Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
Jul. 21st, 2009 09:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumOr, as we say in the Army (and lots of other places), Same shit, different day.
In 2005 I wrote about habeas corpus. It's probably the most important right we have. In the common law it goes back to the Magna Carta; which is so important there is a copy in the National Archives of the United States.
An orchestrated leak (a group of administration officials who got to speak, semi-officially, but anonymously... WTF?) makes it clear Obama has no plans to rescind the Bush administration recovation of that right for the prisoners, in Guantanamo, and intends to keep it to the indefinite future.
In the draft document released we find, The Detention Policy Task Force has thus far focused much of its work on developing options for the lawful disposition of detainees held at Guantámo Bay. Important questions remain concerning our policies in future regarding apprehension detention and treatment of suspected terrorists, as part of our broader strategy to defeat al Qaeda and its affiliates.
The New York Times tells us, The goal, one senior administration official said, is to build a “durable and effective” framework for dealing with the detainees at Guantánamo and future detainees captured in the fight against terrorists.
Future detainees, policies in future. And a three tiered system of "justice. No longer is everyone equal under the law. No, some will be tried by civil courts, some by military commissions and some may never be tried at all.
Prosecution is one way, but only one way, to protect the American people from such attacks. Where appropriate prosecution must occur as soon as possible.
Only one way? I suppose they might be talking of preventative action, but I don't really buy it. This is a memo about how to deal with prisoners. What is the "other way" implicit in that statement? We already have an example, of "other ways", the Bush adminstration refused to release people it admitted were guilty of nothing. The Obama Adminstration did pretty much the same.
[edited to add] No, this adminstration seems to intend to continue the idea of the president having the right to keep anyone he wants in prison until he tires of them being imprisoned.
if the prosecution team concludes that prosecution is not feasible in any forum, it may recommend that the case be returned to the Executive Order 13492 Review for other appropriate disposition"
Got that? If they can't win in a civil court, they have the commission, if that's not a feasible option, well then, just don't try them at all. The president will choose some other, "appropriate" disposition.
Winston Churchill, whom the neocons keep pointing to when they want us to agree with some jingoistic bit of policy they prefer, had this to say about that:
You might consider whether you should not unfold as background the great privilege of Habeas Corpus and trial by jury which are the supreme protection invented by the English people for ordinary indiviuals against the state. The power of the Executive to send a man into prison without formulating any charge known to law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government wether Nazi or communist... Extraordinary power assumed by the executive should be yielded when the emergency declines. Nothing is more abhorrent than to imprison a person or heep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilisation.
He said this in response to the British Courts releasing Nazis during the Battle of Britain. That was a far more existential struggle, in a far more difficult time. That Tuesday was horrid. But it was a drop in the bucket to what was happening to England.
Churchill didn't care. He might have wanted to engage in "preventive dention", but when the courts rebuked him, he admitted they were right. Going so far as to let Herbert Morrison say, with War Cabinet approvel, in the House of Commons, "While considerations of national security must come first, I am not prepared to let anyone die in dentention unneccessarily".
In a war, a real war; a struggle to the last, against an army which had run them off the continent, and was chasing them across Africa, while raining bombs on them every night, that was the policy of Great Britain.
But we, "The Greatest Nation on Earth", of whom that same Churchill said, "...we must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.
And we have, yet another, adminstration which seems willing to toss that into the dustbin of history. We didn't need to do it in the War of 1812 (when our nation was invaded, and our Capitol burned), nor the Civil War (though Lincoln tried; the courts pulled him up as short as they yanked Churchill), nor World War One, not even in World War Two (though we did a terrible thing to the Japanese Americans... even they were told they would be released when the war was over. This "war" has no end).
No, this "war" which has cost us, really, about 3,000 dead (ten percent of one years deaths by automobile; the combat deaths don't really count in the tally. We chose to wage both the war in Afghanistan, and Iraq, we didn't need to have them), this war is the one we choose to let Habeas Corpus, and search only with a warrant and freedom from self-incrimination, go by the boards.
