Obama extends Patriot Act

[joshuatxuk]

sigh

 

 

Why this pisses me off:

 

1. I again feel certain that nothing has changed.

2. On top of the Gitmo closure delays, the ongoing war in Iraq, and escalation of troops in Afghanistan, I am personally convinced that this administration either found themselves agreeing with the policies of W once they arrived, or worse, were okay with the majority of the goals and methodology of the Bush administration "war on terror" even before the election. When it comes to foriegn policy, the only advantage Obama really has over a GOP hawk is (or was) his global image.

 

This is why I hate both the GOP and Dems. And hell, I can't even say that or admit my libertarian leanings because of the ridiculous Tea Party bullshit tainting that stance. Earlier this year I was looking forward to the healthcare reform and don't ask, don't tell being revoked, but I won't even get my hopes up for those getting anywhere.

[SR4]

That once a government is granted a power by the people, the government will do anything within its own power to enforce it to its fullest extent.

[GORDO]

well those provisions do have the words court approved in them.

[Guest Backson]

surprised?

 

seriously?

[Guest Wall Bird]

It's a tough situation for Obama. I suspect he's reluctant to relinquish the ability to gather intelligence through Bush-established programs and laws because of the resources it allows him to draw from as well as the horrendous backlash he would receive if he let go of these privileges and another significant attack were to occur within America. Such an attack would be used to prove and convince others that these governmental privileges are necessary and that relinquishing certain liberties is a fair price for maintaining national security.

 

I however, could give a fuck about his popularity. I want that act repealed, I want my rights to privacy returned, and I think America needs to accept responsibility for it's years of abusing other people. After September 11th, what the country should have done is taken a good look at itself and evaluated why such an act of terrorism happened in the first place. Instead, we launched an offensive and perpetuated a history of imperialism that only further intensifies the "need" for such an piece of legislation.

[Guest Blanket Fort Collapse]

lawlz lets talk about politicians actually calling the shot guys... lolz yups obama thought long and hard about this one.. politicians alone really run the show in democratic manner here in the north american union.. cool story guyez

[essines]

surprised?

 

seriously?

[GORDO]

can someone explain why this is so wrong? did you read the note?

[Guest EDGEY]

sigh

 

 

Why this pisses me off:

 

1. I again feel certain that nothing has changed.

2. On top of the Gitmo closure delays, the ongoing war in Iraq, and escalation of troops in Afghanistan, I am personally convinced that this administration either found themselves agreeing with the policies of W once they arrived, or worse, were okay with the majority of the goals and methodology of the Bush administration "war on terror" even before the election. When it comes to foriegn policy, the only advantage Obama really has over a GOP hawk is (or was) his global image.

 

This is why I hate both the GOP and Dems. And hell, I can't even say that or admit my libertarian leanings because of the ridiculous Tea Party bullshit tainting that stance. Earlier this year I was looking forward to the healthcare reform and don't ask, don't tell being revoked, but I won't even get my hopes up for those getting anywhere.

 

Being a libertarian and having these tea baggers carry our flag, is like being into industrial and the only reference point outsiders have are those freaks on jerry springer...

[Guest Rambo]

It's a tough situation for Obama. I suspect he's reluctant to relinquish the ability to gather intelligence through Bush-established programs and laws because of the resources it allows him to draw from as well as the horrendous backlash he would receive if he let go of these privileges and another significant attack were to occur within America. Such an attack would be used to prove and convince others that these governmental privileges are necessary and that relinquishing certain liberties is a fair price for maintaining national security.

 

I however, could give a fuck about his popularity. I want that act repealed, I want my rights to privacy returned, and I think America needs to accept responsibility for it's years of abusing other people. After September 11th, what the country should have done is taken a good look at itself and evaluated why such an act of terrorism happened in the first place. Instead, we launched an offensive and perpetuated a history of imperialism that only further intensifies the "need" for such an piece of legislation.

 

couldn't

[awepittance]

Obama sabotages himself with fake "pragmatism"

BY GLENN GREENWALD

 

AP

President Obama smiles as he holds a University of Alabama football jersey during a ceremony Monday.

