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Published Letters: 3
Glenn:
Thank you for digging this up. As the transition ratchets up and the pundit class gets ready to kowtow to another regime, it is important to look back and see how they contour their opinions and continue to be the lapdogs of power. Revisionism is not only dangerous, it is actively damaging to any attempts to understand how we got where we are and to change what we are doing.
. . . and others who complain about what Glenn and others are saying rather than engaging it:
The "negativity" does not come out of blind hate or a love of snark. It come out of open-eyed analysis and a commitment to unearthing lies. Most of the current government's "achievements" have been rhetorical, rather than substantive, and they consistently fall back on old methods of power and propaganda to keep the general citizenry in line or, worse, co-opt the power of the people to their own ends. We have to stop investing our hopes in a small number of elites and more in our collective ability to make change and improve our lives. The government's ongoing use of torture, surveillance, and reallocation of our resources to the top are not designed to keep us safe; they are designed to keep us in place, disempowered, off-balance, and struggling.
Analysts such as Mr. Greenwald are trying to get us to see past the showmanship and confabulations. I wish more people would open their damn eyes and get together to do something about it.
Actually, what Glenn is saying is that the administration does whatever it thinks will allow it to maintain some of the egregious powers the Bush administration accrued to the Presidency. If the Obama administration is really playing 11th-dimensional chess, then why did they not do so in the Al-Marri case also, so that once again the courts could restore balance to the Force, er, to the Presidency? They actually AVOIDED a court ruling on an important issue so that it would not be subjected to systemic review. In the secrecy case, they have been challenged, and have to respond. Why NOT say that, upon further review, they are changing their position back to the one that, you know, is the actual codified legal one?
