Sunday, August 19, 2007

Uh, This Could Be Important

I have been working on a short story – purely fiction – about what might happen if Bush refused to leave the White House in 2008. So imagine my intrigue when I came across an August 3 article by Philip Atkinson called “Conquering the Drawbacks of Democracy” in which the author opined that President Bush should refuse to step down in 2008.

The article was apparently posted as a “Must Read” on Family Security Matters. I say “apparently” because the article is available only via Google cache – it no longer appears on the FSM site itself, assuming that’s where it originated. (I found it via Marc Parent’s blog, Crimes and Corruption of the New World Order News.).

Of course, radical fringe nutcases abound on the Internet, and anyone can say anything here, at least for now. What makes this article notable and maybe very important is its source.

In Crimes and Corruption, Parent alleged that Family Security Matters (“FSM”) has ties to the Bush administration. If true, the appearance of Atkinson's article creates much creepier implications. Shall we take a look?

First, let’s get the article itself out of the way. Surely this guy doesn’t advocate Bush taking over the US, does he?

Okay, you’re right. He doesn’t. Actually, he advocates Bush taking over the world. Here, Atkinson says it better than I ever could:
President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, by becoming “ex-president” Bush or he can become “President-for-Life" Bush, the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Then who would be able to stop Bush from emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world? For only an America united under one ruler has the power to save humanity from the threat of a new Dark Age wrought
by terrorists armed with nuclear weapons. (emphasis in original).
Sounds like a bad joke, doesn’t it? Or maybe just really bad fiction. But could it have been spawned by Bush’s administration?

Well, that’s a good question. I was highly skeptical about any connection this article might have to the Bush administration, so I decided to check the facts.

Parent alleged that the publisher of the article, Family Security Matters, is a front group for the Center for Security Policy (“CSP”), a conservative foreign affairs think tank. He cited Sourcewatch, which does indeed say just that. Sourcewatch also says that the phone number FSM listed on its website was answered by CSP. I have not found a phone number for FSM on its website, or on White Pages or Yellow Pages, so I can’t confirm this. Right Web says that the FSM website now gives the phone number for a publicity firm, but I didn’t see this either.

I looked for independent evidence of the link between Family Security Matters and the Center for Security Policy, and I found it. CSP received a grant awarded to the Center for Security Policy “[t]o support general operations and the Family Security Matters project.” So FSM does, indeed, appear to be part of CSP.

But that doesn’t mean that the CSP has ties to the White House, so I kept digging. Here’s what I found:

The CSP’s advisory board (now called the National Security Advisory Council) has some very high-profile names on it: William Bennett, Alan Keyes, Henry Hyde, and Pete Wilson, to name just a few, plus about a bazillion retired first-tier military types. That, of course, doesn’t establish a link with the current White House.

This, however, does: One of the CSP’s advisors is Paula Dobriansky, who is currently Bush's Under-Secretary of Defense for Democracy and Global Affairs.

And that’s not all. Wikipedia reports that Jack Dyer Crouch II, the current Deputy National Security Advisor to Bush, is a member of CSP. I didn’t locate an independent source for this bit of information (didn’t look that hard, either), but it seems plausible given that he was once on the Board of Advisors.

But what about that alleged link between CSP and the Bush higher-ups like Dick Cheney? Well, that checks out, too, although it’s less direct. CSP’s 2001 annual report states that Cheney was “an earlier member of the Center’s Board of Advisors.” In addition, he and Donald Rumsfeld have provided testimonials that appear on the site.

All in all, there’s little doubt that the basic philosophy of CSP is shared by the White House. Indeed, both Sourcewatch and Donald Rumsfield state that many people associated with CSP go on to find jobs in the US Department of Defense.

Of course, none of this means that Bush and Cheney agree with Atkinson. Just because I like the New York Times doesn’t mean I agree with everything in it. Right?

Well, yes. But the cached article indicates that “Conquering the Drawbacks of Democracy” was a “Must Read” article. That’s a very, very different matter.

I don’t know how many of FSC’s articles are marked “must read.” Even if it’s 100%, there are only two reasons the FSC might use that designation. Either it wants to warn us that there is mischief afoot, or it thinks the American public should take this idea for a spin around the block to see how it drives. I’m thinking it’s the latter, especially since the article links to six other articles by the same guy. Or at least, it did. I tried to link to the other articles and – what a surprise – they’re all gone! In fact, the only reference to Atkinson remaining on the FSC website is a favorable reference to his work, A Study of Our Decline (which, for your reading delight, appears on Atkinson’s own website free of charge).

Atkinson, by the way, really is a nut job and it’s no wonder the FSC wants to get rid of any reference to him. But would the FSC publish seven articles by this guy without having an idea of his politics?

Seems unlikely. It only took me about three minutes on Atkinson’s website to find this gem on political correctness:
The declared rational of this tyranny is to prevent people being offended; to compel everyone to avoid using words or behaviour that may upset homosexuals, women, non-whites, the crippled, the stupid, the fat or the ugly. This reveals not only its absurdity but its inspiration. The set of values that are detested are those held by the previous generation (those who fought the Second World War), which is why the terms niggers, coons, dagos, wogs, poofs, spastics and
sheilas
have become heresy, for, in an act of infantile rebellion, their subject have become revered by the new generation. Political Correctness is merely the resentment of spoilt children directed against their parent's values. (emphasis in original).
Well, all righty, then.

So let's just pretend this article is important. Just how would Bush pull off a takeover? I think he would try do it with the consent of the American people.

Here’s my scenario. First, Bush has to test public opinion and see which way the wind is blowing. Hence, the Head Cheeses at FSM have allowed Atkinson’s article to appear on the website, just to see what happens. Now, of course, they will claim they had no idea Atkinson was such a whack job but in any event, he’s no longer associated with FSM. That is, assuming they admit the articles were ever there at all.

No matter. The seed has been planted. As the story about Atkinson’s article gets battered back and forth, a few media wingnuts will begin to say, “Well, what would be so bad if Bush did refuse to leave? If the Democraps win, I hope he does just that!” Hence, Atkinson's little seed will sprout.

But the right wing media isn’t powerful enough to pull this off all by itself (is it?). Now Bush will need some kind of constitutional crisis to create chaos. It could be a major terrorist attack on our soil, but I’m thinking an easier way would be through the election process. Yet another election with questionable results. We’ve set the stage for it, after all. We don’t trust our voting process any more. We don’t trust the machines.

So what would happen if we couldn’t tell who had really won the national election? Gee, somebody would have to run the country until we figured it all out or had new elections, right? Who better than Bush? You know, just till we get it all figured out.

Now, when I was making up all this stuff, I assumed Bush would give up the White House to a Republican, but not to a Democrat. But given Atkinson’s article, I may have to rethink the premise.

Just sayin’.

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:09 AM

    For the phone CSP's phone # on the familysecuritymatters website you'll need to use the internet archives to see how the site used to look (ruled as admissible evidence in court, BTW)
    http://web.archive.org and enter the following URL:
    http://familysecuritymatters.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=7
    For the more recent phone number on the site, try the archive of this page.
    http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/about_contact.php
    I guess maybe they're getting less and less fond of phone calls or something.

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  2. Anonymous10:11 AM

    the last url in my previous post should end contact.php

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  3. omg! I don't want to fathom this. Although I think it is unlikely, considering the large numbers of democratic processes the Administration has circumvented and ignored...I wouldn't put it past them :D

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  4. It's Overton window stuff. Wikipedia it if you don't know the idea.

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  5. Blimey Bush is starting to look more and more like Darth Sideous off star wars sequels isnt he!

    ReplyDelete