It was strawberry waffles that did it to me, the first time. On a sunny day in Seattle, only recently living on my own on Capitol Hill. It’s a busy place for people on sunny days with sidewalks crammed by the flow of bodies in all directions. And at that point in history, Capitol Hill had wildly diverse people. I was having breakfast with a book, near the large windows revealing the spectacle of an unremarkable day. The strawberries were fresh, sweet and juicy. Then suddenly, everything around me became like one enormously real thing, yet completely unreal. I stopped mid-bite terrified, yet somehow without fear, at all that I saw in the commonplace before my eyes and ears. The movement of people appeared like mathematics, and the sounds of everything mashed in upon my head like a deafening drone.

I made myself chew the strawberry and waffle in my mouth, and swallow. But nothing changed. I feared I might stand up raving like a lunatic. As a lunatic. I had to do something to find normality once again. I put money down on the table and left the little restaurant. The cars moved along the street as they always did. Throngs of people passed with hair and clothes, all so different, yet all the same. The building walls channeled all movement along straight grids. The gray sidewalk sat atop the earth under my feet while little decorative trees popped up, rising from little squares at perfect intervals along the way. The sounds were enormous. The light reflecting from the substantiative material of people and objects were caught by my eyes, and perceived, and I realizedoffice furniture in Bulgaria
that I perceived. I didn’t know where I was going as I walked, and neither did they. I encountered two different people I knew who started speaking to me like a known equation, etched in what was and always will be. Both I told, I cannot speak now, and carried on.

Eventually I found myself sitting in a cafe with Ty, who I happened to see through a window. He was always very strange in a beautiful way. Immediately, without intimation, he asked me what was wrong. I told him that I suddenly felt crazy and described in a free flow of rambling impressions all that I was experiencing. He was grinning larger and larger until I finally asked, what’s wrong with you? And he laughed, asking me if everything seemed like it did, now. I thought about it, looking around and noticed that much had passed back down into the background. No, it’s not happening so much now, I answered him. And he told me, yes, it isn’t, but it is.

Artists are a different kind of people. Everyone has at least a bit of the artist within them. It is how we manage to see things differently than how we have always seen them. It is a wrecking ball and an erector set. It is a microscope and a macroscopic lens. It is fear and love, hate, passion and hope — or it is pain. It is a singular mirror showing what is there, or a group of mirrors aligned to reflect the infinite. It is an equation of physics and bowel movement of color. It is honesty, down to the core that we do not know — which transcends culture.

Late that evening I was with a small group of friends having dinner. I told them my story. The smartest among them informed me that I had experienced an anxiety attack. These were medically recognized and common. I could even take medication to stop them from happening again. After all, he did. I looked at him closely, examining every nuance I could find and asked, why would you want to stop something like that from ever happening? Yes, it was terrifying, but it was a life-altering experience, and honestly, still is. But I see paths now that were previously invisible, which I must take. Then it struck me — I realized that he was unable to take any new paths. Revelations without the will to change means that these revelations are dangerous and subversive and must be squelched. And at this same time I realized why art is attacked by more authoritarian mindsets.

A poet knows that a single word can be art. A word represents a conceptual object that we all share. We tie these objects together to construct ever more elaborate conceptual constructions that might reflect a “natural” perception of our experience, or might reflect a more artificial one, usually in the name of convenience. Sometimes we accept conceptual objects in a generalized sense without even knowing their meaning. For example, a man I recently met was telling me that he was growingly irritated by people who say they hate money. He reasoned that money is simply a measurement of the exchange between our efforts contributed to society, in exchange for what we need or want. As such, money is a measurement of what we do with our lives. Therefore, if we hate money, then we hate our lives. I’ll take this reasoning a tiny extra step forward, and say that for him, money equals life, or at least life is a subset of money. This was an extraordinarily reasonable man, and intelligent. Unfortunately, he is living in a state of error, caused grief as a result, yet he promotes that error to others.

Many things we believe, pursue and even promote, arise from conceptualizations we adhere to without fully questioning their validity beyond the sheer weight in numbers of the people similarly adhering. From our beginnings as children, open to any possibility and potential, we observe and make sense of our surroundings, from the most basic physical interactions to eventually the most complex abstractions. We rely upon those who know more than ourselves to determine oftentimes unknowable things for us. They do this because they are willing to do so, or feel a strong personal belief that doing so is beneficial in some way. These people have enormous power because they substantially define fundamental aspects of our lives. It is a power we give them. It is the reason art is often considered subversive to power.

Ideally, the conceptualizations of a society are intended to raise people’s lives and awareness to a level beyond our individuality so that we might all benefit from each other more than we could living entirely alone. The concept of money is one way to measure this. But it is also easily exploitable as an instrument of power over others. And it is exploited. At every possible turn. Since not everyone can be “winners”, this results in a sense of despair and futility for the vast majority of people who have seen beyond the promised land of monetary wealth for all. I have to wonder, might there not be another way to live? If despair, futility and the oppression of never having that promised dream were eliminated, what might we be left with? What might we contribute to each other, simply because we want to?