(updated below)

 

A new poll from the Democratic polling firm founded by James Carville and Stan Greenberg -- and co-sponsored by the "centrist" Third Way -- provides what its sponsors call "a wake-up call for President Obama, his party, and progressives on national security," because "[h]istorical doubts about the Democratic Party on national security show signs of reviving." This "Dems-losing-on-Terrorism" characterization is predictably being adopted by most media accounts -- Poll: Obama wrong on terror suspects and Poll shows Obama, Dems losing ground -- and will almost certainly accelerate (and provide the excuse for) the administration's abandonment of the very few decisions where they deviated from Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies. The reality of the poll is far more mixed than is being depicted -- the public believes Obama is doing better than Bush on national security generally and specifically on the handling of Terrorism, and Obama's national security approval ratings remain far higher than any other category -- but it is true (at least according to this poll) that Americans have increasingly sided with the Cheneyite-GOP argument on specific civil liberties/Terrorism questions, including civilian trials v. military commissions.

 

All of this underscores a vital point: the Obama White House is hamstrung by its own embrace of the Bush/Cheney Terrorism template in advocating for its own policies. The pollsters' Memo stresses, for instance, that the primary justification Obama officials offered in defending their Mirandizing of the attempted Christmas Day bomber -- Bush did it too with Richard Reid -- is ineffective and makes them appear "weak":

 

Voters resist the argument that the Obama administration simply handled the Christmas bomber in the same way the Bush administration handled the "shoe bomber" case; this sounds political, and produces a weak response.

 

How can this response be anything other than weak and muddled? Democrats generally and Obama specifically have spent years telling the country that Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies were lawless, immoral, inept and counter-productive. Yet the minute there's a controversy over Obama's Terrorism policy, his first justification is: we're only doing what Bush and Cheney did. He can't stand on his own two feet and forcefully justify civilian trials or Mirandizing Terrorist suspects; he has to take refuge in the fact that Bush also did it -- as though that proves it's the right thing to do, because Bush/Cheney is the Standard-Bearer of Toughness on Terrorism. If you're going to embrace the core Bush/Cheney model on Terrorism and point to what they did as though that's the guide for how things should be done -- and if you're going to run to them for refuge and protection -- and if you're going to reverse yourself and capitulate at slightest sign of political pressure (FISA, detainee photos, civilian trials) -- is it really any surprise that people will begin to conclude that Bush and Cheney had things basically right and that Democrats are"weak" (not because of specific policies, but because of their fear of arguing for and sticking with their own positions)?

 

This is the same point made, albeit in a different form, by Stanley Fish in today's New York Times, who argues that there is a growing nostalgia for George Bush among many media figures and the country generally (which, at least with regard to media elites, I've noted before as well; there's zero evidence it's true of the public generally, and Fish's attempt to prove otherwise is unbelievably lame). Still, today's poll proves the public is far more receptive than before to arguments coming from the Cheneyite faction, and Fish, persuasively, points to this as a major reason why:

 

Bush’s policies came to seem less obviously reprehensible as the Obama administration drifted into embracing watered-down versions of many of them. Guantanamo hasn’t been closed. No Child Left Behind is being revised and perhaps improved, but not repealed. The banks are still engaging in their bad practices. Partisanship is worse than ever. Obama seems about to back away from the decision to try 9/11 defendants in civilian courts, a prospect that led the ACLU to run an ad in Sunday’s Times with the subheading “Change or more of the same?” Above that question is a series of photographs that shows Obama morphing into guess who -- yes, that’s right, George W. Bush.

 

I wish everyone would read that first, bolded sentence every day. This is a point I've been trying to make in different ways for many months. It is obviously impossible to maintain that the Terrorism and other national security policies of George Bush and Dick Cheney were radical, heinous, evil and wrong if the successor administration -- one from "the other party," filled with people who spent years vehemently condemning those policies -- end up adopting most of those same policies and the core approach itself. Inevitably, that behavior will come to be seen as vindication (now that Obama is in office, he sees those policies are necessary), and worse, converts what had been viewed as extremist, highly controversial right-wing policies into unchallenged bipartisan consensus.

