Reichstag fires

When the Patriot Act was proposed and passed in 2001, I mused on my blog, "was September 11 the American version of the Reichstag fire?" In the years since it has become clear that it was indeed the work of Osama bin Forgotten. There has been too much evidence coming in from overseas to believe otherwise.

But as I pointed out previously, the rumors remain. I speculated that perhaps those who believe the conspiracy theories simply don't want to believe that the majority of the American people voted for the class clown as President not once, but twice (and for those who cry "but he did not have a majority!" -- everybody who stayed home rather than register to vote and go to the polls effectively voted for Bush, so there). And then there are the well-known authoritarian tendencies of the Bush administration, where George W. Bush has been caught on tape not once, not twice, but three times musing that he'd like to be a dictator rather than President.

But the evidence of the Bush administration's corruption and incompetence is similarly overwhelming. They could have gotten a Reichstag Fire Decree out of Congress on September 13, 2001. They didn't, not because they don't want that kind of power, but because they couldn't think of anything beyond the laundry list of power "wants" that had been circulating around Washington during the Clinton years. They lack the imagination, the grounding in reality, and the intellectual stamina to be dictators -- or to organize a conspiracy as vast as staging the demolition of the WTC towers and Pentagon wing. Which is good, because as I noted elsewhere, the reflexive ass-pucker of the cowardly Baby Boom generation would have otherwise crowned Emperor Bush to protect them from those unseemly untermenschen on the other side of the Rubicon.

Unfortunately, until the Baby Boomers all die, I don't see that there's much hope for a return to the Republic. All we can hope for, in the short term, is imperial incompetence or a Democrat opposed by the Republicans. Anybody that the Baby Boomers elect to office will be either incompetent or a moral vacuum intent upon increasing the power of the Emperor (and yes, Bill Clinton, while infinitely preferable to Bush due to the fact that he was at least intelligent and connected to the real world, was never shy about taking steps to increase the power of the Presidency and did not succeed most of the time only because the Republicans wanted to crown one of *theirs* as Emperor, not Clinton). A self-absorbed, amoral, value-free generation invincible in their arrogance and willful ignorance, a generation that allowed themselves to be cowed into becoming the wage slaves they despised by one volley of bullets at Kent State and which allowed themselves to be cowed into giving Bush every bit of power he demanded out of fear of a few dusky terrorists overseas hiding in caves is not the kind of generation that should be trusted with power -- but unfortunately, demographics say that is going to be the case for the next ten to fifteen years.

Which, I suppose, is as good a reason as any to vote for Democrats in the next election. The Democratic baby boomers are not really any better than the Republican ones. But at least the Republican Party knows how to be an opposition party and keep the Democrats from sucking up all the power -- and would be quick to uncover any *real* Reichstag fire perpetrated by the Democrats (I'm not so sure about the Democrats, on the other hand... not a single Democratic legislator ever publically questioned the Bush Administration's official story of 9/11). Fighting for the return of the Republic is going to be a losing battle for the next ten to fifteen years, but it can at least be made into a strategic retreat, rather than a total surrender. I realize that "Vote Democrat! Prevent Reichstag fires!" isn't much of a slogan, or much of a hope. But it's the best we got.

- Badtux the Cynical Penguin