from the Center for Constitutional Rights: >> How the Obama administration handles these critical questions is the key to >> the success or failure of this presidency - and the central question >> confronting President Obama today is that of accountability and prosecutions >> for Bush administration officials.<<
Carrol Cox wrote: > This doesn't make sense. Success or failure inn what respect from whose > perspective? [typos corrected, here and below -- JD] >From the perspective of civil liberties lawyers (who wrote it). > Objectively speaking, I would still argue that the Bush > Administration was a pretty complete success, "objectively"? it's unclear what that means. I'd say that Bush was very successful at serving the short-term needs of his constituents (capitalists with a short-term perspective, fundamentalist Christians, war-hawks, etc.) but did a poor job at serving the long-term class interests of the capitalists (represented, perhaps, by George Soros and the like). In the longer run, he didn't even serve his constituents well as his rule undermined their reign's legitimacy: look what this did to the GOP. > and in that framework, > Obama's continuation of its "gains" in control over a possibly > obstreperous citizenry, like its stepped-up aggressiveness I > Pakistan/Afghanistan, are simply consolidating or attempting to > consolidate the gains of the Bush Administration. I'd say that Obama's more multilateral and measured foreign policy (along with his domestic policies) fits better with the long-term interests of the capitalist class. Instead of creating enemies in the Middle East (via torturing for example) and irritating allies (via invading Iraq, for example), Obama is trying to promote capitalism's legitimacy and that of the hegemonic power (the US). > Liberals have a confusing habit of assuming that the whole world is > aiming at the same goals as they (the liberals) are. It's just not so. That's true. But "old left" Marxists have a confusing habit of merging all of the factions of the capitalist class into one big homogeneous bloc, ignoring conflicts between short-term (particularistic) interests and long-term (class) interests, while often assuming that the capitalists always get what they want (even in the midst of a serious crisis). > And in politics as in art, one has to judge in terms of the aims of the > agents, not in terms of some private wishes of the judge. their subjective aims? Bush's subjective aims were likely that of saving the world against "evil-doers" and helping his friends. He likely does not see himself as a bad man. Likely, he sees help to his friends as benefiting the world in some way. their objective aims? what are those? the phrase sounds like an oxymoron to me. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