When the smart man told me my terrifying experience was simply an anxiety attack, he wrapped it up neatly within a conceptualization that boxed it into its proper place on a shelf within our current social structures. I was to leave it there, or be considered ill and needing drugs to maintain proper sensibilities. So, order is maintained, despite error. But to me, the revelation of error and even moreso the revelation of aspects beyond the current conceptualizations led me instead to revel in this experience that so unexpectedly brought me closer to my own humanity, and the precarious and precious humanity of so many other beings with whom I share this world.

In a sense, you might say that sweet strawberry brought on a long-running anxiety attack whose duration is now spanning nearly two decades. I recognize its effect and feel its force more acutely from time to time. Just as we all do. I have learned that it is nothing to fear. It only means that we are occasionally reminded that what we see and how we are living is not quite right. It only means that paths once invisible are now revealed, and perhaps we should take them, even though we may not know where they lead. This, more than tradition and rhetoric, is the fountainhead of hope — the first step in creating all new things. It is the wrecking ball, and the erector set. It is the soft wind that blew us forward, from behind. It is what we feel, and what we know. It is more than anyone can say. It is incredibly, not what we are, quite yet. But come on, you know…

Sometimes I say, sometimes people do, or are, this or that. Or, generally speaking, most people <insert something here>. Probably I’m right about most, because when I have doubts, I let people know. And I always have doubts unless clarity is certain. Clarity and certainty are rare. Admitting to and expressing doubt is the first step toward achieving that rarity, but even if achieved, change, which can destroy certainty and clarity, is much like life.

Like a dream, where a man had a secret ritual, and every few days he allowed himself, becoming lost within it, far away from monotony. The otherworldly madness overtook him randomly, while alone, and he needed it. He returned to the world only when he heard knocks at his door. Nobody would suspect. Holding this small thread is what kept him going.

One day he was discovered, embarrassingly. Unbelievably, the discoverer loved what he saw, desiring to see more, and encouraged the man to share his secret world with everyone else. To share what he loved, and kept him going. To share it with everyone, every day. And what he loved, that kept him going, became a single dot in an enormous grid. It was that day, something else vanished from the world, while the collective human world became, more or less, something more.

He was lucky, as was everyone else. Lucky as a weekend in Las Vegas, with all the lights, signs, caked-on makeup and cologne. The sweet smell of alcohol mixed with the chink of coin. A dreaming man, dreaming in a grid. A spirit, constructed of intricate, thin wires. An attraction, bringing in a hundred bucks a head. Free alcohol, free meals to the masses, in the corporate welfare State.

I can still remember first hearing “holding yourself up by your own bootstraps”. I was very young. My uncle, on a rare visit, who was a traveling salesman dressed like a cowboy, told me. It fascinated me for days, trying to imagine lifting yourself into the air. It wasn’t possible, but somehow, it seemed like it should be. I thought, maybe there is some trick, just needing discovery. Sometimes it takes a while to learn. Eventually, I resigned myself to walking on the Earth, while my uncle floated by. He was also fond of turquoise.

Dreams. Our dreams, or collective, different to each. If someone is to be, lifted up, others must do the lifting. If some non-human thing is to be, lifted up, our raised-up person can do it without us, though we bear the weight, while our practical awareness of these objects arrive only through the graces of the grid. People are (or are not) one thing, but things raised above us nearly always seem bad, yet somehow it always happens. Why are we doing this?

Ideals are very much like dreams, only ideals are far more rigid. Some ideals have dangerously sharp edges that can slice flesh, while others can potentially crush out the lives of millions in an instant. Ideals are more like solidified dreams. But who are the dreamers? Is it us? Some ideals are liberating. Are those ours? Is death the ultimate liberation?

Lately, there is the lady, crying as she tries removing her nipple piercings with pliers at the airport, to make the machine stop beeping and satisfy the agents. The compulsory copying of all information on your laptop’s hard drive. The national identification cards with radio chips that tie all information about you together. The cameras that can recognize our faces as we’re walking. Our conversations in email and on telephones recorded an analyzed for trends in our thinking. Our tax money meant for us, continuously flowing into corporations. Corporate armies, only now with real guns, on the rise. Millions of people dead or displaced, with survivors mostly without water and electricity, as we secure more resources for record-breaking profits. Millions of our own people in jail, and growing, in prison labor programs for corporations. Our Vice President’s corporation being in the business of maintaining war, prisons and oil facilities. The corporate mandate to expand profit above all other considerations. Only we people subject to law. And these thoughts, walking along the fine borders of sedition.

But it is not sedition. Our country is not for corporations, it is for people. It is not for a few people, it is for all of us. In legal terms, corporations are very much like people. They have many of our rights, yet are subject to few of our impediments and punishments. A few days ago I watched a documentary called “The Corporation” that, in part, analyzed this notion of corporations as people.

