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An Early Call for Obama's Resignation: With Democrats Like Him, Who Needs Dictators?
We expected broken promises. But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama's inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory. This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through.
From healthcare to torture to the economy to war, Obama has reneged on pledges real and implied. So timid and so owned is he that he trembles in fear of offending, of all things, the government of Turkey. Obama has officially reneged on his campaign promise to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. When a president doesn't have the 'nads to annoy the Turks, why does he bother to show up for work in the morning?
Obama is useless. Worse than that, he's dangerous. Which is why, if he has any patriotism left after the thousands of meetings he has sat through with corporate contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists and corrupt politicians, he ought to step down now--before he drags us further into the abyss.
I refer here to Obama's plan for "preventive detentions." If a cop or other government official thinks you might want to commit a crime someday, you could be held in "prolonged detention." Reports in U.S. state-controlled media imply that Obama's shocking new policy would only apply to Islamic terrorists (or, in this case, wannabe Islamic terrorists, and also kinda-sorta-maybe-thinking-about-terrorism dudes). As if that made it OK.
In practice, Obama wants to let government goons snatch you, me and anyone else they deem annoying off the street.
Preventive detention is the classic defining characteristic of a military dictatorship. Because dictatorial regimes rely on fear rather than consensus, their priority is self-preservation rather than improving their people's lives. They worry obsessively over the one thing they can't control, what Orwell called "thoughtcrime"--contempt for rulers that might someday translate to direct action.
Locking up people who haven't done anything wrong is worse than un-American and a violent attack on the most basic principles of Western jurisprudence. It is contrary to the most essential notion of human decency. That anyone has ever been subjected to "preventive detention" is an outrage. That the President of the United States, a man who won an election because he promised to elevate our moral and political discourse, would even entertain such a revolting idea offends the idea of civilization itself.
Obama is cute. He is charming. But there is something rotten inside him. Unlike the Republicans who backed Bush, I won't follow a terrible leader just because I voted for him. Obama has revealed himself. He is a monster, and he should remove himself from power.
"Prolonged detention," reported The New York Times, would be inflicted upon "terrorism suspects who cannot be tried."
"Cannot be tried." Interesting choice of words.
Any "terrorism suspect" (can you be a suspect if you haven't been charged with a crime?) can be tried. Anyone can be tried for anything. At this writing, a Somali child is sitting in a prison in New York, charged with piracy in the Indian Ocean, where the U.S. has no jurisdiction. Anyone can be tried. Why is it, exactly, that some prisoners "cannot be tried"?
The Old Grey Lady explains why Obama wants this "entirely new chapter in American law" in a boring little sentence buried a couple past the jump and a couple of hundred words down page A16: "Yet another question is what to do with the most problematic group of Guantánamo detainees: those who pose a national security threat but cannot be prosecuted, either for lack of evidence or because evidence is tainted."
In democracies with functioning legal systems, it is assumed that people against whom there is a "lack of evidence" are innocent. They walk free. In countries where the rule of law prevails, in places blessedly free of fearful leaders whose only concern is staying in power, "tainted evidence" is no evidence at all. If you can't prove that a defendant committed a crime--an actual crime, not a thoughtcrime--in a fair trial, you release him and apologize to the judge and jury for wasting their time.
It is amazing and incredible, after eight years of Bush's lawless behavior, to have to still have to explain these things. For that reason alone, Obama should resign.
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256 Comments so far
Show AllThe bankers are planning to, once again, use securitized debt, unregulated and insured by credit default swaps as a means of enriching themselves.
Since this casino capitalism has caused excruciating pain to our economy and millions of citizens I think Obama should use his Preventitive Detention Power and preemptively lock the bankers up first. And deny them habeas corpus.
Next he should go after the "media" who once again are helping to launch a war against Iran based on lies regarding WMD. This crime of terror needs to be prevented. All the CEO's of the media companies along with their news teams need to be renditioned (not extraordinary rendition for that would be wrong) to Egypt for some enhanced interrogation.
There are many more crimes of terror against our country that need to be prevented.
I hope King Obama will use his power wisely.
I seem to recall that Rall urged people to vote for Obama. Like similar whines emanating from Lindorff, Solomon, and other faux left Obama voters, Rall's Monday-morning breastbeating is too little too late.
