this old anvil

If President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has become a dictator because the National Assembly there voted him the power to issue "law-decrees" in certain areas, what does that say about US presidents? They have always had the power to issue "executive orders." One had an effect personally on me. Back in the early '80s I was planning a trip to Cuba and Nicaragua, two countries not in Washington's favor at the time. Cuba, for well-known reasons; Nicaragua, perhaps not so well remembered, had recently overthrown a US-backed dictator and was battling an army of US-backed mercenaries.

President Ronald Reagan signed an executive order banning travel by US citizens (and legal residents) from traveling to Cuba.

There were exceptions for journalists and scientists, whatever, but they had to get a "license" from the Feds to go to Cuba. I didn't qualify for any such license. I eventually got to Nicaragua but not Cuba. This order was not a law passed by Congress. It came straight from the Oval Office. It was challenged in the courts, but after a series of rulings, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case and the order stood as signed. I don't think any executive order has ever been overturned by the court.

Every president, dating back to Thomas Jefferson, has issued executive orders. There have been thousands of them, and you don't hear about them because they're usually about non-controversial stuff. One of the more famous ones, however, was issued by Franklin Roosevelt in 1942. It ordered the imprisonment of over 100,000 Japanese-Americans in concentration camps on the grounds of their potential disloyalty during the Second World War.

Nowadays we have a president who claims the right to imprison people without charges or right to counsel, to grab people off the streets of foreign countries and send them to yet another country to be tortured, to even torture prisoners held by US forces under the term "harsh methods." Then there's the "Patriot Act" and its violation of virtually every civil liberty you can imagine. (Remember Fahrenheit 9-11, how Michael Moore excoriated congressional Democrats and Republicans for passing that law without reading it first? Well, last year they renewed the act, but nobody's saying whether they read it.)

Oh, but here's the good news, civil libertarians. The Bush administration has agreed not to tap "terrorism suspects'" home and cell phones without warrants. They will get their warrants from a...secret court.

A Secret Court!

At this point I have to say that anybody in this country who thinks we live in a democracy, and that we have a right to bring that so-called democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq by force of arms (and don't forget the occasional raid on Somalia) is a fucking idiot (and I use the term advisedly).

As to events in Venezuela, it has somehow escaped the attention of those who run our news media that Chavez's powers are quite limited. He can act only in the areas pinpointed by the Assembly. He has only 18 months in which to act. His law-decrees are subject to judicial review. Five percent of registered voters can force a referendum on any one of them.

Chavez can't lock anybody up without charges. A Venezuelan version of the Patriot Act would not pass the overwhelmingly Chavista National Assembly. That would be contrary to what's going on there. I am not a Chavista. I am, however, a supporter of the process Chavez has begun, opening up avenues to the masses of Venezuela to start taking control of their country.

Venezuela is in a state of ferment. The previously marginalized majority is stepping forward. There's way too much attention paid to the individual, Hugo Chavez. But I have faith in people. They will figure out what they have to do to really make a revolution.

And one these days, I am going to get to Cuba.