By Dennis Loo .jpg)
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Don’t get fooled again
No, no!
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
— “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” The Who
***
Jack Goldsmith, Office of Legal Counsel Assistant Attorney General under Bush, quoted in a July 1, 2009 New York Times’ article by Charlie Savage, “To Critics, New Policy on Terror Looks Old, states: “There is a faux debate that something new is afoot and both the Obama administration and Cheney have an interest in that being the case, but it’s just not true,” he said. “It just serves almost everyone’s political interests to make it seem like something brand new is happening, but it’s mostly window dressing for just what was going on before.”
Obama officials claim that there is a fundamental difference between their terror policies and those of Bush’s.
What is that difference, you want to know?
Bush claimed that he had unfettered executive powers to do what he wanted regardless of the law and of the “checks and balances” of the three branches of government.
Congress, upon discovering that Bush was breaking the law, retroactively approved of Bush’s policies, rather like a spouse who upon learning that their partner has been cheating on them, reasserts their power by saying, “It’s alright dear, we’ll grandfather into our vows that you can cheat.”
Obama, by stark contrast to Bush, is enlisting Congressional support for his actions that override habeas corpus and other core principles of national and international law from the start rather than after the fact.
Doesn’t that make you feel all better now?
I am reminded here of the “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” episode of the original Star Trek series in which a political dissident named Lokai from the planet Cheron seeks asylum on the Enterprise. Lokai is black on one side of his body and white on the other. Lokai is fleeing Bele, who beams aboard the Enterprise in hot pursuit. Bele is also black on one side and white on the other, except in reverse. At one point Captain Kirk asks Bele what the difference between the two is and Bele responds in shock, “Don’t you see?!” his colors are the reverse of mine.
The New York Times article concludes:
“Neil J. Kinkopf, a Clinton administration lawyer, said that even if Mr. Obama’s policies look similar to Mr. Bush’s, his show of greater respect for Congress was important because he is not creating precedents that future presidents can cite to bypass unrelated laws.
“Mr. Obama has not always been consistent in that respect. In a signing statement last week, for example, he claimed a right to ignore five sections of an appropriations bill related to international financial institutions. Such statutory limits, he said, ‘would interfere with my constitutional authority to conduct foreign relations.’
“In any case, Jack Balkin, a Yale Law School professor, said Mr. Obama’s ratification of the basic outlines of the surveillance and detention policies he inherited would reverberate for generations. By bestowing bipartisan acceptance on them, Mr. Balkin said, Mr. Obama is consolidating them as entrenched features of government.
“’What we are watching,’ Mr. Balkin said, ‘is a liberal, centrist, Democratic version of the construction of these same governing practices.’”
What Obama is doing in his terror policies, in other words, is not a departure from the patently illegal practices of Bush and Cheney. By enshrining it in the wrappings of Congressional approval Obama is not only not repudiating what Bush did, he is solidifying them. (The Democrats and Republicans are like Lokai and Bele. Don’t you see the difference?!)
Now go to sleep Virginia.
The nightmare you thought you were having: it’s not a nightmare. It’s reality.
chello my people! it\’s zoe, your dear old outreach organizer from Venice Beach. Hello Cheryl Abraham and the whole gang. Youguys are doing it, love it. Moved 2 vegas as planned 2 take care of my own but want to help the Vegas chapter. uh, is there one? Let\’s get it together people!!! Seriously,I am back on the winning side. Have the time. What shall I organize here in regard to the students resisting the military recruiters and their fascist bullshit? My Nick is 14 yrs. old now, i have a very vested interest here. K, hit me back at my email. its still the same. Fight the power, fight the good fight, dont get drunk too often! Warmest regards, zoe Lockhart