An update on The Annotated Obama
By Joe Bageant
Obviously Barack Obama has wiped his ass on his campaign promises. That's yesterday's news. Americans demand jazzy new and ever more shocking "news" daily, or else they fall asleep before their TV sets face down in their sausage pizzas from Brooklyn to Beaumont (or their fat free vegan lentil soup, as the case may be on the West Coast). Which means that if the accelerating economic collapse is sure to drown out such mundane stuff as the Constitution, surveillance, international kidnapping and star chamber military tribunals. Add to that such roaring distractions as the emerging new Weimar American dollar and Tiger Woods' tearful apology for having more side action than any one man is entitled to, Obama may yet come through relatively unscathed. If he keeps up the charm and waits long enough, the public will give him a pass for lying like a whore at a police station during his campaign. But some things are so important they need to be restated and hammered on for as long as possible, lest we wake up to find a fascist state hammering on us. (Right now it just bitch slaps us around daily).
So briefly, one more time for the record:
End the war in Iraq: His plan appears to be turning down the burner, but not ending the war. At the same time, he has turned it up in Afghanistan.
End kidnapping and torture: His administration, through CIA director Leon Panetta, has declared that the right to kidnap (extraordinary rendition) will continue. Obama did ban waterboarding, as promised, but sanctions force feeding and other excruciating techniques banned under the Geneva Convention.
Restore American domestic and foreign policy to U.S. Constitutional ideals: Obama has adopted military commissions (to prosecute terrorism cases in which no legitimate convictions can be made). This is the highest possible violation our Constitutional ideal. Obama also flaunts the principle of habeas corpus, which he once called "the essence of who we are." Secret prisons continue to surface.
Restore citizen privacy: Instead, the Obama Justice Department has reinforced the Bush Administration's surveillance practices through a claim of claim of "sovereign immunity," granting his administration the right to do so.
Close Guantanamo: Obviously, the lights are still on down there, because we are still getting the bill.
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