The New Normal

Dear Friends,

Last week President Obama again showed his inclination to ignore the Constitution and follow the policies of President George W. Bush.  President Obama is seeking legislation that makes it clear that the FBI can force disclosure of email and other internet based communications from internet service providers without a court order.  The New York Times article on the subject (here) includes the following sentence, "Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Thursday that the proposal raised 'serious privacy and civil liberties concerns.'”

On the heels of that disclosure, the American Civil Liberties Union published their report entitled "Establishing a New Normal: National Security, Civil Liberties, and Human Rights Under the Obama Administration" (here).  While there is nothing new in the report, it presents the case that by continuing and expanding many of President George W. Bush's worst policies, President Obama is creating a new normal and enshrining these terrible policies as acceptable.  Please take the time to read the entire report.  It is well worth it.

The press release issued by the ACLU concerning the report contains a summary of some of the findings.
The first sentence of the press release says, "The Obama administration has repudiated some of the Bush administration's most egregious national security policies but is in danger of institutionalizing others permanently into law, thereby creating a troubling 'new normal,'".

The press release summarizes the report's conclusions as follows:

the current administration's record on issues of national security and civil liberties is decidedly mixed: President Obama has made great strides in some areas, such as his auspicious first steps to categorically prohibit torture, outlaw the CIA's use of secret overseas detention sites and release the Bush administration's torture memos, but he has failed to eliminate some of the worst policies put in place by President Bush, such as military commissions and indefinite detention. He has also expanded the Bush administration's "targeted killing" program.

The press release continues:

The report concludes that, in addition to the initial executive orders, the administration has taken other positive steps and made genuine progress in some areas such as improvements to the government's handling of Freedom of Information Act requests, the release of key documents related to the U.S. torture program and an executive order disavowing torture. It also addresses more troubling practices such as the use of the "state secrets" doctrine to block lawsuits brought by torture survivors, the revival of the discredited military commissions to prosecute some Guantánamo detainees, the assertion of broad surveillance powers and the authorization of a "targeted killing" program to kill terrorism suspects, including American citizens, wherever they are located, without due process.
"In its first days, the Obama administration took some important steps to restore civil liberties and the rule of law," said Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU. "It has not, however, abandoned the 'global war' framework that was the basis for many of the last administration's counterterrorism programs. Indeed, some of the Obama administration's policies – like the policies on indefinite detention, military commissions and targeted killings – are entrenching this framework, presenting a profound threat to human rights and the rule of law. We urge the Obama administration to recommit itself to the ideals it articulated in its very first days. President Obama should not make 'global war' the new normal."

While discussing this report with one of my sons, he suggested that I read an article in the most recent issue of the Wilder Voice by John Cheng entitled "A Few Not-So-Good Men".  The Wilder Voice describes itself as Oberlin College's "magazine for creative nonfiction and long-form journalism".  It is a great magazine.  You should read it.  The issues for the last several years are archived online at the website of the Wilder Voice here.

In his article Mr. Cheng points out the dual system of justice that was established under President George W. Bush and is being continued by President Obama.  One system is our criminal justice system, and the other is the system for handling anybody deemed by the President to be a terrorist.  Needless to say in the latter system our Constitution and laws as well as international treaties and laws are ignored and deemed not to apply.  Under that system, the President has the authority to decide when to apply the Constitution and laws.

Mr. Cheng writes,

President Obama refrains from calling the U.S.’s collective military engagements—not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen—a “war on terror.” But the administrations of both the 43rd and 44th presidents of the United States share the same counterterrorism paradigm, whereby war is an appropriate means of combating terrorism, replacing a law enforcement strategy and the civilian judicial institutions that underpin it. Instead of recognizing 9/11 as a horrific criminal deed, the United States has cast the national tragedy as an act of war.
Making war upon and within entire nation-states for harboring Al-Qaeda, rather than merely seeking to capture Al-Qaeda members responsible for the 9/11 attacks, necessitates herculean objectives: Invasion, occupation, and nation-building. Muddying the boundaries between military and judicial prerogatives, the United States has dispatched the machinery of war to execute what, in some respects, might appear to be a law enforcement mission: Conducting raids and catching terror suspects, all under the umbrella of post-invasion occupation and nation-building. That same government then circumscribes due legal process once those individuals are in custody. Furthermore, in an attempt to rationalize the brutal behavior of U.S. soldiers and intelligence officers toward detainees, the Bush administration concocted warped reinterpretations of international law.

