Offering frequent news and analysis from the majestic Evergreen State and beyond, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's unconventional perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Make Obama do it

Since the release of the torture memos last week, there has been a considerable amount of outcry regarding the administration's (present) position of not prosecuting the operatives who carried out the torture.

This is a good thing. The outcry, I mean.

At some point, either shortly after taking office or during the transition period after the election (I can't exactly remember), Obama made reference to something FDR said in 1940, to a group of people who came to him pleading for help on a cause they deeply believed in. Purportedly, Roosevelt said:
I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.
Reading between the lines, here, this is what I think Obama is telling us. Piece by piece, information about the torture program has been coming to light for some years now. America has been slowly waking up, with each disturbing and revolting revelation, to what has been done in our name.

Only, the country is not yet sufficiently on-board with the idea of prosecuting the Bush Six, or anybody else, for justice to move from a legal possibility to a practical, political reality.

If the experience of the past week is any indication, that trickle of information is becoming a flood, and as it does so America's moral alarm clock can only ring louder and louder. Obama knows this.

Don't, for a minute, think that Obama doesn't understand the law or the constitution. Remember, he was a constitutional law professor before entering politics. Don't, for a minute, think that he doesn't understand that torture is something that should be prosecuted, up to the highest levels.

On the campaign trail, he said:
Now, if I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in coverups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law - and I think that's roughly how I would look at it.
He knows all of this. But he can't fix the problem all on his own.

As someone else once said, in a quote that has become re-used to the point of becoming an anonymous part of our language:
When the people lead, the leaders will follow.
That's what I think is going on with the torture memos, the subsequent discussion about the "SERE" program referenced in the Bybee memo, the newest revelation (which surprises no one) that torture may have been green-lighted in a desperate attempt to discover the (non-existent) links between Sadaam Hussein and Al Qaeda.

Obama is telling us to be outraged. To be morally incensed at the injustice done in our names. He's telling us that if America really wants to clear its name and take back its moral standing in the world community, if we really want to be able to tell our children that in America everyone has to follow the law, then We The People need to lead.

So stay angry. Stay outraged. Don't stop writing Letters to the Editor. Don't stop talking about it with your friends, neighbors, and co-workers.

Don't stop blogging about it. Don't stop calling your senators and representatives to demand justice. Never, never stop.

If we want to see the torturers prosecuted, we need to make Obama do it.

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