Unpatriotic, Drugged, Crazy Liberal

Dear Friends,

When George W. Bush was President, he referred to me as being unpatriotic because I did not support his immoral and illegal war in Iraq.  The truth is that I did not really support anything that he did.  He had the nerve to say that even though I was a veteran who had served in a combat zone, and he was the one who got into a rich boys unit and avoided any real military service.

I love my country enough to want to change it if it is doing something wrong.  I love my country even though we have done some terrible things.  I want the country that I love to learn from our mistakes so we do not make them again.  I was hurt by constantly being called unpatriotic.  I was even called a yellow bellied chicken during an anti-Iraq war protest in Washington, D.C. by a kid who was certainly of the age that could have enlisted.  He did that even though my hat identified me as a veteran.  While I was hurt by these comments, I could take some solace in the fact that I was being called unpatriotic by people whom I did not respect. 

I was actually surprised today by how hurt I felt when I heard what Robert Gibbs had to say about criticism from the left in an interview with The Hill (here).  Here are two paragraphs:

During an interview with The Hill in his West Wing office, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted liberal naysayers, whom he said would never regard anything the president did as good enough.

“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”

It is hard to know where to start with Mr. Gibbs' comments.  I will start with the words themselves.

I have given President Obama credit for the things he has accomplished. Just because President Obama has done some things well and has accomplished much does not mean that I will not point out things that he has not done, promises that he has not kept and bad policies that he has adopted.  President Obama has said on many occasions that we need to hold him accountable, and we need to push him to do what he said he would do.  I intend to keep doing that.

I do not need to be drug tested although if Mr. Gibbs would like to accompany me to be tested I would be happy to go with him.  Also I am not crazy.  What is crazy is calling me, someone who supported Mr. Obama when he first ran for the United States Senate and when he ran for President, crazy for trying to holding President Obama accountable.

I will admit that in the last month or so I have written about how President Obama's policies are similar to or extensions of President Bush's policies, including topics such as targeted killing of American citizens, indefinite detentions, accountability for torture, transparency, national parks, shutting out the media, burying bad economic news, education policy, drug war budget, national security strategy, shield laws, abuse of the environment by mining, Afghanistan, deportation of undocumented workers, offshore oil drilling, Guantanamo, financial regulation, use of contractors like Blackwater, use of drones bombing, etc.  But in all cases, I have carefully documented my position.

But I think that what really hurts me is that Mr. Gibbs was probably reflecting the way the White House really feels about the base that got President Obama elected.  Even when he and others tried to walk back the comments, they never really disavowed them.  As David From, a journalist and former speech writer for President George W. Bush, has said (here) "my first rule of party leadership: while Republican politicians fear their base, Democratic pols hate theirs."

I am afraid that Mr. From is correct.  How does it make you feel when somebody that you have supported, given your time, energy and money to and more importantly placed your hopes in hates you and has played you for a fool?  It makes me feel foolish and ashamed for being hoodwinked.  Am I just a rube from Minnesota that was taken in by the smooth talking con man from Chicago?  I am not sure that I want to know the answer to that question.

I suppose that President Obama is not really worried about whether or not I will vote for him in 2012.  I cannot imagine a set of circumstances where I would not vote for the Democratic nominee for President in 2012.  But does that mean that President Obama should kowtow to the Republicans who want to destroy him while loathing me, the one that supports him? 

While it seems to me that if the Obama Administration can throw people like Shirley Sherrod and Van Jones under the bus for doing nothing wrong, they should certainly fire Mr. Gibbs.  But that would not give me any satisfaction or lead me to believe that President Obama understands that he needs to listen to his base and give it the respect it deserves.  If President Obama wants to signal that he gets it, he needs to fire Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner, and he needs to get out of the White House and back on the campaign trail using his incredible oratorical skills to win back the American voters to get this country headed in the right direction again.  Instead of giving into the Republicans he needs to win over the American people.  As President Obama has repeatedly said, change does not come from the top, it comes from millions pushing from the bottom. 

