Blog Stage Four

The Zombie Presidency
Ian Mastes writes in counterpunch.com that Americans didn't get the government of change they thought they voted for; the government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich lives on. The money continues to flow from taxpayers to Wall Street's big banks, not in the form of deposit accounts, but in the form of bailouts. Mr. Masters is angry, and rightly so, and he blames the beggining of the current economic problem on Ronald Reagan's decision to favor the millionaires at the expense of the working class and on Bush/Cheney regime as the grand finale. But this reverse of the Robin Hood phenomenon, as he calls it, has existed since the invention of Capitalism; in fact, it is Capitalism by definition. I don't think Capitalism in itself is evil; but our government from the very beginning has tilted the rule of law in favor of the businesses, thus allowing the unequal distribution of wealth that has been the core source of the problems we face today, just as it was the mayor cause of the great depression in the 1930s. When a society is governed by an entity that has the absolute power to make, control and distribute money, as ours does, the concept of democracy has no room to survive. The power of the people becomes non-existent against such absolutism; the illusion is perpetuated via democratic elections and such, and the truth as Masters puts it, is that politicians represent money, not people.
Personally, I am starting to think that the Obama machine has been insulting the intellingence of the people who elected him, especially when they continue the propaganda of hope and change at the same time that they are conducting the business of politics as usual. Mr. Maters' statement that America is screwed and we have only ourselves to blame might be right, but he also notes that it will take a movement from the bottom-up to bring us out of the mess. I believe the movement has begun, because daily I come across social movements like Community Earth Councils, and the people and ideas featured on websites such as HaveFunDoGood, and many others out there, as well as people I meet everyday that are aware of the problems we face and the responsibilities we must face ourselves, and eager to do what it takes, because they are finally convinced that the goverment won't do it for us.

On the other hand, maybe Andrew Sullivan in The Promise of Pragmatism has a point and we should give the President some more time and not under-estimate his ability to deliver on his promise. Hard to imagine, but not impossible to conceive.

I Consent

BLOG STAGE THREE
Is the Supreme Court About to Kill Off the Exclusionary Rule?

Adam Cohen writing an Editorial for The New York Times on February 16, 2009 exposes the recent efforts by the Supreme Court to undo a controversial law that has endured for nearly five decades. He is addressing the general public and for those unfamiliar with the rule, he gives an abbreviated history and the court cases it has affected since its inception in 1914.
This is how Wikipedia summarizes it:

“The exclusionary rule is designed to provide a remedy and disincentive, short of criminal prosecution, in response to prosecutors and police who illegally gather evidence in violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments in the Bill of Rights, by conducts unreasonable searches and seizure or compelled self-incrimination. The exclusionary rule also applies to violations of the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees the right to counsel”

Mr. Cohen presents arguments from both sides of the debate, but he is obviously in favor of keeping the rule intact. Critics argue that the rule allows criminals to go free based on technicalities, which was predicted when the rule was adopted as a national standard in 1962. But it has also changed the incentives for the police, he says, “it gave them less reason to enter a home or tap a phone without a warrant”.

Cohen’s concern stems from last month’s Court ruling on Herring v. United States, in which information used to conduct a search was later discovered to be incorrect due to a negligent error in a police’s database, but it was allowed anyway In this case, Mr. Cohen says, writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts declared that…. Evidence need not necessarily be disqualified if it was illegally obtained because of errors in police databases. Isolated mistakes of this sort are not among the exclusionary rule’s core concerns…. Mr. Cohen agrees with the dissenting Justice Ruth Ginsburg, who wrote…. In the modern age database errors can lead to many people’s rights being denied. The harm to a citizen who is arrested and searched on the street because a bureaucrat has made a computer error is just the sort of invasion the founders worried about when they drafted the Fourth Amendment.

Mr. Cohen reminds us what the Supreme Court said back in 1961: “nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence”.

Adam Cohen’s editorial must not be ignored. People must not forget that the US is still a Government of Laws not of Men.

Link to original editorial http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/16/opinion/16mon4.html?_r=1

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A Task to Make Democracy Matter

While majority of the media, mainstream and not, remains busy either denouncing or promoting their “better” ideas for a recovery plan, the fundamental and truly urgent questions continue to be buried in the usual political propaganda. But Henry A Giroux’ is not; in his story "Educating Obama" his main concern is the future of democracy. The story published in the online political newsletter counterpunch, he brazenly points to the debauchery that our market driven society has been engaged in for the past 30 yrs and invites us to question the role of the media and other educational institutions in celebrating and legitimizing the value of consumption over rationality and critical citizenship. He believes that the economic crisis presents an opportunity for reevaluating our role in the political process, that knowledge is power and so our corporate leadership is determined to keep us ignorant and sedated. His is a wake up call, and this time we must not snooze, our survival as a democratic society depends on it.