Probably what bothers me most these days about the political dialogue in the United States is the full circle from the politicians’ cynicism and hypocrisy to an enabling establishment media, the willing public who eat it all up, and finally back to the politicians who justify their bogus positions based on the manipulated media and willing public. Continue reading
Regardless of the overwhelming facts, statistics and every other indicator in between that point to the ongoing problem of racial profiling in America, there are groups of people, mainly on the right, who somehow think the problem rests alone in one Harvard professor’s mind or in President Obama’s “stupidly” comment. It is not surprising that these same “conservatives” were also hell bent on labeling Judge Sotomayor a racist. But I am not sure if it is more ironic or pathetic that these individuals feel the need to cry reverse-racism at the drop of the dime, quicker even than their so-called “victimized” minorities do.
Uncharacteristic of the media these days, there was actually a decent discussion of the issue, including a criticism of how the press covered the issue, on This Week with George Stephanopoulos today, in part because the conservative panelists – George Will and David Brooks – are probably the only ideologically consistent and intellectually honest conservative journalists on the market. The same can be said on the side of the spectrum of Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman. For example, I would agree with George Will that it was stupid for Obama to allow himself to get drawn into the controversy. Nevertheless, Paul Krugman also made the obvious point that Obama’s “stupid” remark was inopportune precisely because it is was so fundamentally accurate, and we all know that saying truths is politically dangerous.
The way I look at it, we are confronted with two issues: the problem of racial profiling, of which Mr. Gates’ case arguably pales in comparison to the real problem of racial profiling, and the relationship between the police and citizens. Continue reading
Filed under Essays, Living la vida española, Obama 44
I was passionate about Obama becoming our 44th president, and while I recognize that in the short term Obama greatly improves the U.S.’s standing abroad, I am starting to wonder whether Obama is actually becoming more dangerous for the world than George W. Bush.
Regardless of what Dick Cheney may think, Obama has fully embraced the Bush vision of an imperial and unchecked executive branch. From the proposed Guantanamo show trials to the notion that the president can order people to be detained indefinitely without trial, conviction, rationale or necesity, Obama has institutionalized, with bipartisan support, the notion that the executive branch is above and beyond the law.
Sure, Obama may be closing Guantanamo, but he is doing so only cosmetically. Obama is maintaining, without any dissent whatsoever, the detention facility at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility in Afghanistan, a prison that makes Guantanamo pale in comparison.
Remember all of those Democrats, journalists, and citizens complaining about the Bush Cheney world of secrecy? Remember Bush Cheney refusing to disclose which oil companies met with the White House prior to invading Iraq? Remember Obama’s promise of transparency? Welcome to the Obama state secrets doctrine that not only refuses to disclose evidence of government crimes (because upholding the rule of law may hurt our image abroad), it now also insists on keeping secret the names of the health insurance companies that have met with the president.
Bush Cheney Redux or worse? With the Democrats in power and fully supporting the Obama Administration’s Bush-Cheneyian policies, we now have bipartisan support for the notion that the president is above the law and that the U.S. government is completely immune from any claim of human rights abuses.
Filed under Obama 44
I should not be surprised by the total absence of seriousness in our political discourse. Between the Obama election and the economic crisis, the Republican insistence on “clinging to” outdated political and economic ideologies – i.e., cut taxes, cut spending, nothing more — has quickly moved from a lack of seriousness to pure silliness. To a certain extent this was expected after almost a decade of political hegemony in both the White House and Congress: the Republican political class was tired and out of ideas. Surely the same fate will befall the Democrats at the end of the Obama reign. In the meantime, we have to live through the rehashing of the Republican culture wars that have little to with reality and less to do with policy. Continue reading
In today’s Washington Post, the Mexican Army is accused of using “torture to battle drug traffickers.” The Mexican government itself has recognized the abuse, what the Post describes as “forced disappearances, acts of torture and illegal raids in pursuit of drug traffickers . . .” It is telling that the exact same behavior when perpetrated by the U.S. is not described by the Post or our government as a human rights abuse, torture, or in need of investigation.
The so-called liberal NPR has even admitted that when torture is perpetrated by foreign governments it is torture and when the U.S. government engages in the exact same behavior it is a valid information gathering technique. In a recent response to criticism by Glenn Greenwald for NPR’s official refusal to use the word “torture” with respect to American actions, NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard argued that the U.S. tactics are not torture because the tactics are used to “get information” whereas other countries torture because they use these same tactics as punishment.
Though I am not completely clear on how she would apply her “beating it out of him” is legit standard to the common criminals in Abu Ghraib who had nothing to do with the “War on Terror” and had no “beans to spill”. So, how would the NPR Ombudsman apply her standard to the Mexicans who have said that the entire purpose of the tactics was to get information. Would the Mexican activities therefore not amount to torture either?