1. Superficial charm, manipulativeness, grandiose sense of self-worth.
2. Completely rational.
3. Absence of moral or ethical considerations.
4. Absence of remorse, guilt or shame.
5. Denial of responsibility for actions.
6. Lies, misinformation and evasions to achieve goals or self-protection.
7. Need for increasing stimulation.
8. Parasitic behavior.
9. Law and its spirit is secondary to need (criminal behavior).
10. Unresponsive to personal things.
11. Specific losses of insight that allow perfect reasoning.
12. Lack of consideration for external consequences.

Interestingly, these are all characteristics of a psychopath. Is it surprising that a society “worshiping” and under the rule of psychopaths might experience confusion, and have problems? Is it any wonder that a planet dominated by psychopaths, might get harmed, or even destroy itself? Should we really give a gun to a psychopath? How about an entire army?

Psychopaths have ideals. They even have dreams. They are all about themselves. The notion of enlightened self-interest is simply characteristic #1, with a dose of #2, which, it could even be argued, leads to all the rest. I do not believe that most of us exist within this state of mind. Real people do not, and manage to live smoothly and happily, accepted by we people. Yet corporations do.

Again, Milton Friedman is responsible for much of the economic thought currently prevailing upon us. Leo Strauss is credited as the “grandfather” of neoconservatism. Strauss started teaching political science at the University of Chicago in 1949 and believed that politics and economics were inseparable. Friedman began teach economics at the University of Chicago in 1946. Both taught there until their deaths in the 70’s and 80’s. The ties between them I leave up to you to judge. Strauss irritates me, in large part because I do not agree with his notion of the dumb masses unable to know what is True, and his love affair with Plato, who also thought powerful Truth is best kept from the dumb masses, and whose influence helped squelch science from hundreds of years of progress. Friedman is just simply in denial about the fact that his entire work relies upon faith - faith that good will just somehow happen if you leave corporations alone. It’s a strange faith, since he acknowledges that corporations are great at creating money and jobs, yet cannot cope with social issues. And it’s a strange faith that, when played out, as it has been played out and watched in other countries, and played out again here recently under sweeping deregulation, is really not a faith at all, but rather a contrivance adhered to in the face of measurable experience. A contrivance that simply allows for the accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of a very few people.

Enough people have died. Enough people have had their lives completely destroyed in ways that few of us can imagine. Enough people suffer with no options. Enough profit has been made. There are no excuses left. For any of us.

What is the cost of a dream? Who are the dreamers? What is a dream, when compared to each other? The game is tedious and deadly. It is irresponsible and wasteful. It is unnecessary. Candidates for Change? It best mean Change in the most fundamental ways and sweeping in its scope. Because we no longer live in dream. We live in a nightmare. And the most chilling aspect is, the psychopaths have not raised themselves up by their own bootstraps - we have raised them ourselves.

The primary mandate of a corporation should not be profit. The primary mandate should, at least, be the greatest public good combined with profit. We need to find some way to instill a notion of ethics into corporations, and hold individual people responsible for harm. I don’t care if it hurts the bottom line of corporations, and hence, hurts our jobs or wages. The corporation is not worried about us, anyway, and will do anything to us if it means more profit. If paying our taxes means that we are sending our money to corporations, then those corporations must benefit us, not just its shareholders. None do. They simply work to find more ways to gain more money from us.

It is a creative effort to help people. Corporations are not known for their creativity. I believe we may be able to help them with this, since they have proven unable to help themselves. In other words, how about a little faith in doing what’s good for people, instead of only what’s good for companies? I think we might find that companies might indirectly benefit, just as we people are supposed to now.

Burning huge, fast and furious, then exploding in the most spectacular way. We just love that, don’t we? Better than our boring sun here, reaching middle-age at 4.5 billion years old, then slowly dying by engulfing our inner planets in the next few billion years, then cooling to a nice big hunk of dark carbon. But that’s not the life for Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse is a star, and not just any star. Betelgeuse is a supergiant — a true superpower. And it’s raging.

Betelgeuse is actually relatively close to us. It’s about 425 light years away, sitting in its place as the upper-left star in the constellation Orion. Like our country, Betelgeuse is very young, probably only about 6 million years old. But it’s already dying. It could happen any day. And it will be spectacular.

Our common, middle-aged sun at 4.5 billion years seems small compared to the 6 million year old Betelgeuse. If Betelgeuse were in the sun’s position, it would be engulf all the inner planets, including Mars, the asteroid belt, and extend past the half-way mark to Jupiter. That’s big. Our fastest crafts take years to travel those distances. Betelgeuse has already burned out its primary source of fuel, hydrogen, and is now fusing helium into oxygen and carbon, which our sun will start doing in about 2.5 billion years. By that time, Betelgeuse will be long dead. But before it goes, unlike our sun, it will continue fusing the atoms of carbon and oxygen into even heavier elements like neon, magnesium, sodium, silicon and even iron. That’s the stuff of our Earth. But it will be a strange and violent death for Betelgeuse, and beautiful for us — because we will see the explosion in our skies, and it will be bright enough to cast shadows in the night, and even be visible by day.

