Cheat Sheet

He has executive authority and he used it, same as all the rest! It's a hoot, really, they are all the same but Congress is really to blame, they want to close Gitmo and let all the detainees free and Obama knows there are enough who should never be let go, that's the reality of it but Congress gives him no alternative. They tied his hands too!

What the hell happened to "Checks and Balances?"

They aren't ever going to say a word, can't stand pie in their face, watch the quiet on this page!

We are not like you.


We won't defend our party while they break our laws.

Unlike you and your party who cheered the invasion of a country for lies.

He's going to be a one term President.

Fire all 8 republicans that voted for these 300 pages

Thanks Hawnzz, I read this and just busted out laughing, wasn't watching that bottle I had open and couldn't help myself, the Congress has left Obama no out for dangerous people, close gitmo and don't bring them on US land, it's the irony that got me, at least God opens a window before he closes the door, Congress operates a bit differently!

Got that right...

We don't know Pelosi lied. It was the C.I.A. under Bush after all. They have lied about many things and I don't see why this would be any different.

(Though I'm certainly not going to be shocked if they do their homework and prove she did, which they should.)

And the CIA under Obama/Penetta basically said Pelosi lied.

Take a pill

SlaveRevolt,
It is also amazing that people who are obviously intelligent and well-informed allow their own arrogance or frustration to keep them from communicating their fact-based opinions in a civil manner. This sort of rudeness closes minds faster than anything else. I should know, as I feel I have done that very thing on my preceding post. Apologies to all, I was much more the club and less the rapier.

To be breif:
1)
a) the PATRIOT act is subject to review and renewal. Several provisions have already expired.

b) FISA wiretaps are authorized by a very small circle of people. It's not just any cop who doesn't like the way you wear your hat that can listen in on you. And the return to FISA is a vast improvement over the warrantless wiretaps that preceeded it.

c) IMMUNITY for the phone companies is acceptable as they turned over communications conducted on privately-owned networks. Read your contract more carefully. If you don't like it, Creedo has a phone for you.

d) BUSH_CHENEY "missing e-mails" are very possibly being read at this moment
by the attorney general & co. and, therefore, should not be in public domain yet.

e) executive orders can be ignored or rescinded by any president (but not members of his admin) because they are not law.

f) limiting genetic testing rights avoid placing an undue burden on prosecutors who have convicted criminals, said criminals not being able to win on appeal, which are often frivolous

g) you should give our president more credit than to think he would limit himself to George Stephanopolous, and refusing to limit himself is better than lying.

h) "the vast majority of the detainees are going to be held indefinitely without trial". 90/229 is not a vast majority but is a very large minority

i) indefinite detention with judicial review is a step above indefinite detention without review. It puts a check on the executive, which is better than before.

2)
a)I believe that I am aware of a representative share of material motives for interventions in SW Asia. They are not long in searching for. They are indefensible, but even these can have positive results like more people with clean drinking water, more schools, less starving children, etc..

b)As for our president's credibility as a change agent, I'm willing to keep an open mind either way. But I see a change in the attitudes of my neighbors towards involvement in civics, the kids on the street in terms of empowerment, and in the way more people from other countries talk to me with much less anger. Again, this is five months in, government works on a different timescale than humans.

c) If our age of Empire is at an end, and I pray we are the ones to end it, I do not accept your prognostication of a watery grave. No empire since the Ottoman has been dismantled and its people been subjugated. All the former colonial powers have relatively happy, free, safe populations (as well as several, by no means all, of thier colonies) and I see no reason why we shouldn't as well.

Just to let you know, I added to our other convo. I don't want to appear to attempting to sneak in the last word...