We no longer have a government - it's a Corporate Occupation!
We all have seen the picture of Obama pledging alegence to the Israel Lobby
and now Israel thumbs it's nose at Americans
You are right, Rall did urge people to vote for Obama, but maybe you missed his ackowlegement of this fact when he said:
"Obama is cute. He is charming. But there is something rotten inside him. Unlike the Republicans who backed Bush, I won't follow a terrible leader just because I voted for him."
Obama has been a real disappointment. Rall makes good points about Obama's lack of courage to make real change.
I'm willing to give him a chance, but he might be a one term President.
I agree and I really like Obama a lot. I'm willing to give him a chance too!
The only thing worse than an unpopular dictator is a popular dictator.
Indeed.
What was it that Padme Amidala Skywalker said in Star Wars Episode III? "So this is how liberty dies . . . with thunderous applause."
Impeach Obama !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's been years since I've read anything about Cygnus-X1. Is its black hole status still in contention?
Also, it would definitely be nice if Obama used his dictatorial powers to ram democracy down America's throat, or at least pinch it's nose to make it swallow the medicine.
What Obama should do is live up to his campaign rhetoric.
The only problem with having Obama resign is that Biden - who is just as big a corporate whore but with fewer brains - would become the President.
q
Quickstepper, you're right of course that an Obama resignation would result in a Biden presidency, not a happy prospect either; and maybe Biden should go along with him. But, if I remember properly the line of succession, below Biden in order would stand Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton---so badly have we selected ALL our leaders (or have they been selected for us, if you will). Still I think a forced resignation might have a "chastening" effect on any one of these other "worthies" who might understand that the American public would not stand for a repetition of the Obama debacle.
And yes, my kudos as well to Ted Ralls for having the bravery to make this call; and to Common Dreams for publishing it.
This is the current order:
1 Vice President and President of the Senate Joe Biden (LBJ with hair plugs)
2 Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (I think she would be great)
3 President pro tempore of the Senate Robert Byrd (who is in the hospital)
4 Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (I think she would be great)
5 Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner (wow - god help us all)
Are you kidding?? Pelosi would be a disaster! The same can be said for Clinton! No, I am not misogynistic, but these two are part of the warhawk, bankster class machinery! Essentially, we would continue to get more of the same or worse!
Politics draws to it a certain kind of narcissistic and morally corrupt personality. The women in politics are as bad as the men.
Sioux Rose
MORDECHAI: Well said! In mythology the authority of Olympus went to Zeus also known as Jupiter, and his daughter, Athena, who allegedly emerged from Daddy's head thereby carrying HIS mindset. She is indeed the type of female who gets chosen to sit next to the throne, that is if she wasn't born there. Just as the Mars model for all its influence in this nation does not define EVERY man, the Athena model does not define every woman. 12 disciples to Jesus, 12 tribes to Abraham, and 12 quintessential HUMAN models as per a cosmic plan. We all have embodied on a path that comes equipped with an infinite number of variations on its theme. It helps to understand that one size does not fit all, and never did. The broader definitions drawn from the circle, i.e. heaven's model, can go a long way towards providing a conception of the human being that expands upon the old "with us or against us" prototype(s). It's one way, albeit a still unconventional one, to offset the limited belief in "enemies."
I have a sneaking feeling (OK, call it intuition or mind-reading, which I happen to be good at) that Hillary Clinton could be VERY different.
Rainborowe
Sioux Rose
RAIN: Her record hardly suggests your positive (if I read your take appropriately) intuitive assessment.
SR: I understand your skepticism, but I think that Hillary has been hedged about by her husband in the past. Her book, "It Takes a Village" spoke more about herself. The rightwing painted her as an over-ambitious Gorgon but that isn't the way she is. That's the way all women of prominence get painted; it's how they keep us in line. I see her as more of an Earth mother. I could be wrong. She may yet bend to the demands of the oligarchy but I think that she now knows that she has probably reached the height of power she ever will attain and she will want to do good with it. Her basic desire is to do good; that's supported by her choice of church: Methodists are big into social justice.
But who knows. Sometimes I'm wrong.
Rainborowe
Ugh.
