Arbitrary Rule Comes To America

Doug Thompson, founder of the E-zine Capitol Hill Blue, and a guy who has a knack for reporting events from inside the White House first, says that he cannot board an airliner. Thompson is on the Federal “No Fly” list. According to the Bush administration, Thompson is a suspected “terrorist.” Thompson recently wrote, Bush told staffers that the Constitution is “just a goddamned piece of paper.” It seems that Bush is out to prove that to Thompson and all of us.

I don’t know Thompson, but I do have a slight acquaintanceship with John Graham, a former State Department career officer who served in Viet Nam---who also made the “No Fly” list. Graham recently got a standing ovation at the conclusion of a talk to West Point cadets. An inspiring man, he runs “the Giraffe Project,” dedicated to American heroes who “stick out their necks.”

Time magazine once devoted its “Americana” page to Graham’s outfit and Graham is the recipient of numerous honors and awards. When Graham tried to find out why he was on the list, officials in the Bush administration would not tell him, of course!

Let’s use some common sense. Supposedly, there are 80,000 Americans on the list. Is it believable that there are so many potential terrorists? If an individual commits a crime, or urges one, fine, then make an arrest and have a trial. But to ban people from flying on “suspicion,” with no charges, no trial, and no way to clear their names? What more can I say than “Big Brother is watching. He’s here. Now.”

This is arbitrary injustice. It is the hallmark of how the totalitarian state operates. It is government by whim and capriciousness. It’s I-say-so-and-I’m-the-Decider despotism. It is the very definition of a dictatorship - Bush dictates, and orders are followed, Constitution be damned.

Once upon a time, when Josef Stalin heard a school teacher criticize him, he ordered 30,000 teachers packed up and shipped off to the Gulag. Hardly a day passed when Stalin’s NKVD didn’t bring him a list of names, maybe 500, maybe 3,500, marked for execution. Did he review each case? Ha! He’d sign the paper and hand it to his No 2, Molotov, who would scribble the counter-sign, and that was the end of them. (Eerily similar to the process of execution that Bush and Gonzalez practiced in Texas).

Those of Stalin’s hit list didn’t have to be “terrorists.” They were just critics of the paranoid nuthouse called Stalinist Russia. Then again, they were not all critics, either. Some were just “unlucky” in that they happened to teach. Or were army officers or Jews or folks who had received foreign visitors in their homes. Bystanders watching their neighbors dragged from their homes said, “If only Stalin knew!” Except Stalin was the criminal architect in charge of the arrests and murders.

Hitler’s thugs operated the same way. Many a man who “looked Jewish” were beaten up by the brown shirts. People were arrested and murdered based on their faith, ancestry, or appearance (especially if it appeared that they lived in a good apartment or had a bank account worth looting). And not only Jews and Gypsies, Communists and Homosexuals suffered in the death camps. Twelve hundred Catholic priests died in Dachau.

It’s a given that the totalitarian state must have its “devils.” And the totalitarian Pig-in-Charge decides personally on how to punish them. One form of torture Hitler used was psychological: prisoners weren’t told how long they’d be in prison and they got no lawyers or trials.

Fastforward to life in a post 9/11 world (or is it post Reichstag fire?), George W. Bush and crew have over 500 men and boys locked up in Gitmo, much the same way that Stalin and Hitler did. People charged with nothing, without access to family or lawyers or justice, held, some for years now. Most of them admittedly innocent, probably wondering --- like those on the Federal No Fly list --- what did I do, am I anything less than a scapegoat and a political prisoner? The U.S. military, the CIA and their many assets and allies (aka thugs, mercenaries, and warlords) have arrested and tortured hundreds of men around the world without cause of evidence of wrongdoing. The kidnappings, detentions and beatings are arbitrary - not based on any legal procedure in concert with American jurisprudence or the Constitution; it’s government by zealots.

Sometime in 2004, Washington invoked the USA Patriot Act to revoke the visa of Tariq Ramadan, the Islamic scholar. Ramadan, born in Switzerland was to teach at that bastion of revolutionary and femi-Nazi thinking, the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. The ACLU claims that Ramadan was denied entry because of his political beliefs. According to Knight-Ridder, “The Bush administration has never fully explained its decision to revoke Ramadan’s visa…” Of course not! Dictatorships don’t have to explain nothin’ to nobody. They’re arbitrary and capricious.

U.S. counsels are also arbitrary when foreign youngsters apply for visas to study in the U.S. There are countless reports of rejections for ridiculous reasons. The result is American universities are losing students who instead go to Mexico, Spain, and other countries that have sane admissions policies.

Add it all up. The denial of a citizen’s freedom to travel (and the obligation of the government not to impede that liberty without cause or due process). A war based on lies. Men held in prison indefinitely. Got the picture? I’ll spell it out for you: t-o-t-a-l-i-t-a-r-i-a-n-i-s-m.

(Sherwood Ross is an American who writes about 20th century history. His articles have appeared in WWII Magazine, The Humanist, The Nation, and Christian Century, among others. He has worked as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News and as "Workplace" columnist for Reuters. Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com).

Sherwood Ross
www.virtualcitizens.com