EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- Corporate Win: Supreme Court Says Monsanto Has 'Control Over Product of Life'
- Cornel West: Obama 'Is a War Criminal'
- Patent Filing Claims Solar Energy ‘Breakthrough’
- Disaster Capitalism Strikes as Hedge Funds Circle Near-Bankrupt Municipalities Like Vultures
- Ignoring Bee Crisis, EPA Greenlights New 'Highly Toxic' Pesticide
Popular content
Today's Top News
Obama’s Right Turn
NEW YORK - Human rights and open government advocates were heartened by President Barack Obama's pledge during his first week in office to create "an unprecedented level of openness in government" and "establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration".
Vice President Joe Biden listens to U.S. President Barack Obama during a signing ceremony for the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington June 22, 2009. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque) But now, well into Obama's second 100 days in office, many are expressing outrage and disappointment that many of the president's decisions have followed the path of his predecessor, President George W. Bush.
The Obama administration has invoked the "state secrets" privilege several times to prevent lawsuits dealing with "extraordinary renditions" and warrantless wiretapping from ever being heard in court. Justice Department lawyers have argued that detainees at Bagram Air Force base in Afghanistan have no right to challenge their detention.
The government has also caved to Democrats and Republicans in Congress to keep any of the Guantanamo Bay detainees from ever entering the U.S., even though the Defense Department has cleared these men for release and declared that they present no threat to U.S. national security.
Reliable reports suggest that Obama is considering "indefinite detention" for GITMO detainees who cannot be tried in U.S. courts because the evidence against them was obtained through torture.
The government has gone to court to appeal a court ruling ordering the release of a 2004 report from the Inspector General of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) describing the harsh treatment of prisoners in the agency's secret prisons. And the new president has refused to make public photographs reportedly depicting abusive interrogations at these and other government detention centers.
Obama recently rejected a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for Secret Service logs showing the identities of coal executives who had visited the White House to discuss Obama's "clean coal" policies because the disclosure of such records might impinge on privileged "presidential communications".
On the issue of electronic surveillance, the new president has not repudiated the Bush-era executive orders supporting warrantless wiretapping and the legal opinions used to support them. Obama has resisted a "truth commission" to investigate former officials who allegedly broke the law and committed crimes, saying he would rather look forward than back.
Government lawyers asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought on behalf of a couple who were placed on a terrorist watch list.
And when watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Justice Department seeking records related to former vice president Dick Cheney's interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the "outing" of CIA operative Valerie Plame, the Justice Department declined to turn over the records.
IPS interviews with human rights and open-government advocates produced few explanations of the president's actions, beyond calls for him to live up to his promises.
But some have offered insights as to the "why" of what they see as Obama's u-turn.
Among them is Professor Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois law school. He told IPS, "After winning the Democratic Party against Senator Clinton by appealing to its progressive wing, Obama immediately veered far to the right and co-opted all of the Clinton people into his campaign and then administration. So what we are seeing now is a third Clinton term with a continuation of many of the same foreign and domestic policies pursued by the Bush Jr. administration."
He added, "This has little to do with personnel and personalities. It has to do structurally with the preservation and further extension of the American empire abroad that necessarily requires the further consolidation of an American police state at home," he said.
"Hence the Obama administration has continued to ratify the illegal and unconstitutional policies of the Bush administration in court cases across the board, while escalating the Bush admistration's imperialist intervention into Afghanistan and now expanding it into Pakistan."
Another explanation came from Michael Ratner, president of the Centre for Constitutional Rights, which has mobilised dozens of pro-bono lawyers to represent Guantanamo prisoners.
"Why did Obama make promises about less secrecy, transparency and a narrowed state secrets privilege and proceed to have his administration assert positions and back legislation that was directly contrary to those promises?" he asked rhetorically in response to an IPS question.
