Elections & Imperialism

Just one quick point about the democratic elections, which, despite the fact that Bush and the Neocons have managed somehow to give democracy a bad name, have left me utterly stunned, elated, and have restored my faith in the American people. It was Kleon of Athens (made famous by his being skewered by Aristophanes) who during the first phase of the Peloponnesian War once delcared "I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire." Thucydides claims he said this during a debate over whether or not to punish without mercy one of Athens' rebellious allies (the Athenians this time voted for leniency). Kleon hit upon something here: real Democracy is incapable of empire, because a real empire requires a brutalism and costs that a majority of people over time find abhorrent. So, a majority of Americans wants to pull back from our Imperial nightmare in Iraq. A lot of Neocon ideologues, however, think of our empire as a moral necessity, including permanent bases in Iraq. These are the kind of men who in history contemplate, and then sometimes attempt, a military coup. The seeds that could lead to this sort of military coup have long since been sown in American society (the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Religious Complex), and with a little water could even sprout here. Not that I think it likely, I only think it possible, because I'm sure guys like Rumsfeld and Cheney really deep down inside despise democracy, because, as Rumsfeld more or less said yesterday, the masses are too ignorant to understand the complex operations of holding onto empire. In fact, I think nothing makes it more certain that they really could give two shits about democracy than the fact that this is the alleged reason we are in Iraq. Like #3, then, I don't expect there to be much bipartisanship for long, because one thing the new Congress will have to address are the assaults that the Bush Administration has made on the Constitutuion (wire taps, habeas corpus...), and most especially the unitary vision of the executive branch. So next year I won't be surprised if there's a bloody battle over these topics -- possibly a constitutional crisis or a series of crises.