Rapierwits:

1.) The Patriot Act is an abomination and a slap in the face to anyone who cares about the Constitution and Bill of Rights. By Obama voting for its continuance as a senator (especially being a senator that is a constitutional scholar) shows plainly that he doesn't mind giving his endorsement to this tyranny. Why was the Patriot Act such a big deal to Democrats when it was a Republican administration that forced it upon the country but not such a big deal when a "Democrat" is in the White House and is continuing it, having personally voted for its continuance as a senator (after having said he wouldn't)? Same reason the Republicans didn't mind the Patriot Act but would have been tearing their hair out and rending their garments if Pres. Clinton had proposed such measures? None of the Patriot Act should be continued but instead abolished. Obama has promised nothing of the sort as president and his actions show he's content leaving its police state measures in place.

I realize F.I.S.A. wiretaps are authorized by a small circle of people, not your local pig chief. However there is no excuse and there is nothing anyone can say that will mitigate the illegality of warrantless wiretapping. Obama supports legislation to INCREASE warrantless wiretapping powers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/us/politics/02fisa.html

Obama voted for it as a senator and as a president he supports the idea of warrantless wiretapping. This is a pretty cut-and-dried issue. Though he used to be against the idea he flip flopped during the campaign and came out in support of it. Still supports it. Can't put a whole lot of lipstick on this particular pig.

The wiretapping in question was illegal. The telecom companies that assisted in it were doing so at the behest of the federal government but nevertheless participating in an illegal act. But hey, why should Obama care about that? He's obviously quite happy to let the war criminals who authorized it (and authorized torture, and launched the war of aggression against Iraq) get away scot free to live as free men in the lap of luxury the rest of their lives so why worry about immunity for telecom companies right? Nothing's illegal anymore and nobody is ever held accountable, didn't you get the memo? Obama's "moving forward, not looking backward" bulls**t is precisely what his elite puppetmasters want him to say. If they were afraid he'd take any other position than that he wouldn't have ever been even a senator let alone a presidential candidate. Somebody else would have given the keynote address at the 2004 convention.

And Bush-Cheney's "missing" e-mails could very possibly have been eaten in their entirety by llamas but that doesn't mean that it's a credible possibility.
"The Obama administration, siding with former President George W. Bush, is trying to kill a lawsuit that seeks to recover what could be millions of missing White House e-mails. Two advocacy groups suing the Executive Office of the President [EOP] say that large amounts of White House e-mail documenting Bush's eight years in office may still be missing, and that the government must undertake an extensive recovery effort. They expressed disappointment that Obama's Justice Department is continuing the Bush administration's bid to get the lawsuits dismissed... "The new administration seems no more eager than the last" to deal with the issue, said Anne Weismann, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the other group that sued the EOP."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090221/ap_on_go_pr_wh/white_house_e_mail

This is no more of a "transparency administration" than the one before it. Obama's already broken his promise to let new legislation sit online for five days to be read by the public before it's voted upon. His stimulus spending isn't nearly so easy to track as he had promised it would be. And Obama's continuing the state secrets crutch, won't release the remaining Abu Ghraib photos and is exempting Freddie Mac from the F.O.I.A. so that it doesn't have to reveal anything about Rahm Emanuel's tenure there. Opacity administration continued.

I realize that an executive order isn't a law per se. But they are rules. What Obama is saying is that his own rules are meaningless and will be broken whenever convenient.

So it doesn't bother you as a Democrat (presuming you're a Dem, right?) and on a human level to know that not only does your president who claims to be a Democrat support the barbaric death penalty but that he's in favor of making it harder for defendants to prove their innocence via D.N.A. testing? This is OK with you? You are unaware of the over a hundred death row inmates who have been released upon finding that they were innocent thanks to D.N.A. testing? As if the death penalty isn't arbitrary and capricious enough as it is you are OK with it being made that much easier for innocent people to be put to death? What does Obama have to do that you will disagree with?

What he said to Stephanopolous aside, Obama has left loopholes galore in his supposed "ban on torture". So just like anything else with Obama there is an enormous gulf between the headlines and the fine print.