"In the U.S., we complain about Chile hiding the crimes of the Pinochet regime, or Germany hiding the Nazi crimes or Russia the crimes of the KGB, yet where is the screaming when President Obama hides the war crimes of the Bush administration?"
His answer: "In part, the recent blatant assertions of secrecy are to hide crimes of former and some current officials. That is why President Obama is keeping the torture photos hidden. That is why he is continuing to assert broad state secret claims to try and hide the rendition program."
"That is why the 2004 CIA report on the secret site interrogations will be released with heavy redactions. Not only would the photos and documents implicate the Bushies, but remember some of those abuses were apparently committed by units under the command of the recently appointed commander in Afghanistan, General (Stanley) McChrystal," Ratner noted.
"Some of the crimes were allegedly approved or committed by the current deputy director of the CIA, Stephen Kappes, who is keeping his job," he added. Chip Pitts of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee offers another perspective. He told IPS, "There are undoubtedly elements of truth in each of the theories - or excuses - I've imagined or heard for the president's broken January promise."
"But the hedging and retaining litigation and other exceptions, instead of restoring the full presumption of transparency and openness in interpreting FOIA, are as disappointing as the hedging and retaining exceptions on other core planks of the rule of law, such as the prohibition on torture, military commissions, preventive detention, and maintaining ubiquitous surveillance."
He added, "The free information flows and social networking technologies in the Iranian protests are only the latest indication of transparency's new historical power. Obama himself recognized in that context the new meaning for Martin Luther King's injunction that ‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but bends toward justice'."
"Obama would be better advised to be on the right side of that history than on the side of darkness and cover-up," he said.
A more hopeful note comes from Peter M Shane, a law professor at Ohio State University. He notes that the Bush administration "had the most ambitious view of executive power in history. Bush sympathizers see little difference in the Obama administration. Bush's detractors, in some respects, agree."
But the truth, he says, is probably closer to the Obama administration casting aside some of the Bush administration's more audacious claims while "still struggling to find a consistent stance with regard to its philosophy of executive power."
How the new administration will ultimately resolve its conflicts between secrecy and open government remains to be seen. But, as President Obama said over the weekend in relation to the current Iranian conflict, "the world is watching".
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
90 Comments so far
Show AllI won't be voting Democratic or Republican ever again.
And saying that as if it meant a shit is pathetic.
"Even casting a vote for the right is doing nothing to support the right, it is only feebly expressing your wish that the right might prevail as it goes by"----Thoreau.
Revelation of the truth endangers national security.
Only lies can keep America safe.
"Why did Obama make promises about less secrecy, transparency and a narrowed state secrets privilege and proceed to have his administration assert positions and back legislation that was directly contrary to those promises?"
-because a sucker is born every minute.
"Some of the crimes were allegedly approved or committed by the current deputy director of the CIA, Stephen Kappes, who is keeping his job,"
-why not? Robert Gates and Timothy Geithner kept theirs.
Here it is in a nutshell, by an expert.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Joseph Goebbels
29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945
Yes, the truth told by Goebbels is known and being used by our present administration. Not only do they tell lies, they prevent letting anyone examine the truth about torture, wire tapping, deletions of our Constitutional rights and 9/11. We Americans are being lied to all the time and we are so frightened we want to trust our government to protect us.
Anyone else worried about all this hype about us all being volunteers to serve our nation? Are we to be Gestapo and rat on anyone who is not a jolly good patriot who is proud to be an American? We have police everywhere and cameras all around. Big brother is watching. I don't think I am paranoid. This is really what is happening. I fear that my attitude may get me indefinite detention.
I forget who said it..but a very famous historical figure, a philosopher maybe or some leader..:but it pertained to governance...