Once Betelgeuse burns out its helium, the rest of the elements will fuse pretty quickly. Once silicon is being formed, it will fuse for less than a day producing iron. Then the big event happens — a supernova. And this could happen any day now. In fact, it may have already blown up a few hundred years ago, but we just haven’t seen it yet. Betelgeuse will suddenly collapse an enormous volume, exploding all the material it has fused into a nebula of matter that will eventually spread across several light years. This is a death, and a birth of all the elements necessary to form planets like our own. In the case of Betelgeuse, it will also be the birth of a very strange, somewhat “undead” object.

The core of the collapsed supergiant will become so dense that electrons will be forced to fuse with protons, creating a strange ball of neutrons — well, for the most part. Betelgeuse, instead of being large enough to burn half of our solar system, at this point will be only a few miles wide. But it is a very bizarre few miles of super density. A teaspoon of this neutron star will weigh about 11 trillion pounds. Quantum superfluid properties will come into play. Gravitational forces are enormous, with the escape velocity from a neutron star being approximately half the speed of light. Any matter whatsoever getting caught in within the gravity of a neutron star will become super accelerated, ripped into its component atoms to become the same substance of the star itself.

Neutron stars rotate very fast, too, some hundreds of times per second. Although mostly neutrons, even stranger properties allow protons to exist toward the center, with electrons on the periphery, very much like one gigantic atom might look. This creates incredibly strong magnetic fields which spin around with the star, ripping atoms apart from surrounding space, and even itself, along the magnetic field lines to be flung into the north and south poles of the star, directed into tight, narrow beams of bright radiation that flash out into space — in other words, a pulsar. The Betelgeuse neutron star may, though, instead become a magnetar.

The strong magnetic fields will slowly cause the spin of Betelgeuse to lessen until it vanishes from sight. However, if this former supergiant manages to pair up with another star, or runs into a good supply of new matter, it can begin stripping the new source bare into its constituent atomic parts, spinning itself back up into its full undead glory as a rejuvenated neutron star.

These are the quintessential rock stars of the universe — or the relentlessly consuming Bear Stearns. The fast, bloated, consuming at all costs supergiants that inevitably blow themselves up, to seed the universe with their debris, and carry on as the much smaller, dense undead, forever needing more.

It’s interesting that the US Defense Intelligence Agency is reading my writing, after searching for “schizophrenia, hiding symptoms”. It’s even more interesting that the Defense Intelligence Agency is wondering about people who might be trying to hide their schizophrenia. I suppose the US government likes to know a good reason for everything, so that everything can make sense. Even the US Department of Labor, who wonders, “what does it mean when a male cat lays on its back and paws at the air while looking at a human?”. I can’t say for certain, but I’ll try offering a reason to help ease their mind: maybe he loves you, and wants you to pet him. I know, it’s crazy. Want to try something even crazier? Love him back. That’s why I’ve written this. You might say it’s a little schizophrenic. But secretly, I’m really just laying on my back, staring at you upside-down, pawing at the air:

I woke today, realizing I dreamed of Mercury and Ganymede. I cannot recall prior planet dreams. Sometimes I wonder if dreams have significance, like the poetry of tarot cards thrown to the ground in their iconic meaning, then observed, one against the other, in their positions. Or, the wisdom gathered over centuries, attributed within astrological symbols. I believe there is significance, if nothing more, in learning through exploration.

Ganymede, a prince of Troy, is a body trapped orbiting Jupiter, king of the gods. Ganymede,the most handsome of humans, was abducted by Zeus who had, upon seeing Ganymede, instantly fallen in love. All of the gods loved Ganymede save Hera, who, in her jealousy and anger, abandoned all of Troy. Zeus ordained Ganymede his cup-bearer.

Ganymede is a deep water ocean, held under miles of frozen ice. His core is molten iron, churned by the tidal forces of Zeus, creating the only moon known to produce his own magnetosphere by his magnet field. His magnetic moment is directed against Jupiter’s, yet at his upper and lower poles, their field lines flow together, open and aligned as one. Ganymede traps radiation from Jupiter into bright auroras and produced a radiation belt of his own. He is also the largest of all moons, nearly half the size of Earth. Larger, even, than Mercury, and nearly as large as Mars, the god of war.

But, being of water, Ganymede is far less dense. Mercury, a god, though smaller, with only a third of Ganymede’s magnetic strength, is over twice as dense. Though immortal, Ganymede is frozen and cold. As a god, Mercury can be nearly as cold, yet hotter than an oven - hot enough to melt lead and zinc. As messenger of the gods, Mercury moves swiftly, with a year lasting 88 days. As the god of travelers and of thieves, Mercury hides from our observations within the brightness of the sun, even as his mercurial nature sends him along the most eccentric of paths.

Like Ganymede, who displaced the Goddess of Youth as Jupiter’s cup-bearer, Mercury, too is youthful. His first day on earth, Mercury created the musical lute. His children include Pan, the musical goat-god of nature and fertility. Hermaphroditus, made both man and woman. Priapus, a cursed fertility god with a never-ending erection. And possibly even Cupid, or Eros. Even Autolycus, the prince of thieves.

