Today, a small bomb went off outside Upper East Side Starbucks. Last week, there were four arrested for trying to blow up a synagogue in the Bronx.
What is too easy to forget, from over here, is that these things can instill genuine fear in the people who are nearby - a sense of "Oh God that could've been me".
It appears that the politics of fear are returning to the US and the arch deacon of all fear mongers - Cheney - is openly out of the shadows and pitching his case.
Incredibly many Americans apparently find Cheney convincing. Obama responds, not very subtly giving his speech in the hall of the national archives with the "THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" clearly behind him.
But sadly, it seems the substance of his policy in this regard is now only faintly different from the previous administration. Apart from reinstating military tribunals, keeping detainees 'indefinitely' he is even allegedly "reserving to himself the right to use "enhanced interrogation techniques". Well so Cheney said in his speech, a claim now being repeated as fact on last weekend's meet the press, and not clearly denied by Obama's senior adviser, Axelrod.
I don't want to play into Cheney's hands by repeating his slander, but certainly it is sad to see the once strong policy watered down so much.I think the forces behind this are very powerful, and unfortunately just as able to exert a strong influence in a democratic congress as a repubican one. These are very likely forces that within the Republican party are aligned with those that don't want to see themselves purged for war crimes and the past revisited. In 1953 Krucschev levered himself into power and others out in the post-stalin vacuum by using accusations of illegality and torture during Stalin's purges. That Kruschev himself was not totally distant from this was not relevant, it was a political tool. Similarly the 'Cheney' wing of the Republican party is very likely to fear such tactics from the Powell/McCain wing.
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So?
Well I usually hesitate to forward things like this but Avaaz.org have had some interesting successes in the past, this looks worth supporting:
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