Tag: Barack Obama

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Same as the Old Boss

Like a lot of people, I have been willing to cut President Obama a lot of slack. A vast network of incompetence, abuse, and secrecy can’t be turned around over night. But I am increasingly disturbed by clear signs that Obama, perhaps in the interest of finding “common ground”, is not making the changes he was elected to make.

The latest of these (see the link, above left) involve yet another case in which Obama, apparently terrified that Americans will find him inadequately ruthless, refuses to stop abuse, torture, and arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. He thinks that one of these detainees, after release, will conduct an act of terrorism and the Republicans will gleefully make the case that only assholes like Dick Cheney can stand up to the forces of darkness. Even worse: it might look like George W. Bush was right.

It’s not an isolated incident. Obama has refused to release photographs showing more prisoner abuse in Iraq. He hasn’t changed U.S. policy to Cuba, or Iran, or North Korea. He supported the amnesty for telecoms that violated your right to privacy at the behest of Homeland Security. He won’t reveal new details about who the government is spying on without warrants or how often they do it.

The photograph issue is a telling point– during the campaign, Obama argued that transparency and honesty would ultimately increase respect for America around the world. He can’t now argue that circumstances have changed. He can’t argue that he has new information that he didn’t have during the campaign. He can’t argue that there is a risk to American soldiers that did not exist during the campaign. The only thing that changed is that Obama now has the power to do what he said he would do. He promised something. He didn’t deliver.

Just another politician? It’s beginning to look like it. The style is different, yes, but so far Obama has not staked out a path that is substantively different from what we could have expected under McCain, or even Bush. What we have now are the same policies, but provided with more thoughtful, coherent explanations.

He is also trying to block investigations into the Justice Department’s procedures for authorizing torture during the Bush Administration. In other words, so you tortured a few Arabs? Big deal. We’ll just let bygones be bygones and let those evil lawyers and judges go on their merry ways while the victims of their actions lay shattered and broken in their prison cells.

Finally– his economic “reforms” leave in place most of the lousy structures and policies that created this massive economic disaster in the first place.

Is this what the majority of Americans– more than ever voted for Bush– wanted? Is this what they voted for? What is going on here? Do they have a right to feel betrayed?

Bush, with a razor thin margin of votes, took the U.S. into a disastrous war, violated the constitution, and destroyed the economy. Obama, with a substantial majority– won against a moderate Republican– seems afraid to do anything he promised the voters he would do.

The world is crying for a dramatic gesture from this government that things are different.

So far, things seem mighty same.

The story in the New York Times.

Obama prides himself on his ability to build consensus, to seek common ground, to forge compromise. Since the Republicans pride themselves on the fact that they are always so right that they don’t need to listen to anybody else (which is not to say that some Democrats believe the same thing), this is a win-win situation for conservatives. I fear that Obama’s health care proposals will be so compromised by this process that they will fail, which will allow the Republicans to proclaim that it was always a bad idea.

* Note: while some liberals can be as doctrinaire as conservatives (and conservatives love insisting they all are), it is also true that a core liberal belief is that there is some value in all points of view– precisely the kind of moral “flexibility” Conservatives say they detest. Can’t have it both ways: which is it?

More Compromises:
On Detainee Rights

“Second, Democrats learned never to go to war against the combined forces of corporate America. Today, whether it is on the stimulus, on health care or any other issue, the Obama administration and the Congressional leadership go out of their way to court corporate interests, to win corporate support and to at least divide corporate opposition.”
David Brooks, NYTimes, June 30, 2009

Yet another depressing story.

Added July 24:  It should be noted that a few days after the above comments, David Brooks complained bitterly that Obama was pursuing the radical agenda of the left wing of the Democratic party and not giving adequate respect to moderation and compromise.

Okay Brooks, which is it?

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Why Obama Won’t Propose Single-Payer Health Care

It Took a Nixon to Open the Door to China

Why on earth has Obama and the Democratic leadership ruled out the “single-payer” model, the one Canadians love so much?