No, the vast majority of the detainees will never get a trial: "The U.S. government has decided the fate of about half the detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, and no more than a quarter of them will go on trial, Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday."
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE55G6EE20090617

Indefinite detention "with judicial review" is a laughably thin veneer over the same b.s. It's indefinite detention. Just as Bush asserted that detainees would be able to "challenge their detention" in kangaroo court military tribunals which Obama is continuing, can you really see a judge or a military approximation of a judge deciding "You know what? I don't think this guy should be here after all. I think he should be turned loose" and ordering it? Get real. You are showing you will settle for anything as long as its packaging blares that it is "new, improved, different!" regardless of when you open it and find that it's the same crap as before just with a different wrapper.

2.) Well I am glad you agree that intervention in SW Asia has been based on indefensible motives. And the Roman Empire built roads and aqueducts etc. And they also threw people into the ring with lions to watch them get devoured for the fun of it. There is nothing in this world that the U.S. has done in a positive sense in Iraq or Afghanistan that would amount to a mouse fart compared to the horror it's brought about in those two countries and in any case would do nothing to make the invasions legitimate which to your credit you admit.

Obama has less than zero credibility as a change agent, we're working on negative integers here. He's patently a neo-conservative in a not-too-convincing disguise and emanates the stink of continuity, not the sweet perfume of change. He's had two years to show us he's a change agent. It's been two years of trying to out-warmonger Hillary, of fellating A.I.P.A.C., of praising Reagan, of sucking up to the bourgeoisie and ultimately continuation of the same underlying policies in many cases without even the courtesy flush of extremely limited marginal tinkering. He's an inflatable candidate, just add backing of the ruling class and presto! A "change agent" that won't make the elite get heartburn.

Yes your age of empire is drawing to a close and I never said that America as in the 48 contiguous states plus Alaska and Hawaii would fall apart and look like something from those Mad Max movies. I wasn't saying America's people will be subjugated by foreigners (as opposed to their own ruling class and its corrupt government.) What I'm saying is that American imperialism is well on its way to dying of indigestion. Sure, Britain's still around but is the Britain of today whose best hope for relevance in 2003 was to tie itself to America's coattails in its illegal invasion of Iraq and be Bush's fig leaf of false legitimacy to give him ammunition against his critics accusing him of unilateralism a Britain with the same power, prestige etc. as the Britain of even 1938? Is it in any way even comparable (granted, I'm glad it's not an empire anymore, just saying)? The wreck I was referring to is the wreck of America's empire and dreams of imperial power. And sadly Obama is going to help the U.S. try to hang onto its empire if it has to hang on by its fingernails, not be the one to boldly expose the truth about WHY the U.S. is really in Afghanistan and Iraq and go about dismantling the occupations.

And I wasn't trying to be rude earlier, just responding to the tone of your post above about drawing a line in the sand. And no, even had you not told me I wouldn't have suspected you would be trying to sneak in the last word in our other conversation.

SlaveRevolt,

the worst thing about arguing with an intelligent extremist (which I mean non-perjoritively, I simply think of you as at on end of the continuum) is that I feel forced to defend things with which I do not agree and apologize for things I do not support. Be that as it may, these are things I believe are generally true if not ideal

1) Laws must evolve at a rate to allow for effective enforcement.

2) There are somethings an administration should not disclose unless coerced.

3) Truly egregious things have a way of coming out by internally and/or externally sourced revelations.

4) Criminals should be punished.

5) Liberty is obtained after struggle and sacrifice.

a) Institutional Inertia is the second most powerful force in government (pressure is>)

b) Any given politician or group of politicians, once ensconced, must be assisted to overcome that inertia through pressure.

c) Once that inertia is overcome, said individual or group can add momentum towards the evolution of that system.

d) Said momentum can be steered towards a desired ends after achieving popular consensus.

e) Certain limitations must be agreed to and enforced including upon officials of that regime.

f) All of which will be open to debate as long as the system exists.

g) A national system exists in, and relates to, other national systems in the broader context of the global system wherein its role is evolving. The role being determined by interests of the members of that national system and influenced by international considerations.

I don't mean to be pedantic in this screed, mostly I had to clarify for myself. I appreciate the metacognitive impetus.

