King George W.: James Madison’s Nightmare
George W. Bush is the imperial president that James Madison and other founders of this great republic warned us about. He lied the nation into precisely the “foreign entanglements” that George Washington feared would destroy the experiment in representative government, and he has championed a spurious notion of security over individual liberty, thus eschewing the alarms of Thomas Jefferson as to the deprivation of the inalienable rights of free citizens. But most important, he has used the sledgehammer of war to obliterate the separation of powers that James Madison enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
With the “war on terror,” Bush has asserted the right of the president to wage war anywhere and for any length of time, at his whim, because the “terrorists” will always provide a convenient shadowy target. Just the “continual warfare” that Madison warned of in justifying the primary role of Congress in initiating and continuing to finance a war-the very issue now at stake in Bush’s battle with Congress.
In his “Political Observations,” written years before he served as fourth president of the United States, Madison went on to underscore the dangers of an imperial presidency bloated by war fever. “In war,” Madison wrote in 1795, at a time when the young republic still faced its share of dangerous enemies, “the discretionary power of the Executive is extended … and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.”
How remarkably prescient of Madison to anticipate the specter of our current King George imperiously undermining Congress’ attempts to end the Iraq war. When the prime author of the U.S. Constitution explained why that document grants Congress-not the president-the exclusive power to declare and fund wars, Madison wrote, “A delegation of such powers [to the president] would have struck, not only at the fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and well checked governments.”
Because “[n]o nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare,” Madison urged that the constitutional separation of powers he had codified be respected. “The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war … the power of raising armies,” he wrote. “The separation of the power of raising armies from the power of commanding them is intended to prevent the raising of armies for the sake of commanding them.”
That last sentence perfectly describes the threat of what President Dwight Eisenhower, 165 years later, would describe as the “military-industrial complex,” a permanent war economy feeding off a permanent state of insecurity. The collapse of the Soviet Union deprived the military profiteers and their handsomely rewarded cheerleaders in the government of a raison d’être for the massive war economy supposedly created in response to it. Fortunately for them, Bush found in the 9/11 attack an excuse to make war even more profitable and longer lasting. The Iraq war, which the president’s 9/11 Commission concluded never had anything to do with the terrorist assault, nonetheless has transferred many hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars into the military economy. And when Congress seeks to exercise its power to control the budget, this president asserts that this will not govern his conduct of the war.
There never was a congressional declaration of war to cover the invasion of Iraq. Instead, President Bush acted under his claimed power as commander in chief, which the Supreme Court has held does allow him to respond to a “state of war” against the United States. That proviso was clearly a reference to surprise attacks or sudden emergencies.
The problem is that the “state of war” in question here was an al-Qaida attack on the U.S. that had nothing whatsoever to do with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Perhaps to spare Congress the embarrassment of formally declaring war against a nation that had not attacked America, Bush settled for a loosely worded resolution supporting his use of military power if Iraq failed to comply with U.N. mandates. This was justified by the White House as a means of strengthening the United Nations in holding Iraq accountable for its WMD arsenal, but as most of the world looked on in dismay, Bush invaded Iraq after U.N. inspectors on the ground discovered that Iraq had no WMD.
Bush betrayed Congress, which in turn betrayed the American people-just as Madison feared when he wrote: “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it compromises and develops the germ of every other.”
Robert Scheer is editor of Truthdig.com and a regular columnist for The
© 2007 TruthDig.com
Well said, Mr Scheer.
Unfortunately those who got us into this ill conceived war never bothered to learn or understand such relavent history–nor seemingly do they care.
However, your phrase concerning “the president’s 9/11 commision” is misleading. It was not his commision–in fact he opposed it. Remenber the dreadful character assination against Senator Max Cleland, by the Bush team for sponsoring that investigation.
Impeach-em, Convict-em, send em to the edge — Russian style!
Peace for the rest of us.
Peace,
Ken Hausle
* I support HRes333 - Impeach the VP
Short and sweet. Some forgettable truths that need to be mentioned again and again.
Well-stated, Mr. Scheer. Perhaps you are also familiar with one other quote of Madison’s: “The Constitution supposes, what they history of all governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it.”
Here is my question: Do we even need/want the executive anymore?
I think it has become nothing but trouble.
Peace,
Ken Hausle
* I support HRes333 - Impeach the VP
** the time for change is here…
Mr. Scheer,
A nicely written article. Perhaps, you ought to send this to the MSM for publication. But then again, it is not consisent with Bush doctrine, and probably would never make print.
Email your senators and representatives to support impeachment of bush & chaney. Watch last Friday’s Bill Moyers’ Journal online. It was an education for me.