I'm an American, damn it, but if those things are gone, there is no bloody point to being an American. I might as well be in China, or Pinochet's Chile, or any other dictatorship there ever was. If this goes on, I will probably leave. I spent eight years under Bush, fighting against this crap. If the other side is going to do the same thing, then the experiment in mass participation we tried is failed.
Ben Franklin told a woman who asked what kind of Gov't the Constitutional Convention had given them (which, it must be rememebered, was a patch, it was United States of America 2.0, because the Articles of Confederation had proven to be a flop), "You have a Republic, Madam, if you can keep it."
Well, if it can't be kept, I'll be, reluctantly, going, to someplace more civlised, Canada, if they'll have me, or Britain, or Ireland, or the Netherlands, or Germany. Someplace where the whim of the Executive isn't able to chuck my ass in jail, indefinitely.
Because Churchill was right, habeas corpus is the supreme right, from which all the others depend. This shit has got to stop..
In 2005 I wrote about habeas corpus. It's probably the most important right we have. In the common law it goes back to the Magna Carta; which is so important there is a copy in the National Archives of the United States.
An orchestrated leak (a group of administration officials who got to speak, semi-officially, but anonymously... WTF?) makes it clear Obama has no plans to rescind the Bush administration recovation of that right for the prisoners, in Guantanamo, and intends to keep it to the indefinite future.
In the draft document released we find, The Detention Policy Task Force has thus far focused much of its work on developing options for the lawful disposition of detainees held at Guantámo Bay. Important questions remain concerning our policies in future regarding apprehension detention and treatment of suspected terrorists, as part of our broader strategy to defeat al Qaeda and its affiliates.
The New York Times tells us, The goal, one senior administration official said, is to build a “durable and effective” framework for dealing with the detainees at Guantánamo and future detainees captured in the fight against terrorists.
Future detainees, policies in future. And a three tiered system of "justice. No longer is everyone equal under the law. No, some will be tried by civil courts, some by military commissions and some may never be tried at all.
Prosecution is one way, but only one way, to protect the American people from such attacks. Where appropriate prosecution must occur as soon as possible.
Only one way? I suppose they might be talking of preventative action, but I don't really buy it. This is a memo about how to deal with prisoners. What is the "other way" implicit in that statement? We already have an example, of "other ways", the Bush adminstration refused to release people it admitted were guilty of nothing. The Obama Adminstration did pretty much the same.
[edited to add] No, this adminstration seems to intend to continue the idea of the president having the right to keep anyone he wants in prison until he tires of them being imprisoned.
if the prosecution team concludes that prosecution is not feasible in any forum, it may recommend that the case be returned to the Executive Order 13492 Review for other appropriate disposition"
Got that? If they can't win in a civil court, they have the commission, if that's not a feasible option, well then, just don't try them at all. The president will choose some other, "appropriate" disposition.
Winston Churchill, whom the neocons keep pointing to when they want us to agree with some jingoistic bit of policy they prefer, had this to say about that:
You might consider whether you should not unfold as background the great privilege of Habeas Corpus and trial by jury which are the supreme protection invented by the English people for ordinary indiviuals against the state. The power of the Executive to send a man into prison without formulating any charge known to law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government wether Nazi or communist... Extraordinary power assumed by the executive should be yielded when the emergency declines. Nothing is more abhorrent than to imprison a person or heep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilisation.
He said this in response to the British Courts releasing Nazis during the Battle of Britain. That was a far more existential struggle, in a far more difficult time. That Tuesday was horrid. But it was a drop in the bucket to what was happening to England.
Churchill didn't care. He might have wanted to engage in "preventive dention", but when the courts rebuked him, he admitted they were right. Going so far as to let Herbert Morrison say, with War Cabinet approvel, in the House of Commons, "While considerations of national security must come first, I am not prepared to let anyone die in dentention unneccessarily".
