Tag: Open Thread

Let there be Thread!

The Democrats of 2002 and 2007 haven’t gone anywhere

by Glenn Greenwald

Wednesday Nov. 12, 2008 15:28 EST

We know there are going to be major wars — not with Republicans, but among Democrats, and especially the party’s leaders — over things like closing Guantanamo, imposing an absolute ban on torture, restoring habeas corpus, withdrawing from Iraq, reducing executive secrecy and increasing transparency, imposing mild limits and oversight on the surveillance state, returning the Congress to its proper role, and especially investigating prior crimes of high government officials.  More generally, there’s going to be immense pressure for Obama to prove that he’s “centrist” by making only minor modifications, not major changes, to prevailing Bush policies — a view that is a principal motivating belief of the Democratic Party.

Yesterday’s vague and poorly-sourced Wall St. Journal article reporting that “Obama is unlikely to radically overhaul controversial Bush administration intelligence policies” is not, in my view, evidence of what Obama will do, but it is definitely compelling evidence that people close to him — those whom he has chosen to be influential — are pushing him in that direction.  Notably, the article actually describes minor modifications to (as opposed to wholesale overhaul of) Bush’s torture policies as the “centrist” and “pragmatic” approach.

It’s just a fact that there are all sorts of people close to Obama who have enabled those Bush policies and who are mobilizing now and attempting to ensure that nothing meaningful occurs in these areas.  It simply is noteworthy of comment and cause for concern — though far from conclusive about what Obama will do — that Obama’s transition chief for intelligence policy, John Brennan, was an ardent supporter of torture and one of the most emphatic advocates of FISA expansions and telecom immunity.  It would be foolish in the extreme to ignore that and to just adopt the attitude that we should all wait quietly with our hands politely folded for the new President to unveil his decisions before deciding that we should speak up or do anything.  

Politicians respond to constituencies and pressure.  Constituencies which announce their intention to maintain respectful silence all but ensure that their political principles will be ignored.

MechaMummy’s still celebrating, how about you?

Re-Flex Praying to the Beat

I hereby announce the Docudharma Ripple Award, which means … well I’m not sure, but it’s an award, for Pete’s sake, so who cares!

More seriously, on a purely subjective note, these two comments were the result of the conversations we’ve all had on the blog, the ripples of ideas which flow from this site every day, I’m just catching two of them.

They come from my Friday Night at 8 essay Core and speak to the notion of centrism, left, right, middle, all that jazz.

First one is from NLinStPaul:

I remember a while ago

looking for a post by Madman in the Marketplace where he articulated that compromise (or the center) is the place you reach AFTER you’ve made effective arguments from opposing sides. It is NOT the place you start from. But I haven’t been able to find it.

That thought keeps surfacing for me when I hear all this talk about finding the “middle.” We haven’t even clearly defined all the positions yet!!!

And the second is from RUkind:

It’s like center is the new meme,

Same as the old meme. I think it’s more about clinging to the present or some vision of a recent past or embracing change and seeing where it takes us.

This country was founded by people seeking change from the old ways of post-feudal Europe. Once they got a foothold on the coast it was the Cumberland Gap and on to the Northwest Territories (Great Lakes region). Feeling too settled down? Across the Mississippi, up the MIssouri and then over the Rockies.

Same thing has been going on always here. People just keep coming seeking change. Even when you’re born here you’re likely to live in several places during your life.

Some people thrive on change, some people fear it. Change in your surroundings, your neighbors or even who you are. Like the song says, “You can’t go back and you can’t stand still.”

I don’t think left-center-right are the proper adjectives any more. I’d say change/status quo are the basic definitions and from there the direction of the change becomes a secondary attribute.

Just thinkin’.  Satya.

Congratulations!  Now all we need is a prize of some kind!

Open thread is now open for bidness!

Orin Kerr and the responsibility of elites for the last eight years

by Glenn Greenwald

Sunday Nov. 9, 2008 08:40 EST

Prime responsibility for those actions may lie with the administration which implemented them and with the Congress that thereafter acquiesced to and even endorsed much of it, but it also lies with much of our opinion-making elite and expert class.  Even when they politely disagreed, they treated most of this — and still do — as though it were reasonable and customary, eschewing strong language and emphatic condemnation and moral outrage, while perversely and self-servingly construing their constraint as some sort of a virtue — a hallmark of dignified Seriousness.  That created the impression that these were just garden-variety political conflicts to be batted about in pretty conference rooms by mutually regarding elites on both sides of these “debates.”  Meanwhile, those who objected too strongly and in disrespectful tones, who described the extremism and lawlessness taking place, were dismissed by these same elites as overheated, fringe hysterics.

Some political issues, including ones that provoke intense passion, have many sides, but not all do.  Not all positions are worthy of respect.  Some actions and policies require outrage and condemnation, to the point where it becomes irresponsible to comment on them without expressing that.  Some ideas are so corrupted and dangerous and indefensible that they do reflect negatively on the character and credibility of their advocates, on the propriety of treating those advocates as though they’re respectable and honorable.  Most of all, elites who seek out an opinion platform have a responsibility to accept that their ideas and arguments have consequences and they should be held accountable for what their actions spawn (see Atrios’ related point yesterday about Tom Friedman’s responsibility arising from his advocacy for the Iraq War).

Over the last eight years (at least), we have not only crossed the line of what ought to be within the realm of reasonable, respectful debate, but we have crossed it repeatedly, severely, and with great harm to our political system and huge numbers of people.  And one of the prime reasons that happened is because those with the most vocal platforms and with the greatest claims to expertise failed in their responsibility to oppose it passionately and to describe its extremism, and, instead, eagerly served as apologists for it.   Those who seek now to depict their tepidness in the face of all of that as some elevated form of enlightened reason are merely illustrating one of the key mechanisms that enabled all of it to happen.

Well I’m sure you’re all excited about last night, but I must admit to being somewhat disappointed.

While we made a great deal of progress and had some successes, I’m not convinced the euphoria in some quarters (and fear in others) is entirely justified.

If only Obama were a hard core socialist, riding to the Village to pillage and burn the foundations of free market capitalism to the ground.  If only the communist Democratic Representatives were prepared to nationalize the means of production and place management in the hands of the workers, or at least not greedy conmen and thieves of proven incompetence.

Instead I listen to the Village drums pounding out the message of center right bi-partisanship peace.

No justice, no peace.

Here’s an acronym I’m going to be watching, a bell whether or not we’re going to get squat in terms of powder dry performance from the most craven and cowardly group of legislators ever to disgrace the halls of Congress (and frankly, that’s saying a lot)- EFCA.

Supposedly this is a first hundred days priority.

Now sometimes people misunderstand that I am all about electoral victory.  I am a politician and a community organizer.  I am an anarcho-syndicalist not a Stalinist.

Union building is community organizing and has in the past and could again be the institutional infrastructure of the Democratic Party, a permanent counterweight to the organizational abilities of the dominionist fundies AND the financial resources of the corporatists.

You know, not to mention that it would be good for the economy, build the middle class, break down some of the wealth disparity, act as a break on outsourcing.  Little things.

So it just makes sense on multiple levels, but these are Democrats and unlike Wall Street buccaneers they’re more frequently fearful than greedy.