Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

As many of my regular readers know, one of my favorite topics over time has been the contemporary Republican Party and where they are taking the country. I was about to do another one of my speculative columns on that subject when a friend supplied me with some apparently factual information about what the party is really up to in order to gain full power in the Federal government. Of course, they already have a hammerlock on most Federal government policy through: a) their control of the House of Representatives; b) their control of the Supreme Court, and c) their defacto control of the US Senate through the use of the filibuster (about which the Democratic majority appears willing to do virtually nothing). But they will not be satisfied until they gain full control of the Senate and of course the Presidency.

(What? Party control of the Supreme Court, you might say? Well, yes. Not just right-wing, but GOP. For example, the First Right-Wing vote, which never varies in support of Reaction, belongs to “Mr. Justice Silent,” Clarence Thomas. It so happens that his wife, Virginia [“Ginni” to her friends], is one of the full-time leaders of one of the main right-wing “think tanks” powering the current GOP, its policies, strategy, and tactics, the semi-secretive “Groundswell” [see David Corn of Mother Jones at: “Inside Groundswell” http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas?slide=22; and “Groundswell’s Secret Crusade to Crush Karl Rove [too “centrist” {sic}” http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-ginni-thomas-war-karl-rove.] It is hard to suppose that the pillow talk of the Justice and his wife approximates that of Doris Day and Rock Hudson. A bit more political, I should think. As to the other Four GOPers, well you know the drill.)

And so, I was going to lay out a series of (not-too-difficult-to-make) guesses about what their strategy would be heading into 2014 and then onto 2016, when a fascinating document fell into my lap. It purports to be the outline of what their real plan is. Lo and behold it happens to very similar to what one might guess, observing their actions since even before the 2012 elections. From their perspective, and based on how they are handling themselves at the Federal and State levels, it would seem to make total sense. And so, here ‘tis (with a few stylistic edits from the version that I have seen): 

1. Retake the US Senate in 2014.

2. Demonize Obama to the point where he will be almost totally paralyzed and will thus become a serious deficit for the Dems in 2016, as the GOP will ever more vigorously be able to blame the failures of their own policies on “the government” and him.

3. Maneuver the 2016 Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton or her equivalent (so that there will not be any real, progressive alternatives to the GOP agenda in play).

4. Using (10) below, retake the White House in 2016.

5. Having done that, and thus having full control of all three branches of the Federal government, install a new and more predatory right-wing, operational military/industrial alliance in January 2017.

6. Fully reinstall/reinstate “Reagan-style” Economic policy, leading to:

7. Further massive tax cuts for the corporations and the “1 percent.”

8. Draconian “austerity” paradigm — savage cuts to Medicare/Social Security via “privatization,” and the virtual elimination of Medicaid.

9. Distraction of enough of the people from what they are really doing (a la what Bush/Cheney did) via new energy war(s) in the Middle East, Central Asia, and possibly elsewhere.

10. Since they are clearly the minority party, were everyone, or a reasonable sample thereof, to vote, they wouldn’t stand a chance of controlling any branches of government, they will achieve all of this through the continuing vigorous pursuit of their Voter Suppression/Gerrymandering strategy.

Now, you might ask, why does the Republican Party want to do this? They have consistently attacked the Obama Presidency. They have refused to deal with him except on their own terms (which began in December 2008, when Mitch McConnell announced that he was simply “going to filibuster anything that I don’t like”; see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/us/politics/17mcconnell.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 for a good summary of his strategy into 2010). Thus, for better or worse, in many areas they have already paralyzed the Obama Presidency. (Of course having a President who doesn’t like to do battle much does help them quite a bit, but that’s another story.) Thus we pretty much have GOP economic policy in force with the added benefit for them that they are able to blame Obama for its outcomes. Of course they do this over and over again, even while at the same time, whenever anyone brings up the disastrous Bush economic/regulatory policy, the GOP and its mouthpieces scream that their opponents are playing the “blame game.” (Would the Democrats just play it with much more vigor, but that’s another story too.)

And now, as far as Republican tactics and strategy are concerned, we now don’t have to make guesses as to what they are about. They are in the process of telling us. What we do have to do is organize a massive nation-wide campaign to aggressively take on Right-Wing Reaction, leading up to the 2016 election. (Yes indeed, I do believe in naming names. These people aren’t “conservative,” they are “reactionaries,” and so should they be called.) The first order of business? As I have said on a number of occasions (http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12362), create a Progressive Democratic Party out of what is clearly the wreckage of the present one. 

Addendum: Anyone who seeks to take solace in the current GOP so-called “civil war,” between the likes of, say, Rand (Ayn) Paul and Chris Christie, fuhgeddaboudit, as they say in Noo Joisey. These squabbles are all about style, tactics, and strategy, not about desired ultimate outcomes. These folks all agree on policy a la Grover Norquist, “shrink the Federal government down to the size of a bath-tub and then drown it in the bathtub,” laid out in the above list. That’s it and that’s that.

Senior Contributing Editor Steven Jonas’ incisive analyses are published on many leading progressive venues, besides TGP, including OpedNews, BuzzFlash, and others. A protean writer, physician, and cultural observer, he remains profoundly concerned about the gradual slide of the American nation toward a masked brand of fascism. His futuristic novel, The 15% Solution, How the Republican Religious Right Took Control of the US, has just been republished by Punto Press. 

Manning: Physically small but with the heart of a tiger when it comes to morality. We are all in his debt, and the least we can do is never to forget him.

