Reviewing Jennifer Van Bergen's "The Twilight of Democracy" - by Stephen Lendman
Jennifer Van Bergen is an author, activist and educator who currently teaches English and writing at Sante Fe Community College in Gainesville, Florida. Professionally, she's also a journalist, legal analyst and non-practicing attorney who's written, spoken out and debated widely on Patriot Act justice and other civil liberties issues. Her newest book is titled "Archetypes for Writers: Using the Power of Your Subconscious." It analyzes the component skills writers need to learn about their "own already-existing characters" through a series of exercises in the book.
Her other vitally important recent book and subject of this review is called "The Twilight of Democracy: The Bush Plan for America" written in 2005. It's a clear and powerfully relevant analysis of the threat to freedom, democracy and justice in America today under the Bush regime. As the author puts it: "(We live in a time when) civil liberties have been broadly violated to an unprecedented degree....My goal (in the book) is to lay bare what the government does and is doing, and why it is so profoundly anti-democractic" and a danger to everyone.
The book is in two parts. In Book I, Van Bergen discusses constitutional law, the types of courts and standards of review established to administer it, and the dangerous path we're now on toward a fascist state under George Bush. Book II then reviews "The Bush Plan" for America under Patriot Act justice; the pervasive culture of fear, extreme secrecy and illegal sweeping universal surveillance; permanent state of war for world dominance; and network of barbaric torture-prisons where anyone for any reason may be labeled an "unlawful enemy combatant" and unjustly consigned to the awaiting hell within them.
Book I - Deciphering the Democratic Code
Van Bergen starts off by explaining the clear and present danger of a president who disdains the law and ignores it in pursuit of whatever he wishes. The result is "Freedom and democracy in America are in grave danger," and all humanity is affected as well. By his actions, Van Bergen believes the Bush administration declared war on the Republic and has gone so far astray, "there may be no going back." She may be right, it may already be too late, and she explains why in her opening chapter.
Down the Road to Fascism
Van Bergen cites the following signs of a nation "already more than three-quarters of the way down the road to fascism:" the stolen 2000 presidential election, Patriot Acts I and II, illegal mass surveillance, torture-prison gulag, culture of extreme secrecy and fear, contempt for the rule of law, a permanent state of war and more. We may already be past the tipping point of its classical definition:
-- a state combining corporatism with strong elements of patriotism and nationalism;
-- a claimed messianic Almighty-directed mission; and
-- characterized by authoritarian rule backed by iron-fisted militarism and homeland security enforcers, mass illegal spying, and intolerance of dissent under a president who disdains the law.
Van Bergen calls these components "The Bush Plan to subvert and overthrow democratic systems" and values. It's not just the work of one man or a group of loyalist supporters. It's become part of our corporate culture that thrives on achieving imperial global dominance. It's being pursued by waging war on the world under a national security Patriot Act-governed police state tolerating no dissent. Van Bergen discusses the Act briefly before getting into a more in-depth treatment in Book II. She shows how the law dilutes constitutional standards by amending and combining three separate but parallel legal systems listed below. They use different courts, are now merged and are exploited under Patriot Act justice:
(1) criminal laws and procedures,
(2) foreign intelligence law, and
(3) immigration law.
Post 9/11, Van Bergen notes people are out of the loop believing "constitutional law is hard to understand" and strictly the realm of theoreticians. How does the Constitution relate to "getting ahead in life, with making money," she asks. It's central to it if people begin realizing it's what guarantees their rights in a free society without which nothing is guaranteed but government repression against anyone considered a threat, true or not. The basic laws of the land aren't hard to understand. What's hard is getting people to know their rights under them, realize they're now at risk and be willing to take a stand for what they can't afford to ignore.
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
