to be seen as shooting back instead of shooting first, given

the caliber of weapon Cheney sought to wield. But he and his team did

far worse than simply waiting for an attack that would kill a

sufficient number of Americans...It is reasonable to believe that they

planned to exploit terrorism before 9/11 handed them the issue

ready-made for exploitation -- a fact they obviously want to keep buried. "

 

" Not since Lyndon Johnson hoodwinked Congress into

issuing the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which authorizes sending

American troops to Vietnam, has a president so deceived Congress about

a matter of such grave national importance. ...Bush and Cheney took

this nation to war on their hunches, their unreliable beliefs, and

their unsubstantiated intelligence -- and used deception with Congress

both before and after launching the war. ...The evidence is

overwhelming, certainly sufficient for a prima facie case, that George

W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney have engaged in deceit and deception

over going to war in Iraq. This is an impeachable offense. "

 

" Their secrecy helps corporations and industries that

are major contributors. But with a deadly difference. Bush and Cheney

have, from the outset of their presidency, shown utter disregard for

the human consequences of their actions, both at home and abroad. ...

What Bush and Cheney are doing to the environment to curry favor with

their contributors is far worse than anything Nixon's 'responsiveness

program' ever did. The Bush-Cheney presidency is engaged in crimes

against nature, not to mention failing to faithfully execute the laws

of the land. "

 

 

ENDANGERING OUR DEMOCRACY

 

" The Bush-Cheney secrecy and style of governing

carries with it potential consequences that are far worse than any

political scandal. Their secret presidency is a dangerous threat to

democracy in an age of terrorism. ...Bush and Cheney have picked up

where Nixon left presidential power. They seek to free the presidency

of all restraints. They want to implement their policies -- a radical

wisdom they believe serves the greater good -- unencumbered by those

who view the world differently. "

 

" When the moment comes and terrorists surprise America

with an even greater spirit-shattering attack than 9/11, Bush and

Cheney will simply push aside the Constitution they have sworn to

uphold, inflame public passions with tough talk to rally support...and

take this country to a place it has only been once. For eleven weeks

during the outset of the Civil War, President Lincoln became what

scholars have euphemistically called a constitutional dictator. But

with terrorism it will likely not be so brief. Bush once quipped, 'If

this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long

as I'm the dictator.' George Bush, however, is no Abraham Lincoln. "

 

In short, the time has long since passed when the

political scalpels need to excise the malignant tumor that had lodged

itself into our public life. If we don't act, and soon, that cancer

might well destroy us all.

 

 

Copyright 2005, by Bernard Weiner