Back in 2008, now-president Barack Obama ran against the Bush administration’s runaway national security state, created partly via legislation like USA PATRIOT and partly via executive practices like warrantless wiretapping, waterboarding and the like. One of Obama’s biggest applause lines was “We worship an awesome God in the Blue States; and in the Red States we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries.” Obama strongly suggested — in vague but quite vehement language — his intention of rolling back this national security state. And besides that, he promised “the most transparent administration in history.”
I, cynical anarchist that I am, considered it entirely plausible that we might expect as vigorous a rollback of executive power under Obama as the Church Commission carried out after Watergate.
So much for that theory. Obama may actually be telling the truth about ending torture at Guantanamo. But he still explicitly supports so-called “extraordinary rendition,” by which “terror suspects” are handed over — with a wink and a nudge — to allied regimes that do practice torture. He claims to have shut down so-called “Black Ops” sites where the military and CIA practiced torture under Bush — although there’s no way of verifying this. And Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield (aka Guantanamo East), where we have no idea what still goes on, is still very much in business.
Obama’s attitude toward torture and illegal surveillance by the Bush administration, in every case, has been to use the full power of his office to prevent prosecution of Bush era officials for their crimes against humanity. For this, Obama should personally apologize to the families of the Nazis executed at Nuremberg.
As for Obama’s promises of transparency, in office he has in fact pursued whistleblowers with a level of vindictiveness unprecedented in recent years. He’s actually resurrected Wilson-era legislation like the Espionage Act — originally used against Wobbly and Socialist political prisoners who opposed WWI as a “rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight” — to go after those who’ve exposed the sordid workings of his national security apparatus. Nixon would be proud.
On virtually every aspect of his 2008 promises to scale back Bush’s executive power grabs and restore civil liberties, Obama has proven to be an out-and-out liar. Far from undoing Bush’s police statism, in the words of Rehoboam, Obama’s little finger has been thicker than Bush’s loins. Whereas Bush chastised us with whips, Obama has chastises us with scorpions.
The remedy for this sort of thing, as it’s presented in the civics texts, is to punish such betrayal by voting against the betrayer next time. But thanks to the “lesser of evils” dynamic inherent in America’s two-party system, this is impossible.
An entire community of “Pragmatic Progressives” have circled their wagons in defense of Obama (or PBO, as they call him) against left-wing critics who might weaken him against Republican nominee Mitt Romney. Some, like leading PragProg Scott Finley, have actually resorted to baiting left-wing critics of the American security state for their lack of patriotism, making tactical alliances with right-wing troglodytes like Todd Kincannon to harass them. A movement founded on the unum necessarium of defending Obama against the GOP at all costs has gradually slipped down the proverbial slope, now actually allying itself with the GOP to suppress Obama’s left-wing critics.
Mainstream “Progressives,” the most vocal opponents of the Imperial Presidency during Republican administrations, become a captive clientele — no matter how egregious the executive power grab — when a Democrat’s in power. Because, you see, now matter how disappointing they may privately concede Obama’s performance on civil liberties has been, Romney would be even worse! And believe me, his frustrated supporters’ sense of nowhere else to go isn’t lost on hacks like Obama. So in practice, the lesser of evils seems to get a little more evil with each election cycle. And the repressive apparatus of the state ratchets ever upward.
Even when you get an ideal “Progressive” candidate who says all the things that make your heart go pitty-pat, you have absolutely no way of knowing until he gets elected whether he’s a damned liar. And once he’s in there, you’ve got nowhere else to go — because the other guy’s always worse.
All this should be more than sufficient as an object lesson on the futility of political reform in ending economic exploitation and state repression. Any movement that seeks social justice through political involvement and attempting to hold public officials democratically accountable is doomed to failure. The only real way to achieve social justice is by bypassing the state, treating it as irrelevant, and building the kind of society we want without the government’s permission.
We can always use your help.
You can help support C4SS by purchasing a zine copy of Kevin Carson’s “No Matter Who You Vote For, The Winner Is Always The Government“.
Citations to this article:
- Kevin Carson, The Joke of Democratic Accountability, Carroll County, Maryland Standard, 10/11/12
- Kevin Carson, The Joke of Democratic Accountability, Hernando [Florida] Today, 10/04/12
- Kevin Carson, The Joke of Democratic Accountability, Counterpunch, 09/28/12
The Nazis executed at Nuremberg wanted to oppress and kill tens of millions of innocent people. The Bush-era officials who tortured terrorists did so ONLY as a last resort method to hold them accountable. You talk about accountability but obviously you don't care enough about 9/11 victims to hold their murderers accountable!
