Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

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  1. Ya know, the guy’s been president for exactly five weeks.  It’s stuff like this, in my humble view, that earn–and rightfully so–the left its “loony” label.  

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    p>Christ on a crutch, this is enough to make me want to write and cancel my ACLU membership.  

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    p>Big picture:  Barack Obama has moved this nation in the right direction in his 35 days as president.  Is there plenty of room to move some more?  Sure is.  Can we label him a failure yet?  Absolutely not.   Ugh.  Words escape me.  

      • like a semester?  How about a year?  Doesn’t this strike you as a bit hysterical?

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        p>Maybe it’s me, but I think the left–and I see this on sites like Kos–has their underwear in a bunch because Barry isn’t flat against the left wall.  I’m pretty liberal but I’m also pragmatic in my understanding of incrementalism as a political stategy.  Big picture, people, big picture.  And purity is right out.  

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        p>The scorecard doesn’t do much except reinforce, for regular folks who, for once, are pretty pleased with a Democratic president, that the left is, indeed, extreme.  

        • Wasn’t too long ago that planning an end on combat in Iraq would have been greeted with hysterical cheers.  Today, it’s treated as an afterthought.  I mean, the man does have to sleep sometimes.

        • But personally, I’m not in the mood to argue with the ACLU for appearing impatient or appearing to prematurely judge, because I myself don’t trust Obama to do the right thing.  Why should I?  I don’t have to explain to you how he sacrificed LGBTs in the election, I know you know it all.  So unless I see him act in a real way to live up to his promises to LGBT people, I will not trust him and I can understand if others don’t on other issues.  Like any new politician, he has a lot to prove.  He failed to earn the benefit of my doubt during the election.

        • Purity? Rule of law is purity? Demanding a fair justice system is purity?

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          p>This isn’t just another issue. This is one of the most fundamental failings of the United States over these past years. And the complaints aren’t just, “Oh, Obama hasn’t solved every problem in the universe in his first month and office”–Obama, in preventing Bagram detainees from receiving any sort of due process and continuing to assert broad states’ secrets powers (a move condemned by presumably “loony” Democrats such as Pat Leahy), is actively continuing the most destructive policies of the past eight years.

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          p>Restoring due process is not just a little policy that would be nice. It is not a luxury. It is a necessity. And kudos to the ACLU for holding Obama accountable, rather than simply cheerleading (as far too many left-wingers and left-wing groups have been willing to do.)

        • I hear what you’re saying, but it is only by being pushed that politicians (even the best ones) will do the right thing. Patience is not a virtue when it comes to activism.

          • People who behave hastily even with the best of intentions are prone to make bigger mistakes than if they sit back and behave in a cool, calm and careful fashion.  

            • By somebody who has not been held, innocent, for seven years without a semblance of actual due process.

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              p>When such an injustice, such a blatant perversion of what America is supposed to be about, is taking place, patience is not a virtue. It is unacceptable.

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              p>And again, the Obama administration has not been just sitting on its hands and doing nothing. On things such as state secrets, Obama is actively perpetuating the disastrous Bush policies. I don’t know how ot make that any clearer.

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              p>It’s very

                • You’re “sure”? We don’t know if they’re guilty or not guilty until they have a fair trial. Sarcasm aside, that’s the mentality  that erodes the basic foundation of our justice system that you are innocent until proven guilty. I’m sure if somebody claimed you did something you didn’t you would want other people to give you the benefit of the doubt.

            • There comes a point when justice too long delayed (even by a patient actor) is justice denied.

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              p>I realize this quote is lengthy, but it’s quality warrants its citation at length:

              “My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure…. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was ‘well timed’ in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied’…. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience…. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not … the Ku Klux Klanner, but the … moderate, who … constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
              — MLK, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail

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              p>It is true that Obama has only been President for a few weeks. But these are not new issues with which he had to acquaint himself after taking office. These are policies he campaigned against as part of his platform as a candidate. They are policies with which he would be intimately familiar, even in the absence of campaign promises, because he has been a member of the Nation’s Legislative Branch for the entire duration of Bush’s second term, when many of these policies were being formulated or expanded & reinforced. It’s not as though he needs to have time to reflect on these matters, as would be the case with issues newly brought to his attention. He knew all along that these particular civil liberties issues (the ones rated in the scorecard) would exist on Day 1 after he took his oath.

