By Alan
Caruba
There are
lots of Americans who, after the first five years of living under the
governance of Barack Hussein Obama, have concluded that, among his most notable
characteristics, he is an incompetent, a pathological liar, a Marxist, and,
fearful as the prospect is, a potential dictator who will not leave office when
a new President is due to be sworn in.
The fears
are largely based on the astonishingly lax Congress that, with the exception of
Rep. Darrell Issa and the House Oversight and Reform Committee, has done little
to investigate the many scandals that litter the Obama administration.
It doesn’t
help that the Department of Justice and possibly the FBI have been politically
corrupted.
It doesn’t
help when the Commander-in-Chief has forced a significant number of the armed
forces top generals and admirals into early retirement or removed them from
duty. The question is why.
It doesn’t
help when we learn of the purchase of millions of dollars of ammunition by the
Department of Homeland Security and other measures that appear to be turning it
into an internal army.
Politics
in America is a metaphoric war in which the worst is thought of any President
in office by those in the opposing party. It isn’t always this way. Reagan
enjoyed a relatively non-partisan relationship with Congress, but Andrew
Jackson was regarded as a tyrant by many. Now his face is on the twenty dollar
bill.
I got to
thinking about the way tyranny and despotism has been and in many nations still
is the rule throughout history and existing today. The U.S. Constitution was
written to ensure that its three branches would act as a brake on each other.
If there was one thing the Framers did not want it was a monarch or despot.
The
opposite of U.S. history is found in the history of Russia which has been replete
with czars, followed by communist dictators, Lenin, Stalin, and others. These
days it is Vladimir Putin and his grasp on power has been the subject of
protest by a new generation of Russians.
A new
book, “Kicking the Kremlin” by Marc Bennetts, a British journalist working out
of Moscow, tells the story of Putin’s rise to the office of president of the
then-new Russian republic following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
He was appointed prime minister in 2000 by Boris Yeltsin who had replaced
Gorbachev. At the time, Putin was a former KGB Lieutenant Colonel who had
served five years in East Germany recruiting spies when Gorbachev was in
charge. In 1998, after serving in administrative posts, he returned to the
Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the KGB.
As
Bennetts notes, “In less than a decade, the little-known prime minister that
Yeltsin had told to ‘take care of Russia’ had transformed himself into a modern
day czar in the Kremlin, eliminating all but the most stubborn opposition to
his rule. Early on he established control of the media.
“The
Russian constitution stated clearly that no president could serve more than
“two consecutive terms.” But Putin had no plans to surrender power. In 2007, he
picked Dmitry Medvedev to be his puppet to serve as president and, in turn,
Medvedev named him to be prime minister and he became head of the governing
party, United Russia. It was clear that Putin was still calling the shots.
Two years into his term, Medvedev proposed extending the presidential term from
four years to six. “It would grant Putin, upon his return to the Kremlin, the
opportunity to remain in power until 2024” if elected president again. He was.
The
hope that corruption and nepotism would be curbed and that an independent
judiciary and police force would be established was dashed.
“Traumatized
by a world war, revolutions and almost total economic collapse at the tail end
of the twentieth century,” wrote Bennetts, “many Russians have first-hand
experience of the dangers of rapid political and social change. That is why
Putin’s message of stability had remained so attractive to so many, for so
long.”
While
Obama is now engaged in a campaign aimed at “income inequality”, corruption in
Russia soared to a point where, in 2013, Credit Suisse noted that “Worldwide,
billionaires collectively account for 1%-2% of total household wealth; in
Russia today 110 billionaires own 35% of all wealth.” However, “large swatches
of the country are still wallowing in Third World poverty…And all this in a
country that possesses the world’s largest natural gas reserves, the
second-largest coal reserves, and the ninth-largest crude-oil reserves.”
A
major characteristic of Putin's regime has been the suppression of any
opposition. It is marked by the assassinations of journalists and of
politicians. Leaders of the opposition who organized mass protests in Moscow
were jailed and even Pussy Riot, a girl’s band, that spent forty seconds in a Moscow
cathedral were sentenced to seven years in jail. Laws were passed to make
protest leaders and participants subject to jail for their opposition.
“Putin’s
inauguration in May 2012 for a third presidential term was not so much a
national celebration of sovereignty as a highly disciplined military
operation,” wrote Bennetts. “And the number one threat to the head of state?
The Russian people.”
Here
in America the last major protest in Washington, D.C. was organized by the
then-new Tea Party movement and was focused to stopping the enactment of
Obamacare. It attracted nearly a million or more Americans. There have been few
such protests since, but on May 16, “American Spring” is slated for a major
protest march against Obama.
The
protests in 2011 and 2012 against Putin were ruthlessly put down by
government forces. By 2013, half the Russians no longer believed what they were
being told by television. Similarly, Obama’s approval ratings are falling fast
due to massive unemployment and disappointment.
America
is not Russia, but Americans are growing increasingly concerned about the way
Obama is governing the nation. They should be.
©
Alan Caruba, 2014
3 comments:
Dear God I hope it never comes to it but I believe Americans would stand and fight before surrendering to a dictator.. I know that at least 75% of our Law Enforcement would stand with us...
I would like to believe that the military has the same percentage of TRUE Patriots, if not, it would be a terrible battle that would rip this nation apart, but the bottom line for me is this; IF we survive the remainder of the Obama regime and he then refuses to step down, massive insurrection is the only hope we have!
Deo vindice...
"All I need is a pen and a phone."
Did Joe Stalin say that, or was it Barack Obama?
@TexasFred:
I disagree that 75% of law enforcement, or the military would stand with the patriots in an insurrection.
I think we would be lucky if 25% came over to the patriots side.
However, regardless of whether few or many Federalists defect the Obama Forces in an insurrection there could be a patriot gun behind every tree, as we have seen recently in Mexico, where patriots fed up with a worthless Leftist government in Mexico City have finally took to the streets with guns, bombs and Regime Change in their eyes.
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