June 29, 2009, Disturbing trends...
Well, disturbing trends are picked up by the ever-astute Glenn Greenwald, in this Salon piece in which Glenn observes the Obama Administration's public thought balloons on issuing executive orders pertaining to absolute tyranny "preventive detention" of people who were egregiously tortured "too dangerous to release but who can't be tried." WaPo reports on the same subject(h/t to Michael L.)
Well, you know my opinion on the subject... an opinion joined by the overwhelming majority of Americans polled, who are outraged at the premise of "prolonged detention" absent due process of law.
Glenn also notes the Obama Administration's obsession with secrecy which may be even more troubling than his predecessor's obsession, along with other policies that are quite consistent with... the Bush Administration...
I'll just say it: we wuz lied to. Barack... you a damned liar. We wuz promised "change" in this area... that "the dichotomy between our security and our principles is a false one" and all of that high sounding rhetoric, that, as some feared, was just empty oratory. Maybe there is a tactical necessity for this (heading off a rogue military and intel apparatus)... but I don't care; our duty as citizens is to be outraged, and to call our so-called Democratic leadership out on this.
"Preventive detention" is nothing short of tyranny. We used to condemn this sort of thing when China or Russia or Egypt or Sudan or Burma or other states we regarded as having miserable human rights records did it... and now, despite a written Constitution requiring due process of law and other Bill of Rights protections... our executive aims to do the same thing... And now, we can no longer blame the despised and scowling Dick Cheney (overpowering the clueless man-child George W. Bush)... but the handsome, articulate Constitutional law professor lecturer, the First Black President of Harvard Law Review and the First Black President of the United States: a man elected on a nebulous platform of hype hope and more of same change... is disappointing us on an Olympic scale.
All I can say to the President is... Barack, man, do some boning up on that damned Constitution you're supposed to be an expert about. Get with the program, man, and I do not mean the "enhanced interrogation" and "preventive detention" program.