My vote for Obama was primarily a vote against all things Clinton, including their monopolization of the Democratic party as their own personal vehicle to political power. Recall her smug sense of entitlement as the heir apparent and you were not nauseated by the lows she was willing to plumb to grab the brass ring? Didn't matter to her what kind of damage she did in the process. In the end, what difference has it made? We might as well have voted her in because the NeoLib Clintonistas still call the shots. Only thing is now it reflects poorly on African Americans when under Clinton, women would be viewed as not up to the task.
And don't get hoodwinked by stated demands on Israel--that is all it is, a nod and a wink. If she really wanted to impose any demands in Israel, she would cut off the gravy train. We could use the $$$$ for us and that would be an action--not an idle threat, that they surely would understand.
Not nearly as nauseated as I am with Obama.
Rainborowe
righto
You think Pelosi and HRM Clinton would be great? God help us all. Pelosi helped shove that No Banker Left Behind Act down our throats last Fall, when feedback to the Congress was running 8-9 to 1 AGAINST the bill. She signed off on torturing prisoners and LIED about ending the Iraq War both before the 2006 mid-term election and the 2008 general one.
And she was GW Bush's best buddy, telling George and the US that impeachment was OFF the table.
Clinton is no better. She's an opportunistic carpet bagger, moving from Arkansas to New York to run for the Senate seat and then moving to DC to be Secretary of State.
She's in favor of nuking Iran. She wants to be prez and if she ever gets that spot, God REALLY help us all.
And let's not forget Biden seems to have a much more rabid personal support for Israel than does Obama.
Joe Biden would be a much better President even with his myriad faults and ass kissing. He admits mistakes.
BO on the other hand is the perfect Negro with a model for a wife. She could visit Barry-O in Leavenworth.
Hillary could be appointed VP and Nancy could be thrown out of the Congress for good. Hillary is standing up to the Jews which I never thought she would. She is saying unequivocally that the settlements need to stop completely. I never though I would say this, but I am proud of her.
Oregoncharles
Who cares what she says. How does she vote?
>>Joe Biden would be a much better President even with his myriad faults and ass kissing. He admits mistakes.
Really? The senator from Mastercard? The one who was instrumental in pushing through the heinous bankruptcy "reform" bill that made it harder for the little guy to wiggle out of his loan shark credit card obligations, while at the same time, little guy's tax dollar goes to bail out the bank that issued him his card?
Please give me a ring when Joe Biden admits that "mistake"....and please give me a ring when you find out where you've misplaced your brain.
My number is 1-800-GET-A-BRAIN.
"What Obama should do is live up to his campaign rhetoric."
You mean like allowing massive illegal (now legal) spying, escalating the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, not withdrawing from Iraq, and using extraordinary rendition for example?
He is living up to his campaign rhetoric.
Did you not know who you were voting for?
I'm afraid Ted is right, alas. I voted for him too. The French, as usual, have a phrase for it-- the more things change, the more they remain the same.
These words need to be spoken, Ted Rall is a brave man. Anyone who protests vividly and constantly and unrepressively has my support. The rest of you are cowards...
hold on now...that was over the top...Ted can't do it alone...
That's ridiculous. There are many reasons for not protesting "vividly and constantly and unrepressively" (whatever that means), including the belief that Obama is right. That is certainly misguided but you can't call it cowardice. And what Ted Rall said is unrelated to bravery, too. It sounds like you're living in black helicopter world.
Rainborowe
Here, here.
Damn, Ted, you're too nice. Try this clown for war crimes. Last I heard authorizing the incineration of children via unmanned drones across country borders is against international law.
Oh wait... that happened this morning. By the man of change's logic that means it happened in the past and we have to move on. Otherwise it might endanger the guys in the Nevada arcades pulling the triggers.
For the people in Pakistan, "The Terminator" has become all too real. Death from the skies via unmanned drone operated by unthinking unfeeling human MACHINES sitting at computer terminals thousands of miles away. I wonder if the kids operating these systems would walk up to a man point blank and shoot him. Its just so easy when you can't hear the scream and smell the excrement and urine and the blood gushing from their ripped, torn six-year-old bodies.
Oh, c'mon, Ted, ease up, already. Blame Bush, because of all the crap he put us through in the past eight years, Obama is having to tread lightly in order to keep the loud mouth right wingnuts at bay. Give the man a chance, already.
