Obama and the Race/Violence Divide

In recent weeks Nancy Pelosi and former President Jimmy Carter made much needed meta-comments about the increasingly violent tenor of the current political discourse in this country.

Pelosi reflected upon the violent language not experienced in this country since the 1960s, and Carter observed the racist motivations behind a lot of the anti Obama attacks. Both Pelosi’s and Carter’s comments were dismissed by a good many in the mainstream press, to my chagrin.

It’s an important discussion to have, particularly since in my opinion both Carter and Pelosi are correct in their observations.  (see Politico)

But let me temper that a bit with the following context. All Obama agonists are not Racist and race is not the root of much of the anti Obama criticism. During the early Clinton years, the right made a similar effort to delegitimize his presidency. These were the days Rush Limbaugh started a count on the number of days left in the new president’s term, and Clinton agonists discredited his health reform efforts by jiggling shiny trinkets in front of the media about alleged mistresses and Whitewater land deals in Arkansas.  Taylor Branch’s new bio of Clinton, the Clinton Tapes reminds us of how the right came quite close to delegitimizing the Clinton presidency.   Clinton’s opponents may have been racist (some of them), but the germane point is that they hated the Clintonian commitment to relying on government to solve complex social problems.

Same thing Obama faces.

Race is being used as a tool to bring Obama down,  but it is not the source of (all) the animosity. I think the more comprehensive source is ideological.  The big divide between red states and blue states, and between people who believe government has a positive role to play and people who would rather rely on unaccountable market forces that  are structured to exclude millions of have nots in society.  To the extent that opponents of a strong federal government historically back to Antibellum days have also been racist is part of the story now playing out.

It’s an ideology  thing about the role government.  Difficult to see how the president’s commitment to post partisanship abides such a tectonic divide.  And race fuels the animosity. It makes for a less communicative divide, and potentially more violent future.

In the meantime, it is time to heed Pelosi’s and Carter’s comments.

Politico

Guns, Wackiness, Health care and the First Amendment

For the past several days I have been disturbed by the recurring imagining of the gun toting Obama opponent that was allowed to walk around the NH town hall site with w gun strapped to his leg. Reports said police were monitoring the guy but still he and thousands of other Birthist/ deathist anti Obama wackos were permitted in close proximity to the president. One gun related arrest was reported.

It wasn’t so long ago, during the Bush presidency that unarmed, passionate but not dangerous political opponents were kept in cages several blocks away from President.  Demonstrators, even persons who were not demonstrators, but merely members of the opposition–democratic–party, were denied proximity.

so, my questions:

since when does one’s right to bear arms trump free speech? Why is it that attempts to forbid some gun toting nut-job from close proximity to the president  are thwarted ostenisibly out of fear of intruding on his second amendment, while free speech advocates have never enjoyed such zone of privacy around their liberty?

Consider this. the first amendment is a fundamental right. The right to bear arms is not. And yet, the first amendment free speech and right to assembly has always been regulated, recentl w/ free speech zones, better known as free speech cages that were constructed some distance away from the republican conventions in 2004 and 2008.

It is one thing to countenance the fact-free attacks and hate driven tirades that are increasing in intensity around the president and the issues he cares strongly about, but adhering to the value of free speech to this country’s larger spirit of liberty and democracy. I’m all for giving them play, but think they should be shouted down.

it is quite another to hold the second amendment in a place never intended for it by the framers nor countenanced for it recently by the Court. That  may be a sign of the times but given such signs, it is just plain dangerous.

Obama’s Risky Policy for Immigration

While the public waits anxiously for President Obama to unveil comprehensive immigration reform, the Administration has already adopted a good deal of the Bush Administration immigration enforcement regime which is bound to taint the impact of any subsequent reform.

Since his inauguration, President Obama has 1) added $420 million dollars in supplementary spending to the militaristic Merida Initiative in Mexico; 2) committed to the completion of the 700 mile border wall at $3.9 million dollars per mile, and a several billion dollar virtual fence outsourced to Boeing; 3) hoped to rebrand the Real ID program, which intended to turn state issue drivers licenses into a national ID and which 24 states have rejected, into Pass ID, a slightly less egregious proposal which accomplishes essentially the same exclusionary goals; and 4) supported E-verify, an electronic verification system that screens job applicants, but has a high error rate and cannot account for fraud and identity theft.

These seemingly disparate policies are all part of a high tech immigration enforcement regime that criminalizes immigrants and has been a catalyst for domesticating the war on terror with dataveillance technologies.  The Merida Initiative militarizes the Mexico side of the border, which, along with the wall and virtual fence, sends a message to potential emigrants in the Americas that the golden door is closed.  Such deterrence messages aside, however, militarization doesn’t deter.