 

It's only natural that many people in the country say to themselves: how bad could George Bush and Dick Cheney really have been in these areas if their core policies are being adopted by Obama? Apparently, there must not be anything wrong with indefinite detention, military commissions, renditions, state secrets, etc. because Obama has embraced them as well. And once those conclusions are fostered, it's hardly a surprise that Bush officials such as Dick Cheney will once again be listened to as a credible authority on such matters; if he, after all, had the basic approach right, why deviate from it at all?

 

Independently, and even more important, think about how rhetorically difficult it is for the Obama administration to defend civilian trials when they themselves are subjecting scores of detainees (in fact, most) to military commissions or indefinite detention. It's a completely confused, unprincipled, self-negating approach that can only produce muddled, unprincipled and therefore weak defenses. Nobody in the administration can possibly argue (as Democrats used to vocally argue) that military commissions, indefinite detention and denial of civilian trials are un-American and counter-productive, because the Democratic administration is now doing exactly that. So if you can't argue that, how can you possibly defend civilian trials, or rebut the GOP claim that accused Terrorists should be placed before military commissions or indefinitely detained? You can't -- you have no argument -- and that's why Obama is losing this debate.

 

There's a difference -- a fundamental one -- between (a) being pragmatic in trying to implement one's principles and (b) having no principles at all and and glorifying that unanchored emptiness as "pragmatism." Once you enter the realm of (b), you are not only guilty of having no principles (a sin in its own right), but you're incapable of finding a way to effectively justify what you're doing, because you have no coherent principles to which you can credibly appeal. In virtually every realm (health care, financial reform, national security), and especially in Terrorism/civil liberties, that has been the great political failure of the Obama administration.

[Dale]

Some people's responses in this thread seem to point to Obama agreeing all of this, and that he has control over things. He's actually a puppet for who ever awards him with financial support - he does not and can not think for himself but only for the financial institutions who back him. There is none such thing as an objective politician.

[awepittance]

just because someone has a financial interest to act a certain way or make certain policies doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about how the framed debate about this is mostly false. i understand where you're coming from though. I think there are an awful lot of people who in principal voted for Obama thinking that he would be drastically different than Bush on foriegn policy, civil rights and the 'war' on terror. This article makes a good point as to why even for strictly political reasons Obama's strategy of caving to Bush era laws is a bad one

[Guest Rambo]

the most important thing to find out about any presidential candidate is their funding. It's so obvious it's laughable.

[Dale]

the most important thing to find out about any presidential candidate is their funding. It's so obvious it's laughable.

Top contributors for Obama: http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=n00009638

University of California $1,591,395

Goldman Sachs $994,795

Harvard University $854,747

Microsoft Corp $833,617

Google Inc $803,436

Citigroup Inc $701,290

JPMorgan Chase & Co $695,132

Time Warner $590,084

Sidley Austin LLP $588,598

Stanford University $586,557

National Amusements Inc $551,683

UBS AG $543,219

Wilmerhale Llp $542,618

Skadden, Arps et al $530,839

IBM Corp $528,822

Columbia University $528,302

Morgan Stanley $514,881

General Electric $499,130

US Government $494,820

Latham & Watkins $493,835

 

lol, didn't citigroup get a bailout package within the last year?

[SR4]

could we relax on going overboard with the one-world government "they are all puppets" thing?

 

even if Obama isn't responsible for ANYTHING done, should we not still be critical of the policies and appropriate them to the face conveniently thrown before us?

 

I am definitely in agreeance over the centralization of world government and that it is in progress, but once we start the guffaws of "HES JUST A PUPPET", well, fuck, of course he is, who else would we lay the blame on? Its far easier to lay it on a singular representative rather than incredibly insidious shadow governments of which we know very little factual information.

[awepittance]

i totally agree, i mean while i agree with the sentiment generally speaking its kind of like having an argument and then all of the sudden interjecting 'well you realize we could all be in a hallucinatory matrix so there is no objective reality so therefore everything you are saying is meaningless' good we get it