I’m sure he wants Americans to believe that he is not a fanatic, a radical, who intends to impose a socialist regime on the country. I’m sure he knows that this perception is ridiculous. I’m sure he knows that the insurance industry and some doctors’ organizations and conservative talk radio and Fox News and the Republicans will spend millions and millions of dollars to try to convince Americans that Canadians hate their health care system (in spite of some studies that show up 97% of Canadians would not trade our system for theirs) and that Canadians are dying in unparalleled numbers because we can’t get doctors or treatment (in spite of our longer life expectancy) and that our breast implants are not as firm or ample as good old all-American breast implants.

So why has Obama rolled over on this one? He’s afraid of a brutal, divisive fight. He wants to be bipartisan. He wants to unify America.

I always thought that if a liberal Democrat took George Bush’s approach to the Iraq war and applied it to health care, the U.S. would have a single-payer, universal health care plan in a matter of months. Nobody wanted the Iraq war. Nobody thought it was a good idea. Nobody believed Saddam had anything to do with 9/11. Did that stop Dick Cheney? Not on your life. He just steam-rolled the idea through Congress and the Executive branch and refused to compromise or bend until he got his way. Above all, he threatened to paint every wavering Democrat as an unpatriotic wimp if they didn’t join in.

Now, if an idiot could do that with a bad idea– why can’t a genius like Obama do it with a good one?

To answer my own question: because Cheney’s opponents were intelligent, reasonable people who were not given to hysterics and mudslinging. They wanted to compromise. They wanted to seem even-handed and fair to President Bush.

Obama’s opponents are well-funded shrieking harpies who will lie and distort and stop at nothing to take political advantage of any issue.

Perhaps it is going to take a Nixon (or a John McCain?) to change America’s health care system for the better. (The story is that if a Democrat had tried to establish diplomatic relations with “Red” China the way Nixon did in 1972, the Republicans would have revolted en-masse and created a constitutional crisis of insane proportions. But Nixon, who was trusted by the conservatives, was able to achieve remarkable results because everybody thought that if old arch-cold-warrior Nixon thought it was okay, it must be okay.)

Why doesn’t labour approach the problem of influencing government the way conservatives do? What they would need to do is create a foundation (or several of them, each of which appears to be independent of the others) called the “Ruthless Capitalist Institute” or something, and find some stooge entrepreneurs to staff it and fund some stooge college professors (maybe at Oral Roberts University) to do “research” and then make presentations to Congress on how investors would make even more money if they employed only unionized labour.

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Two Submarines Bumping Into Each Other: Excuse Me Excusez-Moi

“It is MOD policy not to comment on submarine operational matters, but we can confirm that the U.K.’s deterrent capability has remained unaffected at all times and that there has been no compromise to nuclear safety,” a ministry spokesman said. NY Times (Feb 15, 2009)

So two subs, one British, one French, collided in the mid-Atlantic, and we are supposed to be relieved that U.K.’s “deterrent capability” remained unaffected. Which of course makes you wonder, who exactly is an imminent threat to the U.K.? Who is threatening to launch their nuclear missiles (that is what a “deterrent” is for) at London and Liverpool? Why is Britain spending so much money to keep these floating doomsday devices out there?

But the most interesting thing is this. Think about it: these two subs are absolutely loaded with the most sophisticated, powerful technologies available to mankind. We have spared no expense to provide them with every tool imaginable to ensure that they can reliably murder millions of their people if someone dares to murder millions of our people. Their crews have been trained by our most experienced, wisest, and ingenious scientists and leaders.

And they couldn’t keep from running into each other on the open seas.

And they are supposed to have “fail-safe” systems in place to keep the bombs from going off by mistake. But all their resources couldn’t keep them from running into each other.

The subs look very solemn. They are huge and weighty and black. They are coated with materials to hide them from sonar. They are powered by nuclear reactors. They can go under the arctic ice. The men on them wear uniforms on land and salute each other reverently when passing. For all the costumes and show, they are like little tin soldiers marching back and forth, back and forth, under the delusion that they keep the sun shining and the stars from falling with their little ministrations.

Obama’s Helicopters

Apparently, Obama has inherited some kind of project to replace the aging presidential helicopters, those old Sikorskys, with something new and more powerful. How powerful? About $11.2 Billion powerful.