According to scholars the only effective deterrence to undocumented immigration during the past several years has come from economic recession, not from an18-foot wall that immigrants traverse with ladders, shovels and human chains or just plain walk around.  As Secretary Napolitano of the Department of Homeland Security has said, “You show me a 50 foot fence and I’ll show you a 51 foot ladder.”

Quite frankly, even members of congress are hard pressed to define success regarding a border wall.  The same goes for the virtual fence and other technology-driven projects.  The virtual fence, a network of surveillance towers, sensors and cameras fails to distinguish among human beings and wildlife.  Although “Project 28,” the pilot 28-mile stretch of virtual fence in Arizona was a dismal failure, Obama seems eager to continue the project.

Further, in doubling down on such high tech policies that include Real ID, E-Verify, and US VISIT, the Administration wastes billions of taxpayer dollars on what a broad consensus of experts suggest are failed projects and so plagued with technical kinks that it is unlikely they would ever achieve their deterrence objectives, unless of course they are not supposed to.

In short order, the Obama team has bought into the risk approaches to governance that have accompanied the recent rise in government using high tech gadgetry as policy responses to complex social issues. They have also bought into the canard that enforcement practices could replace good social policy.  Like his predecessor, the Obama approach to immigration control continues to define undocumented immigrants as prey, which is highly problematic, but then nets everyone who ever applies for employment, a drivers’ license or goes to an airport or federal building, even more problematic. In exchange for going about their everyday activities all individuals must now hand over a good deal of their personal privacy so that the government might construct simulated identities that are inputted and kept in government databases.

With such an overbroad approach to undocumented immigration, everyone is considered guilty until proven innocent by data mining technologies.

This also amounts to the sort of invasive national ID system that civil libertarians have feared for decades; it has become a reality hidden within the new Administration’s immigration agenda.

The shame of the new Administration’s approach is that it disappoints the hopes and expectations of millions of Obama supporters, myself included.  Obama could have recalibrated the immigration debate along human rights and civil liberties grounds.  Instead, if one follows the allocation of funds rather than lofty rhetoric as the more accurate guide of Administration priorities, human and constitutional rights for immigrants won’t get much of a hearing in this Administration.

Obama responds to street violence in Tehran

Keith Olberman tonite started with President Obama speaking about the street violence in Tehran, which he finds deeply disturbing. He cites Iran’s lack of tolerance for political dissent as running against the currents of international law.

But Obama’s words only went so far. the prevailing wisdom is that Obama cannot speak too stridently about the stolen election because Mousavi would then be perceived as a stool pigeon of the U.S. government.  Obama said US does not want to make decisions for Iranians.

Here’s a supplementary take. President Obama risks being branded a hypocrite due our our own stolen 2000 election, which we did nothing about.  Was the 2000 election stolen? Yes. ask Greg Palast. Better yet, ask Justice Souter.

That’s right, the suggestion here is that Obama’s words are limited by America’s  own diminished moral authority, a plague that  spreads into several other Bush era wrongs that have yet to be remedied. 

Obama moral voice here is constrained because  we did nothing when our “Ahmadinejad” became president for 8 years. It serves notice that the president’s voice and actions  might well be constrained on several other fronts as well, unless we act.

What Obama’s Inaugural told me about His Immigration Policy

With all his rhetorical might, Barack Obama in his Inaugural Address endeavored to pull the country back into the realm of the rule of law.  Although this sisyphusian task will require a great deal more work than rhetoric, this is where it starts and already perhaps this indicates a reverse of course. It certainly feels good to see the new president playing to his strength and using his force of his words to serve notice on the planet that the false choice between security and liberty is over and the constitution has returned.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.  Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations.  Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.  And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born:  know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

 Similarly, Obama also served notice that

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, not does it entitle us to do as we please.  Instead they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

Such is his attack on the sovereignist approach to power that is derisive of the rule of law. Obama reminds us that such power is doomed because it is discordant with the “justness of our cause, the force of our example.” Obama here is referring to the integrity of our institutions in their treatment of individuals when integrity is measured against the American character which is recognizes is rooted in the immigrant and slave experience.

Obama also reclaimed the immigrant basis for its own identity, appealing to the small town in Congo where his father was born.  The ideal for Obama is to be found in the immigrant experience.

His use of the immigrant experience in this speech is anathama to the immigrant control system that has been developed over the past eight years.   Put simply, Obama entered office with a strong commitment to end the injustices experienced under the Bush Administration.

