Bush-Cheney administration/anti-democracy

Overview

In their public policies and speeches, the Bush II administration in general and George W. Bush in particular place tremendous emphasis on the ideals of freedom and democracy, and yet their actions consistently work to undermine those principles.

Points

Undermining Freedom of Speech & the Press

• 2005-12-01 Bush’s War on the Press: "America's leadership is waging a war against the journalistic standards and practices that underpin not only a free press but our democracy."

Secrecy

The administration's actions and policies have led to skyrocketing secrecy and a tremendous decrease in governmental transparency – both being complete reversals from the trends under Bush's predecessor.

• 2005-09-02: "Government secrecy has reached a historic high, even compared to the Cold War (San Diego Union July 3). Federal departments are classifying documents at a rate of 125 per minute... or two per second... and inventing new kinds of classification, while declassification efforts that peaked under the Clinton Administration have slowed to a crawl." ([1] 2005-09-02 entry)
• 2005-12-01: Gutting the Freedom of Information Act
• 2006-02-21: U.S. Reclassifies Many Documents in Secret Review
• 2006-08-21: Cold War Missiles Target of Blackout: "The Bush administration has begun designating as secret some information that the government long provided even to its enemy the former Soviet Union: the numbers of strategic weapons in the U.S. nuclear arsenal during the Cold War."

Suppression of Criticism

• suppression of scientific data where it doesn't agree with their agenda
• Squelching of constructive critical discussion (e.g. "public dissent is strongly discouraged by the White House" mentioned in [2]; use of IRS as a tool for preventing dissention); also Eliminating Dissent in the Media
• Repeated incidents of action against whistleblowers:
  • Bunnatine Greenhouse: The Washington Post The Carpetbagger Report (possibly problematic links: [3] [4])
    • 2007-06-13 Whistle-blower accepts fallout of opposing contract
  • 2004-11-14: Bush Plans to Purge the 'Disloyal' at CIA: "The White House has ordered the new CIA director ... to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush..." (a clear case of Equating the Individual with the Office) (also another source)
  • The Plame affair [W]