Just so you don't make yourself look any more foolish in criticizing this article's point on Nuremberg and its relevance to Bush-era foreign and domestic policy, remember that the main cause of the 9/11 attacks was blow back from U.S. intervention in the Middle East for the past 60 years. Your accusation that Mr. Carson does not care about the victims of the 9/11 attacks borders on the absurd. He is simply saying that as a society which condemned war criminals from the Nazi regime at Nuremberg, that it is inconsistent not to hold every other regime and government official to the same standard. Nuremberg was important because it emphasized that people acting under orders from state leaders still need to be held accountable for their actions, regardless if the nation they are working for is the U.S.
Your statement that torture was only used as a last resort by the Bush regime reeks of historical misunderstanding. Case in point, Guantanamo Bay, where prisoners were and are being held for indefinite periods without being charged formally with any crime and are routinely abused under the auspices of "enhanced interrogation." If you don't believe that government abuse of prisoners is the rule not the exception, please take a look at this article: http://theintelhub.com/2012/04/08/white-house-app…
All the antiwar people were going on about how the Gitmo inmates were so innocent. Then after the government released some, they were found fighting again. And lest anyone say they were driven to al-Qaeda because they were abused, I would ask that they ponder how some of these Gitmo inmates worked their way up to become terrorist COMMANDERS. If anyone spends their life dedicated to a terrorist cause, it is most likely the men who become COMMANDERS for the terrorist cause.
Here's how reality works:
1. If terrorists are not fought by ALL AVAILABLE AND NECESSARY MEANS, they will win.
2. If they win, they will not be held accountable. Ever.
Now a bunch of anarchists or a bunch of socialists can live with terrorists being unaccountable but for those who actually care deeply about terror victims, ETERNAL UNACCOUNTABILITY for murderers of the citizenry is like being tortured. And we all know that a person cannot be held responsible for what he or she does under torture…
No one here is saying that every inmate at Gitmo is innocent, however many certainly are, rather, we are simply saying that civilized societies do not engage in indefinite detention and prisoner torture. If you are too morally blind to see the inherent wrong of torture, it might do you well to remember that individuals will say anything to avoid further torture and hence, it is an unreliable source of information.
So you say that you want eternal accountability for murderers of the citizenry? How about holding the U.S. government accountable for the atrocities it has been committing both foreign and domestic? How about holding the U.S. government officials responsible for every major act of genocide and aggression from Vietnam to present day? Where is the justice for the victims of U.S. intervention? Where is the justice for the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians since the U.S. invaded Iraq?
Sir, you clearly have little to no fundamental understanding of how one sided your view really is. The number of dead foreigners that the U.S. government has been responsible for, far outnumber the victims of the 9/11 attacks, maybe you should keep that in mind. I'm in no way saying that the men who carried out the attacks on 9/11 were justified because of the oppression of the U.S., rather I am saying that if we want to avoid future acts of foreign policy blow back and actually protect U.S. citizens, that it is crucial that we end foreign intervention and U.S. imperialism. As a society, we need to hold every individual responsible who carries out murder under any name, group, or flag to the fullest. People who are members of the U.S. regime must be held equally accountable as those who carried out the 9/11 attacks.
Indeed, I figure that if you and your families were tortured that you would fight back against those that tortured you even if you were originally innocent of the crimes you were tortured to make you confess too. perhaps someone needs to test that on you and see how long until your ready to do whatever it takes to take down the ones that tortured you.
An Alternative to Capitalism (since we cannot legislate morality)
Several decades ago, Margaret Thatcher claimed: "There is no alternative".
She was referring to capitalism. Today, this negative attitude still persists.
I would like to offer an alternative to capitalism for the American people to consider.
Please click on the following link. It will take you to an essay titled: "Home of the Brave?"
which was published by the Athenaeum Library of Philosophy:
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/ste…
John Steinsvold
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."
~ Albert Einstein
the best read I had for today
My recent post Why should I take my kids to a Peoria Chiropractor? Tuttle Chiropractic explains
The evidence suggests that CIA blacksites and torture continue under Obama. Jeremy Scahill at The Nation reported awhile back about the underground torture dungeon in Mogudishu, Somalia. That's just one that we know about. There are likely many more that remain unknown to the general public. All this to say nothing of the outrageous torture of the heroic Bradley Manning.
The State was responsible for 9/11.
There was (is?) a 16 year old kid in Guantanamo Bay.
If I were imprisoned and tortured at age 16, I would be fighting when I got out too.
Your argument is invalid.