Oba-blowing-it

Believe it or not, back in 1969, Nixon did something right.
He didn't just launch the fiasco of the ‘War on Drugs,’ he started a treatment-in-lieu-of-prison option for those who were caught using drugs [though not those who sold them]. And he gave the treatment programs wide latitude to develop their own approaches to the ‘problem’.
The fact that he probably added the treatment option because, for the first time, lots of middle-class kids were running into the drug culture doesn’t change the fact that the funding of the treatment option did a lot of good. How much good depended, of course, on the effectiveness of the respective programs.

In 1972, I voluntarily entered one such program called Renaissance West [Rennis]. It was a ‘year-long’ program [people could graduate successfully anywhere from 6 to 18 months after entering—as assessed by the individual, the staff and the ‘family members’ within the program]. And the focus was not on drug use.
Instead, it concentrated on the fact that the lives of clients involved in the live-in, commune-like program were out of control and they had engaged in a form of self-medication in order to make their lives tolerable.
In-depth therapy was practiced and, in fact, the entire program, from house cleaning to meals to the development of personal support systems to the group therapy sessions themselves were used to address the issue of building more effective lives for ourselves.

A learning center was included and clients who wished to do so could pursue any courses of study they chose. I picked classes on astrology, creative writing and psychology. A student from the University of Missouri at Kansas City taught several pupils in the writing course and a professor taught the psychology class in which I was the only student.
After I graduated from Rennis, I wanted to go back to college. I had flunked out twice before and when I applied, UMKC refused me entry. I solicited letters of recommendation from the directors of the program and that psychology professor who had been teaching me for the last several months. In fact, I wrote the letters and they signed them. Based on those letters, I was accepted on probation.
I was the first graduate from Rennis to enter college and I felt the full weight resting on my shoulders. If I didn’t succeed it would reflect badly on the program and on the people who had helped me get in. I HAD to do well.
xxx
During the course of our history, if a White president did a bad job, he was judged as an individual. The next person we elected was also a White Male—because that’s just what we did.
But, things are different now. For the first time, we have departed from our standard operating procedure. We have elected a type of person who is ‘different’ from our norm. [No, he’s not really different, but he is perceived as different—and that’s what matters.]
Odds are, we wouldn’t have done this if Bush/Cheney had been even remotely competent. They weren’t and, as a result, the people of this country, collectively, made history.

And Obama is in exactly the same position I was in in 1973 when I walked into my first class at UMKC. If I did well, I opened the door for other clients of Renaissance West. If I did poorly, I slammed that door in their faces. It was that simple.

Obama is what? 48 years old? I was only 25 and I recognized the fact people who I might never meet but who might attempt to follow me from Rennis to college could be adversely affected by my actions.
Doesn’t Obama realize the plain reality that, if he keeps flip-flopping, reneging on his promises, alienating the people who elected him, screwing up generally, he will close the door of the Oval Office to any person who follows him who is not a White Male?
xxx
Update:
OK. Maybe it's not so bad.
I know I'm flip-flopping myself—in fact, I'm starting to experience whiplash.

Today I saw a clip of Obama's press release during which he said he will fight the publishing of the torture photos. I hadn't, before, heard the argument that releasing them might hamper future investigations of the torture and the people who instigated it as well as those who carried it out.

OK, then. That's an argument I can understand and believe in. If they might drive the whistle blowers back into the closet—keep the pics close to your vest. So long as the reason for withholding them isn't to keep the torture as secret as it still can be kept, I'm OK with that.

I just wish he had thought this argument through before he made the initial announcement that he would release them. If he keeps doing these switch-backs he'll do neither the nation nor himself any good.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm—
Tonight I received an email from the **ahem** “Change.gov” website asking for my thoughts regarding health care.

I had just finished writing the post below and was sitting here contemplating setting my hair on fire.
And, I had a thought [a dangerous undertaking, I know, but I’m used to working without a net]:
So, I went to the url included in my email, found the contact button and gave them a piece of my mind about the refusal to release the torture photos. I told them that, while health care is an important issue, it pales in comparison to transparent government—especially in light of what Obama promised while on the campaign trail. And I used the “if they’re not likely to listen to reason, give em shame” tactic. I compared his administration to Bush/Cheney.

So—I’m asking anyone who reads this: Please go to this website and yell at them about the torture photos. And urge others to, as well. If O & Co. get enough of these change-the-subject messages, they just might sit up and take notice. It’s worth a shot, anyway.
xxxxx
Rethinking—
It is just slightly possible that this is more of the same scenario I postulated on 4/21:
Back then, Obama stepped on the Justice Department's toes. And roused a protest from Holder.

