One step forward, two steps back
Jun. 27th, 2008 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
openspace4lifeTwo weeks ago, the Supreme Court turned back the American Fascism Clock by several minutes at least, declaring that even the non-citizens detained at Guantanamo Bay have the right to challenge their detention within the ordinary U.S. judicial system. For now, the Executive Branch's insane plan to take away the critical right of Habeas Corpus even from United States citizens has clearly been derailed. But by a margin of only one vote.
This victory required only five brave souls to stand up and defend our Constitution. Sadly, in Congress the bar is set far higher. One week ago, the House of Representatives passed, 293 to 128, a bill to "reauthorize" the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), while essentially allowing the President to continue to act outside its authority, and handing a Get Out of Jail Free card to the phone companies that have participated in his illegal domestic spying program. What's worse, Barack Obama plans to vote for this bill in the Senate, regardless of whether he and his colleagues succeed in amending it to remove the retroactive immunity clause. Which they almost certainly won't. My biggest nightmare right now is that the public will give a ringing endorsement of the progressive agenda in November, but Democrats in Congress will ignore them, remaining stuck in their old habit of aping the rough, tough, authoritarian, utterly unaccountable Republican brand of national security policy.
Meanwhile, as the American Midwest reels under the impact of severe flooding, which fits the expected pattern of global warming, guess what everyone wants to do about the lost corn crops? That's right, cut conservation programs and biofuels production targets! And here's the real irony: the latter move is actually sensible if we can replace corn-based ethanol with an alternative whose net carbon impact is a clear improvement on gasoline, such as Brazilian sugarcane--which free-trade advocate John McCain supports, but corn-state senator Barack Obama does not. (On the other hand, typical impact assessments may not fully account for sugarcane farming's direct and indirect impacts on deforestation rates.) Oh, and for those who might complain that this paragraph has nothing to do with the previous two, please remember that the climate crisis is a national security issue.
Bottom line: politics is pretty perverse and horrible these days. I'll probably try to post on relatively unpolitical topics for a while now.
This victory required only five brave souls to stand up and defend our Constitution. Sadly, in Congress the bar is set far higher. One week ago, the House of Representatives passed, 293 to 128, a bill to "reauthorize" the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), while essentially allowing the President to continue to act outside its authority, and handing a Get Out of Jail Free card to the phone companies that have participated in his illegal domestic spying program. What's worse, Barack Obama plans to vote for this bill in the Senate, regardless of whether he and his colleagues succeed in amending it to remove the retroactive immunity clause. Which they almost certainly won't. My biggest nightmare right now is that the public will give a ringing endorsement of the progressive agenda in November, but Democrats in Congress will ignore them, remaining stuck in their old habit of aping the rough, tough, authoritarian, utterly unaccountable Republican brand of national security policy.
Meanwhile, as the American Midwest reels under the impact of severe flooding, which fits the expected pattern of global warming, guess what everyone wants to do about the lost corn crops? That's right, cut conservation programs and biofuels production targets! And here's the real irony: the latter move is actually sensible if we can replace corn-based ethanol with an alternative whose net carbon impact is a clear improvement on gasoline, such as Brazilian sugarcane--which free-trade advocate John McCain supports, but corn-state senator Barack Obama does not. (On the other hand, typical impact assessments may not fully account for sugarcane farming's direct and indirect impacts on deforestation rates.) Oh, and for those who might complain that this paragraph has nothing to do with the previous two, please remember that the climate crisis is a national security issue.
Bottom line: politics is pretty perverse and horrible these days. I'll probably try to post on relatively unpolitical topics for a while now.