It seems clear that an Obama Administration will use much different tropes when framing the immigrant.  than the ones the country has been forced to endure under Bush.  The question I have is whether this is enough of a commitment to actually reverse course, given the inordinant amount of government resources already exhausted on immigration control.  Keep in mind his address bore no refere3nce to immigration reform; it spoke of cleaning up other messes in concrete terms but his references to immigration were vague and abstract.  America’s greatness lies in its immigrant past; its character built on the backs of immigrants and slaves.  But will his appreciation of immigration translater into concrete policies that reverse the Bush abuses of power?   It remains to be seen if the President’s attack on sovereign approaches to power will translate into concrete efforts to extend constitutional law into the immigration field. 

Napolitano Confirmation at DHS

Janet Napolitano will be easily quickly confirmed as the new Secretary of Homeland Security, according to Joe Lieberman and ranking member Susan Collins.

Napolitano promises to help create a system for border control at homeland security that will consist of three parts: boots on the ground; technology: ground sensors and SBInet; and interior enforcement.

This is incredibly disappointing because it promises more of the same dangerous militarization of the border that the border has endured for the past 8 years.

Napolitano’s “system” is almost entirely enforcement-oriented.  If the right track is adhering to constitutional norms and treating border crossers like human beings,  Napolitano’s track is to continue treating them as “other” and seeking to discipline, detain, monitor and control immigrants coming into this country.  It’s the wrong track. 

She would like to rely on a national guard presence at the border, and says she will work with Defense Secry. Gates to find a way to create a permanent national guard presence. This mix of military and domestic law enforcement was outlawed over a century ago by posse comitatus.  In Arizona where Napolitano was one of the first governors to call for the national guard,  the national guard presence also presented serious chain of command problems and ended up wasting millions of taxpayer dollars. Napolitano says it was a deterrent. It wasn’t. the number of undocumented entries in and around arizona entry points increased during the national guard tenure.  So much for boots on the ground.

Next, Napolitano also favors SBInet, which according to Congress, the GAO, CBP and independent observers, has been an abject failure.

Finally, interior enforcement is code for federalizing border enforcement. In her state, such efforts endangered the rights of undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants and US citizens. 287(g) programs in Arizona resulted in hundreds of vigilante volunteers raiding hispanic neighborhoods at rooting hispanic people out of their homes and places of employment.

I would hope that prospective Secry Napolitano  re-imagines the mission of DHS with a commitment to the constitution and rule of law being front and center. I didn’t hear this commitment   during her testimony today.

Her current three-pronged approach is all too likely to continue  condoning abuses of power  that we saw under Chertoff and Ridge.

That’s not the “change” I want to believe in.

Leon Panetta Questions for Obama

When it was announced that Leon Panetta would be nominated to head CIA, I thought it was a mistake. I was blurring administrations. Who was this guy Panetta and what is he doing back in DC. Isn’t he heading some think tank in Monterey, California with is wife.  Isn’t he in his seventies by now. Hey, wasn’t he the guy who was Clinton’s chief of staff during the Monica-thon.  How’d he smell after all that?

Well, yep, same guy, and you know what. He smelled pretty good after the taint of Monica-gate. One of the few to have maneuvered around impeachment and keep his own reputation and dignity intact.

Also, one heck of a manager. he led OMB as well as the White House staff. He’s a former congressman, knows his way around DC and is not afraid to tell the president what he thinks. Too old and perhaps too wise for these games now.

So, what does a Panetta appointment tell us about the CIA and about Barack. Several things and here’s where it gets interesting.  The CIA will be the subject of several investigations during the new administration. It blew it big time on Iraq, and even more so in its inability to speak truth to power to an administration that didnt hide the fact it wanted to cherry pick intelligence and go to war on false pretenses. So, the key thing here is for some reputation and image enhancement. Leon is a clean guy. No taint from Monica and no taint from Tenet/Cheney/Bush. GIve Barack a point here. CIA needs an outsider at this critical juncture to restore some semblance of integrity (oxymoron?) 

Next the question goes to how Obama played this appointment with Congress, who has oversight responsibilities here and during the past 8 years was guilty of one oversight after another when it came to holding the CIA and BUsies accountable to the rule of law.  Two things jump out at me here. First. Obama sent a clear message about torture. Panetta has spoken forcefully and clearly on the topic. No torture. No way. No how. People on the other side of this moral and constitutional issue, like senator’s feinstein and jay rockefeller better watch out. AS Rachel maddow said, they were on the wrong side of history here, and the fact they were not consulted on the Panetta nomination is not important. Fair enough. BOld move for Obama. I give him another point.

But, here is my concern having to do with the relationship between the executive and legislative branch during the next administration. The president-elect ignored the two highest ranking members of his own party on the very appointment over which they have oversight responsibilities.  Bad form on Obama’s part. also scares me to think that Obama will not turn away from some of the “unitary” presidential powers that Bush/Cheney claimed for themselves during the past 8 years.

Let’s stay tuned.