Barack --
Hope you don't mind the familiarity, but the chummy way you greeted me in your email this morning tells me we're on a first name basis now.
You tell me the politics you believe in start with me and the work of laying the foundation for your re-election campaign starts today. You include a bright red "DONATE" button and a link to a webpage where I can watch an inspirational video, or "Visit the Store" or, again, donate. But the most prominent item on the page is the invitation to confirm my email address and zip code by clicking on "I'M IN!".
I was disappointed not to see a place to enter a comment where I could explain why I'm not "IN" this time around. So I'm writing you another open letter here on my Open Salon blog, and hoping the gist of it will find its way to you.
I recognize the unprecedented record of accomplishment of the first two years of your administration, and I acknowledge the difficulty of getting much of anything done in the face of a Senate whose rules allow a minority representing as few as about 11%* of the American people an effective veto over all legislation. I have to say I was very disappointed in the anemic re-regulation of the financial industry and the entrenchment of the interests of insurance and pharma companies in the Affordable Care Act, both leaving the economic future of the country -- especially the working middle class -- at more risk than we can afford. Your most ardent supporters argue that nothing stronger was possible in the current political climate, and one thing proven by your track record as candidate and president is that you're one of the most able politicians on the national scene in a generation or more. I'm not going to presume to second-guess you on your domestic record, though it sure would be great to see you govern in the interests of most Americans against the Have-Mores with the same vigor you showed in your last campaign.
No, the reason I'm not accepting your invitation today is your consistent record of embracing and extending the theory and practice of Cheneyism as the governing philosophy of the National Security State.
You gave a hint to anybody paying close attention during your campaign when you voted for the FISA reauthorization act that gave retroactive legal cover for the crimes committed by corporations and government officials against our rights under the 4th Amendment, in spite of your repeated promise to filibuster if necessary to keep it from becoming law. That's when it became apparent that putting a constitutional scholar in the White House wasn't going to guarantee a return to the rule of law under the Constitution after the depredations of the Cheney/Bush regime.
Since you've taken office your administration has extended the reach and force of retaliatory action against whistle blowers, expanded the use of secrecy to cloak official crimes and abuses from judicial oversight, codified and perpetuated the separate and unequal "justice" system that allows for indefinite detention without charges, trials or appeals, and even gone so far as to claim the power to order the assassination of American citizens on the sole authority of the executive.
Maybe you think these actions will buy you some political cover for the heat you'd face from the rabid authoritarian right in the event of a successful attack during your watch. Or maybe you really believe that the rule of law under the Constitution is obsolete and ineffective to protect Americans in the 21st century, despite your campaign rhetoric to the contrary. I don't pretend to know how you justify to yourself these betrayals of principle, but whatever your reasons, there are some abuses that can't be excused or forgiven in a civilized society.
A patriotic American soldier is currently being held in a Marine brig under conditions that meet the accepted international definition of torture, whose only apparent crime is to take seriously an obligation laid on every member of the US Armed Forces since Nuremberg, to report and expose war crimes wherever they occur, by whomever they may be committed.
You took personal ownership of Pvt Bradley Manning's torture when you endorsed the firing of State Dept spokesman P. J. Crowley for his public, though tepid, criticism of the conditions of Manning's imprisonment, and when you publicly accepted his jailers' assurances that those conditions are ordinary and appropriate.
A few years back I bought a t-shirt bearing an image of the American peace flag and the words "These Colors Don't Torture" -- a variation on the popular jingoist sentiment "These Colors Don't Run" -- and wore it proudly to march in our hometown Independence Day parade. In those days it felt to me like an expression of principle, but lately I'm not as comfortable when I wear it.
These days it just feels like a lie.
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*according to the 2010 census the combined populations of the 20 smallest states, represented by 40 US Senators, is less than 10% of the national total, add the vote of one Senator from Iowa (0.97% of total) and you've got a filibuster
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Comments
"No, the reason I'm not accepting your invitation today is your consistent record of embracing and extending the theory and practice of Cheneyism as the governing philosophy of the National Security State."
I have other reasons for being less than enchanted with Obama, but that one is the most important. For some reason I had this idea that the more destructive legacies of the Bush/Cheney administration, especially those which eat away at our civil rights, would be rolled back. Just the opposite has happened, though; the erosion of our freedoms has been extended and enlarged on, and that's not something which I'm willing to overlook come 2012.
do you mind, where is the evidence that Manning is being tortured?
Wasn't this part of the problem with the Bush administration? That they refused to accept that water boarding is a form of torture? Even though it has been defined as such for centuries?
I'm aware--and I do not approve--of Manning being subjected to uncomfortable situations--like solitary confinement and being forced to sleep in the nude. I have no doubt that these uncomfortable and humiliating ways of being treated are not something that make me proud of this country. (And solitary confinement is a problem in ALL American prisons--it is overused and inherently not a good idea.)
But I feel that the word "torture" when it is used to describe every uncomfortable and humiliating situation--degrades the word 'torture.' Waterboarding is, by definition, a form of torture. Being forced to sleep in the nude is not legally a form of torture--as it has been defined for several centuries.
If Manning is waterboarded or tortured by the legal definition of the word--that is different.
Yes, these semantic issues matter to me because I don't believe that Obama deserves to be smeared with the word 'torture' unless he has earned it.
If I sit through an annoying piece of music, I feel tortured. If I'm waterboarded, I am tortured.
There is a difference here.
Torture, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture (an advisory measure of the UN General Assembly) is:
...any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions. --UN Convention Against Torture[1]
The treatment of Bradley Manning does indeed fit the definition of both the practice and purpose of torture. Whether you or I find long isolation in forced nakedness preferable to other forms of discomfort and coercion is not the point. It is a coercive, punative and extraordinary assault on Manning with the purpose of humiliating and intimidating him until he confesses to crimes he has yet to be tried for. John Woo argues that even water boarding was not torture since it only made the subject feel he was drowning without actually drowning him. Just so the stripped isolation of Bradley Manning is designed to make him feel raped without actually raping him. It was used rather freely at Abu Graib.
Finally I will resort to so called experts and point out that the U.N. Rapporteur on Torture has opened an investigation of the case and The ACLU and the National Lawyer's Guild have also issued letters of protest.
delores, you ought to be subjected to military inspection while naked day after day, weeks on end. Then tell me, is that treatment torture? Of course it is! It's designed to be an assault on his dignity and to convey that he has absolutely no control in his own life, not on any level.
Being forced to sleep sans clothing where you are being seen is humiliating and I am against the humiliating of prisoners.
I still do not know if what we know--solitary confinement and being forced to sleep in the nude--constitutes torture.
Can I call it wrong without calling it torture or do I have to call it torture?
Suzanne, for me sleeping in the nude is not torture. If army people were looking at me or taking photos I would be annoyed.
But this is my frustration with the left. If I say being forced to sleep in the nude is not on the same level to me as water boarding--dies that make me a "torture defender"?
I object to the demonization of obama. I don't agree with everything he's done, and I don't agree with manning being treated in humiliating ways. But if you're going to demonize Obama where is the candidate who is going to stop these behaviors? Where is the president who is going to end the wars?
I'm disappointed in Obama but not to the place that I'm going to demonize him. And although I disagree with manning's treatment I worry that the word torture can be applied to just about anything.
I just think that
I'm not in either. Then again I never was. I voted for Nader because I could see that Obama was just another corporate mouthpiece. He campaigned on clean coal and nuclear energy as part of his green energy program, he supported the bailouts, and he advocated expanding the war in Afghanistan. America got what it voted for, a polished pitchman for the MIC and Wall Street.
We need to stop participating in the 2 party sham we call elections. They are just 2 wings of the same party, the corporate party. They don't represent us, they represent their corporate donors. People vote, corporations lobby. Who do the elected officials listen to?
Unfortunately, all the others look far worse...
"You gave a hint to anybody paying close attention during your campaign when you voted for the FISA reauthorization act that gave retroactive legal cover for the crimes committed by corporations and government officials against our rights under the 4th Amendment, in spite of your repeated promise to filibuster if necessary to keep it from becoming law."
I've been saying that repeatedly since it happened and still can't understand what people were looking at instead of that. Action, not words ...
I also can't understand people who continue to say things like, "there's nobody else to vote for" as if sticking with the status quo is going to help. It's insane, as stated by the saying about the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.
C'mon, of course there is somebody else to vote for. And if enough people voted for them, suddenly this single beast with two heads would not be so powerful. It's just not that complicated. But people are scared of something a little different -- so much so that they won't step away from the "familiar" even when that familiarity of acceptance is precisely the problem.
If the people you elect do not do what they say they will do, but you keep electing them regardless, then you, the voter, are the problem. I think Congress is the key, more than Obama, but Obama has not held up his end of the bargain.
thanks everyone who's responded and kept the conversation going, I have a couple of responses to add myself
my good friend dolores, the abuse of Manning isn't just sleeping in the nude -- he's not allowed to exercise in his cell, even simply walking back and forth or in circles is forbidden, during the one hour a day when he's not in his cell he's forced to walk in a circle while wearing leg irons alone in a room, which exercise period is immediately terminated if he stops walking for a moment, he must respond to guards' inquiries over the intercom every 5 minutes all day, every day, no other human interaction is allowed, at night if he curls up in the corner of his bed so that his full body isn't visible to the guards monitoring him, they wake him up and force him to change position, he stands for inspection in the presence of guards and other inmates every morning in the nude, this has been going on for 10 months, Blair did a fine job of explaining why these conditions are considered torture by the international community, the aim of torture is the psychological breakdown of the prisoner's capability to resist, and the best methods are those that don't leave any marks on the body, you may not want to call this torture, but under any label it's inhumane in the extreme and there is no justification for it
also dolores, I'm not demonizing Obama and I don't think anyone else is in this comment thread
AK Pro, Rick, Kenny et al, I'll probably end up voting for Obama in the general, there's no Republican I'd support over him, I used to ahve a lot of respect for Nader, but these days he strikes me as a narcissist and possibly paranoid, I'd support a plausible primary challenger from the left -- Feingold, Sanders
Yes, in an ideal world that makes sense, but this is not an ideal world by a long damned shot. Let's take a few lessons from history, shall we?