So while the Mexican National Human Rights Commission is investigating these abuses as torture, our beloved President Obama, with the full support of the American Mullahs, is letting bygones be bygones and claiming all evidence of abuse is a state secret. The mainstream liberal press (the Post and NPR) is fully on board. Need I say more? It’s good to be above the fray.
Welcome to the Obama justice system where you can be found “not guilty” and still stay imprisoned for as long as the president wants. Now it’s hard for me to believe that Obama, with all of his legal training, does not understand the inherent dangers and inconsistencies in this position. But, like with the War in Afghanistan, Obama’s policy is completely based on political expediency — to prove he’s a tough guy and appease American blood lust and childish anxieties — and not on the validity of the policy.
Read “The Supressed Facts: Death by Torture” by Glenn Greenwald.
If you’re not going to call it torture, but over 100 detainees died during the process, then what do you call it? And if this isn’t torture, then what is torture? We know when other governments commit human rights violations, but what can our government not do?
In the meantime, it all — the continued indefinite detention without trial, the secrecy, and impunity — has become Obama policy.
In the U.S. we have this game we play. Some major violation of our fundamental values occurs and instead of blaming the system or society at large, we blame the Bad Apple.
In the case of Abu Ghraib, we blamed a few bad apples — even though it was obvious then and even more obvious now that bad apples were simply following orders. But God forbid that we ever point any blame at the system. Even President Obama now has made it his policy that any information that may reveal extreme government abuse be kept secret lest it damage our national image.
Take the most recent and obvious example: Bernard Madoff. This one Bad Apple gets a 150 year prison sentence and we are expected to believe and accept that he acted alone in a vacuum, regardless of the fact that he ran a sizable operation. He even maintained office space in the building where I work in Madrid. Earlier this year, 60 Minutes ran “The Man Who Figured Out Madoff’s Scheme” about how Harry Markopolos discovered Madoff’s fraud within five minutes of looking at the numbers. Between 2000 and 2008, Markopolos on five separate occasions sent detailed materials to the SEC revealing Madoff’s fraud. Of course, the SEC did absolutely nothing. Nevertheless, the moral of the story is that Madoff gets his punishment — 150 years for being the Bad Apple.
Sigh relief. Once again, the rest of society is off the hook.
This week there were two good examples of the press finally confronting Obama for his hypocrisy in furthering Bush secrecy and torture policies. First it came from the admitted Obama supporter Bob Herbert who wrote,
It was thought by many that a President Obama would put a stop to the madness, put an end to the Bush administration’s nightmarish approach to national security. But Mr. Obama has shown no inclination to bring even the worst offenders of the Bush years to account, and seems perfectly willing to move ahead in lockstep with the excessive secrecy and some of the most egregious activities of the Bush era.
The new president’s excessively cautious approach to the national security and civil liberties outrages of the Bush administration are unacceptable, and the organizations and individuals committed to fairness, justice and the rule of law — the Center for Constitutional Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, and many others — should intensify their efforts to get the new administration to do the right thing.
More than 500 of the detainees incarcerated at one time or another at Guantánamo Bay have been released, and, except for a handful, no charges were filed against them. The idea that everyone held at Guantánamo was a terrorist — the worst of the worst — was always absurd.
Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, noted that Mr. Obama had promised to bring both transparency and accountability to matters of national security. It’s the only way to get our moral compass back.
And then yesterday it was White House reporter legend Helen Thomas who, as Glenn Greenwald recounts, interrupted Obama’s press conference to inquire about the obvious hypocrisy in the president’s stance on secrecy:
For the last question at his press conference yesterday, Obama was asked by CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux about his reaction to that video and to reports that Iranians are refraining from protesting due to fear of such violence. As Obama was answering — attesting to how “heartbreaking” he found the video; how “anybody who sees it knows that there’s something fundamentally unjust” about the violence; and paying homage to “certain international norms of freedom of speech, freedom of expression” — Helen Thomas, who hadn’t been called on, interrupted to ask Obama to reconcile those statements about the Iranian images with his efforts at home to suppress America’s own torture photos (“Then why won’t you allow the photos –“).
The President quickly cut her off with these remarks:
THE PRESIDENT: Hold on a second, Helen. That’s a different question. (Laughter.)
I suppose for John McCain, maybe, President Obama’s cynicism and the subsequent laughter are all manifestations of the beacon of hope and freedom that the U.S. shines on the world. I can just hear McCain and Lindsey Graham — along with cheering masses, Fox News, all of the ultra conservative pundits who populate the so-called liberal media (Krauthammer & Co.), and the yes-Mr. President faux liberals — invoking the spirit of Ronald Reagan, “Mr. President, rebuild that [Guantanamo] prison.” And Obama complies, most articulately, of course.
Filed under Obama 44
Grave Error 