Mercury is one of the only gods who travels unhindered through Hades. Zeus placed his love, Ganymede, forever into the heavens, as the constellation Aquarius. Both have a very thin atmosphere. Mercury’s is unbreathable, while Ganymede’s is oxygen.

Traveling to visit Mercury is far more difficult than visiting Ganymede. In a journey toward Mercury, we are pulled relentlessly toward the fires of the sun. As such, we must trick our way to Mercury, through Venus and Earth. However, in contrast, the path to Ganymede, forever falling within the gravity of Zeus, is a comfortable one. As long as we mind the deadly fallout of Zeus.

Image credits:

Statue of Ganymede and Zeus, Br. Lawrence Lew, O.P., used with permission.

Planetary images, NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington

Yet another monumental event is happening, which seems largely unremarked in media. A historic legal case will soon come before the courts which will explore and clarify some of the most basic principles of the United State Constitution which define the most fundamental structure of the United States government. It is one of those things I love so well, simultaneously beautiful and terrifying. Government officials have danced around this precipice before, but one side always seems to give in before any binding determinations about the nature of our government are made. However, thanks to a mindlessly stubborn President we might at last experience this beautiful process, and its staggeringly potent outcome.

We are all familiar with the drawn-out inquiry into the firings of so many Federal prosecutors all at one time, by the Executive Branch. Congress, in their roll of oversight, wanted to know why this happened. Since their investigations began, Congress has uncovered a good deal of conflicting testimony and evidence, without being able to determine a reason or circumstance. Several high ranking officials within the Justice Department, which is within the Executive Branch, have resigned over this incident. Eventually, even the Attorney General stepped down. Even so, the Executive Branch has refused to turn over any documentation that would reveal why so many Federal prosecutors were fired en masse, while, at the same time, members of the Executive Branch called to testify before Congress refuse to answer questions which might shed light upon the issue. Some people have even refused to show up to testify at all. They claim “Executive Privilege” makes them immune to answering Congressional inquiry. Congress does not agree. And now, Congress has turned to the Judiciary Branch for a ruling.

This is brinkmanship of the highest order within the Federal government. Both angels and demons fear to tread upon those defining lines. Because once the Judiciary makes their ruling, it is very likely that the powers of one branch will become more limited, while the powers of another will expand. It is very risky. Normally, one branch will eventually offer a compromise acceptable to the other, before any ruling is made. The situation now is different. The Executive Branch has drawn a very hard line which so far has proven unmovable. They have agreed to allow some testimony and provide some documents to Congress, as long as only a tiny few members of Congress can see it, and those members must agree to forever keep silent about what they learn. Of course, this would, in effect, eliminate Congressional oversight, and would instead only be a token compromise with no substance, and therefore not a compromise at all.

But before we get into more detail, let’s get into a basic American History review. The Constitution is the defining document of our country. Amongst other things, it establishes the basic structure of our government. The Constitution is, ideally, inviolate. The government has no power that it does not grant. No law can be created counter to it. No action by government can violate it. Not even an interpretation of law can be made that does not honor it. The Constitution defines three branches of Government. The Executive Branch, headed by the President, the Legislative Branch, headed by Congress, and the Judicial Branch, headed by the Supreme Court. These three primary institutions are designed to “counterbalance” each other. Right now, this balance is being called into question.

The Legislative Branch is comprised of hundreds of elected officials who supposedly represent the will of the American people. It is the “people’s branch”, and, in many ways, it is the most powerful branch. Congress is the branch that creates and changes law that binds all United States citizens, including those within the Executive and the Judiciary. However, laws created by Congress cannot run contrary to the Constitution, and the Executive and Judiciary branches are constructs of the Constitution. Since Congress creates all legal structures and also controls all money, it is similarly tasked with making certain those structures are working as intended. This is where its oversight role comes into play. Congress must be able to see, in order to perform its Constitutional duties.

The Executive Branch is charged with carrying out and enforcing laws created by the Legislative Branch and head is also the Commander in Chief of the United States military. The Executive (President) cannot make laws, nor does the Executive have a choice about whether or not to see that laws are carried out. There is one aspect of “bleed-over” into Legislative powers: the President can pardon people for violating US law. Other than this, the President has no significant power whatsoever, other than the powers granted to him by Congress through acts of law.

The Judicial Branch has no power to create law, nor does it have any power to enforce law. The sole power of the Judicial Branch is to rule upon the interpretation or Constitutional validity of a law or action. The Supreme Court is the ultimate authority that determines whether or not something is Constitutional or legal, and clarifies any questions. Their rulings cannot be appealed. In all matters, the Executive Branch must accept the rulings of the Supreme Court. In matters of law, Congress must also accept Supreme Court rulings, or Congress can change the law. In matters of the Constitution, Congress must also accept the Supreme Court rulings, or Congress and all states within the Union must modify the Constitution.

