[The below cites a reason why I felt it was time to take a break from LGM, especially after my comments that uh yeah states can have some local voting laws were ridiculed by comments of the level of five year olds, but there is some good stuff there. For instance, a cite [basically the only time I go to Slate per their decision to not appreciate my fray commenting] to this good article remembering Rachel Carson and the continuing attack against her.]
JFL (not me) does his usual best responding. The article speaks of Obama's "very troubling record on civil liberties," which as he notes on another thread, sort of ignores what the word means. That is, e.g., check out what the ACLU focuses open (hint: gays, voting rights, reproductive freedom). Continuing a historical trend (with some notable bright spots, such as being on the record of opposing waterboarding, which draws a line, something Eric Holder's predecessor refused to do; things like that matter) on executive power while firmly advancing the cause of "civil liberties" (sic) in various areas is not a "nadir" of civil liberties. Tiresome.
The article the blog post links to compares this to the administration's efforts against whistle-blowers. This sort of thing really is worthy of sneers, but the rhetoric sometimes leads one to think McCarthyism is back of something, when we are really talking about a handful or so of cases. Powers that be protect their power. News at 11. The sneer at a favorite target of the author, steroid prosecutions, is tiresome too. Yes, a stupid prosecution for allegedly using steroids and lying to Congress was taken too far, probably. There always will be such things. Just change the details. This has very little to do about the ability and wherewithal to take the very difficult effort (and I agree, there really should be SOME case they could find, even a token; I just don't appreciate the over the top response to the sadly unsurprising response here) to prosecute here.
The discussion cited is the sort of lazy (or something) response that has really annoyed me on this issue (the citation at the cost of the steroid cases as if that is the problem here is pretty stupid, e.g.). Won't link it, since I'm tired of it, but some post on Sentencing Law and Policy blog about judicial nominations brought up the whole "assassination" thing involving drone strikes. To be philosophical, maybe this is par for the course in pushing things. Activism often includes rhetoric that isn't really fair, coloring the other side a bit too black/white. Still, cheap shots also are unproductive in that they are so easy to refute.
Obama drew the line in the sand on torture, making it policy to be against it and making sure to include arguments of international and statutory law to defend his case on war and detainee (people locked up) policies. He let in a bit more light on the rules, including releasing more memoranda and explaining up to a point (for all means, yes, the actual analysis for the drone attack on an American citizen should be released) his policies (reference here to an important speech by an official on the rules). Obama pressed to weaken the excesses of a recent defense authorization bill, which opened up the potential for executive power that Obama did not seize. He actually tried and Eric Holder spoke out about to bring people like KSM to justice the right way. And, actually did investigate the actions of his predecessor here.
Not enough? Sure thing. Can various things be pointed out to show how the Administration is bad on executive power issues in the area of military and related policies? [Not "civil liberties," full stop.] SURE. But, Glenn Greenwald one-way rants without context or nuance is so f-ing tiresome. I'm sick of the whole thing really. I think it's useful to be something of a polymath, having some diversity of interests and knowledge, this including being able to see the whole picture. OTOH, you can, e.g., whine about how horrible let's say the Mets are, say they just STINK, ignoring they have a potential Cy Young winner, threw a no-hitter, have various other promising players and unlike past years, actually didn't go backward. You can still call them out for their problems.* [FN Update]
It is depressing. But, in part since I didn't think someone who signed on to telecon immunity back in '08 promised me a rose garden, I can also focus on the positives and the chance to move forward. Push hard to keep the wrongs of detention, drone attacks and military force present, including from enablers in the Obama Administration. I get off the bus, however, when stupid steroid comparisons and the like come up and a lack of perspective arises. Life is complicated. We are supposed to be members of the reality community, not simple-minded children who have better values, but promote them the simple way children do. Ugh!
---
* As I noted in comments in my brief reference to this in an earlier comment, a particular thing I have a problem with is when the Obama Administration doesn't just decide not to prosecute, which again I am doubtful could not occur in ANY CASE (the full-fledged investigations at issue in the recent story only covered a limited number of cases as is, two particular blatant cases in particular as covered by Maddow tonight), but moves to block civil claims. The claims will be hard to prove but the attempt to deny the right even to bring them, including using abusive state secrecy claims, is offensive to me. They have resulted in some narrowly divided appellate rulings, underlining the closeness of the case.
Rights need remedies for them to be meaningful. Civil suits provide a means to protect such rights, even when the state does not bring prosecutions, which have a higher standard of proof and various pragmatic and political concerns as is here the case. I think some sort of reconciliation process would have been useful here, the South African approach there an option. State acceptance of wrongdoing with compensation, as Canada did with Mr. Arar, also has its benefits, and I think its shameful (if civil suits will be blocked) the U.S. did not. Again, there is blame here.
