Mon, 01/05/2009 - 5:11am — bringiton
Some people think this is the key issue before us. Not being one to argue unnecessarily, and always pleased to join a good cause, I suggest all who agree on its importance consider voting for the following question now leading the pack at Obama’s “Change.gov” website:
"Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor - ideally Patrick Fitzgerald - to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?"
It is Bob Fertik’s question, and he has all the details here. Seems a respectably subversive sort of an effort, organizing to take control of the agenda, so please take a moment straightway before this cycle closes.
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Picking battles
I believe this is one of the battles the Obama supporters have decided is not worth fighting. Gays and women are also sidelined for now. I like that you've still got hope though!
"If we have to have a dictator, who better than Obama"
- progressive blog commentator
without hope, scoutt, we are nothing
The to-do list is massive, and that will mean frustration for some because the needs can't all be addressed at the same time. Delay doesn't mean we should abandon hope, or stop talking about them. Been here before, back in the day, where it looked like there was a good chance for Progressive movement and it all fell apart with internal bickering on the Left about priorities while the Right built a 40 year dynasty based on simple reliable themes of bigotry and greed. I do hope this time the shift is real, and we can stay together long enough to drive meaningful progress including equal legal rights for all.
Might as well get it on the record
That's good in itsellf.
And I'm so, so glad that "Wait 'til he does something" has receded into well-deserved oblivion. Kudos to Fertick; without the rule of law, we've got nothing but naked power, and we know who wins in that situation; nobody I know or trust.
There are many paths to accountability
I like this one especially because it uses a pathway established by the Obama camp itself, as differentiated from an externally generated approach. Both are worthwhile, absolutely, but it is especially effective I think to take the whip out of the leadership's hands and lash them with it.
We'll see what comes of this outreach by Obama, if it is real and actually informs his choices or if it is just pretense, window dressing to hide the rot beneath. Either way, I believe that this increased sense of empowerment within the citizenry will continue to expand and that if Obama does not "do something" pretty effective pretty soon he will find himself abandoned by the people who are now willing to give him a chance.
And interesting, also, how the demand for rule of law has transmogrified from a Right-wing anti-Liberal
mantra of the 60s-90s to a Left-wing insistence on Reactionary accountability in the 00s. Anarchic behavior has to be carefully chosen and calibrated; most of the time it doesn't work in anyone's favor.
Oh, and: there is no "c" in Fertik.
I went and voted for all single payer questions
There are three of them on the front page, though it's not the top question. Go vote yourself. Why not?
There was a time, not long ago, when I would have said...
let it go. Yet, after listening to that unrepentant cheney over the past several weeks...well, I'm leaning in the other direction at this juncture.
It will be a mistake to let it go
It was a mistake not to go after Nixon, should have at least made him go in front of a committee and fess up what he'd done and how he felt about it. By the time of the Frost interviews Nixon was long since off most people's radar.
It was a mistake to not go after Reagan and it will be a mistake to not go after Bush and Cheney. Even if the two of them walk, those underneath need to be made to pay; this isn't the last time we'll have usurpers at the top, and we need to make it very clear to those who enable them that there will be a price for their connivance.
Worse than a crime, a blunder
All of the Nixon henchmen came back, worse, under Bush pere et fils. When we had our feet on their throats, we should never have let them up. It would be nice if all the post-partisan bullshit was just that. But I doubt it. Only something on the scale of a truth and reconciliation commission, or the Hague Tribunal, would do the job.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Don't know that we ever actually had them by the throat
Thought we did, briefly, but then the Left fell to arguing amongst ourselves and what seemed at the time like a relatively harmless if unappealing swarm of cockroaches escaped into the darkness where they transformed into some new species of gigantic malicious bog monsters. They are an ugly bunch, and yes we should have stomped them when we had the chance but instead we spent all our energy kicking each other in the shins. I am, as a result, highly sensitive to attacks within the Left upon one another - some may say overly so, but I cannot bear to watch a repeat of the mistakes we made the last time we had some hope.
Speaking of hope, I am encouraged that the Right may stiffen and obstruct Obama as a matter of policy; early signs are that is going to be the case. Let him try "bipartisanship" and fail; this may be the only way he and his centrist supporters will be able to see that the best path to their holding power is in alliance with the Left.
subversion! seize the agenda!
my kind of sweetness and light.
voted for it [how could i not?] thanks for the heads up.