The program was initiated by the Bush Administration after 9/11, and it should symbolize to all of us everything that is wrong and stupid about government today. Firstly, $11.2 Billion dollars is too much to protect anybody, even Obama. Yes, I am a fan of Obama, but that doesn’t mean I believe he is some kind of divinity who is so valuable and so important that we must spend an infinite amount of money to keep him safe. In fact, there is only one word for the idea of spending $11.2 billion on presidential helicopters: obscene. It is obscene in every respect, in the idiotic belief that technology can make us invulnerable, in the deeply offensive idea that the President is so phenomenally amazing and important and irreplaceable that we cannot countenance the slightest hint of a threat to his continued existence, in the way government functionaries behave as if they live on some magical planet with infinite money to spend on toys and gizmos and uniforms and parades.

The truth is that if Obama died tomorrow, the sky would not fall, the economy would not falter worse than it already has (while the previous administration was all safe and sound) and life would go on much the same as it has before.

As far as I am concerned, Obama should take public transit. Better yet: one secret service agent should drive him to the airport in a Prius. Another one should follow behind on a moped, in case anything happens.

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The Inauguration and the Fake String Quartet

I just read that the lovely little quartet that performed “Air and Simple Gifts” at Barack Obama’s inauguration faked it. You watched the lovely musicians, elegant, focused, rising to the occasion– you thought. But the music you heard came from a recording that had been made a few days earlier. They finger-synched. They had ear-pieces so they could hear the recording, and then they put on a performance, but the performance was not musical: it was acting.

I am always amazed at the rationales given for cheating. The Chinese said that the little singer was not pretty enough to dance and the Olympics were too important to allow ugliness into the stadium. The people in charge of the inauguration said it was too cold to play, and too important an event to take a chance something going wrong, and allow any musical ugliness’s into the mall.

Even Pavarotti, at a performance in Italy a few years ago, cheated because he had a cold and didn’t want to disappoint his fans. Never mind the people who were disappointed to find out that even Pavarotti is a fake.

I hope most people immediately see through these lies. When we watch a brilliant musician perform, we are impressed precisely because it is difficult to do, and because of the dynamic connection between performer and audience responding to each other in the moment. So someone who successfully performs, live, deserves our respect. Others only want you to believe that they performed live. They want the same applause and respect. They bow and bow and bow– what’s the matter with you? What do you mean “cheating”? I just didn’t want to disappoint my fans.  I say, fuck you.

If it wasn’t fakery of the highest order, why were they trying to make it look like they were performing live? Why not just stand there and bow?

And why on earth, if they were so concerned about the cold, didn’t they just perform live in the White House — in the Oval Office– and then broadcast it to the huge screens on the mall? At a moment of crisis and change, demanding the highest level of inspiration for the American people, Obama’s people cheated. They pretended they could do something they didn’t believe they could really do.

They put on a show loaded with symbolism meaning nothing.

Well, I refuse to give in to this bullshit that someone it is reasonable and good and fair to cheat in public performances.  It is absolutely possible to perform live or to simply do something else if you don’t want to be honest.

[2022-05-09: they did for music what Obama did for progressive politics — faked it.]

The faked musical performance music wasn’t the only thing about the inauguration I didn’t like. The rows of guards dressed in grey overcoats lining the streets called to mind nothing so much as a police state. Rick Warren was boring. Obama’s speech was disappointing– merely “very good” instead of great. The poet played it entirely, decisively, antiseptically safe.

Diane Feinstein was good. She looked like she was having fun up there. I have never liked patriotic hymns of any sort, so Aretha Franklin’s song didn’t move me. The only other part of the inauguration I really liked was the benediction by Rev. Joseph Lawry, who at least put on a little funk and passion and sounded cheerfully unceremonious.

More Fakes: 2011-04

Did you like the tap-dancing in “Riverdance”? The sound was faked. The producers triumphantly chortled: nobody cares.

Turns out that Greg Mortenson (Three Cups of Tea) is also a fake, according to “60 Minutes”. The stories he tells in his books and repeats in person, about getting lost on K2, and being kidnapped by the Taliban. False.

Bitter Dobsonites

If you check the James Dobson website, you’ll find that there are at least a few patriotic bible-believing Americans who are so bitter and self-serving that they are unwilling to acknowledge, even on inauguration day, the historic importance of America’s first black president.