"EVERYTHING SECRET DEGENERATES".
this is what the US government is, this is what Obama has become. and will remain.
ever darker, ever more mendacious, ever more craven...ever more secretive........deeper and deeper. until nothing really is left but pure MALICE.
and all the talk about "the world is watching" abotu iran
is like the kettle calling the pot black....worse...for it is the USA that is DIRECTLY , FULLY RESPONSIBLE in its meddlesome ways - for what is happening in Iran as a CONSEQUENCE of US Empire's interferences AgAINST iran's democracy in the 1950's.
the "world is watching". obama says?
he needs to remember the world is AWARE of what the USA HAS DONE with its fingers deep in the pie of every region on earth resulting in political , economic turmoil ...ALL as a result of the American Empire's mendacity and meddling.
who does Obama or american politicians THINK they are FOOLING?
the WORLD? that's a big laugh.
he's really just preaching to the americans, for public and domestic consumption
in order to "preserve" what is LEFT of the DELUSIONS about american "righteousness" and "moral superiority".
that only the most IGNORANT of americans would still be believing.
Sad, but true.
One might add this to your pertinent comments:
what entitles Obama to speak for the world, when he pontificates to the effect that "the world is watching"?
Does anyone think the Amerindians in the jungle of Amazonia are watching? Does anyone really think the millions of poor peasants in India, thousands of whom have been driven to suicide by the marvels of globalization, are watching? And so forth. I am not blaming these peoples, incidentally. Why should they watch and worry about the internal affairs of the Iranians? Let the Iranians deal with their problems and their own affairs, even if one may not agree with everything that goes on in their land. The only lasting and durable changes in a country are those made by the people of that country out of their own volition and on their own terms (and that includes painful, sometimes very painful, experiences).
This is a tough lesson to learn for the Europerans and the United States, but it is necessary if the world is ever going to become a better place. People must be allowed to work out their own problems in their own ways and given their specific mores and history.
Yeah and after consenting to throw American protesters in cages and effectively denying their rights to free assembly, all Mr. Obama is doing is making himself out to be a big hypocrite. Lets look to our affairs which are not in any kind of democratic order before we start preaching to the world.
Apparently Obama studied Constitutional Law not to uphold and defend it but to find ways around it.
I wonder if it's humanly possible to NOT be corrupted by power? It seems so obvious and simple, just do the right thing, listen to your original intentions. It's not that difficult really. Why is it that once the cloak of power gets wrapped around the young enthusiast, and the crown of gold set upon the head, the person disappears and a talking power puppet takes over?
Vote Nader. Vote McKinney.
And whistle while you're pissing in THAT wind.
Well, having the DEMS in power has been just GREAT!!!!
I cant begin to tell you how pleased I am with the results.
No single payer, likely an unconstitutional(Direct tax) mandate to purchase health insurance from a private entity or get fined. No end to legal and illegal wars(possibly trying to start a new one instead). No end to secrecy. No attempt to restore civil rights. No end to unjustified detention. No drug law reform. No equality. No justice. No excuse.
If you think voting for any third party candidate is pissing in the wind, I will tell you that voting for the DEMS(or REPUGS)is like pissing in a hurricane. I hope you are wearing rain gear.
Sioux Rose
SANITY: Good one!
and your point is?
The third party vote will be more effective than voting for the party of elite crooks.
But if you vote for crooks
it's so much fun to ridicule third party voters...
If you ridicule third party voters
you're clueless.
A persons right to vote for who they want is never "pissing in the wind", but your attempt to tell us that our vote is pissing in the wind is definitely you pissing in the wind.
Oregoncharles
So what! I'd rather piss in the wind than support a lesser evil. It's like hostage taking. the more it works, the more they do it.
Think about this:
What if multi-millions of us pissed in the wind all at the same time, all at the same place and refused to stop pissing? Ya think that might get their attention?
What if millions of Americans, fed up with Obama's health care scam just refused to purchase health insurance. Sure, it would be a sacrifice but, you think there aren't going to have to be sacrifices on the road to turning this country around? It's only going to get worse. The more we wait the worse it gets.
Why are we always begging? Why can't we think of one thing we can do that will be equivalent to fighting back. Calling, urging, walking around with signs, etc. are not effective. Haven't you noticed?