So I will keep pushing President Obama and holding him accountable even if he doesn't respect me or care what I think or pay any attention because we need to hold him accountable for the good of the country and the world.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Targeted Killing and President Obama

Dear Friends,

The fourth topic addressed in the American Civil Liberties Union report entitled "Establishing a New Normal: National Security, Civil Liberties, and Human Rights Under the Obama Administration" (here) is targeted killing.  I have to say that while all of the topics in the ACLU report make me cringe, the idea of targeted killing by my government is probably the scariest.  Here is the first paragraph of the section on targeted killing from the ACLU report:

Of all of the national security policies introduced by the Obama administration, none raises human rights concerns as grave as those raised by the so-called “targeted killing” program. According to news reports, President Obama has authorized a program that contemplates the killing of suspected terrorists—including U.S. citizens —located far away from zones of actual armed conflict. If accurately described, this program violates international law and, at least insofar as it affects U.S. citizens, it is also unconstitutional.

I first wrote about President Obama's assassination program on April 7th.  Here is that post.

Worse than President Bush

Dear Friends,
I have in the past chastised President Obama for continuing some of President George W. Bush's policies and/or defending them in legal actions that are ongoing.  President Obama has now gone beyond what President Bush did with respect to ignoring the Constitution, and we must make him reverse this policy.  Please write him here.  

The New York Times this morning reported that President Obama has authorized the killing of an American citizen.  (here)

The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have shifted from encouraging attacks on the United States to directly participating in them, intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Tuesday.

Anwar al-Awlaki has not been convicted of any crime or provided with anything that approaches due process.  I do not claim to be a Constitutional scholar, but I have studied Constitutional law, and there is no reasonable argument that can be made that the President of the United States has the power to order the targeted killing of an American citizen because the President of the United States thinks that the targeted individual has committed a crime or is a terrorist.  Even if Anwar al-Awlaki is in fact a terrorist and even if he has committed a crime, the President of the United States does not have the right to kill him.  The accused is entitled to a fair trial with due process and the courts decide the penalty if the person is found guilty.  If Anwar al-Awlaki is on a battlefield, he may be killed as a participant in a battle in accordance with International law.  If Anwar al-Awlaki is in hiding in Yemen, it would be a violation of US law, International law, the US Constitution and probably the laws of Yemen.

But beyond the illegality and unconstitutionality of ordering the killing of an American not on an active battlefield who has not had any of his Constitutional rights observed, it is just plain wrong.  We will never be safer, and we will never win a war against terrorists by acting like terrorists ourselves.  This type of targeted killing is antithetical to everything that America should stand for.  In taking his oath of office the President pledges to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. President Obama is failing to uphold his oath of office.

On May 19th, I wrote again about targeted killing (here).  In that post, I quoted an article in The New York Times (here) as follows:

To eavesdrop on the terrorism suspect who was added to the target list, the American-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is hiding in Yemen, intelligence agencies would have to get a court warrant. But designating him for death, as C.I.A. officials did early this year with the National Security Council’s approval, required no judicial review.
“Congress has protected Awlaki’s cellphone calls,” said Vicki Divoll, a former C.I.A. lawyer who now teaches at the United States Naval Academy. “But it has not provided any protections for his life. That makes no sense.”

The illegality, immorality and stupidity of my government assassinating its citizens because the President of the United States says we should is so obvious that there is nothing more that I can say, except please contact President Obama (here) and let him know that we will not stand for assassinating people just because he thinks we should.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Net Neutrality, Verizon and Google

Dear Friends,

Net neutrality is a rather arcane subject to most people. But when Google and Verizon and Fox News determine which sites you can access at fast speed and which sites you can access at slow speeds and which content is readily available and which is hidden behind slow speed access, then the people will understand why net neutrality is so important.  Unfortunately, the Obama Administration and Congress are failing to maintain net neutrality while the big corporations are agreeing how to control the internet.  My first post on net neutrality was on April 11 (here).  I followed that post up with a post entitled "Caving on Net Neutrality" on May 4th (here).  Unfortunately, as usual, President Obama did not act on my advice.

Subsequently, neither the FCC nor Congress has acted to protect the internet from control by the big corporations.  Senator Franken (D-MN) one of my senators and a great senator at that has called net neutrality the biggest First Amendment issue of our time.  He is right, and he is not exaggerating.  Here is a link to Al Franken's speech and the opportunity to sign his petition supporting net neutrality.  Please follow the link, listen to the speech and sign the petition.  In addition, please contact President Obama (here) to force him to take action to protect net neutrality. 

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal