Expecting Change? You're Already Too Late!
We've witnessed alot of hand-wringing among the progressive left liberals worried that the upcoming Obama Administration will not truly represent change from our past. Most particularly, the seemingly self-serving arguments heard recently from the GOP that we are in fact a "center-left" country has many liberals worried that Obama will govern from that place on the political spectrum and thus fail to offer any kind of "change we can believe in."
After what we have lived through, especially these last eight years, I argue instead that radical change is already upon us if we in fact find ourselves governing at the "middle-right."
ONE EXAMPLE: If Bush/Cheney & Friends (including McCain/Palin) were now awaiting the White House for the next term, just what form do you think the proposed/required government financial stimuli would take?
For openers, I would expect their economic stimulus proposals would include massive amounts of monies directed toward "national security" efforts. Halliburton would undoubtedly have multi-billion dollar no-bid contracts, perhaps to build a parallel telecommunications network that would give the Government total control over its ability to engage in secret wiretapping, near-universal video monitoring, etc.
And surely the defense industry would also be in line, gaining contracts to build the next generation of bombers and fighters and tanks and weapons to ensure the neo-cons have sufficient disposable toys in the future to project their personal penile insecurities - oops! I mean "to project power" - at will throughout the world.
For the eight years of Bush/Cheney, we have poured great amounts of money down a rathole (i.e. wars in Iraq/Afghanistan; defense spending increases; National Security budget increases; etc.) in support of the right wing "Homeland Security" agenda. Through it all, we have suffered tremendous budget deficits without gaining much in terms of economic multipliers that might otherwise have been gained were these same funds dedicated toward effective investments in our domestic economy.
But with this election, change has come. It has become obvious to all but the most extreme Libertarians among us that we are entering a period that calls for "Big Government" involvement to get us out of our financial mess. The "center-right" Americans (even the GOP leadership) are now talking about the need to target large economic stimulus packages to buoy the economy, and this investment of taxpayer dollars is targeted specifically to provide maximum leverage that will "assist Main Street." We are therefore seriously considering investments in a green economy, infrastructure improvements, and even universal health care, that will result in improvents in our environment, greater energy independence, and legitimate domestic job creation/retention and other empowerments of the middle and lower classes.
Independent of any personal ideology (or lack thereof!) Obama is certainly smart enough to see which way the wind blows. The people spoke in this last election, and are in fact shaping the discussion (at last!) toward (at least!) this middle-right course. Obama understands his mandate to be a strong shift to the left of where the Bush/Cheney/GOP map has left us: Broke. In the dark. With any sort of warm feeling being nothing more than the wealthy with full bladders trickling down upon us.
Change is already upon us. It is We the People who have already established the Obama Administration at a far more progressive spot on the political spectrum than where we last saw Bush/Cheney & Co. What remains to be seen is how much further to the left the Obama Administration chooses to direct us.
It's enough to give even an old, cynical, socialist/liberal like myself cause to find hope within the otherwise sorry state of affairs in which we find ourselves.
Unfortunately, the opportunity to Impeach President GW Bush along with his criminal associates has passed us by. Over these last eight years, the Bush Administration has exercised its Executive authority in numerous ways (i.e. warrantless wiretaps; torture; renditions; etc.) that invited charges of High Crimes and Misdemeanors to be Constitutionally tested. Yet, the cowardly Congress of that period abdicated its responsibility to pursue such a remedy in real time.
It would be difficult for these same spineless sycophants in the House and Senate leadership to now hold Bush & Co. retroactively accountable for their crimes - unless, of course, they care to invite prosecution for dereliction of their own sworn responsibility to defend and uphold the Constitution.
The assumption of authority to declare anyone to be an "enemy combatant" as a pretext to depriving these individuals of fundamental rights is perhaps among the most egeregious of crimes committed by this Administration. If there was any true justice in the world, the correct scenario to now effectively address this particular impeachable offense would unfold thusly:
** Noon, Tuesday, Jan 20th, 2009: Barack Obama is sworn in as President of the United States, declaring by oath to uphold the Constitution (as presently understood/implemented by our Government.)
** 12:05pm (estimated): President Barack Obama, using the Executive's recently assumed power to make such a declaration, announces his official determination that GW, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, and other culpable characters are "enemy combatants."
** 12:10pm (estimated): GW, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, etc., are "rendered" to an unknown offshore location where they will be held interminably; absent any habeus corpus or other rights enumerated in the Magna Carta or our own Constitution as written.
**12:15pm: Barack Obama repeats the oath of Office in a symbolic, poignant - yet remarkably substantive - recognition that this new Administration and those to follow will abide the Constitution as given to us by the Framers, as opposed to continuing any allegiance to the bastard morphrodite presented to us by Bush & Co. with the concurrence of the milquetoast 109th/100th Congress.
** Post-110th Congress: We never hear from or see GWB, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, etc., ever again.
This is not merely a rhetorical suggestion. Imagine, if you will, what life has been like for any innocent "enemy combatants" who have been snared in this diabolical system of "justice" as created by Bush and his enabling apologists. Imagine what life has been like for the families of such innocents who wonder where their loved one and, in many cases, their family's breadwinner has been "rendered" to - or if they even remain alive, for God's sake. It is hardly too much to ask that Bush & Co. experience the same level of justice provided to the most aggrieved victims of their criminal debasement of Human Rights.
Ain't going to happen, I know. But I dream of this precedent being established wherein any future President would think twice before assuming tyrannical powers for him/herself to which he/she would not wish to be personally subject. The democratic fairness of our new President performing such an exercise in justice on Inauguration Day would represent a quite unimpeachable change we could believe in.