It would help if they and all the progressive candidates united instead of splitting our power and votes.
Oregoncharles
Yes! Unite around someone with a PROVEN record of working for We the People, not for some corporate funded shill that offers up doses of empty, feel-good rhetoric.
A psychology prof told me: people don't like a candidate who is "good." they want a winner, some charisma, not a moral person.
Why is anyone surprised after the FISA vote?
You wanted Obama, now you'll have to pay for him.
Unfortunately, I will have to pay for him, too, in addition to having pu up with the abuse from the "realists" that supported him.
I won't be voting again, either. People. It's time for a REVOLUTION!
Free your mind instead.
How's about physically freeing our butts and taking our mind for along for the ride, huh? I'm sick of pacifists telling us that we need to change ourselves then our governments will change. People are just people. Sometimes, we commit unimaginable acts of altruism and kindness and other times, we commit unspeakable acts of violence and selfishness. This isn't new and it's simply and wonderfully who we are. We are pregnant with the possibilities of both good and evil and no government can ever protect us from or change that.
Governments all throughout history have all followed the same path. People revolt, win, institute a new government that promises to be of 'the people', watch as said government commits repression and violence to consolidate its power, see it grow into a corrupt, vile, and unaccountable morass of power mongers, then people rise up and put in another one to do the same thing.
Let's have an evolution this time. Let's get rid of this government and not put another one in place. Let's try trust and freedom this time. We all know the 'rules'. Don't kill without a damned good reason, don't take other peoples personal possessions and don't hinder people from doing what they want as long as it doesn't physically hurt someone else. We could add 'help others as much as possible' and we'd be just fine. But, there has never been any way to enforce these rules via government violence. Ostracism, shunning, self-defense or refusal to interact with violators has done more to protect us than any government has.
I'm not an old man nor a historical expert and I can see what 'government' is all about. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to have their brains dashed out upon its rocks.
BLACK,
I like your idea. Let's have an Evolution rather than another REvolution. Changing governments does little because it still stems from the belief or need in rulers telling YOU how to live. Transcending that notion will have a far greater impact.
"We all know the 'rules'. Don't kill without a damned good reason, don't take other peoples personal possessions and don't hinder people from doing what they want as long as it doesn't physically hurt someone else. We could add 'help others as much as possible' and we'd be just fine."
sounds like anarchy to me.
That won't work unless both all people of the world do the same to their governments at the same time, and all those people also agree on the same few fundamental rules. Meaning, it won't work.
"it won't work."
Say that a thousand times. See if the opposite happens.
Jeez man, face reality. The world, our technology is far too complex to manage without centralized government. As someone commented on this elsewhere, how do you deal with environmental damage from a distant source without government? And that's just one out of tons of examples that I can think up. And if we were to do it, do you think Russia or other dominating countries would follow our wonderful example?
Zmann,"Jeez man, face reality. The world, our technology is far too complex to manage without centralized government". Give me a break. The WTO and the free traders want a world government so they can STEAL & POLLUTE with impunity. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Here is a little quote from TJ "Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance, and from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of distance, be unable to administer and overlook all the details necessary for the good government of the citizens; and the same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will invite public agents to corruption, plunder and waste." --Thomas Jefferson to Gideon Granger, 1800. ME 10:167
If Jefferson were alive today our government would probably classify him as a terrorist. He would be labeled an Anarchist or a revolutionary by our main street media and his ideas would be considered dangerous. Our government is nothing more that a whore who F---s with anyone who has enough money to afford it. It does not care about we the people, or justice or the environment.
Perhaps you haven't thought things out. Let me give you a few questions to think about before you dismiss federalism as anarchy.
With all this tech why is our government screwing up so badly?
Why are the all polluters big corporations?
Why does the government shy away from punishing these corporations?
If the government had more power to regulate would it use it?
Do you trust your neighbors more that politicians?
Are you satisfied with your government?
