Obama's first evil act as president

[professorpan]

Oh, stop exaggerating what I'm saying, professorpan. You know damned good and well that I'm not one of the Obama trashers. But this executive order just isn't good enough.

I'm not exaggerating, chig. And I do respect your opinion. But are you conversant with the legalese in this document? I'm certainly not. And I have no idea what it *really* takes, in a practical sense, to shut down Gitmo, with all the legal, logistical, and other technicalities involved in such an undertaking.

He promised to close Gitmo, and this order solidifies that commitment, and only 2 days after he was inaugurated. Why not give him the benefit of the doubt that he is sincere, and be prepared to criticize if it unfolds in a manner that isn't just and humane?

I also find it sad (and this isn't about you, chig) that the Obama bashers accuse others of elevating the man to near-mythical status -- i.e. suggesting he can wave a magic wand and fix everything -- but when he does something like this, they cry "not good enough" as if he CAN just wave a magic wand and fix enormous clusterfucks like Gitmo.

[chiggerbit]

Either this is a nation lof laws or it isn't. I don't recall anything in the Constitution that says "except when the new president is getting his shit together". Those people's rights have been violated and continue to be violated. I don't see where it makes a bit of difference if it's a Republican president or a Democratic president.

[chiggerbit]

I'm not talking about Gitmo, I'm talking about incarcerated people who are not being given their right to a trial.

[ninakat]

What would Obama need to do for you [the collective you] to say, "That was great; Obama is actually not as bad as I suspected"?

Stop the killing. Bring all the troops home. Close all the foreign military bases, starting with the new ones in Iraq.

So far, it's crumbs, and at best will take us back to the corrupt times pre-9/11. Trouble is, I'm hungry for more than crumbs. Starving in fact.

He could also appoint a different director of national intelligence who doesn't have blood on his hands (see Democracy Now link above). Is that really too much to ask?

He could also reverse the FISA bill which he voted in favor of last summer.

Shall I continue?

After closing down the military bases abroad, he could cut the defense budget by 75% and redeploy the troops into infrastructure projects at home, not policing projects.

He could put an end to the bailouts, the handouts to the rich -- the rewards to the scoundrels.

And what about health care, social security, and other entitlement programs? (Obama: Social Security, Medicare may face cuts)

What, too idealistic? OK, let's be realistic -- but, unfortunately that means you won't get any substantial change. You can hope though, you can always hope.

[vigilant]

Conventional wisdom (for whatever that's worth) is that it can't just be shut down without first figuring out how the prisoners are going to be tried and other not-so-unimportant details. Makes sense to me that it needs to be carefully and correctly.

But he (Obama) did make a promise to shut down Gitmo, and this is a first step to ending the extrajudicial military trials.

But of course, Obama is evil and a liar so this must be some kind of ruse.

You got that shit right professorpan. Its just too bad you don't mean it. If you can't see that Obama works for the evil establishment then its because you have chosen 'not to see'. As intelligent as I 'know' you to be i'm surprised by that too. I understand the addiction to HOPE is strong but its dangerous.

This is expected. We are changing the guard ya know? The false right left dichotomy is flipping over. The republicans screwed us blind for eight years, so of course its time to "throw the rascals out" and get us some real change in the house right? Same sort of change we got with Bill Clinton who set us up for the largest theft in the history of the (so called) civilized world. Glass Stegall remember? The MAN FROM HOPE DID THAT TO US. NOW OBAMA WILL PROBABLY REINSTATE IT OR PASS SOME PROTECTION SO OUR FATTED GOOSE CAN BE PROTECTED FOR ANOTHER 77 YEARS, SO THEY CAN RAPE THE HELL OUT OF YOUR CHILDREN NEXT TIME. THE FATTED GOOSE, FATTED CALF? RING A BELL? DON'T KILL THE GOLDEN GOOSE? PROTECT, GROW, THEN HARVEST AND RAPE...OK?

Obama will set us up for the next great ass reaming, the republicans will drive the nail up our ass, you and I will be old and near death, and our children will be none the wiser. Humans don't live long enough to catch on to this horse shit and that is why it works. If we lived to be 1000 years old this crap wouldn't work because after a couple of hundred years we would all catch on.

Sure Obama will mop up some of the mess Bush Idiot made. Its his job. Besides...the objective has been accomplished. The oil was stolen. Mission accomplished. So while Obama sweeps up a few dead bodies and tidies the slaughter room he gets credit for being "oh such a good humanitarian"???? I don't think so.....It is theatre my man, pure theatre, and nothing more.

Its maaaagggggiiiccccc

[professorpan]

Thanks, ninakat.

I'd like all of those things, too. But I'm willing to also give props to incremental steps that take us in the right direction... because that's how politics works.

Already, it's reported he will force interrogators to stick to the rule of law and the guidelines in the Army Field Manual (which bar torture, pain/stress positions, etc.). Isn't that a good thing? Surely, you can admit that is a GOOD THING? Just as I would agree that his FISA vote was a BAD thing?

[stefano]

What would Obama need to do for you [the collective you] to say, "That was great; Obama is actually not as bad as I suspected"?

For me:
- Try the Guantanamo captives properly and send the innocent ones home (and, ideally, apologise)
- Take concrete steps to end the occupation of Iraq
- Take concrete steps to reduce the size of the US military, the number of bases it has everywhere and the revolving-door corruption that led to the US having that size an army in the first place
- Criticise (just, you know, mention) US allies that engage in torture, war crimes and human rights abuses (thinking of Israel and Egypt, mainly)
- Get banks who received bailout money to reveal what they did with it

That's really setting the bar low. For me, the first act of a sane and principled president would be to break diplomatic ties with Israel and adopt a policy of non-intervention in the affairs of other countries, but I'm not putting that on the list since all we want to see is whether Obama will be decent by the execrable standards of US Presidents.

He will be less bad than Bush: his job, the reason he rocketed into the spotlight like that, is that he can make the US look better while the same nasty shit goes on below.



Arthur Silber puts it elegantly: "Any individual who rises to the national political level is, of necessity and by definition, committed to the authoritarian-corporatist state. The current system will not allow anyone to be elected from either of the two major parties who is determined to dismantle even one part of that system."

[ninakat]

Why not give him the benefit of the doubt that he is sincere, and be prepared to criticize if it unfolds in a manner that isn't just and humane?

Why give him the benefit of the doubt? Like any politician, Obama has to earn our trust. These first crumbs of hope are not enough to satisfy that need. His record is one of compromise to the right, if that means anything to you.

-- but when he does something like this, they cry "not good enough" as if he CAN just wave a magic wand and fix enormous clusterfucks like Gitmo.

There are only 250 prisoners. He could, if he dared, challenge the conventional wisdom that these people are indeed terrorists and a danger to our way of life, by moving them immediately to a prison in the U.S. and treating them as innocent until proven guilty and ordering immediate non-military trials. The point is, he could do a lot more about Gitmo than what both he AND McCain promised during the campaign.

[Stephen Morgan]

Okay, fair play -- let's turn this question around.

What would Obama need to do for you [the collective you] to say, "That was great; Obama is actually not as bad as I suspected"?

Announcing that his shame had overwhelmed him followed by immediate ritual suicide would be a good start.

Other than that I would like to see him put himself in prison. He is, after all, a kidnapper. The American governments own figures show seven eighths or so of their captives ot be innocent of any wrongdoing, just randomly grabbed and handed over by indigenous bounty hunters. Even those who are guilty have been held in such a way that no fair trial is remotely possible and therefore they should be released immediately. Any delay, such as the current one, makes his highness living it up in his palace just a guilty as the last lot.

Handing himself into the authorities is the only option for redemption. As the authorities are him and his bosses, this only leaves taking his chances with the possibility of a vengeful afterlife.

[vigilant]

What would Obama need to do for you [the collective you] to say, "That was great; Obama is actually not as bad as I suspected"?

For me:
- Try the Guantanamo captives properly and send the innocent ones home (and, ideally, apologise)
- Take concrete steps to end the occupation of Iraq
- Take concrete steps to reduce the size of the US military, the number of bases it has everywhere and the revolving-door corruption that led to the US having that size an army in the first place
- Criticise (just, you know, mention) US allies that engage in torture, war crimes and human rights abuses (thinking of Israel and Egypt, mainly)
- Get banks who received bailout money to reveal what they did with it

That's really setting the bar low. For me, the first act of a sane and principled president would be to break diplomatic ties with Israel and adopt a policy of non-intervention in the affairs of other countries, but I'm not putting that on the list since all we want to see is whether Obama will be decent by the execrable standards of US Presidents.

He will be less bad than Bush: his job, the reason he rocketed into the spotlight like that, is that he can make the US look better while the same nasty shit goes on below.



Arthur Silber puts it elegantly: "Any individual who rises to the national political level is, of necessity and by definition, committed to the authoritarian-corporatist state. The current system will not allow anyone to be elected from either of the two major parties who is determined to dismantle even one part of that system."

stefano I sincerely admire your ability to "HOPE FOR THE BEST" and construe what you see as progress. Its admirable, but dangerous, at the least.