Dobson’s proxies, instead, attacked Obama for employing several Clinton-era appointees.

Why on earth choose John Williams, most famous for the theme of “Star Wars”, to compose a piece for this historic inauguration? In his favor, he is American, living, and successful. But were the best parts of the composition the pieces he lifted from Aaron Copland? I would have preferred Tom Waits myself, but that’s just me.

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The Mainstream Media is Right

In today’s Washington Post– and all over the place, actually– several right wing pundits are weeping their little eyes out because the Mainstream Media is so biased that it gave overwhelmingly favorable coverage to Obama and overwhelmingly hostile coverage to McCain. McCain, in fact, stopped talking to the media early on in the general election campaign because he thought they were all “for Obama”.

Is it true?

And if it’s true, does it matter?

1. If it matters, how come Bush was able to win two elections without the slightest assistance from the MSM? How come McCain didn’t complain about bias when he was the media’s darling? And how dare the MSM disapprove of John Hagee anyway, or Gordon Liddy, or James Dobson, just because they are crypto-fascists?

The fact is that even if there was a conspiracy, it couldn’t work: the internet has made it impossible for anyone to effectively suppress news. If a story really was suppressed– that would become the story, as it often does, when you see even liberal columnists bemoan the alleged bias of the media. (They somberly note that more favorable stories have appeared about Obama than about McCain.)

But what if Obama is the better candidate?

In short, McCain says it’s snowing and Obama says it’s raining, the media is biased if they look outside. [With thanks to Campbell Brown, CNN Editor, in Time Magazine this week.]

2. What about Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, ABC, and all the other conservative outlets? I could almost buy the bias argument without choking if any of these whiners would actually think to mention that Fox News is at least as biased– and, more reasonably, actually far more biased– than CBS or the New York Times. We often accuse our enemies of the flaw we most recognize in ourselves.

3. If the MSM really unfairly ignored the William Ayers story, then Fox News would most certainly have uncovered any relevant facts. But Fox News and conservative columnists kept ranting about William Ayers without providing the slightest evidence of anything about the matter that was relevant to the election. What Fox News did do was give air time to some of the most poorly documented and scurrilous stories circulating among the fanatical fringes. Obviously, they can safely assume that most of their loyal readers and listeners don’t read very widely.

4. Nobody tied Sarah Palin to a chair and forced her to provide Katie Couric with inane answers to sensible questions. Nobody forced her to chat for six minutes with a bad imitator of French President Sarkozy. Nobody forced her to identify white rural citizens as “real” Americans.

5. Did the MSM largely ignore Biden’s gaffes? I don’t know of any gaffe by Biden that would have caused anyone to doubt his knowledge, abilities, or competence. Even his comment about Obama being tested by America’s enemies soon after taking office wasn’t even really all that controversial– does McCain really believe he won’t be?

6. Would you really go to Fox for actual news over the New York Times, Washington Post, or L.A. Times? Okay– the Wall Street Journal and Globe & Mail– conservative papers– provide a fair bit of real journalism. But then, you don’t hear their columnists ranting on and on about liberal bias. The most conservative columnists, like the most conservative politicians who never seem to actually serve in any wars (McCain is the exception), never actually seem to do any reporting– just opinions.

7. As even many conservative columnists agree, Obama ran an absolutely superb campaign, perhaps one of the best in recent history. He was supremely well-organized and efficient, and he raised enormous sums of money. He was consistent and prudent and unflappable. The MSM accurately reported. That’s not bias: that’s journalism.

8. The conservative press assumes that all Americans share their anguish that Obama doesn’t seem very eager to blow things up, bomb foreign cities, or spend trillions on obsolete, ineffective weapons systems. How dare he. They are even more astonished that any sane person would have the slightest concern for the environment at a time when Wall Street Investors actually have to bear some risk for their investments.

What is “bias”?

Everyone talks as if there is a common understanding of what “bias” looks like. Take the example of Obama’s alleged association with William Ayers. This issue puzzled me. I heard from conservative pundits that there was something nefarious afoot here and the MSM was not reporting it. All right, I thought. Let Fox News– biased the other way– report it. So I went to Fox News, and Charles Krauthammer, and George Will, and the others, and waited to be enlightened with information the MSM had ignored or concealed. What was that information? What new evidence of a covert relationship did they have? What shocking story did they have to tell?