I hope you can see that having a strong corrupt federal government is much worse that having a weak corrupt federal government. It is far better to deal with a local council that it is to deal with congress, and by decentralizing you make it a lot more expensive to buy government officials.
I wasn't talking about centralized government of the globe, I was talking about nation-state governments. As to TJ's concerns, that is why we also have 50 state governments and countless thousands of county and municipal governments, which actually affect out day-to-day lives far more than the federal government. But the point remains, they have the force of law on their side; they need only to use it properly.
For most of the questions you asked, my answer is simple: conservatives have been running government for generations, rarely liberals, and really never progressives.
And I do trust my neighbors a bit, but haven't really gotten to know them. I rent a bedroom in a rowhouse barely inside the city limits of DC, and I'm kept so busy with work and running errands I generally don't hang out around here much...there also isn't much of a community here, I think the first neighborhood activity since I moved here 6 months ago is coming next month.
How would envirmnmental abuse, worker abuse, and corporate malfeasance be constrooled under such a non-government.
Aren't most of the abuses we suffer coming from the capitalists corporations? Isn't government itself simply a victim of the same capitalists? Condemned to do their bedding rather than the peoples bidding by virtue of the capitalists stupendous power?
You aer sounding like one of those "libertarians" who call themselves "anarchists".
I don't give a damn what I sound like to you. I love freedom and I love people equally. Besides, corporations are constructs of governments. No governments, no more corporations. Problem solved. Corporations are responsible for more environmental, worker and other abuses than anything else, other than governments.
Capital is another crappy construct. Money isn't even real. It's only worth what you all believe it's worth. If you give the capitalists power because of little green and black pieces of paper they wave around, then more fool you.
Government isn't a victim of anything except it's own success. Whether controlled by so-called capitalists or so-called socialists, it still rules by force and force alone. Might makes right is all it is. If you can get enough people who think like you and want what you want, then have it for yourselves. Isn't that enough?
You sound like someone so obsessed with controlling people that don't do what you think is right that you're willing to take away everyone's freedom to prevent it. And you want to judge me for desiring to live in peace and freedom? What nerve.
Great comments. If only there were more of us that love freedom, most of the problems that plague our country would would dissipate along with the power of the elite.
People are scared of the word "revolution".
There can be a peaceful one but it is usually very bloody.
Our Forefathers loved the word because they were not cowards.
We are the biggest scardy cat nation now with no moral authority.
That is why the softer word "Change" was used by Obama.
Now that word so far has been ruined too.
A turn to Common Sense should work...
as judge Leon said in his ruling against torture "the government's stance defies common sense."
I think the people could win with the simple goal of a "Revolution of Common Sense".
We have to organize and work to make it happen because not everyone has common sense and that is why we need it...
Love the Revolution
The French Revolution happened only when most people were starving.
No revolution yet? Things are not bad enough yet.
I am afraid there is truth in that.
"Pathemata mathemata," said Herodotus. I.e., things suffered are things learned.
Cheer up, things well get worse.
Sounds as though a lot of comments come from those that believe change was voting democrat instead of republican and when sometime at the beginning of 2008 obama pledged full government support for american corporations and the american izraeli public affairs committee and none those 'either or other; democrat or republican' could look beyond either party to vote not just for a 3rd party presidential candidate, but their senator and house representatives from a 3rd party, then I see the reasons for the samo crap from the past several administrations being dished up at the never ending line of crappy governing.
Face it, obama was selected and allowed to become president because the thought had to be that the first black person elected president would ensure that the 'proper' person would sit in the white house carrying on the usual status quo and this very astute list of obama's compliance is evidence that there will be no difference from before.
Could be obama tows the line because he has been told what could happen to him and the only thing to prevent his being knocked off would be to go by the playbook and that book was not written by the people but by the people's enemy number 1 and that is 'big business'.
Watching the Obama administration is like watching little kids play 'Opposite Day'. Read the rest online, at Bad Subjects: http://bad.eserver.org/upcoming/80/opposite.html
Republicans were the problem.
