Who Are We?
By Bob Herbert
NY Times Op-Ed: June 22, 2009
Policies that were wrong under George W. Bush are no less wrong because
Barack Obama is in the White House.
One of the most disappointing aspects of the early months of the Obama
administration has been its unwillingness to end many of the mind-numbing
abuses linked to the so-called war on terror and to establish a legal and
moral framework designed to prevent those abuses from ever occurring again.
The president deserves credit for unequivocally banning torture and some of
the other brutal interrogation techniques that spread like a plague in the
Bush administration's lawless response to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But
other policies that offend the conscience continue.
Americans should recoil as one against the idea of preventive detention,
imprisoning people indefinitely, for years and perhaps for life, without
charge and without giving them an opportunity to demonstrate their
innocence.
And yet we've embraced it, asserting that there are people who are far too
dangerous to even think about releasing but who cannot be put on trial
because we have no real evidence that they have committed any crime, or
because we've tortured them and therefore the evidence would not be
admissible, or whatever. President Obama is O.K. with this (he calls it
"prolonged detention"), but he wants to make sure it is carried out - here
comes the oxymoron - fairly and nonabusively.
Proof of guilt? In 21st-century America, there is no longer any need for
such annoyances.
Human rights? Ha-ha. That's a good one.
Also distressing is the curtain of secrecy the Obama administration has kept
drawn over shameful abuses that should be brought into the light of day.
Back in April, the administration rightly released the "torture memos"
detailing the gruesome interrogation techniques unleashed by the Bush crowd.
But last month, Mr. Obama apparently tripped over his own instincts and
reversed his initial decision to release photos of American soldiers engaged
in the brutal abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We saw the profound effect of the disclosure of the photos from Abu Ghraib
in 2004. Imagine if they had never been released. Now, in an affront to a
society that is supposed to be intelligent and free, the Obama
administration is trying to sit on photos that are just as important for
Americans to see. The president's argument for trying to block the
court-ordered release of the photos is a demoralizing echo of the
embarrassingly empty rhetoric of the Bush years:
"The most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to
further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in danger."
The Obama administration is also continuing the Bush administration's abuse
of the state-secrets privilege. Lawyers from the Obama Justice Department
have argued, as did lawyers from the Bush administration before them, that a
lawsuit involving extraordinary rendition and allegations of extreme torture
should be dismissed outright because discussions of such matters in court
would harm national security.
In other words, the victims, no matter how strong their case might be, no
matter how badly they might have been abused, could never have their day in
court. Jane Mayer, writing in the June 22 New Yorker, said of the rendition
program, in which suspects were swept up by Americans and spirited off to
foreign countries for imprisonment and interrogation: "As many as seven
detainees were misidentified and abducted by mistake."
The Bush and Obama view of the state-secrets privilege effectively bars any
real examination of such egregious mistakes.
It was thought by many that a President Obama would put a stop to the
madness, put an end to the Bush administration's nightmarish approach to
national security. But Mr. Obama has shown no inclination to bring even the
worst offenders of the Bush years to account, and seems perfectly willing to
move ahead in lockstep with the excessive secrecy and some of the most
egregious activities of the Bush era.
The new president's excessively cautious approach to the national security
and civil liberties outrages of the Bush administration are unacceptable,
and the organizations and individuals committed to fairness, justice and the
rule of law - the Center for Constitutional Rights, the American Civil
Liberties Union, and many others - should intensify their efforts to get the
new administration to do the right thing.
More than 500 of the detainees incarcerated at one time or another at
Guantánamo Bay have been released, and, except for a handful, no charges
were filed against them. The idea that everyone held at Guantánamo was a
terrorist - the worst of the worst - was always absurd.
Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights,
noted that Mr. Obama had promised to bring both transparency and
accountability to matters of national security. It's the only way to get our
moral compass back.
***
http://yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=3502
People Power Pushed the New Deal
Roosevelt didn't come up with all those progressive programs on his own.
By Sarah Anderson
Yes Magazine (via Portside): Summer, 2009
During the Great Depression, my grandfather ran a butter creamery in rural
Minnesota. Growing up, I heard how a group of farmers stormed in one day and
threatened to burn the place down if he didn't stop production. I had no
idea who those farmers were or why they had done that-it was just a colorful
story.
Now I know that they were with the Farmers' Holiday Association, a protest
movement that flourished in the Midwest in 1932 and 1933. They were best
known for organizing "penny auctions," where hundreds of farmers would show
up at a foreclosure sale, intimidate potential bidders, buy the farm
themselves for a pittance, and return it to the original owner.
The action in my grandfather's creamery was part of a withholding strike. By
choking off delivery and processing of food, the Farmers' Holiday
Association aimed to boost pressure for legislation to ensure that farmers
would make a reasonable profit for their goods. Prices were so low that
farmers were dumping milk and burning corn for fuel or leaving it in the
field.
The Farmers' Holiday Association never got the legislation it wanted, but
its direct actions lit a fire under politicians. Several governors and then
Congress passed moratoriums on farm foreclosures. President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, telling advisors that he feared an "agrarian revolution," rushed
through reforms that helped millions of farmers stay on their land. These
new policies regulated how much land was planted or kept in reserve.
Although it was eventually replaced by the massive subsidies that today
favor large agribusiness and encourage overproduction, Roosevelt's original
program supported some of the most prosperous and stable decades for U.S.
farmers.
This is just one example of how strong grassroots organizing during the last
severe U.S. economic crisis was key in pushing some of that era's most
important progressive reforms. Social Security is another such case.
The Depression had been particularly tough on the elderly, millions of whom
lost their pensions in the stock crash and had few options for employment.
Roosevelt, however, felt the nation was not ready for a costly and
logistically challenging pension program.
Then a retired California doctor named Francis E. Townsend wrote to the
editor of his local paper, proposing a pension system that would also
stimulate the economy by offering $200 per month to every citizen over 60,
on the condition that they spend the entire amount within 30 days. The idea
spread like wildfire. Thousands of Townsend Clubs around the country wrote
millions of letters to the President and Congress demanding the pension
system Townsend suggested.
Roosevelt, reportedly concerned that Townsend might join with populist
Louisiana Senator Huey Long to challenge him in the 1936 election,
eventually changed his position. Although he rejected the details of the
Townsend Plan, Roosevelt pushed through legislation in 1935 that created
Social Security, still one of the country's most important anti-poverty
programs.
Seventy-five years later, these stories offer important lessons for a
country again mired in economic crisis. Neither the Farmers' Holiday
Association nor the Townsend Clubs got exactly what they wanted. But their
bold demands and action moved the policy debate much further than it would
have gone had these social movements not existed.
Like President Barack Obama, Roosevelt was an extremely popular leader,
particularly among the disadvantaged who saw him as their champion. But it
wasn't enough to have a generally good guy in the White House. Likewise
today, our chances of achieving real change have more to do with the power
of social movements than with the occupant of the Oval Office. Obama has
opened some doors of opportunity, but to go beyond economic recovery to a
more just and sustainable economy, we'll need to follow in the footsteps of
Depression-era activists and organize around bold ideas.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sarah Anderson wrote this article as part of The New Economy, the
Summer 2009 issue of YES! Magazine. Sarah directs the Global Economy Project
at the Institute for Policy Studies.
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