Well, it turns out that the shocking story they had to tell was that the MSM didn’t find anything particular sinister about Obama’s relationship with Ayers. They met a few times and Ayers, who lives openly in Chicago and, in fact, was voted “citizen of the year” by the City of Chicago for his extensive work promoting educational programs. Here’s CNN’s take on the issue.

The “bias” here is expressed as the conclusion drawn by responsible journalists that the Ayer’s story has no real significance or relevance to Obama’s candidacy. They worked together on two boards of charitable organizations that were clearly active promoting progressive social causes. They probably served together on a panel addressing juvenile justice issues. The odd thing is that one might reasonably argue that Obama’s association with this community activist has flattering implications. Think about it. Ayers was a radical in the 60’s, but he grew up, he matured, and learned to work within the “system”. He clearly is dedicated to working with disadvantaged youth in the City of the Chicago. How awful is it that Obama, a community organizer, would end up working with him on several worthy projects?

Now the pundits over at Fox News seem to perceive something dangerous in this activity. But that’s not because biased MSM reporters ignored important details. It’s because they don’t share the same extremist values of the conservative pundits who find the very idea of “progress” hysterically frightening because it applies to the lives of working Americans instead of the portfolios of investors.

So what the hell is going on here, with this “bias” argument? Is this all there is? Is this typical of the conservative arguments against Obama? Now I understand what they mean by “bias”.

It should surprise no one that at least some Republicans are immediately presenting the bullshit argument that somehow Obama didn’t really win a mandate. When Republicans win the election by concealing their real policies of shifting wealth from working people to investors, it’s because voters want them to govern. When Democrats win by campaigning on policies that benefit the middle classes–as Obama clearly did–, the voters were “deceived or misguided”. So John Boehner wants you to believe. That justifies the Republicans in Congress being as obstructionist as possible. Precisely the kind of politics the voters rejected by choosing Obama.

If Obama wanted to get his way more efficiently, he could just do what Bush did to get his way on Iraq: lie through his teeth.

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Obama’s Terrorist Pals

It is a little bizarre to see Sarah Palin and John McCain both continue to charge that Obama “pals around with terrorists” long after the slightest shred of credibility has long left that scene. They do the same with the “Joe the Plumber” references, though any rational person can now quickly verify that, in fact, Joe the Plumber keeps more of his money under Obama’s plan than he does under McCain’s.

You would think–I did– that a politician would stop using a certain line of attack once it has been discredited. So it’s somewhat amazing to see McCain and Pail continue to flog those charges at every opportunity.

Did someone advise McCain that the truth here doesn’t matter? It doesn’t matter at all. If you repeat the same charge over and over and over again, no matter how ridiculous, a certain segment of the voting public will begin to believe it. Heck, about 20% of adult Virginians think Obama is a Moslem. How hard can it be to persuade other white Americans that he actually pals around with terrorists.

It occurs to me that each side tends to make the accusations that they would feel were most shocking if levied against their own candidate. McCain lacks empathy for the working man. He is erratic. He is unconcerned about the working class. The Republicans have the most horror for charges that a candidate is not patriotic, doesn’t bowl, doesn’t like guns and shooting furry creatures.

And Obama pals around with terrorists.

And they repeat it and repeat it, and no one wants to be charged with inflammatory rhetoric here, but isn’t that the classic “big lie” strategy? Don’t like that insinuation? How else do you explain the utterly brazen disregard for factual information here? McCain simply doesn’t care whether informed, reasonable people believe it’s untrue– he’s going to repeat it anyway, over and over again, because he believes it will sway voters. He believes in this. He has no hesitation. He has nothing but contempt for the idea of campaigning with honor and respect, as a gentleman, in spite of his increasingly absurd claims to be driven by such sentiment. Driven by it? He pisses on it every time he speaks.

