This is a wonderful local organization that is trying to stop the US’s endless wars around the world. You can get more information at its website or by phone at 216-736-4716 or email to [email protected].
They are having a demonstration to end US/NATO Military Strikes on Libya.
‘Stop US/ NATO War on Libya’ Demonstration – Come to the Rally and Judge for Yourself
Friday, April 8, 3-4:30 pm,
the Federal Bldg., Lakeside Ave. and East
9th St., downtown Cleveland
Barack Obama steadily accumulates king-like powers, an affinity for an imperial presidency that he deplored when Bush/Cheney displayed that trait in office.
PolitiFact finds that in the way he has gone to war against Libya, Obama has done the ‘Full Flop’, their term for an unambiguous 180-degree switch from what he said as a candidate, which was that, “The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”
But that is not the only ‘Full Flop’ by Obama. As a candidate he advocated strong transparency and praised whistleblowers as important in preventing waste, abuse, and inefficiency and promised them greater protections. As president, he now attacks whistleblowers and journalists with a passion that exceeds even Bush/Cheney. The mainstream media did not seem to care as long as the targeted whistleblowers were merely government employees. Now that the ever-deferential New York Times is also being targeted, it will be interesting to see how they respond.
Glenn Greenwald talks about how Obama is now even attacking our Miranda rights. But everything is sunny in Obama Land where he can do no wrong and his reputation as a constitutional scholar remains unsullied.
[T]he good thing about being Barack Obama is that you’re justified in what you do even when you first do X and then do Not X.
Thus, when you argue that wars need Congressional approval, you’re standing up for the Constitution; when you start a war without Congressional approval, you’re a humanitarian. When you announce you will release torture photos in the government’s possession, you’re a stalwart defender of transparency; when you change your mind two weeks later and announce you’ll conceal those photos, you’re standing up for The Troops. When you give Miranda warnings to Terrorism suspects, you’re honoring the Rule of Law and protecting American values; when you turn around and deny those very same rights, you’re showing your devotion to Keeping us Safe.
Barack Obama must be channeling Mel Brooks as King Louis XVI in the film The History of the World, Part 1 who did anything he wanted without suffering any consequence, all the while saying, “It’s good to be the king.”
Obama is enabled in this by the amount of deference he receives from his followers, which is similar to what Bush/Cheney received from their fans. For example, Kevin Drum is a blogger at Mother Jones who can be labeled a centrist. He recently wrote about his concerns about Obama’s decision to attack Libya:
So what should I think about this? If it had been my call, I wouldn’t have gone into Libya. But the reason I voted for Obama in 2008 is because I trust his judgment. And not in any merely abstract way, either: I mean that if he and I were in a room and disagreed about some issue on which I had any doubt at all, I’d literally trust his judgment over my own. I think he’s smarter than me, better informed, better able to understand the consequences of his actions, and more farsighted. I voted for him because I trust his judgment, and I still do.
This is quite extraordinary. It is one thing to say that when someone whose judgment you respect disagrees with you, it gives you pause. That pause presumably makes you investigate further until you can justify your prior judgment or learn something new that changes your view. It is quite another to say that you would simply take that judgment over your own when you disagree.
One could also say that on an issue which one has no expertise to evaluate and arrive at a reasonably informed judgment because of the technical knowledge involved (say climate change or details of evolutionary theory or cosmology or monetary policy), one goes with the judgment of people whom one trusts to have the required expertise and judgment.
But that is not the case with Libya, which involves principles and policies that can and should be publicly articulated as part of the process of persuading the Congress and the nation that going to war is justified, unless one thinks that Obama has reasons that he cannot divulge to the country. But then we are entering “We have secret information that Saddam Hussein has WMD” territory and we know how that ends up.