I don’t know who this Mr James Madison is that King George W has brought him a nightmare, But I can tell you one thing: Mr Madison is not alone; the tyrant boy King brings nightmare to everyone in the world. He’s surely the world’s most despised and feared leader. Feared because they think he’s insane and has his fingers on nuke buttons.
I can still remember this joker’s face on television when he was lying to the people on the other side of the tube how dangerous Saddam was, and how Saddam had acquired aluminum tubes from South Africa. Next to him was that other joker called Rice who was lying through her teeth—no kidding, you could actually see her crooked teeth—about mushroom clouds. I also vividly remember Rice’s predecessor standing in front of the UN, lying and making a fool out of himself because nobody believed him. I guess if I can remember all this, I must be a visual learner. Bye
Summer homework for all progressive parents: it’s your job to insure your children read and understand the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. This is not an option.
Impeach BOTH George W. Bush and Richard Cheney for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Call House Speaker Nancy Pelosi TODAY:
202-225-4965
HELP!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE_HW76kuAA
B.ring
U.S.
S.oldiers
H.ome
And, if we are free to imagine that someday justice will prevail, we may dream that George’s and Dick’s prison cells are located in Abu Ghraib or its successor, under Iraqi management, with prison guards chosen from among the parents or siblings of children killed by US bombs, bullets, or missiles or cancers from DU exposure.
“Throughout the twentieth century and into the beginning of the twenty-first, the United States repeatedly used its military power, and that of its clandestine services, to overthrow governments that refused to protect American interests. Each time, it cloaked its intervention in the rhetoric of national security and liberation. In most cases, however, it acted mainly for economic reasons-specifically to establish, promote and defend the right of Americans to do business around the world without interference.”
Stephen Kinzer
*****
“What chiefly governs the [U.S.] military budget is the need to spend enormous sums of money in a useless way. The allegedly powerful Pentagon is simply a receptacle for wasteful expenditure, just as a city dump is the receptacle for the refuse of a city.”
Walter Karp
*****
“There is nothing puzzling … about America’s gratuitously aggressive foreign policy or about the oligarchs’ successful efforts to drag the Republic into five wars. What an aggressive foreign policy accomplishes by slow degrees, a state of war accomplishes in a trice. Overnight [war] kills reform, overnight it transforms insurgents into traitors and the Republic into an imperiled realm. Overnight it strangles free politics, distracts and overawes the citizenry. Overnight it blasts public hope.”
Walter Karp
*****
“Since free men cannot judge for themselves what endangers their freedom if they believe it is never in danger, it is the chief burden of the public school curriculum to persuade children that their liberty is always secure.”
Walter Karp
*****
“The military budget is simply an enormous pork barrel of special privilege, the privileges taking the form of windfall profits, of no-risk profits and, most importantly, of enormous outlays of capital supplied by the Pentagon to arms contractors.”
Walter Karp
Please, everyone who is a citizen of the United States. Contact your Representative in congress and also contact Nancy Pelosi at (202)225-4965 and tell them to get impeachment back onthe table immediately.
If you haven’t heard about the latest Executive Order signed by King Bush, you will not be surprised. He now has the authority to take anybody’s assets if he deems that you are a traitor.
Everyone of us on this post are traitors in his mind. If you attend a demonstration, you can be called a traitor. Any person in Congress could be called a traitor if they try to obstruct his wishes.
Bush/Cheney have totally usurped the US Constitution in their drive for ever more power. The only remedy is impeachment and soon.
I would say there are a fair number of remedies in addition to impeachment–but nobody seems to have the balls to get those in gear.
George W. Bush is a “dry drunk”. He compensates for his alcohol and cocaine addictions with an addiction for power.
I agree with saila. Forget James Madison’s nightmare, delete all references to the so called “founding fathers”. This is our nightmare, and the world’s.
“Here is my question: Do we even need/want the executive anymore?”
And the answer coming from many industral democracies, including our neighbor to the north, is NO. Unicameral parliamentary democracies which don’t have anything resembling the US executive branch, DO seem to function better and are more democratic in a number of ways.
So, except for the Bill of Rights and a few other amendments, I wouldn’t make your kids study the US Constitution too hard because I think it is long overdue for a complete overhaul.
Who is that fellow, James Madison, after all. Did not he cut and run from British with his silly piece of parchment (in Lil Bush vocabulary)?
Bill Krystol, the leader of gimmy generation, does not know what word Constitution means, they planted seeds of small government and now they are ready to harvest
Scheer (who I admire and once recommended wear a bullet proof vest in public places) says, “How remarkably prescient of Madison to anticipate the specter of our current King George.” I am not sure it was prescience, these guys saw what European kings and dictators were capable of and human nature has a stubborn habit of remaining rather consistent, hence the ingenious tripartite design of our unique government, that is, until Bush and his neocon lords of the dark side co-opted every just move on the political chess board.
