Michael Steven Smith’s Notebook

Against the Current, March/April 2010, No. 145

Lost Liberties in the Age of Obama

— Michael Steven Smith

WHEN WORLD WAR II broke out on September l, l939 the poet W.H. Auden sat in a bar on 42nd Street and penned a poem using that fateful date for its title. He reflected that the past ten years had been “a low dishonest decade.” And so has our last ten.

Politicians explained the attack of 9/ll as “they hate us for our freedoms.” Then came the United States’ criminal attack on Iraq, justified because Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction.” The decade came to an unmerciful end with new president Barack Obama falsely promising “change you can believe in.”

Little has changed with respect to the democratic rights of Americans, the exertion of Executive power, or the gargantuan high tech growth of the government’s spying apparatus. How has Obama, with fellow Democratic Party Chicago politician Rahm Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff, essentially channeled Cheney and Bush? Let us count the ways.

The Center for Constitutional Rights released an assessment on where we stand with respect to restoring the Constitution on the 100th day of the new Democratic administration. The CCR report stated that “The Obama presidency has failed to live up to its promises in many areas of critical importance, including human rights, torture, rendition, secrecy and surveillance…”

Although the Gonzalez-Yoo torture memos of the Bush-Cheney regime were released by the new administration, no prosecutions of those who committed the crimes were initiated, as the CCR wrote, “in order to ensure justice for the victims and to make certain it never happens again.” In addition, torture loopholes were kept in the Army Field Manual. The report went on to denounce the “dangerous silence” of the administration on the issue of abolishing preventive detention, whose “structures remain available in the U.S.”

Presidential war powers continued unchecked, as recently demonstrated by Ob2ma’s escalation of the undeclared war in Afghanistan. The abuse of the state secrets privilege was continued. Most recently the administration’s attorneys raised it, to the dismay of an incredulous Federal judge in San Francisco. They succeeded in getting a lawsuit thrown out where the plaintiff’s testicles were sliced with a razor blade. He was suing a CIA-front airline that had flown him to the torture site.

Warrantless wiretapping has not been stopped and the Patriot Act’s sunset provisions were renewed, allowing that egregious piece of legislation a new lease on life. The CCR’s assessment was negative. Now, a year after the administration came to power, a new assessment would be even more so. (The report, “100 DAYS: Assessment to Restore the Constitution,” is available from the CCR, 666 Broadway, New York, NY l00l2. The website is www.ccrjustice.org.)

Wiping Out Our Rights

Many people mistakenly assumed that there would be significant change under the new Obama administration. But I believe that after 9/ll we need to recognize we are not just talking about a pendulum returning to its center; there has been a qualitative change in what were once our democratic rights.

However severely limited our Constitutional rights have been by class, race, privilege, and the political monopoly of two capitalist parties, nonetheless prior to 9/ll we had some checks and balances on Executive power. We had some protections under our Bill of Rights, especially the 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th amendments (speech, assembly, privacy, due process, prohibitions on cruel and inhuman treatment, and the right to a lawyer).

These rights have been and remain severely compromised. Daniel Ellsberg called the wreckage of civil liberties after 9/ll a “coup.” (more…)