In many ways, Election 2006 not only marks the last chance to exact some accountability from those responsible for the disastrous Iraq War and other failures, but it also represents a point of no return for a nation hurtling toward a future of endless warfare abroad and a new-age totalitarianism at home.

Indeed, one could argue that the trivialization of this important U.S. election – with major U.S. news outlets devoting two days of breathless coverage to Senator Kerry’s clunky joke – is confirmation of America’s rapid descent into a dark fantasy world incapable of separating meaningful fact from silly irrelevancies.

More than 2,800 American soldiers are dead along with possibly hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in what is likely just a small down-payment in blood for President Bush’s Iraq War – yet the U.S. press corps is obsessed with Kerry’s supposed affront to the troops, though the joke seemed actually to be aimed at Bush and the former Democratic presidential nominee isn’t even on the ballot.

All that’s left now is for the Washington pundits – many of the same people who climbed aboard the Iraq War bandwagon in 2002-03 – to explain to the nation on Election Night how Bush and his political team brilliantly engineered a dramatic come-from-behind win or how the Kerry gaffe and the overconfident Democrats blew it.

But the recent goofiness aside, the stakes for the Nov. 7 congressional elections remain extremely high and are likely to get even higher.

The elections have become a referendum on whether the United States will wage a virtually endless “World War III” against Muslim radicals – a kind of global version of Iraq – and whether the U.S. Constitution will be effectively repealed, replaced by a new system without “unalienable rights” for citizens and with an all-powerful President.

If Bush follows the pattern of 2002 and 2004, he will interpret a Republican victory on Nov. 7 as a mandate for pursuing and expanding his policies.

Plenary Powers

Continued Republican majorities in the House and Senate will amount to an endorsement of Bush’s assertion of “plenary” – or unlimited – powers as Commander in Chief for the duration of the “war on terror.”

The founding notion of the United States – that power rests in the hands of the citizens who possess unshakeable rights spelled out in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights – will have effectively come to an end.

Rather than citizens possessing “unalienable rights,” Bush will get to decide which rights are allotted to which Americans. After all, if Bush possesses unlimited “plenary” powers, that means other Americans only get to have the rights that he is willing to share, much like a Medieval monarch granting favors to his subjects.

That is the tradeoff of liberty for safety at the heart of Bush’s argument for a Republican victory. As Bush has stated repeatedly, he views the fundamental duty of the government as protecting Americans, rather than the traditionalist view that the primary responsibility of the President and other officials is to defend the Constitution.

During a typical stump speech on Oct. 28 in Sellersburg, Indiana, Bush explained his view of his historical legacy:

“When people look back at this period of time, the question will be, did we do everything in our power to protect the American people and win the war on terror? And we are in a war. It came to our shores on September the 11^th, 2001, and on that day, I vowed to use every element of national power to defend the American people and to defeat the terrorists.”

Bush’s words were greeted with cheers and chants of “USA! USA! USA!”

Yet, Bush’s goal of doing “everything in our power” to make Americans safe and to eliminate something as vague as terror is a recipe for totalitarianism.

Bush began asserting his claim to unlimited power shortly after the 9/11 attacks, though often in secret or in patchwork ways that left the larger meaning unclear.

For instance, in spring 2002, Bush ordered the indefinite military detention of American citizen Jose Padilla as an “enemy combatant.” Administration officials deemed Padilla a “bad guy” who was contemplating a radioactive “dirty bomb” attack, though no such charges were ever filed and no evidence ever presented in court.

The point of the Padilla case was that Bush could override habeas corpus rights of a fair trial and detain anyone he wanted indefinitely. Only 3 ½ years later – facing likely reversal by the U.S. Supreme Court – did Bush turn Padilla over to the civilian courts to face unrelated charges of supporting a terrorist group.

But Bush now knows he has four solid Supreme Court votes for his reinterpretation of the U.S. system of government – John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. All Bush needs is one more vacancy among the five other justices to secure the court’s blessing for his all-powerful execu

Tribunal Lawhttp://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/110206.html