I think we as a country are still recovering psychologically from the Bush/Cheney years of fearmongering. It's going to take a long time to recover from the image of the boogeyman at every turn that we were so made to fear for so long. Obama certainly cannot have been totally immune to that.
He has to satisfy the National Security wingnuts who are just waiting to pounce on him at the first sign of perceived weakness. Democrats have had to put up with so much vilification for so long that now that we've got all three branches of government, Dems don't want to lose it by doing something that will inflame the right wingnuts, who can marshall their troops (read that, volunteers), money and power at a mere call to action.
So ease up, already. Give Obama a chance to heal our country from its long national nightmare. Don't be so ready to pounce at the slightest perceived problem. You're sounding just like one of the right wingnuts we had to put up with for so long.
Sally UUKent: The American public has been giving Obama a chance ever since it failed to question his restoration of the Bill Clinton administration through his cabinet appointments through his pre and post-election leadership in the bailout fraud through his creation of an "Obama war" in Pakistan through all the other deceptions that Rall enumerates as well as many more. (And you call all this "the slightest perceived problem"? You give a new meaning to the word "slightest.") Your plea reminds me of an incorrigible child who pleads for "just one more chance" after the child has committed an egregious series of gross misbehaviors.
I'm sorry, Sally - YOU sound like the right wingnuts.
Nothing has changed - except the intensity and extent of the looting of the US teasury by the rich and their banks and the expansion of the horrors we are committing in the 'long war' and the expansion in the unconstitutional shredding of civil rights by the OBushma regime.
As i've maintained for a long time - he's more dangerous to the everyday citizens than Bush ever thought of being. He has the same oligarchic, corporate masters that Bush had and brains to carry out their bidding more efficiently and ruthlessly.
Don'tforget all those KBR-built concentra....er, 'illegal immigrant detention centers' in every state that will become populated with those that actively oppose this regime.
Just face it!!! Your ego won't let you see or hear the truth about the man you blindly voted for.....just like so many other OBushma apologists.
That is such a Swiftian gem of satire I had to read it over to see it. You are a great sarcastic genius of the first rate. Thank you!
siderealm wrote:
"That is such a Swiftian gem of satire I had to read it over to see it. You are a great sarcastic genius of the first rate. Thank you!"
If this post was a piece of sarcasm, then I suppose I could forgive it, but puh-LEEZ, this administration is a mere few months old, and yes, mistakes will be made, and yes, this is one of them. No one, least of all me, expected the man to be perfect or beyond reproach. Am I disappointed so far with some of the things he's said and/or done? Absolutely. But I'm not willing to call for his resignation or impeachment or anything of the extreme. We let the Bush/Cheney cabal run this country into the ground for eight long nightmarish years and still have not held them accountable for the crimes they committed, which were far and away more egregious than anything that Obama has done so far.
Don't punish mistakes by calling for his resignation just yet. Geez, if some of you folks had your way, we'd have a revolving door Presidency and rampant instability in this country, and we can hardly afford to become just another third world country where leaders are deposed by coup d'êtat after coup d'êtat, leading to instability, war, famine, hatred and other things we simply don't want to impose on our country.
So Obama has made a major misstep. OK, you're right to condemn him for that, but don't call for his resignation this soon into his administration. I, for one, am grateful not not to live in a third world country where leaders are deposed and political instability is the norm.
"We let the Bush/Cheney cabal run this country into the ground for eight long nightmarish years and still have not held them accountable for the crimes they committed..."
You see, the notion of accountability is framed by Obama as "vengeance" and can't we all hold hands in unity and just ignore this and move forward?
It took years for consensus to build against Bush--despite the MSM best efforts to prop him up--and look at the opportunity that provided for his crowd to engage in their criminal destruction. The sooner you catch on and acknowledge that Obama is complicit rather than constructive, the better for all of us. I keep hearing that crap about it just being a couple of months--but look how much he regressed in such a short period of time already. If you can't see that, then you can't see where Bush and Obama are the same, in your polar worldview, all you can see is all Bush is bad and all Obama is hope.
Is America over? Are we finished as a country? Or was it all a school child's fantasy? Gone is the Nation-State. It's global now. Perhaps we need a common enemy to unite us. Maybe there will be an alien invasion, I mean, from another planet. I'm beyond fear and hope now. I'm just waiting for the end as all of you are, it seems. i suppose it won't be long now. Good Luck everyone.....Bye.
