- (America has never postponed an election...not during
the Civil War or two World Wars. The Bush proposal
is beyond outrageous. -ed)
-
- The major daily newspaper in the US capital has endorsed
the Bush administration's review of possible actions to suspend the 2004
elections in the event of a major terrorist attack inside the United States.
The Washington Post published an editorial on July 14, headlined "Tuesday
in November", which presents the preparations initiated by the Department
of Homeland Security as "useful" and "appropriate",
and casts them as a legitimate exercise in contingency planning.
-
- The whole approach of the Post is saturated with contempt
for those who are alarmed about the implications of such an action for
American democracy. The newspaper dismisses such concerns as "a few
suspicious, even hysterical reactions, and talk of stolen elections."
Even the length and positioning of the editorial-a brief four paragraphs,
placed second on the page under a comment on the gay marriage amendment-were
meant to convey that nothing monumental was under discussion.
-
- While counseling caution, the Post editors do not express
any principled objection to a decision to call off the elections. Instead,
they devote the bulk of their abbreviated comment to advising the Bush
administration on how to counteract those who are suspicious of its political
motives. They urge that Congress, not the executive branch, take the lead,
possibly by appointing a bipartisan commission headed by such figures as
ex-senators Bob Dole and George Mitchell, to study the issue.
-
- For all the sneering about "hysterical reactions",
the Post is clearly worried that the reports of plans to call off the election
have touched a nerve in public opinion, despite efforts to downplay the
significance of the issue by the Bush administration, the Democratic Party
and the bulk of the media. (While the Post preaches complacency, for instance,
the New York Times practices it. There has been no editorial comment on
the subject from the Times and only a few brief reports in its news pages.)
-
- Overall, the news reporting on this subject, by both
the television networks and the daily newspapers, has been remarkably perfunctory.
Far less attention has been paid to the open discussion of calling off
the November 2 election-an event that would have incalculable consequences
for American society-than to such trivialities as the debut of Bush's daughters
as participants in his reelection campaign.
-
- There is a stark-but highly informative-contrast between
the media response to last week's press conference by Tom Ridge, the secretary
of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and its response to Ridge's
decision to investigate the possibility of calling off the election.
-
- Ridge warned on July 8 that Al Qaeda terrorists were
planning attacks aimed at the US elections, suggesting that the Democratic
and Republican conventions and Election Day activities could be major targets.
Ridge gave no details, provided no evidence and proposed no action except
greater vigilance. The DHS did not even raise the threat level on its color-coded
warning, which has become an object of widespread derision. Nonetheless,
Ridge's press conference received saturation coverage in the media. It
was the lead on the television news and was reported in prominent front-page
articles in most newspapers.
-
- Three days later, Newsweek magazine revealed that DeForest
Soaries, chairman of the Election Assistance Commission, had recommended
to Ridge that the DHS investigate what legal authority would be required
to suspend the elections in the event of a terrorist attack, and that Ridge
had forwarded this inquiry to the Justice Department's Office of Legal
Counsel. There was a brief wire service report on the Newsweek revelation,
quoting noncommittal responses from congressional Republicans and Democrats,
and similarly low-key coverage by the television networks.
-
- Both incidents concerned the possibility of a terrorist
attack in conjunction with the US elections, but they received vastly different
media treatment. The reason is obvious-and sinister.
-
- In the first case, the force allegedly aiming to disrupt
the US elections is a foreign terrorist organization. In the second case,
the force admittedly considering postponement of the US elections is the
US government itself, acting through Bush appointees in the Justice Department,
the Department of Homeland Security and the Election Assistance Commission.
-
- The fundamental truth, which the corporate-controlled
media seeks to suppress, is that the US government is a far greater threat
to American democracy than Osama bin Laden. Al Qaeda is a small band of
stateless terrorists who can murder innocent people, but are incapable
of imposing their reactionary vision of an Islamic fundamentalist state
even in the Middle East, let alone in the United States. The Bush administration,
however, directs the most powerful imperialist state, using its powers
to attack the living standards and democratic rights of the American people
while enriching the wealthy elite that constitutes Bush's principal social
basis.
-
- Under Bush, the US government has already conquered two
formerly independent countries, subjecting 50 million people to the rule
of American puppets. Now the outcome of Bush's self-proclaimed "war
for freedom" in the Middle East is the open preparation for the suppression
of democracy within the United States itself.
-
- Such a course is fraught with enormous peril for the
Bush administration and the US ruling class. They are operating, not from
a position of strength, but from weakness: a deeply discredited government,
an unpopular war, and an economy undermined by catastrophic budget and
trade deficits, kept afloat only by an effusion of credit that is ultimately
unsustainable.
-
- The crisis of the Bush administration has produced a
significant division within the ruling elite itself, reflected in the surge
of financial contributions and relatively favorable media coverage for
Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate,
who has pledged to sustain and even intensify the US military effort in
Iraq.
-
- These divisions are reflected as well in editorials in
a number of major daily newspapers, denouncing the Bush administration's
preparations to postpone the elections, in some cases in scathing terms.
These are staid bourgeois newspapers, conformist and "respectable"
in their editorial views, most of them owned by giant media corporations.
None can be said to be prone to "hysterical reactions" when it
comes to criticism of the Bush administration. But they are concerned-and
rightly so-that an attempt to call off the November election could produce
a social and political explosion.
-
- The San Francisco Chronicle published an editorial on
July 12 headlined "Don't Even Think About It." The Cleveland
Plain-Dealer declared, "This is a horrible idea. It should be stopped
now. Today." The Chicago Sun-Times raised concerns about the longer-term
precedent, asking "what security comes from pushing elections back
two weeks or a month? What prevents terrorists from attacking again, and
then what would we do? Keep postponing elections? That's a terrifying thought."
-
- Even USA Today, flagship of the Gannett Co., the biggest
US newspaper chain, expressed cautious disapproval of the postponement
option, writing in an editorial on July 14, "If the US were trying
to send a signal that terrorists had won, delaying a national election
would certainly do the trick."
-
- The Minneapolis Star-Tribune directly questioned the
good faith of the Bush administration, observing: "given the vagueness
of the intelligence on Al-Qaeda plans to date, one has to wonder why this
particular contingency, over all those certainly being analyzed, was made
public-and whether equal and sufficient effort is being expended to make
certain that the elections do take place on Election Day ... given the
Florida shenanigans in 2000, voters should be forgiven for feeling skeptical
upon hearing about this line of thinking."
-
- Such editorials reflect serious concerns within the US
ruling elite over the implications of a direct move to dictatorship, which
is what any suspension of the elections would represent. Nevertheless,
the refusal of the most influential media outlets at the center of American
financial and political life-including the broadcast networks and such
newspapers as the New York Times and Washington Post-to either seriously
report and critically investigate government moves to close down the elections,
or forthrightly denounce them as a conspiracy against the democratic rights
of the people-illustrates the profound and irreparable decay of American
bourgeois democracy.
-
- Even if the Bush administration is persuaded to desist
from using terrorist threats as the pretext for calling off or disrupting
the November election, the very fact that the issue of canceling elections
has been raised, with little protest from within the political and media
establishment, establishes the most dangerous precedent. There can be little
doubt that, at the very least, measures will be taken, either under a second
Bush administration or a Kerry presidency, to establish a legalistic cover
for calling off elections in the future.
-
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- World Socialist Web Site
- All rights reserved
-
- http://www.wsws.org/articles/2
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