The Last Days of Democracy

Posted on Aug 2, 2007

Truthdig speaks with Elliot Cohen, author of “The Last Days of Democracy,” who argues that the United States is in political and cultural decline, with media and telecommunications giants engaged in “a well-organized effort to hijack America.”

Click here to listen to this interview.

Transcript:

James Harris: Welcome to another edition of Truthdig. This is James Harris sitting down with Josh Scheer. On the phone we are talking to Elliot Cohen, the author of “The Last Days of Democracy.” Elliot, let’s start with your theory. For the most part, you’re saying that our government in the United States is coming to an end. And that we are headed toward a dictatorship, toward authoritarian rule. The idea that we will one day be like Nazi Germany was ... is hard for a lot of Americans to swallow. Why do you believe it to be true?

Elliot Cohen: We are not saying things off the top of our heads; we do have the operations and secret prison camps in Europe, we torture prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Gitmo. This regarding the Geneva Conventions and the NSA spying programs warrantlessly. Bush is issuing signing statements, which is tantamount to nullifying congressional lawmaking powers. Cancellation of habeas corpus, enabling individuals as enemy combatants just by virtue of whether the president deems that hostile to U.S. interests. I mean this goes on and on for individual facts as to why one might say that America is becoming a dictatorship. And as far as the issues of the media and how the media is being controlled, I think there’s many insiders who admit the same facts that I’ve stated, in fact, they come from such—, I mean, the issue here is not that the media is somehow an ideologue in cahoots with the government for ideological purposes. It’s rather that the media is a moneymaking machine and is being controlled by the purse-strings—through the government.