Maybe Bush and Co. have studied their history, but they derived different lessons from it then liberty loving citizens of a government by consensus.
Again, I ask, “Who had the MOST to gain from 911 and using Iraq as a means to an end?” IF you can answer that one, then you have both the answers to all your questions.
Of course Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, et al., were not “prescient!” They were just well-read, well-educated people who had studied history - not just dates and peoples’s names, but real history; that is, what happens when people behave in certain ways, leaders do certain things, etc.
Unfortunately, our current “president” is neither well-read nor well-educated. Oh, yes, he may have degrees that his family bought for him from prestigious colleges, but, as we all can see, this has not made him educated! Instead it has simply made him more arrogant.
Everyone should read another, more recent historian who warned us against exactly what we have now. The book is called “The Imperial Presidency” (this is a book title and should be underlined but I cannot underline in this discussion format) The author is Arthur Schlessinger, Jr. The book was written in 1974 - it is chilling!
I think that the type of power grabbing scum that wallows in the executive branch was anticipated by the founding fathers. What they did not anticipate was the majority of Congress so corrupt that they will not even defend their own constitutional power.
At this rate, when the definitive political mutterings and twitterings of this period are published, they will have to be referred to as “The Feralist Papers”.
“Federal” is derived from the Latin word “foedus” - agreement, after all. And this “King George”, the First Lady of Texas himself, after all, is in too much of a hurry to get any sort of agreement - unless it’s getting a corpse to put a thumb-mark to a document.
Conserver-Thieves
O P I
Organize
Protest
Conserver-Thieves are conserving What and for Whom?
Everything
for
Themselves.
When a Super Rich, Alien Aristocrat, minority, Rule America, who benefits?
They do.
Sure they dole out a few pay offs, to a few wealthy friends,
As they loot the Treasury.
Kill untold millions.
Pollute the Airways and the Environment.
Now we know who’s watching the FAUX News!,
Little Old Ladies.
Rupert the Pervert has a captive audience.
Just the way the Neo-con Fascists like it.
To torture, rob and kill.
That’s right.
Even if you have own nothing.
They still want your rights.
Billionaires-R-Us is ruling America.
With a iron fist.
They own 99% of everything and
Still want the shirt off your back.
What that Gucci isn’t warm enough?
Sure they billow and bluster as they
Blow smoke up your ass.
Using their own grandmothers as a ruse.
Who do you think created these Bass-Turds anyway?
They all bow down and point
To they’re crude, rude
Little patsy.
The Shrub
King
Who,
Tortures
Bombs
Kills
Lies
Steals
All in the name of:
Their God
GREED
It’s
All for me!
and
None for you.
Or
Wait till you die!
For your pie
In the Sky.
We have all heard it before
And fought many a war.
To rid the world of Tyrants, Despots and Kings.
Now it’s time to clean house
Get rid of this Louse
and
Take care of our own.
O P I
Organize
Protest
Impeach!
When I do my “peaceful walking protest” to DC (if it is still necessary), one of the first places I plan on stopping at is Madison’s home near Charlottesville VA. About 10 years ago, I remember doing some research on him, but I have always wanted to learn more. Everything I have read so far suggests he was very capable and honorable.
This website http://www.millercenter.virginia.edu/index.php/Ampres/essays/madison/biography/1 says:
“Madison was small in stature. His soft spoken, shy demeanor was a foil for his brilliant persistence in advocating his political agenda. Madison emerged as a respected leader of the congress, known for his hard work and careful preparation.” It also speaks of his wife who was “vivacious” and a real socialite.
If but there were even a few in Congress with Madison’s ability perhaps….ah, its not even worth thinking about it. Here is my plan as succintly as I can state it in the few moments I have this morning:
1. Impeach/Convict VP, then P.
2. Robert Byrd (the statesman and constitutional scholar that he is) becomes interim president.
3. Some sort of Constitutional Convention is called.
4. I advocate elimination of the Executive branch. It is too problematic for these times. Figureheads for ceremonies and such can be established.
5. I advocate a Confederacy of States. A Confedracy founded upon a primary principle of maintaining peace. (I have ideas of what this should look like, but I’m sure their are many other ideas — I honestly wonder whether or not Texas should even remain part of the US, but this is perhaps my own personal and biased viewpoint…)
6. I advocate a minimal active military - perhaps nothing more that what our National Guard is supposed to be. Defensive in nature and able to provide assistance at home as needed for natural disasters.
7. I advocate a market system that emulates many of Adam Smith’s original concepts for fair trade (We are not even close to this, and I would love to see Common Dreams discuss this further (see David Korten’s, “The Post Corporate World” for additional detail)
8. I advocate a worldwide effort to begin truly working together to find solutions for the many unprecedented ecological inbalances that we now are confronted with and for which we can not wait any longer to start addressing…
9. I advocate a bunch more things, but I’m running out of time just now, so I will have to discuss them at a later time if I am able.
