archived: 17 - 23 Apr, 2005         Back                 Next

UPDATED:  April, 24, 2005

                        “THE SCHIAVO CASE, III: FURTHER LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS AND
                        THEIR POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS”                         

                        (“The Coming 2^nd Civil War,” No. 9)                                 

This column is the ninth in this series.  As I have noted previously, the cataclysm will come to our nation, if it does, because of the ideology, policies, and ever-growing political power of the Republican Religious Right (RRR) and their policy arm, the Georgites.  The RRR agenda is clearly stated in writing by its ideologues from Norquist to Wolfowitz to Falwell.  For obvious political reasons it is hardly ever articulated by its front men from Bush to Frist to DeLay, for if they spelled it out, it would be a sure loser.  The major components are: imposing their religious beliefs on all Americans through the use of the criminal law; reducing the functions of the Federal government to the barest minimum outside of the military-and-prison-industrial, opposition-repression/suppression, and private-thought/behavior-control complexes; and replacing Constitutional government as we have known it with overwhelming Executive Branch dominance operating on its own authority – that is via a theocratic-fascist dictatorship.   

I do not write the term “Second Civil War” lightly.  As you know, I believe that Georgitism is leading us directly to the destruction of traditional American Constitutional Democracy and instituting in its place a theocratic-fascist dictatorship.   

This is the third of what will now be four columns on the Schiavo case.  As I noted last week, I believe that history will come to see it as the Dred Scott case of this era, whether or not there is in fact a Second Civil War.  Why Dred Scott, you might ask?  That case made the nation face the reality of what was in the Constitution about slaves and the nature of slavery.  It also made the nation face the reality that the South wanted to expand slavery into the Territories without limit.  Schiavo will, I believe, eventually make the nation face the true nature of Georgitism and the RRR. 

Although it does not do it often, the RRR is now in the process of revealing its true nature to the American people.  That nature is, as I have said many times in this space, antithetical to traditional US Constitutional Democracy.  The values that govern the RRR are epitomized by the My Right to Control Your Life movement.  They want to expand their particular beliefs on religious matters into the depths of everyone’s’ minds, and require conformity on them, through the use of the criminal law.   

Their approach to governing is epitomized by Senators and Congressmen who appear to endorse the murder, or at the very least the “mass impeachment,” of judges whose decisions they happen to disagree with.  This approach to governing is no more to be found in the Constitution than was the unlimited expansion of slavery beyond its original boundaries.  These values and this theory of government will, if not checked politically very soon, eventually lead us to civil war for they are totally unacceptable to the majority of the American people.  Let us review further some of the legal considerations in the case and their political implications. 

As many observers have noted, the response of the Republican Religious Right on this case is clearly an attack on the judicial system, both State and Federal.  Fascism cannot function with an independent judiciary.  Indeed, one of the major parts of the definition of fascism is there is no independent judiciary.  The RRR has been developing their case in this matter since the Georgites took office.  Occurring as it did in Jeb Bush’s territory, they knew that this particular case was coming and given its seven-year history in the courts and what the judicial decisions have been consistently, they had a very good idea of what the final decision would be.  Since the case has proved so useful to the RRR in mobilizing its so-called “Religious” base and, I believe will prove even more useful in the future, I would not be surprised if the whole campaign were not choreographed and funded well before the judge handed down his decision. 

One major propaganda stratagem the RRR used was the talk about “due process” and the denial of it to her, as if seven years of court procedures did not constitute “due process” (to the extent that a person with no conscious brain can be provided with it.  But more on that next week.)  This tack, this talk about “denial” as if it were a fact, was taken over and over again by RRR representatives on the airwaves.  It showed: just how blatantly and routinely they lie about reality; that they know well just how ahistorical so many Americans are; and how few members of the media are able and capable of challenging them on such matters of fact. 

Using both Florida and case law, the judicial process in Florida ruled that a) in such matters the conscious spouse is the best representative of the permanently unconscious spouse’s best interests, and that b) in this particular case the husband’s claim that his wife had expressed the wish not to be kept going in a persistent vegetative state was valid.  The case of the RRR in this case, then, comes down to the fact that a minority of the country amounting to about 20% of the electorate (see Frank Rich, New York Times, 3/26/05) did not agree with the decision.  Therefore, they tell us, it is time to throw out the present judicial system and its judges and replace both with a system and judges who will do what the RRR wants, regardless of what the law presently says.  Historical precedents?  Take a look at the “Peoples’ Courts” in both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. 

Finally, in my view this case will be Jeb Bush’s 9/11, as he prepares himself to continue the Bush Dynasty in 2008.

________________  

Dr. Steven Jonas is a TPJ contributing author.  He is a Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University (NY) and author/co-author of over twenty books. Dr. Jonas is one of America's most perceptive Democratic political analysts.

In his book The New Americanism, Dr. Jonas presents his case that the Democratic Party has come adrift from its founding principles.  He urges the Party to turn to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to find the new vision and mission that it, and our country, so desperately need.  "The New Americanism: How the Democratic Party Can Win the Presidency  is available from Amazon.com (go to "Books;" enter the title) and BarnesandNoble.com (same). 

He is also the author of The 15% Solution: A Political History of American Fascism, 2001-2022, originally published in 1996 under the pseudonym “Jonathan Westminster,” and republished with a New Introduction in 2004, under the same author's name.  The 2004 edition is available at www.barnesandnoble.com (search with author’s name) and www.xlibris.com (click on “Bookstore,” then “Search” with title).  Both versions are available at www.amazon.com (go to "Books;" search with title).