Crooks and Liars is the first political blog that I ever read regularly. The enjoyment/catharsis I found there is at least indirectly responsible for my eventual decision to try the little project you see here. I don't always agree with the points of view expressed there (e.g., 2nd Amendment rights), but I generally admire the quality of writing as well as their perpetual vigilance.
While I was still fighting off the effects of brunch overindulgence, they were [i.e., Susie Madrak was] catching this:
Obama To Appeal Ruling That U.S. Can't Retain Suspects Without Judicial OversightIn 1971 The Who released a song entitled Won't Get Fooled Again. The song is essentially about the futility of political revolution, the unlikelihood of real political change. As the lyrics progress first there is an uprising, then the rebels overthrow those in power, then in the end, the new regime becomes just like the previous one.
I can't wait for the usual comments about how this means the opposite of how it appears, Obama's extended super brilliant chess game, etc.:The Obama administration said Friday that it would appeal a district court ruling that granted some military prisoners in Afghanistan the right to file lawsuits seeking their release. The decision signaled that the administration was not backing down in its effort to maintain the power to imprison terrorism suspects for extended periods without judicial oversight.
[. . . .]
Tina Foster, the executive director of the International Justice Network, which is representing the detainees, condemned the decision in a statement.
"Though he has made many promises regarding the need for our country to rejoin the world community of nations, by filing this appeal, President Obama has taken on the defense of one of the Bush administration’s unlawful policies founded on nothing more than the idea that might makes right," she said.
The song ends with the depressing announcement: "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
I've been trying to combat the feeling that we're seeing life imitating art with Obama for months, since before the General Election. His campaign was almost entirely void of pledges to repair the damage to the Constitution and the rule of law effected by the Bush administration. Then came Obama's concrete act of capitulating to the dark side in his vote on the issue of telecom immunity -- a vote against individual liberty made without justification or even the barest political need.
Since he's been in office, I've seen nothing more than cosmetic changes in many of the worst Bush policies (e.g., "we're not going to call them enemy combatants anymore").
I would dearly love to see real, tangible, verifiable change. Restoring Habeus Corpus would be a nice start. Aggressively pursuing justice by seeking prosecution for war crimes committed by the previous administration -- from the top to the bottom -- would be another.
Instead I see dictionary games being played (terrorist acts now are "man-caused disasters," the ill-advised wars in which we're enmeshed are now "overseas contingency operations," etc.) while the administration wastes its "justice" department resources on endless defenses of Bush atrocities.
Instead I hear the constant mantra of, "we want to look to the future, not the past," as if they want us to believe that objects in the rearview mirror do not really exist.
Santaya, anyone? Most of us have heard some version of: "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." It is, however, even more appropriate and more illuminating to look more fully at the passage in his Reason in Common Sense from which the famous line comes:
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.


