And, I guess you are what passes for the "left" at Kent State, or for that matter, the whole of Ohio these days...
yunz, may I assume that you are a neighbor from PA? I spent a few years growing up with all of yunz. Go Stillers! (Ah, Pittsburgh in the sixties...)
Boy was I delighted when, against all my own certainty, my fellow Ohioans went Blue. Not only that, but the county I now live in is blue, too.
After living in PA, my family moved to the suburbs where I felt distinctly out of place, but didn't know why. I realize now that the 'burbs are full of fucking Republicans who value style over substance and are stuck forever in "if it feels good do it" and "looks are everything". They like guys like Bush who let them feel good about themselves in all their selfish mindlessness. They're the ones who bought all the bullshit about gay marriage ruining family life and came out to vote Bush in '04.
I felt so good when it looked like America was growing out of that baby phase by electing Obama. Here we are, finally able to elect a dignified almost-black man who is going to lead us back to the change we almost had with JFK.
Almost, almost.
The left is out here; I lift up Dennis Kucinich as the man I'd like to see governing me and mine.
I try not to be negative, I want to have patience, I want to see Obama step up and be the man he promised to be. I believe in paying for my bitching rights with action and I never stop writing and calling my reps in Congress and the White House. I talk about my beliefs with total strangers.
My expectations were pretty low, politics being what it is, but with each day that passes and each promise broken and the magnitude of our betrayal (the betrayal of the American people) becomes more clear, my heart breaks. If only even my lowest expectations were being met I'd be happy.
America is growing up but Washington selfishly, shamelessly still sucks the titty, and it's really running dry.
Thanks for the comments on Pittsburgh. But right now it's Go Pens! (Penguins).
I'm not a native but rather moved here about 11 years ago from a life in the quintessentially generic suburban northern Virginia and other dreadfully similar places in the sun belt. Moving to the old Pittsburgh neighborhood of Bloomfield was a pleasant culture shock, followed by an epiphany. Pittsburgh in general, and places like Bloomfield, Lawrencville, Polish Hill or the Southside are REAL. No chain crap, no big boxes, all mom-and-pop, lefties and anarchists and art and "urban" culture everywhere. No republicans. And most liberating of all - one can live car free. They are genuine sustainable communities of tomorrow.
When my job moved out to the south hills, I moved to Brentwood - if figured that it was at least an older close-in suburb with sidewalks and good bus service. But unfortunately, culturally, it is solidly a suburban wasteland.
Xyy, it's nice to be understood. I was afraid my post might not make a lot of sense, as I was writing in a bit of a blue funk of disappointment.
I lived in East Liberty, walked 8 blocks to my (integrated) public school (Friendship School - what a great name!). We could catch a bus at the corner to go downtown, or go up to Penn Avenue and see the streetcars still running. It was there I bought my first 45 (the Beatles Hey Jude) and a blowup air chair! There were great little shops with candy and toys that we could walk to safely.
In sixth grade the kids in my class were talking about thinking about asking someone to go steady. When I got to lily-white Mentor, Ohio the kids were already doin' it out in back of the gym. Culture shock in a bad way. All the houses were cheaply built and looked alike. The people were, too.
I am so grateful that I had that formative time in Pgh.
I know the area well. Friendship school is still there and in use as an elementary school. I lived for a short time in an apartment in one of the big Victorian houses on Negley Ave. - later in a townhouse in Bloomfield near the West Penn, Hospital.
It is better to be thought a fool in quiet
than to open your mouth and remove all doubt!
Let this be a lesson to siderealm and others who may have thought that SallyUUKent's posting was a piece of "satire." I didn't take it that way, and responded as I did, having learned that, however ludicrous or "satirical" the defenses of Obama by his acolytes may appear, they tend to be made in all "sincerity" and we who have not imbibed the Kool-aid (or have recovered from it) should response in kind.
No one here thought it was satire, they were calling it satire because it was so over-the-top in it's fawning of Obama. I believe the it is called "sarcasm".
We let the Bush/Cheney cabal run this country into the ground for eight long nightmarish years and still have not held them accountable for the crimes they committed, which were far and away more egregious than anything that Obama has done so far.
"We" have still not held them accountable?
By "we" do you mean Barack Obama and Eric Holder?