As we can see, the Executive Branch is actually fairly weak. This is by design. Power was for People, not a head of state. Yes, the President as Commander in Chief controls the military forces of the United States, but military forces cannot be used within the United States (except under extraordinary circumstances, and then only in limited ways). And military personnel are sworn to obey and uphold the Constitution primary to their commanding officers. Over the years, Congress has granted the Executive Branch many additional powers through acts of law. Congress has also brought into existence many government organizations and placed them within the Executive Branch, where they fall under the President’s direction, in the name of efficiency. A single officer, like the President or his designees, can often cause organizations to run more efficiently than a large body, such as Congress, ever could. This makes good sense as long as everyone plays by the rules.

However, Presidents over the last several decades have often worked to extend the scope of their powers. Our latest President, George W. Bush, has not only worked feverishly to extend the powers of the Presidency, but also to hide away the Executive Branch from the rest of the government’s scrutiny, and hence the scrutiny of the People. People are supposedly the ones with power, not the head of state. And as the Executive moves further and further into shadow, it grows more and more difficult to see what the Executive is doing. Blindness removes power from People, allowing the Executive more. Spurred on by my own curiosity, I’ll share some of the things I’ve learned while exploring this trend.

One of the key components in the upcoming case filed by Congress is the “separation of powers” between the Legislative and Executive branches. Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten were subpoenaed to testify before Congress, but chose to ignore those subpoenas, citing something called “Executive Privilege”. Executive Privilege doesn’t really exist. It’s not defined anywhere. However, the Supreme Court recognized it when Nixon claimed it. Apparently, Presidents have to keep their conversations secret sometimes, so they will receive good information. I know, it only makes a little sense. But the Executive claims that Executive Privilege is something that has to exist to keep the separation of powers between the branches of government in place. In other words, the Executive can only function as a co-equal branch of government if it can keep secrets. We’re not talking “state secrets” here, either. We’re talking, Executive Privilege. Because I said so. And that’s it.

Executive Privilege means that the President doesn’t have to answer questions or subpoenas from Congress, nor be subject to search. In the Nixon case, the Supreme Court agreed, but only if there was a compelling national interest at stake, such strong national security issues. Which, in the case of Nixon, there was not. Nor does it seem there could be any concerning Federal prosecutors. These are practically uncharted waters with very little precedence to draw from. In a more recent decision in 2004, the Supreme Court noted that Executive privilege is an extraordinary assertion of power “not to be lightly invoked”.

One of the interesting aspects of the Miers and Bolten contempt case is that supposedly the President was not involved in any aspect of the Federal prosecutor firings, including granting any Executive Privilege to Miers or Bolten. Miers and Bolten apparently claimed Executive Privilege on their own under the advisement of White House counsel. This strangely stretches the notion of Executive Privilege beyond the purview of the Presidency itself to encompass other members of the Executive Branch. It is not clear what boundaries the White House believes the supposed notion of Executive Privilege extends beyond the President himself. Perhaps the the White House believes that all members and departments of the Executive Branch have a claim to this Executive Privilege, and that each of them can invoke that privilege on their own, even without the President. In that case, the Executive Branch is no longer subject to Congressional oversight. This is an important detail, and explains one of the main reasons why Congress feels the case is so important. The extraordinary assertion of power, the Executive Privilege, has been invoked scores of times over the past few years, for any number of things both large and small. It has had the effect of stopping valid legal proceedings in their tracks, including people trying to defend themselves in court, and it has stopped all manner of inquiry into very large questions of abuse and corruption both in the White House and government contractors. It was even used to stop an investigation into the “friendly fire” death of soldier Pat Tillman. It is now even being used to keep Executive Branch personnel from explaining why they are invoking Executive Privilege, and what, specifically, they are invoking it about. Instead of being an extraordinary assertion of power that should “not be lightly invoked”, the Executive Privilege has become standard operating procedure for the Bush Presidency. This alone is an enormous expansion of the Executive Branch’s power.

The issue of extending Executive Privilege to any arbitrary number of people within the Executive Branch is troubling enough. But it goes even further. President Bush has extended the privilege to President’s family members, even after the President’s death, which is how they will control access to all Presidential papers that leave the White House when the President leaves. The Presidential Records Act of 1978 made all Presidential records public property, to be released after a few years. When Reagan became President, he issued an executive order (EO 12667) requiring the archivist to clear all Presidential papers through the former President before releasing them. This was to be done so that the former President could claim Executive Privilege over them to keep them from the public. President Bush revoked that executive order, replacing it with another (EO 13233) which said the same, plus a little more. Bush’s version said that both the former President and the current President had to agree to any Presidential document’s release to the public. Not only that, but the new President must obey the wishes of the former President, even if the new President disagrees with the former President. And, if the new President agrees with the former President, then the current President must do everything within his power to keep the document secret. But it doesn’t stop there. Former Presidents, even if they die, can appoint family members or any group to represent that President with full Executive Privilege to withhold information on his behalf. There is certainly no legal precedent for this. His is a little nice, though. He goes on to say that there is a 90-day target date to respond to document requests from the public. And a 21-day target date for the former President to respond to Congress, and another 21-day target date for the current President. Not surprisingly, those dates can be extended indefinitely without any action or notification, too. Ooo. Secret, secret. So, I’m not really sure what the Presidential Records Act of 1978 is actually doing. It seems that President Bush believes he can override US law with an Executive Order. And all the while, the President believes that the Executive Privilege immunity wear can be handed out to anyone and their grandma.

