Despotism: A lesson for Specter from 1946
I wanted to share a little video lesson on despotism and rubber stamp legislatures with Arlen Specter (although I'm sure a lot of others like Bush, Cheney, Gonzalez... heck the whole administration could probably use a refresher course on democracy.)
I made this video, which is on my blog, courtesy of YouTube by slicing together parts of a larger educational film by Encyclopedia Brittanica from 1946, called "Despotism".
Glenn Greenwald notes that Specter's recently proposed legislation:
endorses a theory of radical presidential power which (a) has been rejected for 50 years in this country (since Youngstown); (b) the Supreme Court just again emphatically rejected in Hamdan; and (c) even Alberto Gonzales acknowledges is simply wrong.
Perhaps our Senators could brush up on some basic education about democracy, from back when we really understood the costs of authoritarianism.