JOSEPH KISHORE, wsws.org

On Wednesday, the day after the conviction of Bradley Manning was handed down by a military judge, the Washington Post published an article under the headline, “Manning’s Conviction Seen as Making Prosecution of WikiLeaks’ Assange Likely.” The Post noted that the prosecutors—that is, the Obama administration—specifically tailored their case against Manning to implicate the founder of WikiLeaks.

“Military prosecutors in the court-martial portrayed [Julian] Assange as an ‘information anarchist’ who encouraged Manning… And they insisted that the anti-secrecy group cannot be considered a media organization that published the leaked information in the public interest,” the Post wrote. The prosecution continually sought to present Assange as a co-conspirator.

Other articles sounded a similar theme, including one by the Associated Press stating that Manning’s conviction “gives a boost to the Obama administration’s aggressive pursuit of people it believes have leaked national security secrets to the media.” In addition to Assange, the AP noted that “the government’s case against National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden” will likely be “similar to the Manning prosecution.”

This is further evidence that the kangaroo-court trial of the young whistle-blower Manning is part of a ruthless government campaign to criminalize all exposures of government criminality.

The prosecution of Manning, who faces a maximum sentence of 136 years in prison, is intended as an example and a precedent. Whistle-blowing, the government is declaring, amounts to espionage and treason.

The Obama administration has already opened up a grand jury investigation into Assange and WikiLeaks, and there are reports that a secret indictment has been filed. It has submitted charges against Snowden under the Espionage Act for his actions in exposing illegal government spying programs. If either Snowden or Assange is captured by the United States, there is no doubt that he will face a fate equal to, or worse, than Manning’s.

Obama, along with top officials in the military and intelligence apparatus, is acutely aware that the actions taken over the past decade violate innumerable laws and constitutional provisions.

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, under the pretext of the “war on terror,” the American ruling class, first under Bush and then under Obama, has engaged in wanton criminality, only a small portion of which has been exposed by the revelations of Manning and Snowden. Washington is responsible for torture centers all over the world, domestic spying on an unparalleled scale, illegal rendition, the assassination of US citizens, and secret anti-democratic laws drawn up by secret courts.

[pullquote] The kangaroo-court trial of the young whistle-blower Manning is part of a ruthless government campaign to criminalize all exposures of government criminality. [/pullquote]

On Wednesday, the Guardian reported on yet another surveillance program, XKeyscore, that allows NSA analysts—contrary to the testimony of government and intelligence officials—to comb through “vast databases containing emails, online chats and browsing histories of millions of individuals” without a court order.

All of these crimes flow from the illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Manning himself was moved by the atrocities he witnessed in Iraq in a war based on outright lies. Hundreds of thousands have been killed. Entire cities have been destroyed.

The wars against Afghanistan and Iraq have been followed by other war crimes, with the US government now operating a fleet of drones that rain death on peoples throughout the world.

Manning is to spend decades in jail, if not his entire life, for helping to expose these crimes, while those who carried them out walk free or occupy plush offices in the White House.

Of particular concern to the ruling class is that individuals like Manning and Snowden, utilizing the power of the Internet, have been able to bypass the stranglehold of the American media, which has aided and abetted every government conspiracy against the population.

The New York Times in particular played an indispensable role in propagating the lies used to launch the war in Iraq and has utilized its pages to carry out a smear campaign against Assange and Snowden. In a two-faced editorial Wednesday, the Times declared, “There is no question that Private Manning broke laws.” This—a cowardly statement worthy of scoundrels—was published as Manning faces life in prison for exposing government illegality!

A companion “news” article published the same day, entitled “Loner Sought a Refuge, and Ended Up In a War,” began with a gratuitous reference to military prosecutors who “called [Manning’s actions] one of the greatest betrayals in the nation’s history.”

Manning, Assange and Snowden have put their lives at risk to expose to the American people the secret actions of a military-intelligence apparatus that operates without constraint and above the law.

In considering the fate of these individuals, one is reminded of the prosecution of Hans and Sophie Scholl, executed for treason for distributing leaflets as part of the White Rose group that opposed the Nazi regime in Germany and exposed its mass murder of Jews, Poles and Russians. (A cinematic rendition of the Scholl’s trial can be found here.)

“Where we stand today, you will stand soon,” Sophie Scholl proclaimed before she was sentenced by the Nazi judge Roland Freisler and beheaded. And she was proven correct.

In its contempt of legal norms, the attitude that prevails in the corridors of power in the United States is not fundamentally different from that of Hitler’s Germany. Laws exist solely for the purpose of advancing the interests of the ruling class that controls the state. They can be violated by the executive at will, receiving, if it is convenient, the endorsement of the courts and a servile Congress. Exposure of these violations, carried out in the public interest, is by definition illegal because it violates the secrecy demanded in the name of “national security.”

The crimes of the Hitler regime—including the mass internment and execution of political dissidents—have yet to be replicated in the United States. However, the logic of dictatorship is the same—a logic that is driven by the irreconcilable antagonism between the interests of a parasitic financial aristocracy and the vast majority of the population.

There is immense popular sympathy for Manning, Snowden and Assange. The measures that they have exposed are unpopular, which is why the ruling class must conceal them.

This sympathy must be translated into a conscious political movement, one that connects the defense of democracy with the overthrow of the corrupt economic and political system that prevails in the United States and around the world.

_{Joseph Kishore is a senior political commentator with wsws.org.}