Democrats were not the solution.
Revolution is the solution.
We need a new government.
BY the PEOPLE!
FOR the PEOPLE!
Remove Corporate Personhood!
Remove Corporate control of OUR great REPUBLIC.
Make a playground and memorial of "k street" for those that twisted lobbyists killed and sickened through deadly anti-american citizen policies of the greedy corporate rulers.
Let go of Empire before it destroys us!
Yep.
It occurs to me that perhaps these reversals in policy are proof that it doesn't really matter who we "elect." Whomever it is, doesn't really hold the power to make policy if it would threaten those who really hold the power. If you look at who benefits from Obama's reversals, it looks like it is the CIA, Wall Street and the Pentagon. After all, aren't their interests all related? The amazing part to me is that this has been going on my whole lifetime (over 60 years), and the American people still haven't figured it out. And yet several generations have come and gone and some of the original power brokers (for example the ones who deposed the Shah of Iran) must certainly be dead by now. But still the same manipulation of other countries in the name of "democracy" goes on, and it is accomplished by anti-democratic means and policies. Crosby Stills and Nash sang about it in the 60's. "I wonder who they are, the men who really run this land? I wonder why they run it, with such a thoughtless hand? What are their names and on what street do they live? I'd like to ride right ower this afternoon and give them a piece of my mind, about peaceful mankind. Peace is not an awful lot to ask." When are the American people going to demand their own true democracy back? Congress is so complicit they are now even hesitating to give us any health care! They say it's too expensive, after they just appropriated billions of dollars for the war that Obama promised to end. Why couldn't a million of us demonstrate peacefully and non-violently to demand a fullfillment of the promises we were given? Why couldn't we demand publicly funded elections, so they couldn't be bought? I'd like to live long enough to see it, but sadly, I'm beginning to think I never will.
Because peaceful protest doesn't often get it done. It's going to take armed revolt, as it has throughout history. T. jefferson said something about trees of democracy and the blood of patriots. He was right.
"Why couldn't a million of us demonstrate peacefully and non-violently to demand a fullfillment of the promises we were given?"
because American Idol is about to start.
To Heron June 23rd, 2009 1:03 am, many good things in your comments.
Many folks here on Common Dreams warned during the presidential campaign that Obama would, in keeping with a long and depressing history of presidential servants, merely serve Empire -- which is to say, that he would continue serving and enabling the interests of the very few extremely wealthy owners of most of the real estate, the industries, and the financial wealth and institutions of the nation, and the various machines they use to maintain their rule, such as the military (and its network of some 700+ military bases established on foreign soil) and the intelligence agencies.
The Empire has begun to fail, but the process of its deterioration and eventual collapse will take time. Its hold is so all-pervasive (and that includes a hold on the mind and the knowledge of the average citizen, through its media and its shody elementary and secondary educational institutions) that it is difficult to see how anything can change in depth through the political process in its present state (a state of massive corruption, as we know).
This article hits the main points, yet it's from the Inter Press Service and posted here on Common Dreams. Can it possibly make a difference with most U.S. citizens tuning into the TV news, night after night?
In the world of the tube, Obama is still a confident, poised leader. The tube never tries to characterize that leadership, which is right wing and destroying the Constitution.
We think impeachment or revolution; the tube-heads want Obama's autograph. The Repug right wing is just rabid and crazy, as usual. Alas, it's not Iran here, and it would take that sort of skirmish in the streets - and more - to make the "change we can believe in" actually happen. It would probably take armed resistance to just get single-payer healthcare.
Right now, I'm guessing most people are worried about losing their jobs, and not their democracy. The shock doctrine, as played by the plutocrats, tends to combine economic distress with fascism. While folks may dispute fascism here, it's clear from this article that few Constitutional rights remain in this land.
-TIA
TV? I unpluged that thing years ago. Life goes better w/o TV!
Ditto.