So when we fight for the Constitution, we are fighting for the bulwark essential for the very possibility of liberal and humane politics.
This also suggests an important answer to a common objection to this strategy of "Save Our System." The American people don't care about the Constitution, many people claim. They care about their own personal bottom line. They don't even know what's in the Constitution, this argument goes, and even if they knew that don't know why it matters. Better to focus on issues that have a tangible, personal impact on their families' future than on abstractions like "checks and balances."
The issue, however, is not how knowledgeable and aroused the American people are now about their Constitution, but how much can be kindled in them if we who are already aroused adopt the right strategy. If our strategy succeeds in giving the American people half as much exposure to the reasons for the Bill of Rights and for the system of checks and balances as they got to Bill Clinton's sex life, whatever the level of their present ignorance and apathy would soon become irrelevant. (And if the American people cannot even be rallied to care about whether we save our Constitution or become a fascist dictatorship, then not only this battle but a great many others would surely already be lost.)
Americans may not have studied the Constitution, but our imaginative life -our movies and our literature-- has long shown a deep awareness of the meaning of tyranny and of its dark implications for the quality of life of the average person. This powerful fear of tyranny was harnessed by America's leaders in the waging of World War II, and again in the early years of the Cold War. It is there to be harnessed once again to counter the assault from our present ruling powers against our long-established constitutional system.
Timing Is Everything: Sequencing Battles So Each Victory Prepares the Way for the Next
There are so many things in our nation that urgently need attention, so many directions we've been heading that urgently need to be reversed. But we must be strategic in our choice of battles.
If there were no opposition to our goals, we could simply indulge our desire to direct our energies to whatever issues most engage our passions. But we are up against not only an opposition, but against the most powerful set of forces now on the planet. And thus -for the achievement of all our goals--- our strategy must always be directed at weakening that opposition. Strategy is essential, and central to the best strategy is figuring the right order of our battles.
It's not a matter of choosing some issues and forgetting about the others. The goal, rather, is to devise a battle plan that allows each victory to set the stage for the next.
This means not only that our strategy must place "liberal" issues behind the "American" issue of "Save Our System." But also, within that strategy to defend the Constitution against this lawless presidency, we must find the right sequence of moves in our campaign.
Emotionally, my impulse would be to go straight for impeachment. "Throw the bums out!" And indeed there is room for a drumbeat on that theme in the background (just as there is room for background maneuvers on other issues not related to this constitutional battlefield). It is good for the idea to be out there, like a preview of coming attractions, an expectation in the back of the mind.
But before impeachment there must be investigations. Impeachment implies a judgment""not an unreasonable judgment, as many of us see, but one that, in the minds of the majority of Americans, is at best quite premature. We need those people, and it would be a mistake to put them off by appearing just a bunch of "Bush-haters"? Investigation, on the other hand, is not a judgment but a question. More people now know enough to wonder just what has happened with this unusual wielding of presidential powers, and what does it mean?
But even before investigation, I believe, there should be affirmation of our basic constitutional principles, and that means also a repudiation of the Bush regime's indefensible claims to unchecked power.
Before we investigate violations of the law, in other words, the first order of business is to establish what the law is. Before we investigate the actions by which the Bush regime has violated the Constitution it swore to uphold, the first point of attack must be against the audacious claims by which this president and his people have tried to place themselves above the law.
This will lay the foundation for all that is to come.
If we can establish at the outset how bogus and indefensible are the assertions of the Bushites -that the "inherent powers" of the commander-in-chief entitle them to disregard the laws passed by Congress and escape oversight by the Courts""then the criminality of the administration will be much more easily established in the investigatory stage. And in addition, the American people will be educated and energized for the battles to come to preserve, protect and defend their Constitution.
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