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Naomi Wolf and Brad Sherman on martial law in America

Representative Brad Sherman (D-CA) recently exposed a bit of Bush administration fear mongering and extortion while speaking before the House. The occasion: The run-up to second House vote on the Paulson Plan.

In an article published on AlterNet, Naomi Wolf expands upon Sherman's charges by stating

If this [Sherman's claim] is true and Rep. Sherman is not delusional, I ask you to consider that if they [the Bush cabal] are willing to threaten martial law now, it is foolish to assume they will never use that threat again. It is also foolish to trust in an orderly election process to resolve this threat. And why deploy the First Brigade? One thing the deployment accomplishes is to put teeth into such a threat.

Indeed, why would Americans expect an election to resolve the political crisis when George W. Bush initially came to power because of a constitutional coup d'état? What else but respect for the rule of law and America's Constitution might restrain a sitting President from becoming a dictator if that is his or her desire? Good sense? Rational calculation? Human decency? A rock-solid sanity? When have these concepts reflected the thinking and practice of the monsters governing the country today? Have these men and women ever proven to the world they possess even the slightest respect for the rule of law and America's constitution, for international law and its institutions? No, they have not. Finally, how many people must they kill before the threats they pose to the country and the world becomes a living and effective political reality? Tens of millions?

Impeachment of the President and Vice President was never an extravagant and partisan response to the Bush regime and its policies. Impeachment was, rather, the only reasonable response America could have taken to the Bush regime. As reasonable, American citizens and their leaders did not need to depend upon hindsight to make this judgment. It became obvious shortly after the 9.11 catastrophe. They only needed an effective democratic politics.