When a committee of legislators in Alaska found the Sarah Palin had, indeed, violated State Ethics rules in the way she tried to force Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan to fire her former brother-in-law Mike Wooten, Palin brazenly claimed that the report exonerated her. Palin has been touting her “maverick” credentials as the governor who stopped the notorious “bridge to nowhere” when she did no such thing. McCain was pro-choice only a few years ago. He voted against the Bush tax cut when it was first presented. Forget all that. Don’t even look it up. You are too stupid to look it up. When I tell you I believe something it means exactly what I say it means and nothing more and nothing less. What is a “google”?

Of course, the standard conservative rejoinder is “the Democrats do it too”. Bullshit. Yes, both parties exaggerate and distort each other’s and their own records, but they are not the same. The Republicans, in this election, have built their entire campaign on it. The Democrats might be saying that Northwest is North, but the Republicans are insisting that up is down and black is white.

I’m biased! I’m biased! Yes, indeedy, I prefer Obama. So that qualifies me as biased. If I preferred McCain instead, I suppose I would not be “biased”. I would be “objective”, “fair”, and “reasonable”. Everything I say about McCain is a lie because I am biased because I prefer Obama. So when I say that Sarah Palin doesn’t look like a very strong candidate because she can’t even handle an open-ended interview or press conference, let alone a cabinet meeting— it’s not true. It’s biased. Now you know.

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Obama’s Sell-Out

Barack Obama supported and voted in favor of the recent wiretapping bill that grants immunity to the telephone companies who didn’t bother to ask government agents if they had a warrant to look at telephone records of individuals they were curious about. They just handed them over. You’re the government, so you can’t possibly be doing something illegal.

Republicans– who seem to believe in the ruthless application of the law in all instances– or say they do– should be screaming bloody murder. But we know all about the Republicans. But Obama?

If the government’s actions were legal, there is no need for immunity. If they were not illegal, then the Senate should initiate proceedings against the Bush administration. They should bloody well impeach him and indict the attorney-general.

We know why Obama voted in favour of the bill. He was terrified of the Republicans portraying him as “soft” on terror if he didn’t. Here’s my fantasy: Obama rails against the bill and tells Americans that he is standing up for the rule of law and for the constitution, and all those Americans who just can’t stand the thought of the federal government intruding on their sacred rights– like the right to own sub-machine guns– say Amen and vote for him.

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Obama’s Next Compromise

Barack Obama supported and voted in favor of the recent wiretapping bill that grants immunity to telephone companies that cooperated with the Administration’s illegal requests for wiretaps on Americans receiving or making foreign telephone calls.

The so-called liberal media has completely dropped the ball on this one. Why is this not a scandal? George Bush refuses to admit that his Administration acted illegally when they requested the wiretaps. He continues to assert that the requests were legal. If they were legal, there is no need for immunity. The courts, as is their role in a constitutional democracy, have the authority and right to decide the lawsuits filed by plaintiffs against those Telcos. This law circumvents the constitution by providing retroactive immunity for crimes the government refuses to admit were crimes. This is insane. This is impeachable. This is obscene.

This is an out and out betrayal of all the bullshit platitudes about constitutions and freedoms and due process that America constantly foists on the world as justification for all the lives lost in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Barack Obama also supports the ethanol industry in its Disney-esque fantasy of replacing foreign oil with domestic plants. Everyone can already see what the results of this policy will be: oil will continue to cost more, and ethanol will have an absolutely negligible impact on domestic consumption while driving up food prices in the poorest parts of the globe. Even worse, Obama does not support dropping tariffs on imported Brazilian sugarcane ethanol which at least provides a far better return on the energy conversion (8-1, vs. ethanol’s 2-1). Why?

Because Iowa.

Because he wants the support of the Midwestern farmers who stand to benefit enormously from the ridiculous government subsidy of ethanol prices.

Put it this way: the oil industry is not worried about ethanol.

Think about that a lot. Think carefully about it: the oil industry LOVES ethanol. The oil industry’s stooges in the White House are pushing ethanol enthusiastically. The oil industry’s stooges in the White House have, so far, successfully torpedoed a bill that continues giving tax incentives to other alternative forms of energy like wind and solar power.

For those who think Obama will bring a sprig of fresh ideas to the White House, these two issues are bad omens. The first is a classic political compromise, an opportunistic sell-out to the enduring Democrat fear that they won’t appear to be tough enough to take on all those zillions of terrorists out there blowing up buildings in Des Moines, Iowa, or Cedar Rapids, or Flint, or Greensboro, and so on. Oh my God– we can’t let them think that John McCain will be more willing to undermine the constitution than we are!