Then I started wondering about these Executive Orders. Are they law? Are they more like royal commands that must be followed? Well, it turns out, neither, really. It’s just that some Presidents believe they are grander than they actually are. And admittedly, they can be pretty grand. An Executive Order turns out to be an order issued by the head of the Executive Branch to other people within the Executive Branch. They were primarily meant to clarify how the President wanted US law carried out, or for him to direct people within the Executive Branch. The vexing thing for this President, President Bush, is that Executive Orders cannot run contrary to US law, nor can they create or modify US law. Nor can they run contrary to the Constitution. I know, it’s frustrating and unfair. Go tell the dead men who wrote the Constitution, or change the Constitution. Oh wait, you can’t! Never mind. But that doesn’t seem to stop President Bush. He’s pushed the limits of Executive Orders far past their legal potency. For example, he’s tried gutting the Presidential Records Act with Executive Orders. He’s tried stopping Congressional earmark funding with Executive Orders. He’s even kept us in a perpetual state of national emergency with Executive Orders, and issued even more which call up special powers given to the President by Congress during times of national emergency to freeze or seize people’s assets.

In this respect, Executive Orders can carry the full weight of law: when Congress has bestowed upon the President specific or general legal powers. He can also cause a good deal of headache for people through Executive Orders, which command government agencies into action. It’s not law, but it’s a call to action. And you have to hope that the call to action is truly within the law, or that the people being commanded with Executive Orders have enough sense to disregard them if they are illegal. Which is not something our Justice Department did, the department that is charged with upholding the rule of law. The warrantless wiretapping program, which completely disregarded FISA, was done by Executive Order by the Department of Justice and ran contrary to US law. He claimed he issued the Executive Order contrary to US law by the authority of his wartime Presidential powers. Unfortunately, Presidential powers do not supersede Congressional law, even in wartime. If it did, why is he even bothering to try getting FISA changed now? By the way, Executive Orders are actually pretty weak. They can be overridden by a simple act of Congress or ruled invalid by the Judiciary.

But who enforces the rule of law, when the branch of government responsible for enforcing law, is the one breaking the law? Well, the Justice Department. However they are inconveniently part of the Executive Branch, whose Executive is breaking the law, and is their boss. Should that matter? No, the Justice Department can still go after the President. Why didn’t they? Well, the Justice Department was the department of the President that was breaking the law. It seems like we have a little snafu here, and it is up to Congress to correct it. But the Executive just keeps throwing up, Executive Privileges left and right, mixed and tossed thoroughly with state secrets, to thwart any Congressional oversight. Hence, the FISA legislation problem we’re facing right now, with the President all livid because the House of Representatives isn’t giving him exactly what he wants, unlike the Senate.

Here we get to see into the very ugly underbelly of our current Executive and his Branch. Even with a new Attorney General, the Justice Department is wholly owned by President Bush. You can thank California Senator Diane Feinstein for that, being the shifting force (the weight of at least a cow) for Mukasey’s brain-dead confirmation. The Justice Department will do nothing about the illegal wiretapping. Mukasey also sent a letter to Congress saying the Justice Department refuses to prosecute Meirs and Bolten for contempt of Congress, even though they are bound by US law to do so. Their reason being, Executive Privilege. And now, for the first time, I’m actually proud of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She’s had enough, and is taking the Executive and Congress before the Judicial to resolve the issue once and for all. Considering all rulings to date regarding Executive Privilege, the Executive really does not stand much a chance at prevailing. And if they do not prevail, we can be reasonably certain that it will open up a floodgate of Congressional action against the Executive.

Execute Privilege is one thing. It is undefined, dubious, and patently weak when brought before the Judiciary, in relation to Congress at least. Executive Orders are have no effect whatsoever upon Congress. State secrets, on the other hand, are quite different and far more compelling. Interestingly, state secrets were created by Congress as a means to withhold information that might jeopardize national security if revealed to the public. The concept was intended for use in criminal or federal cases where the government needed to keep some secrets. There is no such thing as state secrets in civil cases, such as victims wanting to sue telephone companies for illegally spying on them. But there is court precedence that establishes a concept of state secrets, but only as it applies to specific evidence. This is a subtle yet important distinction. The Executive has been feverishly trying to get people’s cases thrown out of court before anything is even heard by the court by invoking state secrets. And, they have been successful on many occasions. State secrets are an evidentiary rule, however, and as such, they cannot be used to outright dismiss an entire case from the get-go, but only to exclude specific evidence. Courts have been very accommodating of the Executive when state secrets are invoked. Lately, however, they are meeting the Executive with growing skepticism. It hasn’t helped the Executive that many older cases have subsequently shown that no state secrets were involved, even when the Executive claimed state secrets. They were shown to be “cover-ups”.

