[Sosfbay-discuss] [Fwd: What Next for President Elect Obama (Alternet asks experts)]

Thu Nov 6 13:31:15 PST 2008

Here is the medley of of expectations by several progressive pundits I 
referred to at last night's GPSCC monthly meeting

Fred D.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	What Next for President Elect Obama (Alternet asks experts)
Date: 	Wed, 5 Nov 2008 15:22:56 -0800
From: 	Antonia Juhasz <tyrannyofoil at gmail.com>
To: 	fredd at freeshell.org

AlterNet
OK Barack, Time to Hit the Ground Running
By , AlterNet
Posted on November 5, 2008, Printed on November 5, 2008
www.alternet.org/story/106106/ 
<http://thebushagenda.net/phplist/lt.php?id=cEVQAFpYUVVEDw9LB1UCBw%3D%3D>
(GO TO ORIGINAL AND POST YOUR COMMENTS)

AlterNet asked dozens of writers, experts and activists on key issues to 
write about where the country needs to go, and the priorities for Barack 
Obama's early days in office. The following is the first in a series of 
articles we'll be running this week.

Michael Ratner, President, Center for Constitutional Rights:

It is historic. A black family in the White House that slaves built. 
Yes, slaves were used in the construction of the White House. When I was 
a child this never could have happened. In the 50's when I visited 
Florida, even after Brown v. Board of Education, there were separate 
drinking fountains and bathrooms for Blacks. When Center for 
Constitutional Rights was founded in the 60's there were only three 
elected Black officials in the Black belt; today there are thousands. So 
we are seeing an amazing moment in American history.

This is not to say our work is done. Obama is not a progressive. But he 
is certainly more liberal than Bush and McCain. He will redistribute 
some of the vast wealth that has gone to rich in a county that has 
plundered its poor since Reagan in 1981. It will not be a social 
democracy, but it will better than what we had. The disastrous economic 
crisis is pushing him in this direction, but citizenry will need to keep 
up the pressure.

Obama has been disappointing regarding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. 
These must be ended and time is now; the time to revive our anti-war 
movement is now. We cannot await what Obama might do: he has already 
told us about wanting to send more troops in Afghanistan. We must push 
him to end the current wars and eradicate the poison of aggressive war.

Obama has promised to close Guantanamo and end torture. We must hold him 
to that promise. He must close secret CIA sites and off shore prisons. 
He must end the kangaroo courts called military commissions. He must end 
the massive surveillance state America has become.

Finally, he must appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the war 
crimes of the Bush administration: the aggressive war in Iraq, torture 
and warrantless wiretapping. In short he must bring America back into 
the world of civilized states where fundamental rights and the 
prohibition on aggressive war are not just slogans but guide U.S. actions.

***

Dahlia Lithwick, contributing editor at Newsweek and senior editor at Slate:

Hit "control+ alt + delete" on the Rule of Law. Literally restart the 
whole system like its 2000 again. That means: Close Guantanamo and 
either try or release the remaining prisoners in real tribunals. 
Renounce water-boarding. Re-assert that the Geneva Conventions still 
matter. Do away with the Patriot Act reforms that allowed abuse ranging 
from "national security letters" to terrorizing librarians. Restore 
FISA. Stop using the "state secrets" to shield judicial scrutiny into 
government wrongdoing. Ditto for blanket claims of executive privilege 
for anyone who's ever muttered a word to the president. Stop with the 
cryptic and deceptive signing statements. Stop snipe hunting vote fraud.

A lot of new "law" was invented over the past eight years. But legal?

Not so much.

***

John Cusack, Actor, Director (War, Inc., Grace is Gone):

The world looks to America. The planet sighs in relief. It deserves a 
righteous party. And now, the real work begins.

The first thing Obama should do is pray. I would hope he would start to 
dismantle the infrastructure of the occupation of Iraq. And make 
transparent the gorging on the state -- cut off these corporate 
interests and start reallocating money back into the United States 
infrastructure and people.