The second is the classic trade-off of special interests against the genuine interests of the American people. There are numerous lobbyists or other agents associated with the ethanol industry working with Obama’s campaign. That’s disappointing.

The optimist hopes that Obama is making these compromises to get into office, so that once he gets into office he can resume his principled leadership and persuade Americans to support the right course of action. I tend to think it is more likely that once he gets into office, he will make the same compromises that most politicians usually make and things will not be so different after all.

It’s all relative. So we have here the shocking realization that Obama is human after all, and capable of making the same kind of moral and ethical compromises that most politicians make… it is still probable that the election of Obama will improve the U.S. government by a huge margin for the simple reason that we are more likely to have competent people in charge of government policy for the first time in 8 years.

Just how perverted is this generation of voters? McCain feels no need to hide the fact that he would allow the CIA to continue to use torture. TORTURE. On human beings. As if we were not morally superior to terrorists and murderers and torturers.

No candidate in this coming election– wait, is Ralph Nader running?– has proposed to return the U.S. to democratic constitutional greatness and honor and decency. There are no Christian candidates in this election. There is no god in this election.

Torturing the New York Times: Why, in this article, does the New York Times– supposed bastion of liberal dissent– refer to torture as “enhanced interrogation techniques”. Who the hell told them to use this phrase instead of the word “torture”? Is this because they are giving McCain and Bush the benefit of the doubt? Well, it might not be torture, after all? It might be the euphemism? Geez, where are the real liberals when you want one!

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A “Finding” Does not Make it Legal

You might think that torture is actually presently legal in the U.S., given all the efforts by Bush and his Attorney Generals to make it so. And maybe you just don’t care that it is– or you approve– because you are a God-fearing patriotic American and you don’t take bullshit from foreigners– whatever— I don’t care. Jesus loves you, whatever, because you approve of the use of torture, and you really can’t remember or think of or imagine any reason why that would make you less of a human being than, say, believing in witchcraft or astrology. Whatever.

Back to my point: I don’t believe torture is, technically, “legal”. It is, in fact, quite illegal, no matter what Bush says it is. Then why hasn’t anybody been arrested? Who would arrest who? Because Bush is in command of the only apparatus that can enforce the law: the Attorney General’s Office and the FBI (which is accountable to it) and he has ordered it not to.

[added October 22, 2008: if a New York City cop on the beat, for example, stumbled into a group of men treating an individual the way they are, in fact, treating the detainees in Guantanamo, he would surely make an arrest and lay charges.  Nobody would or could excuse the crime with a “finding”.]

If Bush or his Attorney-General issues a “finding” that torture is legal (he calls it “enhanced interrogation techniques” but no court is so stupid as to not see through that), and thereby instructs federal officials to abide by that “finding”, he hasn’t really changed any aspect of the law. What would it take to activate the apparatus on behalf of the courts? Well, how about a new executive who believes in the constitution?

Take for example any prisoner being held currently in Guantanamo, who had previously been tortured, either through rendition, or by CIA officers at locations outside of the U.S. Bush has succeeded in blocking this individuals access to any court with the power to respond to his circumstances with directives that will actually be obeyed by Federal agencies. At the moment, Bush simply ignores any legal motions he doesn’t like and then obfuscates.

Now suppose a new Chief Executive– a new President– instructs the new Attorney General (John Edwards?) to investigate whether anybody involved in the handling of prisoners by American forces or intelligence agencies or proxies has broken the law, or violated the rights of these prisoners.

I think about this a lot. I can imagine that nothing will happen, if the new President turns out to be gutless and decides that he can live with simply stopping any more torture from happening. That’s hard to imagine, however, because the lawyers for all of the prisoners being held by agents of the U.S. Federal Government will be clamoring for due process and habeas corpus and dozens of other constitutional rights we all used to think Americans treasured dearly. And I can’t see this new President doing what Bush did, which is, instructing his staff to find ways around the courts, so we can suppress the rights of these individuals.  [Update: that is, in fact, exactly what Obama did.]

