Does Joe Lieberman deserve to be stripped of his powers by the Democrats he betrayed? He certainly does. Would it have gratified me if they'd done so. Yes, I like seeing treachery punished.
Do the Bushites deserve to be prosecuted for their crimes? Yes, the Bushites deserve such punishment perhaps more than any office-holders in American history. Would I like seeing them held accountable like the criminals they are? Yes, every Hollywood movie about justice/revenge that I saw growing up trained me to crave just such a retribution.
But it appears that neither of these gratifying inflictions of justice is going to happen. Our president-elect has apparently chosen otherwise.
Do I think he's chosen wrongly? It is certainly possible that he has. It's possible that the course Barack Obama has taken will do the country less good than would have been done by imposing justice on wrong-doers. For people to get away with wrong-doing does undermine the integrity of righteousness. That certainly is a cost of such a course.
But it would be a great mistake to jump firmly to the conclusion, as so many in the progressive netroots movement have done, that Obama has either decided foolishly or shown a lack of true moral concern.
Three points should be made.
First, the criterion for evaluating what Obama does should be this: in what condition will he leave America at the end of the path of his leadership of this country? Whatever leaves it in the best condition-- morally, spiritually, environmentally, economically, geopolitically, etc.-- is the best choice.
The criterion should not be what FEELS BEST to us at the moment: although those two criteria may be the same in some instances, they are not necessarily identical. (The insistence that our feelings be gratified is particularly suspect when the feeling at the root of our insistence is ANGER: "Overcome anger by non-anger," said the Buddha, and Jesus, too, in other words.) And when the two criteria point in different directions, what matters is the long-term health and goodness of the nation (and, for that matter, the earth and humankind generally).
Second, though I feel pretty sure that, in Obama's position, I would have chosen otherwise, I find powerful reasons to give Obama a good deal of the benefit of the doubt.
Here's a guy who has achieved great things already, and he's done them HIS way, which has often been different from mine. * [See note, at the bottom of this piece, which is from something I wrote on February 29 of this year, just as Hillary was throwing the "kitchen sink" at Obama.] It is because of this difference in his ways of dealing with evil that it wasn't until mid-January that I saw Obama as having transformational possibilities: because he was not going energetically up against the Bushite evils, I had assumed that Obama could not provide what America needs to repair the damage of this dark Bushite era.
Yet, look how far he's already gone in achieving the transformation America needs. His achievements, it should be noted, are not just a matter of his "success" or his "climb to power": they are also, in my view, clearly triumphs of good over evil.
It is by doing things HIS way that Obama has already transformed the image of this country in the world. It is by doing things HIS way that Obama created the moment where so many hundreds of thousands of people, standing late at night in and near Grant Park in Chicago, showed such beautiful, joyful, loving, open expressions on their faces. How different is that face of America from the one that the Bushites imposed as our nation's face to the world! Obama, in his non-confrontational way, has managed to drive the evil forces deeper toward the margins of our national life, in considerable dissarray.
As they say in the investment world, "past performance is no guarantee of future results," but, to change the arena to sports, winners of the Cy Young Award generally know how to win ballgames.
It is the third point, however, that perhaps most needs to be made. America's darkness has been at bottom a spiritual crisis, and the battle for America's soul must be won above all at the spiritual level.
Obama's candidacy seemed to recognize this, and the worldwide response to his victory is a manifestation of the recognition by many millions that Obama's victory was a spiritual victory. And what Obama seems to be doing now seems best interpreted not as a caving in, nor as a sign of moral indifference, but as indicating what spiritual strategy he has chosen.
He has chosen a strategy of reconciliation, of reaching out beyond the ranks of his allies to enlist even his former opponents in supporting his mission to heal America.
Andrew Bard Schmookler's website www.nonesoblind.org is devoted to understanding the roots of America's present moral crisis and the means by which the urgent challenge of this dangerous moment can be met. Dr. Schmookler is also the author of such books as The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution (SUNY Press) and Debating the Good Society: A Quest to Bridge America's Moral Divide (M.I.T. Press). He also conducts regular talk-radio conversations in both red and blue states.
How uplifting it is to see through your eyes and words the possibilities that radiate from what we are seeing as the Obama presidency takes shape. I particularly applaud the observation you made about the joy and hope of Obama's campaign as contrasted with the fear and hate of the opposition-- good vs. evil indeed.
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Richmond Shreve (19 articles, 60 quicklinks, 17 diaries, 135 comments)
on Thursday, November 20, 2008 at 11:07:46 AM
Justice and retribution are not the same. Do you believe that we should release all of the murderers from prison as a means of reconciliation? The only difference between a murderer in prison and Bush and his cronies is the incredible volume of deaths, imprisonment, and torture they have committed.
