Global Eye -- Last Rights
By Chris Floyd
Once again, the dispiriting spectacle
of the American media in full
campaign cry is upon us, as coverage
of the 2004 presidential race begins in
earnest. But this time around, the
usual inanities, inaccuracies and
insipidities have a more melancholy
flavor, an almost elegiac feel. It's like
watching priests of a dead cult,
vacantly enacting their rituals in a
ruined temple whose gods have been
broken, desecrated and cast down.
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.
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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