Unfortunately, as the ACLU report indicates, the Obama Administration also seems inclined to use some warped reinterpretations of our Constitution and laws.

While I have written about many of the ways that President Obama has continued and in some cases expanded some of the worst policies of the Bush Administration, the framework of the ACLU report provides me with the basis for a series of posts on this subject.  This series will start as soon as I can write the first installment of the series.  We cannot let these terrible policies become the "new normal".

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Zabernism and Zoilism

Dear Friends,

Our country has often engaged in zabernism, and yet when I write about that, I am accused of zoilism.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Yellowstone, Yosemite and other National Parks

Dear Friends,

As a follow up to my post yesterday about the similarity between the policies of President Obama and President George W. Bush, it seems that funding for National Parks can be added to the list.  Here are the first three paragraphs of an article entitled "Obama's Promise and America's National Parks: A Source of Green Jobs and Growth" by Tom Kiernan at the Huffington Post (here): 

In 2008, President Obama made a campaign promise to restore our national parks: "I am committed to addressing the funding shortfall that the National Park Service has experienced."
He made this statement with good reason -- every federal dollar invested in national parks generates at least four dollars economic value to the public. With nearly 300 million visitors last year, Americans are finding our national parks fulfill their need for low-cost and affordable recreation. Visitation at our national parks across the country is up 5 percent since the recession hit. In a time of economic hardships, national parks are an investment in local economies and another source of green jobs. 


Despite these facts, and despite President Obama's 2008 campaign pledge, this Administration's current budget does not address the funding shortfall national parks are facing. Due to years of inadequate funding, national parks such as the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone face a $580 million operating shortfall and have accumulated a $9 billion backlog of deferred maintenance work. Over the last three years, the government began to restore the operations budget, recognizing the need for a multi-year commitment to improve the experiences of visitors, to grow local economies across the country, and to protect our national heritage.

The article goes on to explain what a terrific economic engine the National Parks are.  While the National Parks budget is less than one tenth of one percent but supports $13.3 billion in private sector economic activity and 262,000 private sector jobs.

Unfortunately for our National Parks and all the people that use them and all the people that would benefit from spending on our National Parks and our children and grandchildren, the Obama Administration is following the lead to the Bush Administration and underfunding the National Parks.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Xerox

Dear Friends,

At times when I am using hyperbole to make a point and want to get a reaction out of my family and friends, I say that President Obama is just like President George W. Bush.  Of course, that is not true.  President Obama is so much better than President Bush that they are not even in the same ballpark.  However, their policies are far more similar than they should be.  We all know about the similarity on things like Iraq, Afghanistan and torture.   Here are some other examples of similar policies.

"Like Bush, shutting media out" by Ed Wasserman in the Miami Herald (here).

"Like Bush, Obama Moves to Bury Bad Economic Data" by David Sirota at the Huffington Post (here).

"Obama education policies:  a lot like Bush policies" published by the Economic Policy Institute (here).

"Obama's Drug War Budget Looks a Lot Like Bush's" by Bill Piper on AlterNet (here).

"Obama's National Security Strategy:  Not So Different From Bush's" in Newsweek (here).

The Obama Administration is following the same approach as the Bush Administration did to get to the sources that James Risen used for his book.  "U.S. Subpoenas Times Reporter Over Book on C.I.A." by Charlie Savage in The New York Times (here). 

The Obama Administration is continuing to support a Bush Administration policy that permits mining companies to dump toxic wastes on public lands.  "Environmentalists blast Obama administration's defense of rulings for mining on public land" by Judith Kohler in the Washington Examiner (here).