Pull out of Iraq? Are you serious? It won't matter how many CNN and FOX shows declare the "pullout of the troops". Have you 'really' seen the size of the facilities we have built over there? Have you seen the bases the U.S. built? Have you seen the 'colossal size' of that supposed embassy they are building. My god that embassy could qualify as a marine fort all by itself. There will never be a pullout unless Obama razes and destroys all these bases and embassies and infrastructure, kicks out the american oil companies, gives the oil back to the Iraqi people....

uhhhh...gives that oil back to its owners, takes back that democracy he so mercifully forced on them, and leaves them the hell alone. Ain't gonna happen son, and to listen to wistful media horse shit is....well....just that.

Sun Tzu wrote a book called "The Art Of War"....you should read it. Perception is reality. If I steal your reality, I own your perception, since perception is reality, I own you, if I own your perception, I own your reactions, If I own your reactions its because I caused them in the first place.

Its called a 'circle jerk'......don't be jerked in a circle.

[vigilant]

Okay, fair play -- let's turn this question around.

What would Obama need to do for you [the collective you] to say, "That was great; Obama is actually not as bad as I suspected"?

Announcing that his shame had overwhelmed him followed by immediate ritual suicide would be a good start.

Other than that I would like to see him put himself in prison. He is, after all, a kidnapper. The American governments own figures show seven eighths or so of their captives ot be innocent of any wrongdoing, just randomly grabbed and handed over by indigenous bounty hunters. Even those who are guilty have been held in such a way that no fair trial is remotely possible and therefore they should be released immediately. Any delay, such as the current one, makes his highness living it up in his palace just a guilty as the last lot.

Handing himself into the authorities is the only option for redemption. As the authorities are him and his bosses, this only leaves taking his chances with the possibility of a vengeful afterlife.

Stephen Morgan....what a post...

Your reality seems to be intact on this issue. Kudos to you my man. I love it...

[stefano]

Well vigilant I don't think he'll do any of those things. That list is what I would construe as movements in the right direction, and I'm sure we won't see them happen. What will happen is that he'll ostentatiously take meaningless steps, and while your attention is on the left hand held high in the air, the right hand will be in your wallet.

Prestidigitation, colloquially called... magic.

Here are a few possible ways:
- Closing Gitmo (and repeatedly boasting about how great America is to do that), and moving the captives to unknown jails in other countries
- Getting one or two unpopular CEOs (Pandit?) to quit in shame while the rest carry on looting
- Implement a great public works programme, in which wages will be low and returns to capital artificially high thanks to no-bid contracts to connected companies
- Moving "combat troops" out of Iraq while the mercs and that giant embassy stays

See the kind of thing I mean?

[professorpan]

As much as I'd like to simply ditch this thread, in the interest of continuity, fairness, and possibly my own masochist tendencies, I will continue to post the *good* things as they unfold under Obama. I will also watch as the bashers twist themselves into knots showing exactly how and why those things are really just shameful acts of evil.

For instance, I could imagine Obama (as he promised) lifting the near-ban on Federal stem cell research.

Me: "Isn't this a good thing, haters?"

Haters: "No way, dude. He's going to raise an ARMY OF STEM CELL MONSTERS!! And plus, he hasn't apologized in person to every single human being on the planet who has been harmed by imperial U.S. policies, and until then he's a MONSTER in my eyes!"

Yep, that's how it will unfold. Depressing, but hey, it's RI, so what should I expect?

[professorpan]

More sly flim-flam to appease the deluded sheeple:

From tompaine.com:

Obama to Shut Guantanamo, CIA Prisons

nytimes.com — President Obama is expected to sign executive orders directing the Central Intelligence Agency to shut what remains of its network of secret prisons and ordering the closing of the Guantanamo detention camp within a year. The orders would rewrite American rules for the detention of terrorism suspects. They would require an immediate review of the 245 detainees still held at the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to determine if they should be transferred, released or prosecuted. And the orders would bring to an end a Central Intelligence Agency program that kept terrorism suspects in secret custody for months or years. They will also prohibit the C.I.A. from using coercive interrogation methods, requiring the agency to follow the same rules used by the military in interrogating terrorism suspects.

[sunny]

What would Obama need to do for you [the collective you] to say, "That was great; Obama is actually not as bad as I suspected"?

Giving the democratically elected Hamas officials a call would be a nice start.

Turning Gitmo detainees over to a US court of law would be good. The other night I heard Pat Buchannan say this can't be done because "there is not enough evidence against some of them". Well, duh. If there is not enough evidence against them they should not have been detained in the first place, much less held for years without a trial. Turn those loose forthwith, Obama.

Turn the sunshine on the so-called 'black sites' for all the world to see. Set the people in them free, regardless of any charges against them. The US fucked up there and they don't get a do-over.

For a start.