It's on the Tip of My Tongue...

What should we call our new form of government?

This can’t be a Republic any more. I’d say the Republic died November 4, 1952, when Truman let the National Security Agency start up without the knowledge of the citizens or most of Congress, but that’s just me.

Some other folks say the Republic ended the first time Congress neglected to either declare or put a stop to a war. Others blame Congress for a hundred years of dragging its heels on civil rights legislature forcing the people to fall back on the courts. Unexpected results: (1) George Bush, 5-4, 2000. (2) The Eminent Domain Principle neutered, 5-4, 2005. (3) The obliteration of First Amendment rights enabling public employees to protect the public, 5-4, last week.

Need more proof? Our executive branch now conducts searches without warrants and regularly tries to deny habeas corpus. Our elected president abuses signing statements to excuse the selective enforcement of laws, openly defying the power of Congress to make those laws.

It’s now deemed illegal to exercise the right of free speech except in a “free speech zone.” Military funerals have been nationally designated, now and forever, as free from free speech. Cries of “Protestor!” from security at the president’s appearances are signals to use violent force to remove and arrest such people as wear anti-Bush T-shirts, who are treated as enemies of the state.

Many have already been asking the question I began with, and come up with ideas of their own. Some say we should imitate Rome and call our government Empire. I think that the Romans were not precise enough; yes, it was an empire, but it was so much more. Let’s be precise where the Romans weren’t, because we care more about who we are.

Some say we now have a Fascist government. They point first to Mussolini’s definition: the repudiation of pacifism, the glorification of war, the claim to nevertheless be pro-life, the rejection of class struggle and explicit rejection of collective responsibility, the idea that citizens need to be preemptively deprived of freedoms that might only potentially be “harmful,” and the right of the state to assert itself in the world, by virtue of its power.

If all that doesn’t get you to buy the name, proponents point to Dr. Lawrence Britt’s Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Fascism, all of which apply to our government, from (1) “Powerful and Continuing Nationalism,” (2) “Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights,” all the way through to (13) “Rampant Cronyism and Corruption” and even (14) “Fraudulent Elections.” (Note the universal use by both parties of gerrymandering to lock incumbents into office -- a war on the representational system.)

I don’t think we should call our government Fascist, even if it fit everyone’s definition, because Fascism comes from the Italian Fascismo, and by golly, we speak American here. So we should have our own American name for our form of government.

“Totalitarianism” is technically valid, but like “Empire” hardly descriptive enough, and our leadership is not so narrow as the kind of one party dictatorship the term usually conjures up. George-Dick Bush-Cheney is not solely in control. He/it has to share power with Judge Roberts, Exxon, Halliburton and even some Democrats, like Zell Miller, for example.

So we would need to refer to what we have as some kind of oligarchy, but what kind is it?

For a clue I looked up the origin of the word “Republic.” It comes from the Latin res (meaning “thing” or “matter”) + public (meaning “public.”) So it means a Public Thing. Clearly, what we’ve got now is no kind of Public Thing. What we’ve got is a secret, private thing. We have a government of dissembling and disguise.

So my own recommendation is (tada!): Redissimulation.

Here it is, used in a sentence:

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to The Redissimulation for which it stands, one oligarchy under Bush’s imaginary God, entrenched and unaccountable, with liberty and justice, but not for long.