11 February, 2009
There is certainly a great deal of slack-jawed shock going around these days, especially in progressive circles, where pundits, commentators, analysts and kibitzers continually find themselves reeling from yet another ‘inexplicable’ move by the Obama Administration to uphold the core principles of their predecessors: enriching the rich, extending the empire, and enhancing the authoritarian power of a thoroughly militarized state.
For example, Glenn Greenwald and Scott Horton at Harper’s (among many others) are deeply shocked by Team Obama’s draconian maneuvers to quash a court case based on clear, abundant and credible evidence that American security forces — and their corporate accomplices — colluded to inflict horrendous tortures on a gulag captive (whose only ‘crime,’ it turns out, was reading a satirical magazine article). While Horton struggles to find some small justification for what he sees as an unwise decision, Greenwald is scathing and detailed in denouncing Obama’s action, in which the new president seeks to uphold — and to seize for himself — some of the most egregious claims of arbitrary, tyrannical power once advanced by George ‘Unitary Executive’ Bush.
The New Dark Age 