***

Antonia Juhasz, author, The Tyranny of Oil: the World's Most Powerful 
Industry -- And What We Must Do To Stop It (HarperCollins Publishers, 
October 7, 2008). www.TyrannyofOil.org 
<http://thebushagenda.net/phplist/lt.php?id=cEVQAFpYUVREDw9LB1UCBw%3D%3D>

To President Elect Obama:

Be Bold. Take on Big Oil and undo the disastrously failed economic, 
military, energy, and deregulatory policies of the past. Big Oil has 
guided public policy down a disastrous road, standing as an obstacle to 
the fulfillment of critical social movements against war, a failing 
economy, and global warming. Renounce and undo the use of the U.S. 
military as an oil protective force beginning with immediately and 
unequivocally ending the Iraq war. Make the reintroduction of 
regulation, enforcement, and taxation of this industry from the 
production, refining, marketing, transport, to the disposal of its 
products a vital heart of your administration. Reintroduce the 
moratoriums on offshore drilling and shale oil development. Fully and 
finally close the "Enron Loophole" and consider whether it is 
appropriate to trade a good as fundamental as crude on futures 
exchanges. Rather than "cap and trade" pollution, ban it through 
regulation. Eliminate industry subsidies, collect royalties, i! mplement 
a windfall profits tax, increase gasoline taxes, and increase corporate 
taxation broadly to help Americans reduce consumption of all oil 
products by using this money to fund a massive public works program (ala 
the WPA) in clean sustainable local public transportation and to fund 
local sustainable green energy alternatives. Reform lobbying, conflict 
of interest, and campaign finance laws to remove the stain of Big Oil's 
money from our democracy and fully embrace the Separation of Oil and 
State. Lead the world by example by making diplomacy, cooperation, 
negotiation, and international law--not war--the center of our 
international energy plan.

***

Amie Newman, writer for RH Reality Check

Hope is on the horizon. For the last eight years, women have suffered 
under an administration that has elevated ideology and politics above 
women's health and lives. In opposition to the expertise of the medical 
community, scientists and reproductive health advocates, the Bush 
administration has chosen to sacrifice women's health to advance its own 
agenda. To begin to turn the tides, in the first 100 days of a new 
administration, there are many pro-prevention, pro-education policies 
that should be implemented to improve the health outcomes for women and 
young people worldwide: overturning the Global Gag Rule, taking action 
on ensuring the availability of publicly funded contraception for 
low-income women, defunding failed abstinence only programs in favor of 
proven, effective comprehensive sex ed programs, passing the Freedom of 
Choice Act.

But you know what I would most love to see from our new president in the 
first 100 days? Honestly? A new way of talking about sexual and 
reproductive health and rights that shows that he gets it. Give a 
substantive, sincere Agenda For Women's Health speech that makes the 
link between safe, legal abortion and maternal mortality rates. Talk 
about the connection between access to contraception for all women and 
unintended pregnancy rates. Let the young people of this nation know 
that you trust them enough to push for science-based comprehensive sex 
ed. Set the stage for a new way of approaching critical sexual and 
reproductive health and rights issues that tells the rest of the world 
that the United States is ready to become the health and rights leader 
it needs to be.

***

Roberto Lovato, Roberto Lovato, frequent Nation contributor, New 
York-based writer with New America Media.

Before anything, I'd like to congratulate Sen. Obama for his astonishing 
campaign. First and foremost, I'd like to see an Obama administration 
bring rationality and transparency back to the art of government, the 
science of statecraft. Obama should, for example, end immediately the 
dangerously irrational rise of miltarized immigration policy -- 
deploying heavily-armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents 
to terrorize gardners, maids and their children in their homes, schools 
and workplaces, denying these families habeas corpus and jailing 
hundreds of thousands of them under the Guantanamo-like conditions of 
jails run by corrupt companies. Rather than try to reform ICE, one of 
the most violent, inefficient and militarized branches of government, 
the Obama Administration should take government immigration functions 
out of the massive and militarized bureaucracy of the Department of 
Homeland Security. For most of the history of immigration policy, 
immigration-relate! d matters have been handled by non-militarized 
branches of government like the Department of Labor and others. Lastly, 
an Obama Administration should set a more humane and rational tone 
around immigration, a tone that shuts down the borders of irrationality 
and violence in government while also fostering greater understanding of 
and openness to the geopolitical, legal and other complexities of 
immigration today.

