FRAMESHOP:FRAMESHOP: DECLARATION OF DESPOTISM

DECLARATION OF DESPOTISM:  Bush signs military law giving himself absolute power to arrest anyone for any reason.  Republican leaders look on and smile.

On the morning of October 17, 2006, President George W. Bush signed the Military Commissions Act--thereby ending 230 years of American Democracy. 

Because of this new law, President Bush now has the power of a king, a despot, an absolute ruler.  He has now risen above the law.  He has become the law. 

At any moment, for any reason and with nothing to stop him but his kingly conscience, President Bush now has the regal power to declare any American--anyone in the world, really--an "enemy combatant," and then to cast that "enemy combatant"  forever into a dungeon--where they will sit in chains, hands behind their back, hood over their head, without access to a lawyer, without rights to see the charges brought against them, never to talk to friends or family again, dissappeared, lost, gone, forever. 

The ultimate power to decide who will live and who will die, who will stay free and who will rot forever in jail--at the switch of the President's finger, the blink of the President's eye, the nod of the President's brow--George W. Bush, supreme sovereign of the Union of American States, now has this power. 

Beware, America.  Beware.  That sound outside your window may not be the milkman, but the President's men. That is no ordinary scuffle in the streets, but the sound of boots on pavement as the President's guard takes your neighbor away in the dead of night--hooded, hands behind his back, muffled, terrified, but now lost.  No questions.  No explainations.  Gone.

It was good while it lasted.  For 230 years, America was a Democracy.  But not today, not this morning.

And so the next time we see President Bush, we better be careful if we say, "Yes, sir, Mr. President."  Because the rules have changed, so, too, must the words:  "Please, Sire, my father was taken away in the middle of the night.  I beg of your liege.  Mercy."

© 2006 Jeffre Feldman, Frameshop