In a war, a real war; a struggle to the last, against an army which had run them off the continent, and was chasing them across Africa, while raining bombs on them every night, that was the policy of Great Britain.
But we, "The Greatest Nation on Earth", of whom that same Churchill said, "...we must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.
And we have, yet another, adminstration which seems willing to toss that into the dustbin of history. We didn't need to do it in the War of 1812 (when our nation was invaded, and our Capitol burned), nor the Civil War (though Lincoln tried; the courts pulled him up as short as they yanked Churchill), nor World War One, not even in World War Two (though we did a terrible thing to the Japanese Americans... even they were told they would be released when the war was over. This "war" has no end).
No, this "war" which has cost us, really, about 3,000 dead (ten percent of one years deaths by automobile; the combat deaths don't really count in the tally. We chose to wage both the war in Afghanistan, and Iraq, we didn't need to have them), this war is the one we choose to let Habeas Corpus, and search only with a warrant and freedom from self-incrimination, go by the boards.
I'm an American, damn it, but if those things are gone, there is no bloody point to being an American. I might as well be in China, or Pinochet's Chile, or any other dictatorship there ever was. If this goes on, I will probably leave. I spent eight years under Bush, fighting against this crap. If the other side is going to do the same thing, then the experiment in mass participation we tried is failed.
Ben Franklin told a woman who asked what kind of Gov't the Constitutional Convention had given them (which, it must be rememebered, was a patch, it was United States of America 2.0, because the Articles of Confederation had proven to be a flop), "You have a Republic, Madam, if you can keep it."
Well, if it can't be kept, I'll be, reluctantly, going, to someplace more civlised, Canada, if they'll have me, or Britain, or Ireland, or the Netherlands, or Germany. Someplace where the whim of the Executive isn't able to chuck my ass in jail, indefinitely.
Because Churchill was right, habeas corpus is the supreme right, from which all the others depend. This shit has got to stop..
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 03:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 03:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 05:33 am (UTC)Screw everything else. I would love to see humongous crowds in the streets of DC chanting "Habeas Corpus!" with signs and all. I would love to be part of such a crowd.
Instead, I will settle, for the moment, with a letter-writing campaign.
I'm gonna need a lot of stamps, I think.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 05:35 am (UTC)"As a nation we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes and foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty,--to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy." - A. Lincoln, August 24, 1855
Footnote, re your quotation of Herbert Morrison on detention: At the time he was Home Secretary, the cabinet minister responsible for the prison system in England and Wales, so he was very much the point man on this issue.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 06:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 06:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 09:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 03:10 pm (UTC)I never believed habeas corpus and trial-by-jury applied to me and my friends. I've known too many hippies who were seized, stripped of their valuables, and released in the middle of nowhere, without any paperwork being filed. Known of too many sex workers who were abused by cops. Too many social workers who seized children because they were homeschooled or pagan. Too many people of color who were pulled over, harassed, sometimes assaulted, and sent on their way, with a warning that if they complained, the cop knew where they lived.
Part of me thinks it's nice that the inequity is now official in the paperwork--that our government documents say, "if the People In Power disapprove of you, they can do whatever they want to you."
Part of me weeps for the lost ideals. It was nice to have the hope that those were corrupt individuals who'd slipped through the cracks of a system meant to support liberty, rather than indications of a corrupt system that actively supported punishment without proof, on the whim of whoever has authority at the moment.
I have books that aren't allowed in Canada. (Besides, it's cold there.) But it's definitely time to start looking at nations whose basic principles aren't subject to "well, it's not convenient right now, so you don't get those rights."
no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 03:22 pm (UTC)All of those are bad. None of them is related to habeas corpus, and not all that much to trial by jury. People in power will abuse it. I've been falsely arrested, and then unarrested (which made for an interesting discussion at imigration in Calgary).
Being harrassed by cops (even beaten and threatened) isn't the same. The social worker who siezes kids canbe fought in court.
