This week President Hope 'n' Change signed an Executive Order authorizing the 'indefinite detention' of the folks held at Gitmo. That would be the same Gitmo that candidate Obama had promised to close within 12 months of getting into office because it was such a blight on the American name around the world. Well that didn't quite go as planned, so now apparently the fall-back position is to codify the bush policy of indefinite detention and basically lock 'em up and throw away the key. Yay! Chains you can believe in!!
Then at today's press conference the Nobel Peace Laureate blithely dismissed the conditions under which Bradley Manning is currently being held as "appropriate". I had to read the transcript of the Q&A again before I believed my lying ears. Live, on TeeVee, President Obama said that he was just fine with the inhumane treatment of a person who has yet to be found guilty of what he has been charged with. Shit, he hasn't even seen the inside of a courtroom yet, never mind see the evidence, but President "We don't torture" has okayed permanent solitary for a man that the law says has to be viewed as innocent before being proven guilty. Not just that, but Pfc Bradley Manning has to undergo conditions that the United Nations clearly defines as being torture.
Ordinarily I would be apoplectic with rage about this, afterall we expect this sort of 'plausible deniablity' bullshit from the republicans, they invented it, but to see the man that had promised to bring change to the country, to reverse the policies of the previous criminal administration, to right the wrongs just makes me shake my head in disbelief. I think I have finally reached the point where I have 'outrage fatigue'. After all of the cowering and caving done by this administration on things like health care, heating assistance for the poor, back-downs on the environment, I thought we had reached the bottom, but sadly I was sorely mistaken.
I am reminded of George Orwell's excellent part-history, part-cautionary tale, Animal Farm, specifically the part where the pigs 'Not satisifed with walking around upright, had also taken to wearing the farmer's clothes', and the sign on the barn had been changed to read "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others". How sad it is to see that come true after so much promise.
I "hope" he is done with his "change" because I don't think we can take much more.
Have a great weekend you all...I'm going to drown my sorrows in some London Pride...cheers!
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