In a way, state secrets are very like Executive Privilege. Both concepts arise from the Executive’s claim to “separation of powers” between the Executive, Congress and the Judicial. The bad part is, you just have to take the Executive’s word for it. Oh, can’t do that, Executive Privilege. Nope, sorry, state secret. And that’s that. Can you trust that, when the Executive has done so many illegal things? Courts are beginning to ask that question. And that could mean disaster for the Executive. More and more, courts are requiring the Executive to produce the state secret in question, for the judge to privately view, to make his own determination as to whether a state secret is truly involved. An interesting example coming up is the case of Joseph Nacchio. When the Executive started illegally wiretapping us all, only one company refused to comply, because they believed it was illegal. That company was Qwest Communications, which happens to be, proudly, our phone company here (I never imagined I would say such a thing). Shortly after they refused, Joseph Nacchio, the CEO of Qwest, was indited by the federal government for stock fraud, and convicted. A few months ago he appealed his conviction, claiming it happened as a punishment because he refused to comply with an NSA secret program which he rightly believed was illegal. It will be very interesting learning what information will come out of this appeal. Apparently, the NSA was already wiretapping us all before the 9/11 disaster even happened.

The principle of state secrets can be very dangerous. Like Executive Privilege, it can leave people blind when they try to see what the Executive is up to, and keep them from every finding justice in a court of law. And the Executive can, at least historically, invoke either one on a whim, without producing anything. Unless a court insists on seeing the hidden things anyway, there is no check on this “fabricated” power. The only other check is impeachment. Happily, new legislation has been introduced in the Senate to better define what, exactly, constitutes a state secret. It is Senate Bill S2533 - the State Secrets Protection Act. It allows people to have their day in court, despite any arbitrary efforts of the Executive.

Another somewhat bizarre yet effective way our current Executive has reached for more power is through the use of “signing statements“. Again, there is no such thing. But Presidents have used them for quite some time. Originally, Presidents who received a bill from Congress might place a signing statement on that bill as he signed it into law, which represented his interpretation of what the bill meant, and so would reveal how he intended to carry it out. Our current President, in the true spirit of megalomania, has expanded, at least in his mind, the power of signing statements. President Bush uses signing statements as if they were line-item vetoes, where he can say this or that thing in the bill is not something he will listen to, or do. He does this despite a prior Supreme Court ruling that the line-item veto was unconstitutional. He also will often use a signing statement to say that this or that part of the bill is just fine, but that it doesn’t apply to him, as Executive. For years now, President Bush has completely ignored entire chunks of bills that he didn’t like, even though, by signing the bill, he passed it into US law. This, to me, is the height of hubris. The Constitution says that the President must sign a bill fully into law, or else send it back to the Congress, where the Congress either accepts defeat, or passes it into law anyway, without his signature. There is no power anywhere in the Constitution, the US Code, or any Act that allows the President to alter a bill, or choose not to enforce some of it. Nearly all legal scholars say that doing so is illegal. But it does give him the opportunity to be a weasel, and that is always embraced. It is ironic that he claims to be concerned about the separation of powers, though, when he attempts to legislate this way. He even sometimes slips Executive Orders into his signing statements.

So, what does it mean when we have a President that does not have to tell us anything, nor show us anything, and believes he can create or alter law by issuing Executive Orders or signing statements, and who does not believe US law applies to the President? Did I mention that we have been in a perpetual state of national emergency his whole Presidency? And that he commands our military forces?

Well, fortunately, the Posse Comitatus Act keeps all federal troops from being used on US soil (except the Coast Guard). And the Insurrection Act limits them even further. They can only be used in some fairly extraordinary circumstances. However, these acts were weakened considerably recently, but restored, for the most part, in the 2008 Defense Appropriations Bill. Unfortunately, none of these protections apply to the use of various private military forces, like Blackwater, which is heavily used by the government, and very well funded and equipped. There have been ongoing and growing pressures to erode Posse Comitatus and the Insurrection Act, as well as the continued expansion of private contractors like Blackwater. These private forces have already been widely used on US soil.

Finally, just for good measure, a last bit of worry, if you are so inclined. Habeas Corpus has been suspended by our Presidents before. Habeas Corpus is our ability to challenge our arrest or convictions of crimes, or to challenge our detention for whatever reason. Basically, to face our accusers, who must present evidence, and have our day in court with a chance of freedom. Fortunately, the Judiciary ruled that this cannot happen again, as long as there is a court that remains open. I suppose that is reassuring.

It’s a little unnerving seeing even this small subsection of what President Bush has done with his Presidency. If I were to learn this at the beginning of his term, I would be downright frightened. Thankfully, his last term is coming to an end, and the poor man looks very worse for wear. I think he’s a little tired of being the President. I think he might be looking forward to relaxing in a nice, cool pool of money or riding some horse on a ranch.

At least he revealed many weaknesses in our system that Congress must address, and quickly. Hopefully our next President will be somewhat more sane, intelligent, open and helpful to others. And if we’re lucky, they’ll have a good, healthy, much-needed dose of humility.

Added: Here’s a little comic sorta related to this.