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

WikiLeaks, War and Winning

Dear Friends,

WikiLeaks published almost 100,000 documents about the Afghan war (here) today after giving three newspapers including The New York Times access to the documents several weeks ago.  The following paragraph from The New York Times article (here) sums up what the documents show:

The documents — some 92,000 reports spanning parts of two administrations from January 2004 through December 2009 — illustrate in mosaic detail why, after the United States has spent almost $300 billion on the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban are stronger than at any time since 2001.

Apparently, the documents do not directly contradict public statements by the United States, but they do make it clear that many official public statements have been at best misleading.

Another paragraph in The New York Times article that is for me particularly telling is this one:

The reports portray a resilient, canny insurgency that has bled American forces through a war of small cuts. The insurgents set the war’s pace, usually fighting on ground of their own choosing and then slipping away.

Only a truly arrogant country like ours could look at the history of foreign invaders of Afghanistan and think that somehow we would be able to accomplish our goals (whatever they are). 

The New York Times article contains a litany of all the problems that we have known about before - the corruption, the killing of civilians, the restrictions on our military, the lack of loyalty of the Afghan forces, etc. 

We cannot achieve our objectives in this war.  Way too many of our soldiers have been killed and wounded and had their lives and the lives of their families ruined.  We have killed and wounded and destroyed the lives of way too many Afghans.  We have wasted way too many dollars that could have been much better spent promoting peace instead of war.  We need to get out of Afghanistan now.  Please write President Obama now (here).

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Victim

Dear Friends,

The lead editorial in The New York Times today (here) highlights another example of the difference between what President Obama says and what he does.  In his speech to the Netroots Nation 2010 convention yesterday, he said that his administration was trying to close Guantanamo in a responsible manner.   But as the editorial points out, the Obama Administration is acting without empathy and in an irresponsible way.  It has made Abdul Aziz Naji a victim once again.  Mr. Naji was turned over by Pakistani police to the US in 2002 and was held at Guantanamo.  He was never charged with a crime, never told why he was being held and never linked to any terrorist acts.  He pleaded not to be sent back to Algeria and appealed to the Supreme Court, but he lost and was sent back to Algeria where he immediately disappeared and his family fears the worst.

Where is President Obama's empathy?  Where is his sense of fairness?  Mr. Naji's life has been destroyed and perhaps ended by our government, in our name.  We should be outraged.

President Obama also made Shirley Sherrod a victim.  President Obama and his administration took at face value a deceptively edited video by a known right wing racial provocateur and fired Ms. Sherrod without even checking what the truth was.  There has been much written about this subject, so I will just recommend that you be sure to read two columns in The New York Times today Frank Rich's column (here) and Maureen Dowd's column (here). 

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Unitarian Universalist

Dear Friends,

By the standards (such as they are) of the religious right, I am not a very religious person.  I call myself a Christian in part because I was raised a Christian and in part because I try to live my life in accordance with the teachings of Jesus.  My understanding of Jesus is that he stood for unconditional, inclusive love for all of creation.  I do not deny nor do I necessarily accept the existence of God.  I certainly do not believe that I understand God, and if I did understand a god, it would not be possible for that god to be the God.  I attend a very liberal Congregational Church, but my beliefs are perhaps more closely aligned with those of a Unitarian Universalist.

When I listened to President Obama's video speech to the Netroots Nation 2010 convention that was the subject of my prior blog, I noticed that he was actually able to end a speech without saying something to the effect of "God Bless America".  Now I suspect that since he was addressing 2,000 left wing bloggers, he did not feel the need to give the speech ending expected by the rest of the American public.  I was delighted to find out that he was actually capable of ending a speech without asking God to bless America and to heck with the rest of the world and in the process alienate those of us that actually think that the separation of church and state is a good thing.

Unfortunately, President Obama was wearing his flag pin in the speech.  I guess he did not want to give Fox News too much to complain about from any given speech.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal