Blueprint for Tyranny
By Alan
Caruba
There
are lots of Americans who, after the first five years of living under the
governance of Barack Hussein Obama, have concluded that, among his most notable
characteristics, he is an incompetent, a pathological liar, a Marxist, and,
fearful as the prospect is, a potential dictator who will not leave office when
a new President is due to be sworn in.
The
fears are largely based on the astonishingly lax Congress that, with the
exception of Rep. Darrell Issa and the House Oversight and Reform Committee, has
done little to investigate the many scandals that litter the Obama
administration.
It
doesn’t help that the Department of Justice and possibly the FBI have been
politically corrupted.
It
doesn’t help when the Commander-in-Chief has forced a significant number of the
armed forces top generals and admirals into early retirement or removed them
from duty. The question is why.
It
doesn’t help when we learn of the purchase of millions of dollars of ammunition
by the Department of Homeland Security and other measures that appear to be
turning it into an internal army.
Politics
in America is a metaphoric war in which the worst is thought of any President in
office by those in the opposing party. It isn’t always this way. Reagan enjoyed
a relatively non-partisan relationship with Congress, but Andrew Jackson was
regarded as a tyrant by many. Now his face is on the twenty dollar
bill.
I got to
thinking about the way tyranny and despotism has been and in many nations still
is the rule throughout history and existing today. The U.S. Constitution was
written to ensure that its three branches would act as a brake on each other. If
there was one thing the Framers did not want it was a monarch or despot.
The
opposite of U.S. history is found in the history of Russia which has been
replete with czars, followed by communist dictators, Lenin, Stalin, and others.
These days it is Vladimir Putin and his grasp on power has been the subject of
protest by a new generation of Russians.
As
Bennetts notes, “In less than a decade, the little-known prime minister that
Yeltsin had told to ‘take care of Russia’ had transformed himself into a modern
day czar in the Kremlin, eliminating all but the most stubborn opposition to his
rule. Early on he established control of the media.
“The
Russian constitution stated clearly that no president could serve more than “two
consecutive terms.” But Putin had no plans to surrender power. In 2007, he
picked Dmitry Medvedev to be his puppet to serve as president and, in turn,
Medvedev named him to be prime minister and he became head of the governing
party, United Russia. It was clear that Putin was still calling the shots.
Two years into his term, Medvedev proposed extending the presidential term from
four years to six. “It would grant Putin, upon his return to the Kremlin, the
opportunity to remain in power until 2024” if elected president again. He was.
The hope
that corruption and nepotism would be curbed and that an independent judiciary
and police force would be established was dashed.
“Traumatized by a world war,
revolutions and almost total economic collapse at the tail end of the twentieth
century,” wrote Bennetts, “many Russians have first-hand experience of the
dangers of rapid political and social change. That is why Putin’s message of
stability had remained so attractive to so many, for so
long.”
While
Obama is now engaged in a campaign aimed at “income inequality”, corruption in
Russia soared to a point where, in 2013, Credit Suisse noted that “Worldwide,
billionaires collectively account for 1%-2% of total household wealth; in Russia
today 110 billionaires own 35% of all wealth.” However, “large swatches of the
country are still wallowing in Third World poverty…And all this in a country
that possesses the world’s largest natural gas reserves, the second-largest coal
reserves, and the ninth-largest crude-oil reserves.”
A major
characteristic of Putin's regime has been the suppression of any opposition. It
is marked by the assassinations of journalists and of politicians. Leaders of
the opposition who organized mass protests in Moscow were jailed and even Pussy
Riot, a girl’s band, that spent forty seconds in a Moscow cathedral were
sentenced to seven years in jail. Laws were passed to make protest leaders and
participants subject to jail for their opposition.
“Putin’s
inauguration in May 2012 for a third presidential term was not so much a
national celebration of sovereignty as a highly disciplined military operation,”
wrote Bennetts. “And the number one threat to the head of state? The Russian
people.”
Here in
America the last major protest in Washington, D.C. was organized by the then-new
Tea Party movement and was focused to stopping the enactment of Obamacare. It
attracted nearly a million or more Americans. There have been few such protests
since, but on May 16, “American Spring” is slated for a major protest march
against Obama.
The
protests in 2011 and 2012 against Putin were ruthlessly put down by government
forces. By 2013, half the Russians no longer believed what they were being told
by television. Similarly, Obama’s approval ratings are falling fast due to
massive unemployment and disappointment.
America
is not Russia, but Americans are growing increasingly concerned about the way
Obama is governing the nation. They should be.
© Alan
Caruba, 2014
**************************
Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" and shared on dozens
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