There is an interesting, well argued piece circulating on the internet, a long conversation between actor Jon Cusack and his close friend Constitutional scholar Jon Turley. http://
They argue convincingly and well that the Obama administration has created an Imperial presidency that would have astounded even Richard Nixon. Obama’s decision to kill American citizens without trial, to give trials to some ‘terrorists’ and hold others in indefinite detention without due process, and his assurance given to CIA officials earlier in his presidency that they would not be prosecuted for torture because they were “only following orders” guts the Nuremberg laws and our International Treaty obligations. They argue, and I agree that such actions makes a mockery of “all the bright lines” that used to confer moral high ground on the United States.
It is an important argument and they suggest that despite the onerous changes that would occur to domestic policy----Rights of Women, Environment et al,--- that the Constitution is our UNIVERSAL founding document. In ignoring it (and, as citizens, allowing it to be ignored) we become, step by invisible step, people who are no longer recognizable as supporting the rule of law and high water-mark principles of Governance. I separate myself from them when they argue that because of this we should not vote for President Obama, and I sent them my reasons in the following letter.
Dear friends,
Thanks for that long, provocative conversation. It was long on analysis (with which I agree) but felt light to me in practical terms of what to do. Not to diminish the importance of moral principle one iota, but while you might find it "hard to vote" for a guy who has made the Presidency even more Imperial than Bush II, voided the Nuremberg convention and Bill of Rights, in practical terms what is the alternative?
The issues you raise, while critical, are known to a relatively small number of policy wonks. They have no standing or following amongst voters and consequently no political heft. You would spend precious time and energy first educating the voters and then convincing them that these are important issues. In triage terms, they are issues which exist on a longer time-frame. In the immediate term---global warming, climate change, the wholesale destruction of the environment including fracking and mountain-top removal, nuclear power, and the expulsion of carcinogenic toxins in the environment are killing and hurting people today and decimating the world’s species. As a global or even species wide threat to all humans President Obama’s amassing of political power is a dim third at best.
It seems to me you might be overlooking the fact that ALL the candidates are and have always been pre-vetted by the corporate sector which fans them out on the shelf like fashion options. Want a chic, hip, Harvard educated charmer? A bible thumping anti-Evolutionist? A quack historian? A cranky grandpa who'll let you use drugs, or a clean-cut corporate raider? "We got 'em all!"
Much as I admire our President for a host of virtues and efforts, let us not forget that he could never have gotten out of the starting block without the imprimatur of the corporate/financial sector. He is Wall’s Street’s boy and the alacrity with which he appointed their representatives to his cabinet and made the banks whole while giving nothing to a defrauded and foreclosed public makes my case more eloquently than anything I could say, except, that to expect otherwise is naïve. To do so overlooks the obvious:
The Corporate sector has now severed all pretense at national loyalties. They are global corporations and are treating America and Americans as they have been treating the Third World---- dumping entire mountain tops to fill in streams and valleys; poisoning the ground-water, causing social disruption and disease in their wake. As a people, we sat silently by while they did it (and continue to do it) to brown skinned people around the globe. Now they’re coming after us, and perhaps we don’t feel as privileged as once did to skim the cream and throw away the milk.
These guys are smart enough to expect push-back, and the way they are preparing for it is through precisely the Draconian legal measures that Cusak and Turley are discussing; laws that were slipped through under cover of fighting warfare and terrorism but which are actually preparation for the growing resistance of the American citizen. While there are small Constituencies for Constitutional Law (despite your assertion and my agreement that there should be a "bright lines" we should hold sacred, (and which would have saved us much blood and treasure had they been), right now, large consensuses exist on "the role of money in Politics", the environment and women's rights and Clean Energy. The only way we will ever buy the time to address the Constitutional issues is if we forestall the pending famine, social disruptions and chaos that will be levied on us by Climate Change. Should that happen we will be in true crisis mode, and then we will really see Democracy fly out the window.
To not vote for Obama because of principled objections to his Constitutional violations is to abandon addressing the near-term emergencies for a longer-term, philosophical commitment. I don't think it makes sense. The Yahoos running against him will undermine and negate every social justice, environmental, anti-corporate, anti-nuclear effort and establish a Facist legal system as well.
If you agree with that analysis, wouldn't it make sense to organize around those issues for which constituencies already exist? Trying to move (or limit) money in politics; supporting the President's higher fuel efficiency standards and the EPA's cleaner air standards; fight the threat of nuclear power and waste, etc., and use organizing to address people about the issues you (John and Jon) raise? Wouldn't this as effectively (and simultaneously) create and build a long-term constituency for the longer term problem? Unless the two of you are ready to arm yourselves and take off into the Bitterroots as militias, you will still be arguing Constitutional Law while hundreds of millions of people are dislocated by flooding, the rain-forests are devastated, 30% of the Earth’s species disappear, and social disruptions of unimaginable scale occur when hundreds of millions of people cross borders seeking resources, fresh water, and higher ground.
Sometimes you have to hold your nose, think of your children and grandchildren and all the miraculous species of the Earth and do what you can in lieu of what you should.