There are a number of important implications in the concept of absolute
power which we must be familiar with if we are to recognize it when we
see it. Absolute power is, for example, accountable only to itself -
and sometimes not even to that. There are no outside, independent
institutions, beliefs, systems, or ideologies upon which absolute power
is founded or to which absolute power is accountable. Absolute power is
also independent of the many public rituals or symbols we normally
associate with institutions or offices that exercise power over us.
Police officers wear a badge as a symbol of their power; we stand when
the judge enters the courtroom in a ritual to recognize their power.
Absolute power has no need for such trappings, however, because there
is no one to impress and no mediating traditions required.

Some of this was made evident recently by Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld when he presumptuously told critics of the administration's
failed war in Iraq: "You ought to just back off, take a look at it,
relax, understand that it's complicated, it's difficult. Honorable
people are working on these things together." So, should the American
people just trust the administration to get everything right and not
raise complaints, criticisms, or suggestions? What in the
administration's record on anything, much less Iraq, should inspire
such trust and complacency?

I think that what we are seeing is a denial that officials in the
administration are really accountable to the American people whom they
are supposed to be serving. Whatever rhetorical gestures they might
make in the general direction of accountability, I see little hard
evidence that the concept is taken seriously and enforced by this
administration. On the contrary, I see instead a constant struggle to
free the president and his minions from what few constraints his
sycophantic Congress might try to impose.

I think that there is also more going on here between the lines.
Rumsfeld's statement, "Back off," isn't just an expression of
his attitudes but also a command: he's giving an order to the media
and to critics to step away, stop criticizing, and go back to reporting
on other, less weighty, matters. How this is related to the question of
absolute power is explained by Wolfgang Sofsky in his seminal book The
Order of Terror: The Concentration Camp:

"Third, absolute power is graduated power. It sets up a cleverly
devised system of collaboration by turning some victims into
accomplices, outfitting the functionary elite with substantial
authority. One of the pillars holding up the camp system was an
auxiliary force of Kapos (prisoner-functionaries who supervised
prisoner work squads, or Kommados) and "scribes" (Schreiber,
record-keepers) who helped maintain everyday routines and relieved the
burden on the SS personnel. Through their agency, absolute power became
omnipresent. It filled almost every cranny, every niche in the camp.
Without that delegation of power, the system of discipline would
quickly have collapsed. The attendant rivalry for positions in
supervision, administration, and supply provided the SS with a welcome
opportunity to play the various factions among the prisoners' elite
against one another, keeping them dependent."

I think that we can find many ways in which the media elite have been
all too eager to serve as Bush's Willing Kapos. NBC, for example, has
apparently refused to air ads for the Dixie Chicks' movie because it
is "disparaging to President Bush." Airing material critical of our
political leadership is in the public interest which, in turn, is an
obligation media companies have in exchange for access to the broadcast
spectrum. The fact that these same corporations stand to make a lot of
money from favorable regulation decisions and favorable laws made by
the same political leadership they refuse to be critical of indicates
that they are instead putting their corporate interests ahead of the
public interest.

Many individual reporters and commentators go to great lengths to
describe the actions of both Republicans and Democrats as if they were
"equivalent" even when there is no truth to such a perspective.
Thus both parties are described as engaging in widespread negative
campaign advertising even when the Democrats are doing almost none.
Reporters are forced to just make things up, like describing the
Michael J. Fox ad on stem cells as "negative." Much the same
happens in reports about scandals - the fact that almost all involve
Republicans is glossed over in an effort to create "balance" where
none exists. The fact that same reporters and commentators rely heavily
on the good will of the people in power for access to information,
"leaks," and invitations to good parties where the rich and
powerful pretend to accept them as equals for an evening, suggests that
they are putting their personal interests ahead of the public
interests.

One consequence of all this dumbing-down of political reporting might
be to turn us into something like the "proles" of George Orwell's
book 1984. This Wikipedia summary of who and what the proles were
should explain how they fit in here:

"[P]roles were not considered to be human beings. They did not have
the intellectual power to understand that they are exploited by the
Party (as a source of cheap labor) and were unable to organize
resistance. Their functions were simple: work and breed. They did not
care much about anything else than taking care of home and family,
quarreling with neighbors, watching some films and football, drinking
beer, and above all buying the lottery tickets. They were not required
to express their support to the Party. They were only required to show
primitive patriotism. The Party created special meaningless songs,
novels, even pornography for the proles."

A similar disdain for "inferiors" is often exhibited by Christian
Nationalists in America. Despite the many injunctions in the New
Testament that followers of Jesus should serve rather than rule, there
appears to be a prevalent attitude that Christians "contain the
wisdom and grace and love and creativity of Jesus" and therefore
should naturally rule by setting the laws. Parallels to this attitude
existed in Nazi Germany and were expressed via the concept
"Volksgenossen." This can be translated as "national comrade,"
but that hardly does the term justice and there is no exact
translation.

It may be easiest to explain through example: Aryan Germans were
Volksgenossen; Jews, Slavs, and other Untermenschen were not. Greater
Germany, of course, was to be limited exclusively to Volksgenossen. In
modern America, it might be possible to say that white conservative
Christians are Volksgenossen; godlessliberalsand other traitors are
not. I think that there was always the expectation among the Nazis that
the categories of Party members and Volksgenossen would become
indistinguishable. I suspect that there is an expectation among
Christian Nationalists today that a similar process should occur:
Republican Party members and American Volksgenossen should become one,
which of course leaves everyone else out in the cold.

Or perhaps on the other side of that new fence they want to build.