Policies that were wrong under George W. Bush are no less wrong because Barack Obama is in the White House.
One of the most disappointing aspects of the early months of the Obama administration has been its unwillingness to end many of the mind-numbing abuses linked to the so-called war on terror and to establish a legal and moral framework designed to prevent those abuses from ever occurring again.
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We said this for years during the Bush administration. When the Patriot Act was passed and when Congress gave Bush his "war authorization", we knew those powers would be abused, by Bush and Cheney most certainly, but also by successive Presidents who would use them for their own devices. This has now come to pass.
Obama feels no compunction to abandon the power he has to imprison people unjustly or monitor the communications of law abiding U.S. citizens. We have started down a slippery slope with Bush and it doesn't look like Obama is about to hit the brakes anytime soon.
You realize, if we had a Republican-dominated Congress, those powers would have been legislated away by now. Unlike the Dems, who caved to whatever Bush wanted, the Rethugs would have been the first to cry foul. The Dems, per usual, will not make a fuss and Obama will continue to operate without oversight.
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It was thought by many that a President Obama would put a stop to the madness, put an end to the Bush administration’s nightmarish approach to national security. But Mr. Obama has shown no inclination to bring even the worst offenders of the Bush years to account, and seems perfectly willing to move ahead in lockstep with the excessive secrecy and some of the most egregious activities of the Bush era.
The new president’s excessively cautious approach to the national security and civil liberties outrages of the Bush administration are unacceptable, and the organizations and individuals committed to fairness, justice and the rule of law — the Center for Constitutional Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, and many others — should intensify their efforts to get the new administration to do the right thing.
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And you wonder why he has no plans to investigate Bush administration crimes? He wouldn't be able to take advantage of those 'policies' if their true scope came to light.
Let this be a lesson to all those who ever thought politicians were honorable. Some might be better than others but in the end they're all still politicians. There will be no 'Great Savior' to come along and make everything right and just. If we want real change, it's on us and until we're willing to do what the Iranian people are doing, we'll just get more of the same. Until life becomes hard enough for the majority of Americans (until they have nothing to lose), progressives will suffer many more disappointments and the "American Way" will continue to remain just so much bullshit.
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