By not judging these criminals for their long list of crimes, we are essentially saying that what they did was okay. We are also saying that breaking the law is okay for some people but not for others. A million Iraqis are dead and five million are displaced. How many are still in prison who are innocent? How many Americans have really died in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan? Many more than we are told. How many bodies and lives have been destroyed by this man and this administration?
There will no healing without justice. What this administration has done is a huge open wound in America. That wound will not be healed by Obama saying to Bush & company, "You were bad but don't worry about it. Go ahead and enjoy your life with your ill-gotten spoils of war."
I also disagree about Obama's heart. I'm afraid he is going to betray us and has already begun to do so. Early in his run for office he mentioned the suffering of the Palestinians. Once AIPAC got their hooks into Obama (with money), I haven't heard a word about them again. One Jewish author spoke of Obama's behavior at the AIPAC meeting as "fawning and obsequious."
Obama had a lot more money for his campaign than McCain. The myth is that it came from small contributors all over the country. Indeed that happened, but Obama brought in large amounts of money from corporations. I'm afraid that progressives are in for a bigger let down than occurred after the 2006 elections.
Forgiveness and reconciliation are wonderful things but they do not replace justice.
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Bob Trowbridge (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 60 comments)
on Thursday, November 20, 2008 at 2:11:55 PM
the first of the justifications for obama's unfortunate actions. the sickness has fully taken hold. if obama does it he must have a good reason for it. if a republican does it - public stoning is required. please - go back and check obama's voting record. healing does not have anything to do with complicity or denial. there is nothing to reconcile. the neoconliberals have it in mind to establish world dictatorship, decimate the middle class, remove 85% of the population of this planet, and do it so that the masses actually enjoy it. mr obama is here to happily deliver the fatal blow to america and life as we know it. when denial reaches a certain point there are no more red flags.
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Peggy Nicholson (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 13 comments)
on Thursday, November 20, 2008 at 2:44:28 PM
Alternatively, what has begun is something else: the insistence from the left about how positive change must occur, and what it must look like. Over the years --more than 40, by now, in my case-- I've seen enough from the left that seems deeply wedded into a certain kind of purity, and that therefore rejects any notion that politics is "the art of the possible" and that not everything desirable is possible if pursued directly and head on and right away, that I'd place my bet that what has begun is not the rationalizing of Obama's cravenness and corruption but the rejection of the work by a good man trying to achieve the good in a world where the obstacles are many and the need for strategy is far more subtle and complex than is imagined in the black-and-white world of a great many on the left.
I would say that "time will tell," but I know that even when time tells, its message doesn't register with everyone. I live right now in an area of the country where the Civil War is called by some "the war of Northern Aggression," where "the lessons of Viet Nam" are regarded as some as being that the politicians should never get in the way of our blessed military, and where this recession is already regarded by a few as Obama's fault.
So I have no illusions about whether, eight years down the road, if I'm right about Obama's heart and intentions, it will be acknowledged by everyone on either the right or left. I hope that if you're right, and if Obama's strategies are not really ways of achieving the good, I'll have realized it long since. But I suppose that can't be guaranteed, either.
Nonetheless, if there were some way of resolving this dispute with a bet, I'd gladly put money on it.
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Andrew Bard Schmookler (322 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 153 comments)
on Thursday, November 20, 2008 at 3:00:28 PM
While there is much to be said for forgiveness and redemption, there is more to be said for the surety of justice and punishment. You can't really have one without the other and without justice you will never have a civilized society. We have seen the consequences of such politically deliberate oversight failures in the past. JFK's assassination conspiracy which led to LBJ's and Nixon's Vietnam war, and later to further Rightwing opportunistic murders of RFK, MLK, and others here in the later 20th century. In the 21st century we allowed political criminals to steal two presidential elections and take us to war on false premises, one being the obvious false flag attack on the WTC, covered up by those affiliated with those involved here. Given Obama's choice of Chief of staff and continued acceptance of Lieberman as Chair of Governmental Oversight and Homeland Security, no justice will be served and such crimes will be rewarded and further encouraged. That offers us little hope other than one might have through avoiding reality by denial.
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Richard Lee (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 62 comments)
on Thursday, November 20, 2008 at 7:49:15 PM
I agree with the majority of the above respondents. I don't want vengeance, I want positive change. What hurts right now is there is no actual sign of change. Instead the somewhat less guilty (we assume, and we won't know unless there is a full accounting) are being called to head the "transition." What is happening looks awfully similar to the absolving of a serial rapist by a paternalistic judge who thinks girls deserve that, and releasing him to carry on.
I am a Buddhist myself, and I love Buddhism for creating an alternative to materialistic society, while leaving the latter in place to serve as a good example of what is wrong with materialism. But then one day the materialists do what China did to Tibet. Running away is not the perfect response. (Okay, I'm probably getting in over my head here.)
