The Unraveling, At Last?

**Interstate 95/495, "the beltway" that surrounds Washington, DC, remains a veritable moat, effectively isolating the "DC society" of corporate lobbyists, pundits, military brass and politicians from the country and citizens that presumes to "govern."

**The levers of Bushevik control – the compliant media, the privatized voting devices, the intimidation and punishment of dissenters and whistle-blowers – though diminished, remain in place. Some administration retaliations are well-known: Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame, General Eric Shinseki, Bunnatine Greenhouse, Dan Rather. But we can only speculate as to the pressures exerted "below the surface" and out of sight. Why are the victims of small aircraft accidents (e.g. Senators Mel Carnahan and Paul Wellstone, and John F. Kennedy, Jr.) disproportionately democrats? Why were the Senate Majority Leader, Tom Daschle, and the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy, specifically targeted with Anthrax letters, and why hasn't the culprit who sent them been apprehended? What extraordinary threats may be preventing the congressional Democrats from responding to the voters' mandate that put them in control of the Congress?

**If, in fact, Bushevik control has been accomplished through crimes such as extortion, bribery, intimidation and even murder, then the regime is extremely motivated to remain in power, or, failing that, to transfer power to those who will neither investigate nor prosecute these crimes.

**Finally, and most significantly, the administration, with the connivance of Congress, has passed a series of "enabling acts," supplemented with uncontested executive orders, which today gives Bush the virtual powers of a dictator, should he choose to exercise them. Among these are The PATRIOT Act, the Military Commissions Act, The National Continuity Policy of May 9, 2007, The Executive Order of July 17, 2007. (See my "A Republic if We Can Keep It."). Due to the pernicious vagueness of these acts and orders, Bush can, virtually at his personal say-so, imprison without charge, counsel or trial, any dissenting citizen and/or seize all the assets of that citizen. He is presumably restrained by the likely outrage that such behavior might provoke. Nonetheless, its all there, "in the books." All it takes is another "national emergency," and perhaps not even that.

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