In 1968, millions of blue-collar Democrats (my father among them) voted for hardcore segregationist George Wallace and his American Independent Party (predecessor to today's Republican Party), throwing that election from Hubert Humphrey to Richard Nixon. Does anyone want to argue we'd be in the same place today if Humphrey had won?
Nixon's tainted victory in 1968 made his re-election in '72 all but inevitable. But ever the loser, he managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It was due only to the "perfect storm" of Nixon's perfidy, Ford's dullness, and Jimmy Carter's Deep Southern Baptist roots that he was elected in 1976.
But that brief triumph of sanity was short-lived, when millions of blue-collar Democrats (my brother among them) duped by Reagan's promises of a free lunch if we just go rid of govt and welfare Cadillacs (a scheme that was part and parcel of Lee Atwater's perversion of the already perverted Southern Strategy) "corrected" their mistake by voting in a third-rate actor.
What's Reagan got to do with this? I allege the votes siphoned off by Wallace's third-party candidacy and the defeat of Humprhey helped make Reagan's election possible -- and with it the election of Bush the Elder -- and without his election in '88, it's extremely doubtful Bush the Least could have even won much of any important elective office.
Certainly, the third-party candidacy of Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the 2000 election. Anyone care to argue we are better off with eight years of Bush the Least than with eight years of Gore?
We may not like Obama's policies much, but the horrors thrown-up by the only other party with a chance to win -- Huckabee, Palin, Bachmann, Newt, Barbour, Pence -- and for those who think Trump doesn't have a chance I have one word -- Reagan -- any of these alternatives are simply too horrible to even contemplate.
No, my friends, the Teapartians are right about one thing -- at this point in our history we are in a struggle for the very soul of this country, a struggle unlike any since the Civil War. So as distasteful as it may be, we must opt for the only viable alternative.
So, hold your nose and vote for Obama -- and beg, bribe or beat anyone who sat on their ass in 2010 to get out and vote this time -- or kiss this country goodbye.
If this happens then Obama will, like Clinton craft a legacy on being " a new kind of Democrat." Issues such as Human Rights , Global Warming, and Peace are being moved to the background by Democrats who are so afraid of the Bachman/Palin hydra that they will hear no criticism of the Audacious One. If we accept the marginalization of these issues by Obama, how will we oppose it by subsequent GOP administrations?
the structure of the government determines its possible behavior. want a better result, get a better system. if you won't join the revolution, you're the problem.
I don’t think it’s a matter of a perfect world; it’s a matter sane and insane. I think there are times when things are bad, and they have to get worse before they can get better, and I think America is in one of those periods. We can try to put off the inevitable by trying to maintain the status quo, or we can accept that things are going to get worse regardless of what we do, so we should try to use that to our advantage. If Wisconsin tells us anything, it is precisely that.
I respect you, my friend, but I don’t see what you think Obama is going to do for us. But here’s my main point: he would probably be okay if we could get rid the trash in Congress. I see that as the key. I don’t see Obama as all that important. Obama has simply shown himself to be mostly immaterial in terms of presidential leadership.
You say the tea baggers are right about one thing. I say they are right about that and one other thing; they figured out that you can’t change things if you keep doing the same thing over and over, and they did something about it. Now they have congressional representation and …guess what; not only is Obama capitulating to those tea bagger representatives, but so are some of the congressional Dems. The tea baggers got the attention of politicians and that’s what progressives need to do, too.
While Republican voters are rebelling against their representatives, it might be a good time for progressives to make a move on the left, especially with the backlash that is likely to continue in light of what’s happening across the northern states. Hell, they might as well bring in the storm troopers and herd us into the FEMA camps.
Have you seen the recent photos of S.W.A.T. teams rousting 80-year-old ladies from their homes while the CEOs in charge of those mortgages, and that Obama bailed out with OUR tax dollars, take home more in one year than you or I will see in our lifetimes? Is that what we should vote for? There are congressional Dems voting WITH the tea baggers! What the fuck is that?
I can’t support that. The sad truth is that we average Americans are under attack by our own government …oh, wait, no, it’s the government of the elite moneyed interests that own it.
“Government of the people”; let’s not forget that corporations are “The People” now. The rest of us are mere resources for consumption by “The People”. Obama’s Blue Dogs aren’t going to help us on that count, and they’ve made that abundantly, undeniably clear.
If America is going down, and it seems inevitable, I prefer the end to be quick. I do not want to suffer through a long, drawn out, slow torturous death. A quick death or a long, drawn out, slow, torturous death. If we’re going to prevent that downfall, then we have to change what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. I don’t see 6 more years of Obama’s Blue Dogs as the path to that prevention. You present that as "the only viable alternative" -- it's not an alternative at all.