I do blame the Obama administration for their lack of courage. But I blame the general public a great deal more for making the idea of prosecuting Americans for war crimes into an almost superheroic act of courage.I cited a discussion that criticized the over the top sanctimonious response to the failure to bring prosecutions against torturers. Not quite as bad, but still annoying (I really don't want to defend these guys on this issue as much as I do, making it worse) is this "retroactive legalization" (comment above found on the thread there) of torture discussion. I don't think "legalization" quite means what he thinks it means. You can criticize without mischaracterization.
JFL (not me) does his usual best responding. The article speaks of Obama's "very troubling record on civil liberties," which as he notes on another thread, sort of ignores what the word means. That is, e.g., check out what the ACLU focuses open (hint: gays, voting rights, reproductive freedom). Continuing a historical trend (with some notable bright spots, such as being on the record of opposing waterboarding, which draws a line, something Eric Holder's predecessor refused to do; things like that matter) on executive power while firmly advancing the cause of "civil liberties" (sic) in various areas is not a "nadir" of civil liberties. Tiresome.
The article the blog post links to compares this to the administration's efforts against whistle-blowers. This sort of thing really is worthy of sneers, but the rhetoric sometimes leads one to think McCarthyism is back of something, when we are really talking about a handful or so of cases. Powers that be protect their power. News at 11. The sneer at a favorite target of the author, steroid prosecutions, is tiresome too. Yes, a stupid prosecution for allegedly using steroids and lying to Congress was taken too far, probably. There always will be such things. Just change the details. This has very little to do about the ability and wherewithal to take the very difficult effort (and I agree, there really should be SOME case they could find, even a token; I just don't appreciate the over the top response to the sadly unsurprising response here) to prosecute here.
The discussion cited is the sort of lazy (or something) response that has really annoyed me on this issue (the citation at the cost of the steroid cases as if that is the problem here is pretty stupid, e.g.). Won't link it, since I'm tired of it, but some post on Sentencing Law and Policy blog about judicial nominations brought up the whole "assassination" thing involving drone strikes. To be philosophical, maybe this is par for the course in pushing things. Activism often includes rhetoric that isn't really fair, coloring the other side a bit too black/white. Still, cheap shots also are unproductive in that they are so easy to refute.
Obama drew the line in the sand on torture, making it policy to be against it and making sure to include arguments of international and statutory law to defend his case on war and detainee (people locked up) policies. He let in a bit more light on the rules, including releasing more memoranda and explaining up to a point (for all means, yes, the actual analysis for the drone attack on an American citizen should be released) his policies (reference here to an important speech by an official on the rules). Obama pressed to weaken the excesses of a recent defense authorization bill, which opened up the potential for executive power that Obama did not seize. He actually tried and Eric Holder spoke out about to bring people like KSM to justice the right way. And, actually did investigate the actions of his predecessor here.
Not enough? Sure thing. Can various things be pointed out to show how the Administration is bad on executive power issues in the area of military and related policies? [Not "civil liberties," full stop.] SURE. But, Glenn Greenwald one-way rants without context or nuance is so f-ing tiresome. I'm sick of the whole thing really. I think it's useful to be something of a polymath, having some diversity of interests and knowledge, this including being able to see the whole picture. OTOH, you can, e.g., whine about how horrible let's say the Mets are, say they just STINK, ignoring they have a potential Cy Young winner, threw a no-hitter, have various other promising players and unlike past years, actually didn't go backward. You can still call them out for their problems.* [FN Update]
It is depressing. But, in part since I didn't think someone who signed on to telecon immunity back in '08 promised me a rose garden, I can also focus on the positives and the chance to move forward. Push hard to keep the wrongs of detention, drone attacks and military force present, including from enablers in the Obama Administration. I get off the bus, however, when stupid steroid comparisons and the like come up and a lack of perspective arises. Life is complicated. We are supposed to be members of the reality community, not simple-minded children who have better values, but promote them the simple way children do. Ugh!
---
* As I noted in comments in my brief reference to this in an earlier comment, a particular thing I have a problem with is when the Obama Administration doesn't just decide not to prosecute, which again I am doubtful could not occur in ANY CASE (the full-fledged investigations at issue in the recent story only covered a limited number of cases as is, two particular blatant cases in particular as covered by Maddow tonight), but moves to block civil claims. The claims will be hard to prove but the attempt to deny the right even to bring them, including using abusive state secrecy claims, is offensive to me. They have resulted in some narrowly divided appellate rulings, underlining the closeness of the case.
Rights need remedies for them to be meaningful. Civil suits provide a means to protect such rights, even when the state does not bring prosecutions, which have a higher standard of proof and various pragmatic and political concerns as is here the case. I think some sort of reconciliation process would have been useful here, the South African approach there an option. State acceptance of wrongdoing with compensation, as Canada did with Mr. Arar, also has its benefits, and I think its shameful (if civil suits will be blocked) the U.S. did not. Again, there is blame here.