[Peace-discuss] some things AWARE might call on the Obama...

[Stuart Levy]

On Sat, Nov 29, 2008 at 12:41:29AM -0600, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> 	Four reasons Obama won't close the controversial prison soon.
> 	Dan Ephron
> 	NEWSWEEK
>
> The detention center at Guantanamo Bay and the flawed justice system 
> created to try terrorist suspects held there are among the most complicated 
> legacies of the Bush administration. They're Obama's problem now. The 
> president elect has said he will shutter Gitmo and put some of the 
> detainees on trial in American criminal courts or military courts martial 
> (his campaign did not return calls seeking comment.) But the prisoner mess 
> created by Bush with the stroke of a pen in November 2001, and made messier 
> over seven years, will take time and resourcefulness to clean up. Here are 
> four reasons the controversial facility will probably still be open for 
> business a year from now.

[...]

I should respond to what I'm sure is the reason you posted this article.
I don't see this sort of prognostication as Revealed Truth
(as I'm sure you don't either), but as a manifestation of the forces
pushing for the status quo -- the same ones who call the new
administration's lineup, Clinton and Gates and Summers and all,
"pragmatists".

They're what we need to argue against.  Yes There Is An Alternative.

Happy to read this week that John Brennan, apparently due to pressure
from the Left, actually withdrew his name from consideration as
head of the CIA.  So occasionally something can budge.


There was a wonderful bit on the Lehrer Hour last night,
talking about the new slate of economic advisors.  David Brooks is
very happy with them, naturally enough, talking of their probity,
intelligence, pragmatism &c.  Mark Shields pointed out Summers'
involvement in the deregulation that got the economy into today's
healthy state, and called on the Senate to ask them, during
confirmation hearings, to explain what they had learned through the
last eight years.   Good advice.

Better, when Brooks chortled about Obama surrounding himself with
such intelligent people, a sign of self-confidence, etc.,
Shields pointed out that they *are being called*, with no sense
of history, the Best and the Brightest (I hadn't heard them
called this, but Brooks seemed to agree) -- just like the
Best and Brightest who brought us the Vietnam war.