I enjoy the correspondance a great deal, but do we have to compare the totality of our world-view every time? I know it all fits together, but how about we just stick to, say, WHINSEC when we talk about Honduras? It took me two days of mulling to get it down to this!

See ya on the boards!

Rapierwits:

Thanks for the compliment and yes you're correct, I'm at the left end of the spectrum about as far as one can go. And I really do wish that I could have your optimism regarding Obama but everything I've seen signals either more of the same but with a thin patina of change for appearance's sake or just undisguised selling out. I understand completely what you're saying about institutional entropy but the system is designed to foster that as it's supposed to be difficult to change. It's also thoroughly seeded with anti-democratic measures like the electoral college that doesn't correspond exactly to the popular vote and though it's artificial it can negate the real (popular) vote, and has; the Senate which doesn't at all correspond to population but instead gives two senators to each state regardless of whether it's Rhode Island or California or Texas or North Dakota, a potential check against the will of the people if expressed through the House of Representatives; the constant gerrymandering of congressional districts to make them as non-competitive as possible etc. It's set up in such a way as to be resistant to a popular movement to change it radically, in other words to maintain the status quo.

All that aside it doesn't matter who votes for whom because all the major presidential candidates, anybody who has a realistic shot at getting his or her party's nomination and running for president are all people who won't present any kind of risk of radical change to the social order, a social order that benefits the elite of course at the expense of everyone else. Whether it had ended up being Hillary versus Romney or Richardson versus Giuliani or what have you, they are all bought and paid for marionettes of the ruling class with different personalities, each thinking that he or she will be the best puppet out of the lineup available. And there we see a cause of a lot of the institutional stasis: That's the way they actually want it and vastly more importantly than the political chess pieces themselves, that's the way the big money power dons want it. It isn't just Obama. None of the candidates want to change much of anything in any meaningful way. If they did you and I would have never heard of them because they would have never had the bourgeoisie's backing.

And when there are the congressional Democrats whose speaker of the House upon gaining the speakership immediately declared that "Impeachment is off the table!"; when the Dems rolled over in 2002 and abdicated their responsibility, granting Bush (Cheney) the dubious authorization for the gargantuan crime against humanity that is the unprovoked invasion of Iraq, ostensibly copping out so that they could move the discussion back to the economy (!); and whose chairman of the D.C.C.C. in 2006, Rahm Emanuel, funneled the funding to campaigns of pro-Iraq War "Democrats" instead of anti-war Dems then you don't genuinely have two major political parties in the U.S. but instead an openly fascist party and a closeted fascist party that acts as a safety valve for the genuine and understandable desire for significant change by those in the American left. It allows them to let off steam but keeps it channeled in a safe-for-the-establishment direction.

Before the elite would ever allow a REAL change agent to occupy the White House they would do like the Honduran bourgeoisie just did, something that's not necessary in the U.S. because the choices of candidates are controlled by the ruling class anyway so someone is only really choosing their favorite conservative, the one that makes them feel like they are talking to them personally and captivates their attention and which one fakes it most believably of the bunch when he or she pretends to actually care about the average person. Is it voting? Sure, but is it going to change anything of substance? Or be any more meaningful really than the outcome of a professional wresting match? Unfortunately no. It's the comfortable illusion, a kabuki theater presentation but one that makes the audience feel like they are a part of the action and can have some kind of a say in the outcome of the play. The fact that Obama ran on the slogan of "Change you can believe in" magnifies all the more the yawning chasm between what most who voted for Obama thought they were getting and what they actually got.

In any case I know you support criminals being brought to justice etc. and I am sure we both want what's best for humanity. We just have somewhat different ideas as to what that entails and how we get there nevertheless we can agree to disagree on some points. I get what you're saying about wrapping up this discussion and I think we've both said what we wanted to say so that's why I kept it brief (if one can call this brief!) and we can close the lights, it's cool. I agree it's been an enjoyable exchange and I'll see you on the boards.