Being disapeared can't. Jose Padilla was arrested in April, it was announced in June. That's different.
This is different.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 03:30 pm (UTC)It's not much different in application. It's still "the people in authority can do what they want with the people they decide to punish."
Can't trust the people in power; they can lie to you without consequences, and hurt you on a whim, and any action you take against them just gets bigger reprisals. For some segments of society, that's always been true... this just puts it on paper.
And while the small ones I mentioned can theoretically be fought--fighting these injustices takes knowledge, takes resources (to challenge a social worker takes time off work, and awareness of one's rights), takes energy, takes the belief that you are allowed to make that challenge.
That such injustices are mostly aimed at people who don't have that knowledge, don't have those resources, is not an accident.
Codifying this type of injustice, making it official instead of "the case that fell through the cracks," is big--but not different.
There's been no attempt to fix those cracks. The parent whose children are taken unjustly can get them back, but the social worker(s) involved are not fired. (Did the workers in the Texas polygamy fiasco get punished for overreaching their bounds? Are they jobless now?) The social worker who refuses to tell parents where the children have been taken for a week instead of the legally-mandated 48 hours is ignored. (I suppose there's potential recourse against that. For those with good lawyers, and a lot of time to pursue it. For those who can play "call the supervisor phone tag" for days on end.)
Mehserle is on trial for shooting Oscar Grant; the other officers who stood by and watched, are not.
The system we've got has always said, "it's okay that some excesses go unpunished, that some people get targeted for no reason than that they annoy those in power. If they caused the annoyance, they must've been doing something wrong."
I'm disappointed to see it established officially at such a high level... but it doesn't really affect my life, or that of those close to me. We were always one angry cop away from a beating and disappearance.
It didn't really matter if there was a potential challenge in court; that way lies bankruptcy and homelessness, and it's flip-a-coin whether that's worse than prison. (There's much more liberty in bankruptcy & homelessness; there's more relative safety in prison. Neither option gets the kids a nice birthday party.)
I agree this is BIG. This is scary, in a way those others aren't... this makes it real and unavoidable, where the small excesses of authority could sometimes be challenged.
If allowed to stand, these changes may well destroy America as we know it. Laws work because most people follow them even if they dislike them, on the theory that others will be following them, and there's some fairness behind them that they can accept even if they don't understand. If the core foundation has become "whoever annoys or threatens the people in charge can be punished at whim, without proof," they'll lose the last shreds of trust that prevent total anarchy.
All the vicious petty vengeful crimes of the inner cities will spread, because what holds them in check in suburbia is a combination of financial comfort and trust in the authorities. The financial comfort is pretty damn shaky, and it only takes a tiny percentage to lose trust in authority to bring down a whole community.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 09:30 pm (UTC)I bet you don't.
You may very well own books which have been stopped and seized by Canada Customs in the past as unsuitable for import: a known problem, on which we are working (http://www.littlesisters.ca/docscc/index_court.html).
I own more than a few of those myself. In Canada. Where they are perfectly legal to buy, sell, or possess. The hitch is the Customs thing.
At that, it is almost universally bookstores and other wholesale importers who have trouble bringing in printed material. You are likely to have less difficulty importing your personal library to Canada than you would taking it back to the US.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-24 04:04 am (UTC)I'm aware that Canadian customs is not prone to strip-searching visitors or immigrants, and I'd have no problem getting a couple-dozen wacko Loompanics Press books into the country. Nobody cares if I've got a book called "Make Your Own Kitchen Nukes!" even if it's technically illegal. (They have a word for people who try to make nuclear bombs in their kitchen: they're called corpses.)
I'm vaguely aware that the illegality might be with selling rather than owning. And that really, nobody cares. And that really, I don't care... those books are in a box in the storage locker; after my initial fun of reading the titles and random passages, I probably got all the use out of them that I intend to. (It occurs to me that I have no idea what Canada's legal concept of "child porn" includes; in the US, it doesn't extend to fictional characters, while in Australia, it does. I read a lot of fanfic that isn't allowed in some countries.)
