Works In Progress - June 2003 - Rumsfeld Agenda Would Gut U.S. Democracy

Warning of a military-police state, massive loss of liberties, assaults on government workers' protections, and environmental damage, Greens urge defeat of proposed Defense Department and 'Patriot II' legislation.

WASHINGTON, D.C. A legislative proposal from the office of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld would, if enacted, grant the military nearly unlimited freedom from civilian oversight, and, in combination with other recent laws and policies, bring the U.S. to the brink of a military-dominated state, say members of the Green Party of the United States.

The "Defense Transformation for the 21st Century Act" would allow the Secretary of Defense to choose billion-dollar corporate contractors without public account-ability or Congress' review; strip Defense Department employees of union rights, whistleblower protections, annual pay raises, and right to appeal disciplinary actions; exempt the Pentagon from environmental protection rules on more than 23 million acres of U.S. land; and exempt the Pentagon from numerous Congressional oversight rules.

In a March 7 memo, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said President Bush should exempt defense facilities from certain environmental laws "for reasons of national security."

"The Cheney-Rumsfeld-Ashcroft doctrine has been compared with the Mussolini definition of fascism as 'the merger of state and corporate power,'" said Nathalie Paravacini, secretary of the Green Party of the United States. "In the past three years, we've witnessed a power grab by the executive branch and military, to the benefit of favored corporate lobbies a putsch with Congress' blessing."

"But the Bush Administration's abuse of power differs from classic fascism in some essential ways," added Paravacini. "We do not hear outright racist comments, but witness jingoistic appeals to 'with us or against us' nationalism and post-9/11 insecurity, racial profiling, and the targeting of Muslims and other immigrants for harassment. Instead of imprisonment, torture, and execution of political dissenters, the Bush Administration operates more efficiently by ignoring and marginalizing any dissenting voice, in collusion with media that act as distributors of propaganda instead of journalistic coverage of facts."

Greens cite a list of recent attacks on U.S. democracy: the manipulated 2000 national election and Supreme Court

Justice William Rehnquist's declaration that there is no guaranteed right to vote; occupation of the White House by oil and defense industry operatives and execs; "preemptive" invasion of Iraq in defiance of the Nuremburg principles and

comply with the Patriot Act to the widespread protests against the invasion of Iraq," said Green Party activist Deyva Arthur of Troy, New York. "But, with a few exceptions, Democrats have endorsed most of Mr. Rumsfeld's and President Bush's agenda. None of the Demo-cratic candidates who hold a chance of winning the national nomination dares to criticize Rumsfeld or Bush on this basis or has called for the defeat of Rumsfeld's defense legislation."

"Without the Green Party, the 2004 campaign will be a contest between two prowar parties, both with little regard for the rights, laws, and principles enshrined under the Constitution or the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights," Arthur added.

"Our only hope is the enormous resistance that's building all over the U.S., from the refusal of some cities and towns to U.N. Charter; Congress' surrender of its power to declare war; the Homeland Security Department and Office of Information Awareness; passage and possible expansion of the USA Patriot Act.

"The 'Patriot II' Act would gut the Constitution even further," said Jake Schneider, treasurer of the Green Party of the United States. "All these measures have been used to distract Americans from domestic economic woes. . . This ideology betrays the GOP's own claim to be 'the party of liberty, the party of equality of opportunity for all and favoritism for none.'" ["Rules of the Republican Party," http://www.rnc.org/gopinfo/rules ]