Peace,
Ken Hausle
* Lets make Peace
“We had relied with great security on that provision, which requires two-thirds of the Legislature to declare war. But this is completely eluded by a majority’s taking measures as will be sure to produce war.” –Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1798. ME 10:10
Unfortunately, during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the majority of Americans backed this “president”, the rationale being that Iraq was a security risk to the USA, or it was all, somehow, connected with the atrocities of 9/11/2001. Much of the evidence points to the conclusion that this was incorrect and, in fact, that this administration knew this, and purposely took us down the path to war anyway. In the months and years since, the reasons have changed repeatedly, depending upon what this administration thought the American people would swallow — hook, line, and sinker. Time was always bought, while lives were continually lost, and the national treasure was stolen from its citizens and generations to come. Finally, after more than four years, the majority of Americans are against this immoral war (or rather, occupation, which is what it really is).
Little-by-little, as more citizens realize the injustice that’s been borne upon them, many of their elected “representatives” (along with the mass media) have jumped on the bandwagon, as if the ideas were always their own, and have challenged this administration on Iraq. It’s about time, but it’s not enough. Granted, there are no easy answers to the complex situation this administration has purposely and deceitfully put this country, and its citizens, into. For this reason, and not for the dozens of other reasons that would probably stand, this “president” should be tried for impeachment, by the congress of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors, just as our constitution allows, and just as our founders, particularly Jefferson and Madison, would expect. Enough evidence has surfaced, making the refusal to investigate a crime in itself.
Off subject, but, I believe somewhat relevent as we are qouting Madision here.
Their is something else that James Madision’s said that is very seldom repeated, because of it’s obvious implacations as to the true nature of the creation of our republic.
” Political power, he explained, must be in the hands of “the wealth of the nation,” men who can be trusted to “secure the permanent interests of the country”—the rights of the propertied—and to defend these interests against the “leveling spirit” of the “general public”.
If the public were allowed to participate freely in elections, Madison warned his colleagues, their “leveling spirit” might lead to measures to improve the conditions of those who “labor under all the hardships of life, and secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings.”
The power of the people was a very real threat to those who created our so-called democracy and they set up system to protect the “propertied”.
What to add to such a great discussion. bloggers. You have made me a Canadian want to read more about James Madison and his wife.
History does indeed repeat itself and the USA today with it’s worldwide hegemony resembles the Roman Republic circa 166 BCE when Marius came to power. Factionalism was rife in the nation , greed was the number one virtue ,the common good was an excuse for Predators to take it for themselves. The idealists who wanted to reform were powerless or murdered. After Marius, Scylla ,then later Julius Cesar and then Octavius who became Augustus the emperor.
We are in for a ride!
Perhaps generations from now we will see Bush as the beginning of the end of despotic, fascist and classist rule in the “New World”. Perhaps he is the catalyst that makes all of us realize there is only one party in this government - the Corporatist. Self awarness is the beginning of change.
Organize
Protest
Impeach
…
and remove all vestiges of the current political elite - ALL OF THEM Democratic and Republican. Run Cindy Run!
duchaspa - “We are in for a ride”
I concur. But, I envision “the ride” as ultimately being uplifting in nature (I think I’m currently in the minority here with respect to this vision). Nevertheless, in my mind, it is a matter of collective will, and I have faith (some might consider it naive faith) in the spirit of humanity to rise to the occasion. We sure have reached the moment where it is imperative, and the alternative is just too dismal to dwell upon.
I also agree that in many ways it seems as if some of the so-called “elite” in the US want this country to emulate the behavior of the Roman’s. But, we all know what happened to the Roman Empire - which is the same thing that always happens to any empire based upon domination — eventually some force that is of greater substance puts the domination to an end. Sadly, what has happened for the last 5000 years or so, it that one dominating force is just replaced with another. The whole practice of domination to achieve objectives is what needs to go by the wayside. There is no reason for it to continue for it is only in the interest of a few as so eloquently elucidated in williameon’s poem.
The way I see it, the “time of the new romans” is coming to an end. The sooner the better as far as I’m concerned.
Peace,
Ken Hausle
It seems that the founding fathers exactly anticipated such a player as Bush with their structure of checks and balances. What escaped them was the existence of a sham opposition party, the modern Democrats. The Constitution would work if the Democrats used their power as intended. Instead we have Pelosi and Reid lying about the limits of their power and no one checking them.
We seriously need to start calling for an impeachment of Pelosi for her failure to uphold the Constitution. She is the nightmare the founding fathers never dreamed of.