Twenty First Century Serf

The theory has been advanced that George W. Bush aims for nothing less than to establish a new dynasty of kings, the royal Bush family, if you will. My view was that this was just a little bit of paranoia. The Bush's are in politics just like the Kennedys are in politics and this doesn't mean anything more or less than a commitment to public service. That's what I thought. Now ... I don't know.

G.W.'s stooge, Alberto Gonzales - I mean Attorney General - has recently been testifying before congress how the President has broad powers to act within war time. You know, not any declared war but any time he decides to order our troops around. During these times of 'war' the president does not have to consult with the legislative bodies and he also doesn't have to obey the laws as in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillence Act (FISA). In times of war he can wire-tap suspected terrorists or you if he thinks you might want to talk to terrorists. No warrants necessary - we're at war!

Lately it's come out that he can also order the assassination of suspected terrorists on American society. Who are these suspected terrorists? Well, some of them are real terrorists. In fact, I'll give our government credit and say that most of these men are terrorists, and I'm okay with murderers being killed before they can murder again. What I'm not comfortable with is the lack of any due process or oversight from other elected officials. After all, the standard of proof to be a 'suspected' anything are that somebody thinks you could be one - whatever that is - and that's a pretty low bar to jump over.

So, George W. Bush believes that he can do what he wants to because these are emergency powers necessary in times of war. His powers are almost dictatorial and more to the point: monarchical. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine that these emergency powers could, nay, should be extended as long as needed even beyond the constitutional term limits. Hey, we're at war!

What about the rest of us? Would it really be so bad to have George Bush as our King? England has monarchs and they do alright. We would, too. George Bush is a nice guy, he would only rule us in our own best interest.

Maybe, but somehow I don't think he would be the pretend type Monarch that we see in all of those wheezy old European Kingdoms. He might actually like to be a King, as in his other King friends, you know the King of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordon, Morocco, Bahrain et al. He wouldn't want to just ride around all day in his golden chariot stopping every now and then to cut a ribbon in some hospital. No, no. He'd give the orders. And somehow most of us are going to end up on the short end of this one.

Most Americans sell their labor. We are almost all of us working men and women, and in this global capitalist system we have competitors who also sell their labor. The problem for all of us is that the labor we sell over here in America is way high-priced compared to anywhere else in the world except possibly for Europe. If you don't work for dollars per day then you are in a lot of trouble, because guess what? There are billions of people who do work for that. Free trade means that those with the capital can move their factories and production anywhere in the world that's cheaper. That is not in the US.

The new American order is already being set up. We will have a King, and his nobles will be anybody who has money. The rest of us will gradually get poorer until we become their serfs. Don't worry, though. Serfdom worked for thousands of years and it's a time proven system. You'll learn to love simplicity - lots and lots of simplicity. And you can take pride that the United States will be ruled by the best King we ever had.