What I want to say is that there comes a point when it behooves us as responsible caring humans to stand up and express our outrage at the appalling level of injustice that has been allowed to occur and insist on reform. There are the "healing fires of rage."
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Patricia 0rmsby (3 articles, 5 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 166 comments)
on Friday, November 21, 2008 at 3:29:36 AM
<blockquote>What I want to say is that there comes a point when it behooves us as responsible caring humans to stand up and express our outrage at the appalling level of injustice that has been allowed to occur and insist on reform. There are the "healing fires of rage."</blockquote>
I agree, Patricia. That has been my whole mission for the past four years-- standing up and denouncing the appalling nature of this Bushite power. I launched my website (www.NoneSoBlind.org) with a call for a "prophetic" social movement, which stood up to the evil power armed with the moral truth, which wielded the weapon of such moral outrage as you describe. THat is still where my own moral passion would like to see us go.
What I am arguing, however, is that when it comes to the answer to the question, "How can a moral leader now best heal this country?" it is possible that there is also another way, and that it is entirely plausible that this other way --even if it goes against my grain-- could be a superior way to get the nation into better condition.
I've written here before --see my "Lament of a True Patriot"-- that America failed to respond to this criminal Bushite power as it should have, as our Founders intended. That was true of the Congress, it was true of the press, and it was true of the American people.
Now, consider what would happen now if Obama took the route you and others here have said that it is so clear is required. We still have basically the same Congress that failed to stand up to the abuses of power, failed to even censure let alone impeach. We still have altogether the same media, which were complicit cheerleaders who neglected to report one of the three or four biggest stories in American history-- the fascist hijacking of our constitutional democracy. And we still have the same American people, who did not take to the streets in their millions to protest the unprecedented lawlessness of the very kind of usurpatious presidency our Founders warned us about.
How do you think our efforts to get "justice" would play out, and what would the legacy of that exercise be? Do you think at the end of all that we would have "healed" the country with our righteous rage? Do you think that we would have gotten to a place where we'd successfully exorcized the dark and destructive spirit that animated this fascist Bushite presidency? Do you think that the American people would come away with their understanding of what had happened clarified and their moral purpose rededicated to the better values of the American political tradition?
I am skeptical.
One of the things I saw about Obama last winter was that he'd taken a strategy of calling America to the better angels of its nature WITHOUT (very directly or pointedly) calling our attention to the darkness from which he was promising to extricate ourselves. It occurred to me then that the American people are simply not ready, not willing, not equipped, to confront what has happened in this country during the past eight years.
There are enough of us Americans who want the good for Obama to succeed. But there are --most regrettably-- not enough Americans who are willing to look at the evil, and at our national complicity in it, to have given Obama any mandate to go after these terrible criminals who have been ruling our country (and who are unpopular not because they are evil but because they botched the job).
In the wake of World War II, the trials at Nuremberg held at least a few of the NAzis accountable for their crimes against humanity. It would be great if we could go after justice as effectively as that here and now. But that was in the context of a military conquest of a vanquished nation, whose powers had been crushed and whose people knew they had to acquiesce in what the conquering power might wish to impose.
The American body politic --the same one that failed so badly in these Bushite years-- is still basically intact. Thank God we're replacing the power at the top, replacing an evil regime with what it is that Obama is bringing to the White House. But the system that was complicit or passive in the face of the Bushite crimes is still there, still the one that would be the audience (if not the instruments) of our justice.
Do you really see a way in which the justice we'd like to see could be achieved without perpetuating the evil spirits of division and rancor, without fanning the flames of resentment and hatred, without feeding the right-wing lie machine, without producing a backlash, and without diverting virtually all the political attention and energy of our nation into such battles and away from addressing all the other damage that the Bushite evil has inflicted on this country?
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Andrew Bard Schmookler (322 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 153 comments)
on Friday, November 21, 2008 at 5:54:51 AM
The I-Ching I threw for Obama gave him "Possession in Great Measure", and spoke much about this.
"Fire in heaven above; the Image of Possession in Great Measure. All things stand out in the light, Thus the Superior Man curbs Evil and furthers Good and thereby obeys the benevolent will of heaven "
It also spoke of "Keeping his strength still".
I think it is CONGRESS, if not this one, then the next one where we truly DO have a majority, that should deal with this. They only need to DECIDE they want to pursure justice and appoint the people to do it, so they themselves won't be tying up their time, which should be used to help Obama move us forward. ("Crossing the Great Water" is possible now)
The very existence of these criminal proceedings will de-fang the worst elements left in Congress...including Lieberman.
Obama can accomplish far more by NOT being saddled with this messy job, and understands quite well that Evil, while it needs to be curbed, cannot always be confronted directly, as it feeds and grows upon such energy.
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Bia Winter (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 456 comments)
on Friday, November 21, 2008 at 10:25:45 AM
8 comments
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