Today, he stepped on the toes of the 2nd court of appeals that, in fact, just came out with the exact opposite opinion of what Obama was saying today.

So maybe, just maybe, this is all a political game. Maybe, if he steps on enough toes and gooses enough departments and branches of government, someone somewhere will grab the ball and run with it and Obama can look like the helpless bystander.

I know. I'm reaching again.
But, he gave me hope last year and I'm loath to let go of it—at least, not yet.

Turley Said It Best

Today, Obama repealed his own policy.
No more transparency—even if it has to do with crimes committed by the previous administration.
Obama has flip-flopped on releasing the pictures of torture. You know, the pictures he promised to make public on May 28? Those pictures.

There is speculation that Obama’s administration fears the pictures will be associated with it instead of the people who actually authorized the torture. WTF? Do they truly think that?
I can tell them right now—just in case they’re wondering: The people who already hate them. The ones who call him a socialist. The ones who are still demanding to see his birth certificate. The ones who hope he [and thereby, the country] fails. Those people will say, “See? We knew Obama tortured! We knew everybody does it!” But, no one else will.

On the other hand, those of us who used to think he was on the right track, those of us who believed him when he talked about transparency, those of us who are not among the 12% of the population who identify as Republicans, are deeply, deeply disappointed. And we’re heading toward rage.

So, here we go yet further down the slippery slope:
He asked Rick Warren, a gay-bashing-bigot, to pray at his inauguration.
He has maintained Bush’s policies in regard to “Faith Based Initiatives”—even down to allowing discriminatory hiring and proselytizing before dishing out the soup and handing over the cot.
He hasn’t repealed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, as he had promised. Gays continue to have their military careers ruined.
And he talks out of both sides of his neck when it comes to torture.

Tonight, on Rachel Maddow, Jonathon Turley, a law professor at George Washington University said, “It’s perfectly Orwellian.”
And, “What the president said today is diametrically against the Federal law.”
And, “If he succeeds, instead of having a transparent government, he would create this opaque government where you could virtually see nothing. The government could say, ‘This is going to be embarrassing. So, whatever is embarrassing to us injures national security.’”
And, “It’s just more evidence that this administration is becoming the greatest bait-and-switch in history. He is morphing into his predecessor.”

Rachel asked if these hundreds of new pictures suggest that there was an overall pattern that obviously reaches much higher than the ‘few rogue operators’ as both administrations have labeled them—and if that is the case, the whole thing will have to be investigated. And THAT is what Obama does not want to do. Turley agreed that that is exactly how this whole charade is beginning to appear.

The ACLU said it for me: When these photos come to light, “the outrage will focus not only on the Bush administration but on the Obama administration’s complicity in covering them up.”

Remember how much worse Watergate became after the cover-up started? Apparently, Obama doesn’t remember that little history lesson. And we all know what they say about those who forget history.
xxx
There is one [as Rachel would say] “teeny, tiny, tinee, teeeeeneee” little sliver of hope here.

Turley came up with virtually the same idea that I wrote about on April 21: that Obama is secretly hoping that he will be forced to release the photos—but that, for political reasons, he can’t just do it.

That COULD be the case, of course, but the more he plays these political games, the worse he looks to us hicks out in the sticks. To my mind, he’s choosing to mollify the wrong people.
Really, Obama, Cheney and Rush can't be any nastier to you than they're already being. Remember who put you where you are. Quit appeasing the criminals and start paying attention to the rest of us—or risk losing your head three-and-a-half years from now.

WTF???
As I’ve moaned about before, I’m appalled that Obama wants to “move on” from torture.

I watched McSame last Sunday—on Face the Nation, I think—saying, “We shouldn’t do it again. We won’t do it again.”
Then he accused Democrats of playing politics with torture.

I saw Newt on some other show saying, “I think this is something we shouldn’t do,” while saying he doesn’t know if waterboarding is torture or not.

I’ve listened to Pelosi when she said: “I didn’t know about the waterboarding.”

And, Monday night, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, who is on the Select Committee on Intelligence, kept telling Rachel, “As soon as I found out what happened. . . ,” “We don’t yet have all the facts. . . ,” and, “The memos were offensive.”
+++
Other than Pelosi [how could she not have known? _I_ knew!] the Democrats are being somewhat more skilled in their dancing around the issue.

But, the fact remains, they’re dancing. In some ways they remind me of the “danse macabre” of the middle ages. And the denials throughout Europe [and here] after World War II.

Keep dancing, politicos. I’ll keep taking notes and keeping score. And, come November, 2012, I’ll remember. So will lots and lots of other people. You remember that.