But for a very long time--until very recently--I'd thought that the US had more freedoms in principle than Canada, regardless of the practical realities. There are still some religious rights I have here, that would not transfer to Canada; I don't need a congregation of a particular size to be ordained here. But I'll grant that's minor, along with a tiny handful of other technicalities I could probably scrounge up.
Right now, what keeps me away from Canada is mostly the temperature.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 03:19 pm (UTC)I had great hopes for this administration. Hopes that the rights which the previous administration began stripping so liberally would be restored. Hopes that rights which need to be granted would be. But so far, I can't really see one thing that has come to pass.
Maybe I have am too progressive and read too much into what he was promising. Maybe need to be a bit more patient. But we are almost a year into things, and my patience is starting to run thin, and my hope is disappearing rapidly.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 02:36 pm (UTC)Yup. That -- in the broader sense of the continuation of the application of the Unitary/Imperial Presidency (in the Nixonian/Bush2ian sense of "If the President does it, it's not illegal/wrong") theory -- is (so far) my only Serious Disappointment with President Obama. (There are three or four others that don't quite deserve the upper-case, and quite a few more that probably aren't "serious".) The idea that The Government, or anyone in the Government -- even the President -- can order the imprisonment, indefinitely, without a fair & speedy trial, of _anyone_ is simply outside of all of the American traditions and ideals that are a crucial part of my heritage, both intellectual/emotional and genetic.
There is, I think, much Truth in the old saying: "People get the Government they deserve". As long as the American people allow themselves to be bamboozled (or Terror-fied) into accepting an autocratic and authoritarian third-world-type government, that's what they (and those of us who Protest it *sigh*) are going to get. I really don't think the Obama Administration will use these Powers on more than a handfull of people (though that's enough to tarnish our escutchion). But with the precedent of two Administrations -- representing _both_ of the major political Parties -- embracing this Doctrine, the stage is well-set for future abuse, increasingly serious & widespread. Maturing this would probably take the U.S. longer than Germany, Italy, Japan, and Russia did (with such horrific results during my childhood & youth), but it does seem, pretty clearly, to be In Progress.
Our nation was fortunate in having had its foundations designed and constructed by people who -- despite their sometimes-strong differences of opinion and ideals -- were thoughtful, rational, idealistic, and -- above all -- _honorable_. Conditions changed, many tiny steps (harmless in themselves) were taken, and our Government has become so shabby (& shoddy) that a new coat of paint every four or eight years isn't going to repair or conceal its delapidation. The veritable cornerstone of it -- the concept of Equality Under The Law -- hasn't quite fallen out yet, but it's been prised askew, and that'll be, at best, difficult to repair.
In today's world, hardly any candidates for high (or even most mid-level) Political Office can expect (& few can even hope) to win the election without spending more money than their major opponent. And the amount of money they have to spend in order to win election is almost always between several and many times the amount their official pay for the job will be. I think I'll go ahead and say "This kind of situation does not attract _honorable_ people", because my sense of "honorable" in public servants involves carrying out the will, and acting in the best interests of, the individual Citizens who voted for them. (And yes, I know of at least one person --most likely the same one you're thinking of -- who would probably argue that GWBush was honorable because he did, in fact, greatly reduce the taxes of the Very Wealthy People who contributed vast sums of money to his campaign, to the extent that they now pay a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than people like me, just as he had promised to do. I don't buy that argument.)
A System in which our elected representatives are more beholden to their Big Business & Extremely Wealthy campaign contributors than they are to us, the ordinary citizens, strikes me as being broken -- not just "seriously damaged", but _broken_, because they're the only ones who could fix it and doing so is apparently not to their self-interest.
Meanwhile... you're returning to a California that probably has, in fact, a Failed Government. It's certainly no longer a leader, among the states, in much of anything I think governments ought to do.