After today's little stunt -- re-opening the Bushian Military Tribunals, and never mind civilian or standard military courts -- you'd think that the progs would be agog. As the Confluence says:
Given I’ve been following the financial bailouts under Bush and the virtual continuation of the same policy under Obama, I’m thinking the progressive blogosphere should be blowing a few gaskets now. After all, they were just told to lay off the torture photos and any hope of prosecution of what can only be labeled the Cheney Torture Policy. What we appear to have is straight forward continuation of nearly all the major Bush policies with major re-framing. It’s not going to be the old Nixon War on Drugs, it’s going to be the Obama “complete public-health model for dealing with addiction”. Somebody seems to think just morphing the lexicon make it seem less Republican. Some one needs to tell Axelrod it’s the policies, not the labels.I couldn't possibly phrase the matter better. So how is progland dealing with the cognitive dissonance?
Right now, Kos has nothing on the Military Tribunals. Neither does the DU front page. TPM reprints an AP story, although Josh has yet to write about it. (Unless I've missed a post.) Nothing, so far, on AmericaBlog. PuffHo says nothing about the new policy, although Arianna's site does find space on its front page for making fun of Bristol Palin and Miss California.
The situation will soon change, of course, but I wanted to give you a snapshot.
For full coverage, see Glenn Greenwald.
Personal note: I'll have more to say on the day's events, but right now I'm installing programs. One big issue with Windows 7 is the system's huge footprint. I did not expect the thing to take up nearly half of a 40 gig hard drive.
I've encountered another huge issue which may be, for me, a temporary deal breaker: My usual firewall will not work with Windows 7. That situation will surely change, but I need something right now. And I want it for free. Windows 7 has a built-in firewall which improves on the silly little thing that called itself a firewall on XP. But 7 still does not provide full program control. I'm paranoid about making sure that no programs talk to the internet unless they absolutely need to.
16 comments:
I think everyone is dancing around the real issue at hand. That is the concentration of power in the executive branch. No politician is going to willingly cede power. None. Obama is no different and in fact due to his obvious narcissism might actually be worse in this regard than all of his major rivals. The question is how do we as American citizens get our government back to what it should be?
I eagerly await the first DU comment about civil rights and law being to partisan and the only way to handle it is to cede all power Obush.
PUFFHO!!!!
LOL
Love it !
Never has an appellation been more appropriate!
with Clinton it would have sooooo different...
Too bad about 7. I really like Vista, and so does everyone else I know who has it. I like it much better than XP.
Boston Boomer
"The question is how do we as American citizens get our government back to what it should be?"
The time may not be now but it's shaping up to be really soon that things may start to move in a better direction. There may be many obstructions with intentions to move it back to where it was headed and we all better hold on to our hats as the show will be more than interesting. The fact is not enough has surfaced yet to explain to everyone how REALLY BAD it is and HAS BEEN for a long time. Currently many of us are still waking up to the reality to what has been happening but wait till the REAL STUFF surfaces! It hasn't yet and when it does, expect to hear many OH MY GOD's.
It's really not the concentration of the power in the executive branch as many want us to believe. It's more about absolute power that's over and above the executive branch that is pushing their agendas. And they have been doing this for a long time but FEAR that the population will catch on. Controlling others is only as good as they not knowing they are being controlled. Once the balance changes, so do many agendas as they start to go out the window.
There is an agenda that puts the Bush Administration AND the Obama Administration on the same level. This really is where many need to be looking but only a few are. Behind their common agendas are many supportive operations mostly covered and for those who have surfaced over the years, they are still being covered up in the news and in courts. But you still can read about them on the Internet.
How I know is because I was in a family for more than 26 years who are directly involved in the supportive operations and have been since the later 70's.
Marty Didier
Northbrook, IL
Anon -
with Clinton it would have sooooo different... After the first WTC attack, Clinton *could* have done just what Bush did, but he didn't - he just went about the business of treated terrorism as what it is: a criminal act. He caught a whole bunch of them, prosecuted and convicted them in the regular courts, and interrogated them without torture...which led to even more successful combatting of terrorism. So yes, it not only would it have been different, it was different.
In the meantime, Obama argues legal positions based on the Patriot Act, and for military tribunals, 'indefinite detentions', and torture...and closes Gitmo only to replace it with Bagram.
Sergei Rostov
The obama fairy tale is starting to get dark-so all the little children who want a happy ending are pleading to their inner mommy to make the bad parts of the stowy go away.
I dont think anyone will criticize him for a few more chapters yet.
SR, I thought the Clinton referred to was Hillary. :)
*****
"...nothing about the new policy, although Arianna's site does find space on its front page for making fun of Bristol Palin and Miss California..."
Makes me want to punch a wall.
juststoppingby
just -
Heh, I see I neglected to add: one can figure Hillary felt the same way as Bill in this respect (I mean, how could you stay married if you had opposite feelings on such fundamental moral issues?).
(Guess I should've typed on the commercials. :) )
Sergei Rostov
I'm on a Mac, so my Windows knowledge is extremely limited, but ZoneAlarm is the only free program I hear PC people rave about when it comes to blocking programs from calling home.
I wouldn't be too hard on democratic underground, after all it is alleged to be run by and moderated by a right winger to monitor and cage dissent.
http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board/viewtopic.php?t=18791&start=0
Yes I know it's a conspiracy site and obviously I wouldn't vouch for alot of what gets discussed there and i admit i didn't examine the evidence thoroughly but it seems to have the ring of truth to it.
CIA dude:
"It’s the law of the jungle. And right now we happen to be the strongest animal."
Any educated person
should be able to write an essay
(at least)
around that.
By intention, nowadays,
fewer and fewer
are actually educated. Some
who claim to be could write
pages of nonsense.
To put a human face
on this, lest we forget
that the prisoners
now being treated
like animals were people
with real lives and
people who loved them,
you really must read a short
excerpt offered up by Digby here:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/strongest-animal-by-digby-this-is-just.html
How could calling everyone and his brother a racist possibly have gone wrong?
Joseph, why this should surprise anyone certainly surprises me! The die was cast well before Obama took office. A perusal of his national security "team"--from Dennis Blair to the insufferable Richard Holbrooke--should have been given the game away.
Let's face reality: as I have written time and again on Antifascist Calling (http://antifascist-calling.blogspot.com/), the Democrats are equally complicit in the crimes of the Bush gang. That the so-called "progressive blogosphere" refuse to face this reality means they too, are engaged in a cover-up of said crimes.
Warrantless wiretapping? Military Commissions? Torture? Endless wars of conquest? Who cares! We've got to move forward! What a deranged pack of hypocrites!
I have just one question for you, Anitfascist: Why do you hate black people so much?
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