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              p>What is gained by further delaying the justice owed to those obstructed by assertions of “state secrets” or further denying those detained for years beyond our continental borders (but clearly within US custody & control) the standing to file a habeas corpus petition challenging their indefinite imprisonment without charge? This is a situation where patience could not contribute to any substantive improvement in future policy outcomes, but continued delay does indeed perpetuate the ongoing injustices that are substantive flaws in current policy implementations.

          • As I recall he took flak for saying, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue!”

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            p>What frustrates me about these discussions is we never hear about someone asking a point blank question and hearing what the answer is.  If we don’t ask the officials these questions we’re left to speculate with less-than-complete information about circumstances, context, etc.  There are some things that make me raise my eyebrows too, but not being inside the White House myself, I’m hesitant to judge this early in the term.

        • trying to recover damages resulting from your being renditioned and tortured, sure – go ahead and give Obama a pass. He’ll probably decide later that state secrets aren’t a reason to block such a lawsuit, even though DoJ lawyers say they’ve thoroughly examined the issue, and decided Bush was right. Immunity for wiretapping? Bush is only temporarily right about that, too – Obama will surely change his mind about that, even if nobody tells him he should.

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          p>Give him some slack on things that aren’t black and white, by all means. Protecting torturers and illegal wiretapping is not in that category.  

    • is not that Obama hasn’t gotten around to undoing at least eight years of damage in five weeks.  The point is that during those five weeks, some of the steps the new administration has taken are missed opportunities to move in the right direction:

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      p>http://www.aclum.org/scorecard/

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      p>Glenn Greenwald, who keynoted our statewide conference last month, also strongly cautioned against buying into the notion that there is room for compromise on these issues.  A podcast of his speech “Beyond the Politics of Fear” is available on our website:

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      p>http://www.aclum.org/

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      p>

  2. Let’s take a vote.  Which is more important with respect to Civil Liberties:

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    p>a) Guantanamo
    The President signed an executive order requiring the closure of Guantanamo no later than one year from the date of the order, ensuring that conditions at Guantanamo comply with the Geneva Conventions, halting the military commission proceedings for 120 days and establishing a review process of the cases of remaining detainees to determine whether they can be transferred to other countries or prosecuted – if so, how.

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    p>
    — or —

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    p>b) ADMINISTRATION THANKS UK FOR WITHHOLDING INFORMATION ABOUT TREATMENT OF DETAINEE
    On February 4, the British High Court blocked the release of documentation about the extraordinary rendition and torture of Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed – not on national security grounds, but because the Bush Administration had threatened that its release could endanger intelligence sharing between the US and UK. The Obama Administration thanked Britain “for its continued commitment to protect sensitive national security information” (McClatchey Washington Bureau, February 20).

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    p>According to the ACLU, they are equally important.  After all, Obama got +1 for closing Guantanamo, and -1 for making a press release about the action taken by a government not called the Government of the United States of America.

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    p>So, I ask you my good friends at BMG, which is more important: closing Guantanamo or Obama publicly thanking the UK for a decision their court made?

    • The scorecard’s “scoring system” (if you can call it that) seems to have been designed to come up with a result of zero.  That’s a PR stunt, not a serious assessment of the administration’s actions to date.

      • not ALL scorecards.  stomv, do you really mean to speak so categorically regarding scorecards?  Doesn’t most everyone here pay close attention to the sort of scorecard that’s usually called “Voting History”?

        • because they presume that

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          p>(a) all votes on their list are equally important
          (b) all reasons for not voting are equally reasonable

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          p>Neither is the case.

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          p>Any time you have a scoring system, you’ve got to assign points to events.  You can assign them all 1 point, or assign them different points.  Either way, you as an organization are deciding which event is more important, and by how much.  Doing so automatically injects value and bias into a system which is implied to be free of exactly those sorts of things.

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          p>The implication is that scorecards are fair and bias-free because they simply measure whether or not an event happened.  However, if you “score” those events, you’re injecting value into what appears to be empirical.  All scorecards do this, always to silly results.

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