Divide

I've been reading the excellent Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, and it struck me that there is a real similarity between the antebellum debate on slavery in the US and what is going on right now with the Bush administration.

Slavery is one of the great historical evils that humans have done to one another. The American version was particularly odious, not only because of its stark brutality and inhumanity, but because it was being done in a nation that had committed to ideals of freedom and justice. Nothing of the sort could exist alongside slavery.

But at the time it was controversial. We look back now and, thankfully, can see no two sides to it - slavery is now and was then utterly wrong.

And so, too, is the war in Iraq. and the executive secrecy and power grab by this administration.

Please understand that I'm not suggesting any equivalency between slavery and our current problems. The only commonality is that both were the cause of a deep and dangerous constitutional crisis, and both have clear right and wrong.

When the Senate debates the war, the Repubs are clearly on the wrong side. When the administration snubs Congressional oversight in order to hide their crimes of illegal spying, torture, and other offenses (like the politicization of every federal department - including Justice), they are clearly wrong.

There is a bright shining historical light glaring on this whole debate. We are all on either the side of light or the side of darkness.

This is not the Manichean framework that Glenn Greenwald says is at the heart of the Bush failures in his indispensable new book: A Tragic Legacy (which I've read and will review). This is not to excuse anyone or let bad behaviour off the hook because it's done by "good" people.

Clearly, Congressional Democrats are feeling heat, deservedly, for not prosecuting the case against this administration more forcefully. Their polling numbers are down where Bush's are - because they haven't fought his excesses hard enough.

This administration has tried for six years to redefine the United States, both internally and to the world. Domestically, they've turned toward the police state, with unrestrained spying and illegal detention. But don't forget the tax cuts to the rich and destruction of any social safety net. And the politicization of Justice, medicine, science, drug enforcement - everything.

Internationally, we are now the country of unprovoked war, torture, illegal and indefinite detention, and opposition to all international agreements including Kyoto and anything else that slows at all the accumulation of power by industry. We are also the greatest debtor nation, borrowing billions daily for our own indulgences.

I don't really have to make the case here, but it strikes me that it is a slavery moment. Do you support this or do you oppose it? And, like the slavery 'debate,' there is no fence to sit on. There is no way to not have an opinion on slavery - a 'no opinion' is an agreement. Similarly, today there is no longer any political middle.

Either one opposes the outrages of this administration against all American - and human - standards of decency, or one supports them. Even by silence.