James Madison got it right when he said, “I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedoms of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”
The Obama Department of Justice has announced that it is giving up on the original plan to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged leader of the 9/11 plot, in a regular court in New York City and will instead use a military tribunal in Guantanamo. This is shameful. As Glenn Greenwald says:
Indeed, as I’ve documented before — virtually every country that suffers horrible Terrorist attacks — Britain, Spain, India, Indonesia — tries the accused perpetrators in its regular court system, on their own soil, usually in the city that was attacked. The U.S. — Land of the Free and Home of the Brave — stands alone in being too afraid to do so.
Related to that: the notion that political opinion in America would not allow Obama to do anything differently on these issues is empirically disproven; he ran on a platform of opposing all the measures he now supports and won decisively. By itself, that proves that — when these debates are engaged rather than conceded — these positions are politically sustainable. Obama adopts Bush Terrorism policies because he wants to and has no reason not to — not because doing so is a political necessity.
Finally — and as is usually true for this excuse — the notion that “Congress made him do it” is totally false: aside from the fact that the Obama administration long ago announced that it would retain the military commission system, the White House — long before Congress acted to ban transfers of detainees to the U.S. — removed decision-making power from the DOJ in the KSM case and made clear it would likely reverse Holder’s decision.
[UPDATE: Dahlia Lithwick also excoriates the Obama administration on its reversal.]
Elsewhere, Jason Ditz recounts the history of excuses on not closing Guantanamo.
In 2007, Louis Theroux from BBC2 spent some time with the people of the Westboro Baptist Church who gave him considerable access to talk with all their members. The resulting documentary called America’s Most Hated Family provided for some absorbing and informative television that I wrote about earlier.
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People who choose not to be affiliated with any religion are the fastest growing segment of the population in the world. In contrast, all religions are in decline except for Islam which seems to be in a growth mode largely because of its high birth rates. When Islam goes into decline, as it surely will like all the other religions, it will in large part be due to actions like those of the murderous fanatics who rampaged in Afghanistan and killed over 20 people (even beheading some) in retaliation for the burning of a Koran in the US.
Such an atrocity cannot help but cause acute discomfort to any Muslim who likes to see himself or herself as part of the modern world. While murdering people (like blasphemers or apostates) who commit an act that is offensive to your religious beliefs has a barbaric logic to it that presumably makes sense to the appropriately insane, killing innocent people who just happen to be nearby because you cannot lay hands on the people who did the offensive act is so outside the bounds of reason that no one who has any pretence to being part of the modern world will even try to find justifications for it. Doing so immediately brands one as being outside the pale of normal human society.
And this is what Muslims who aspire to modernity have to confront. The people in Afghanistan who committed that atrocity claim to be acting in the service of their god. It is no good for so-called ‘moderate’ Muslims to say that these people are misguided and that ‘true’ Islam (i.e., their own version) would frown on such acts. People will be forced to ask themselves what it is about their religion that makes people even consider the possibility that killing innocent people for the actions of others is noble and that their god will look favorably on them for doing so.
I have noticed recently that religious believers no longer try to argue that belief in god is justified in itself but have settled for trying to put religion on a par with disbelief, as purely a matter of choice.
For example, religious believers who are disturbed by the argument made by atheists that belief in god is irrational sometimes respond by saying that since we cannot prove that there is no god, then atheism involves as much a ‘belief’ religion, and thus both are equally rational or irrational. Ricky Gervais provides a good response to that by pointing out that “Atheism isn’t a belief system. I have a belief system but it’s not “based on” atheism, it’s just not based on the existence of a god. I make none of my moral, social, or artistic decisions based on any god or superstitions. Saying atheism is a belief system is like saying not going skiing is a hobby. I’ve never been skiing. It’s my biggest hobby. I literally do it all the time.”
He is right but I want to expand on that idea a bit in my more pedestrian style.
Atheism does not automatically provide one with a philosophy or a system of ethics or morals. But that does not mean that atheists have none of those things or that there are no behavioral consequences for being an atheist. They just come from sources other than a belief in a god.
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