WTF?

[pasithea]

Uh. Mr. Obama.... What the Hell are you thinking?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090423/ap_on_go_su_co/us_obama_defendants__rights/print

This is the kind of bullshit we expected from Bush. Don't do shit like this. Don't sell us out. :(

Comments

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

That link doesn't work, but I agree with what you said in synopsis. I suppose on some level, I understand why he can't do as much change as is needed on those fronts. I'm not convinced he doesn't want to make them, just that he's realistic about what the right-wing nuts will tolerate.

This thing with the police though, I see no reason for it at all. It doesn't benefit the American people and it's something I can't image that the majority of citizens (republicans, democrat, or other) would be for. I just don't get it. This is a really stupid push.

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

Oops, I was meaning to point that link towards byzantine_ruins' LJ. Anyway, you may be right that the weak measures taken in those crucial areas of national interest were the best that could be done. That's exactly why I've basically lost any faith that the federal government can be significantly reformed; it's like trying to reform the British or the Soviet Empire. The "system" as it stands is so inflexible, and yet so rickety, that it's just waiting to topple. We're probably best off trying to make our own communities better and more survivable places, in the model of the Transition Towns movement and/or John Robb's ideas about "resilient communities".

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I think we must remain engaged in the mainstream. Change happens, it's just slow. If you compare pollution in the US now to what it was in the 1970s, we've made a lot of progress. Even as late as the 90s, gay bars were sometimes being raided and people arrested by the police. A black president was the stuff of fantasy a couple decades ago and if you jumped back 50 years, it wasn't even fantasy, it was comedy. For that matter, Miranda rights didn't even exist until 1966 and they've withstood several challenges. I'm just puzzled what Obama hopes to gain on this path.

It may well be too late to really save the ship. Perhaps the iceberg has indeed been sighted, but we're not going to be able to turn in time, but there aren't enough lifeboats. We've got to try.

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

I agree with you that the American population is getting broadly more tolerant and somewhat smarter. America as a nation has made some great strides, and can probably be saved, though perhaps not as a unified political entity. What probably can't be saved is the federal government, which has succumbed to the same sort of institutional rot as large institutions everywhere. The thinking of the populace is way ahead of what the system can deliver, it's just too compromised. And so the reform effort has to move to the state level, the city level, the neighborhood level. You can already see this happening with state and municipal energy initiatives and pollution controls, as well as other civil-rights stuff like gay marriage and soft drug decriminalization.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

Well. Yes, but remember that is a knife that cuts both ways.

In the late 70s/early 80s, the Evangelicals made a big push to get into PTAs, local city governments, and so on and work their way up from there. That's how we got all the stupid zero-tolerance policies and stuff in the first place.

By contrast, a lot of the hippy movement was on the 'drop out' trip. Disenchanted with government, believing that the mainstream couldn't be changed, so they didn't really even try. The youth vote stayed small.

We have to get engaged and stay engaged at all levels. Cynicism isn't very helpful in the long run. :/