So imagine instead that President Obama (or Clinton) allows the attorney general to investigate and he finds out that there has been some torture going on… and he decides that his interpretation of the constitution is that torture is never allowed.

Just imagine.

[2011-03: of course, it didn’t happen. Odd, but not really surprising now that I think about it. Would a politician who was seriously intent on enforcing the law survive the primary process in the U.S.? I doubt it. ]

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Dylan’s Back Pages: Lies that Life is Black and White

There is a video on Youtube, taken from one or another of the many Dylan tributes over the years, in which Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, and George Harrison, all together on stage at the same time, take different verses of Bob Dylan’s 1964 classic “My Back Pages”.

“My Back Pages” is a rarity. There a great songs and there are great summations and there are great insights, but rarely are they combined into a single unified work– if you could call the mad sequence of disjointed images and ideas “unified”.

You have to hear “My Back Pages” in context. When Bob Dylan arrived in New York in 1961, he quickly established himself as the voice of the protest movement– funny name, isn’t it?– and wrote several defining songs of the civil rights era, including “Blowing in the Wind”, “The Times, They Are A’Changin'”, “A Hard Rain”, and so on. The intensity and power of his words moved people. He became a messianic figure, a prophet of change, and figure upon which an entire generation seemed to pin it’s hopes for remaking the world.

Had Dylan been a politician, he might have found this role congenial (see Obama). But as an artist, it alarmed him. First, he didn’t entirely believe in “the cause” of the protest movement– he embraced it’s values, but he was all too aware of how the cause could become corrupted, and how individuals within any movement can become “pawns in the game”. And with the death of John Kennedy, of course, he saw what was really going down.

It’s hard for anybody to admit they were wrong. It is impressive to see anyone embrace the idea that he was completely wrong about anything. But that’s what “My Back Pages” is about: “I was so much older then/I’m younger than that now.” A line of sarcasm. I was “wiser” when I embraced dubious causes. Now, I am younger, less confident that I get it. Less sure that this path leads to anywhere but disillusionment.

In some ways, “My Back Pages” could be construed as a neo-con’s lament: I used to believe in noble causes, that the world could be made better with grand schemes and revolutionary movements. Now I have come to realize that man’s nature itself is corruptible, and that causes become ideologies, and that evil must be addressed.

Dylan sings, “lies that life is black and white/spoke from my skull, I dreamed”. Pure Dylan– “spoke from my skull” and then, “I dreamed”. He doesn’t even offer you the consolation of thinking you should read his lips, or that he actually spoke the lies. Is this Dylan’s real, and most amazing, contribution: that truth is more important than any cause or dream? Of all the movements and causes that have come and gone, the most persistent outrage in the eyes of the world is to hold truth above all else. That communism failed. That humans really only seek after themselves. That victims can be complicit.

I don’t object that much to the term “protest movement”, though it sounds like it means to reduce visionary political action to “protest”, as if were defined only but what it was against, or by the act of being against anything at all. Why should I object? When you look at the state of American society and culture in the 1950’s, anybody with any kind of independence of spirit and sense of curiosity would be, by definition, in opposition to the prevailing values of that generation.

One of the best lines in any Dylan song: “Fearing not I become my enemy/ in the instant that I preach”.

The Who’s contribution (Pete Townshend): “Meet the new boss/same as the old boss”. (Won’t Get Fooled Again)

The Beatles: “When you talk about destruction/don’t you know that you can count me out” (Revolution)

Creedance Clearwater Revival: “Five-year plans and new deals/wrapped in golden chains”.

10 Years After Undead: “Tax the rich/feed the poor/’til there are no/rich no more” (I’d Love to Change the World)

Updated November 2008, in the cusp of an Obama victory.

What if Obama turns out to be a stooge of the establishment, a man who talks big but ultimately plays by the rules, compromises with mediocre corporate and military apparatchiks, and starts a war so he can look tough for the next election?

What if the Bush Administration– desperate– brokers a deal with Obama to relieve those soldiers and CIA agents who participated in the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo– and, of course, all the administration officials who authorized them to do it? What if Obama signs it, fearing divisions in the government, or the possibility of hard-right Republicans blocking the rest of his agenda?