***

Dean Baker, Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research

President Obama is coming into office at a time of great risks and 
enormous opportunity. He can turn the current economic crisis to his 
advantage by extending national health care insurance as the centerpiece 
of a major economic stimulus package. Offering generous tax credits to 
businesses that don't already insure their workers (along with matching 
credits to businesses that improve their coverage) will quickly extend 
coverage to the vast majority of people who are not already covered.

The extension of health care coverage should be accompanied by an 
opening up of a Medicare-type program to the whole country. This is 
important both because it will make it very easy for small businesses to 
simply opt for the Medicare program instead of spending hours comparing 
the details of various plans and also because a Medicare-type program 
will provide a mechanism to restrain costs.

President Obama has a huge agenda to fill his terms in office, but if he 
succeeds in providing universal health coverage, he will have 
qualitatively changed peoples' lives in a way that will always be 
remembered.

***

Ethan Nadelmann, executive director, Drug Policy Alliance What can a 
President Obama do about drugs?

First, appoint a drug czar who will be more surgeon general than 
military general.

Second, insist that science trump politics and prejudice. That means 
federal support for needle exchange programs that prevent HIV/AIDS and 
overdose prevention programs that save lives. It means eliminating the 
ideological barriers that criminalize the prescription of marijuana as 
medicine, and that prevent doctors from treating pain and addiction with 
whatever drugs work best. And it means stimulating honest and informed 
debate on all drug policy options, including decriminalization and legal 
regulation of drug markets.

Third, eliminate harsh and racially discriminatory drug sentencing laws.

Fourth, stop throwing taxpayer money down the drain on international 
drug control programs that can have no impact on drug problems within 
the United States.

And fifth: boldly proclaim a "new bottom line" in U.S. drug policy -- 
one that rejects the empty rhetoric of zero tolerance and a drug free 
society, that acknowledges the reality that drugs are here to stay, and 
that insists upon policies that reduce the harms of both drug misuse and 
our failed prohibitionist policies.

***

Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet Senior Fellow

As historic, energetic and emotional as Tuesday's vote was, there are 
still many things that public officials need to do to improve how we 
vote in American to make the process more accessible, transparent and 
trustworthy.

To start, every state should offer universal same-day registration, so 
qualified citizens can show up -- on Election Day or during early voting 
-- and present the necessary identification to register and then vote. 
Early voting should also be extended throughout the country, although 
there should be more voting centers so people do not have to wait half a 
day or more as was seen in Florida this year. Voters need to be 
accommodated, not made to jump through unnecessary bureaucratic hoops.

Privatizing the voting process should be reversed, whether it is 
third-party groups paying workers to register low-income people -- 
because state social welfare agencies are not fulfilling their 
obligation to do so under federal law -- or private vendors that program 
the voting machinery itself. Software used in these computers should not 
be proprietary so the process can be more transparent to restore the 
public's trust. The nation needs to return to a paper-based voting 
system, where voters' marks on ballots leave no ambiguity who voted for 
who -- and vote count audits can be conducted to ensure that computer 
scanners are properly working.

Election officials finally need the resources to make voting easy and 
accessible, instead of being a government backwater that only get 
attention several days a year. Similarly, the presidential public 
financing system needs to updated so it is a viable choice in modern 
campaigns, in tandem with federal requirements that open up the airwaves 
for more debates and opportunities for competing views to be heard.

There are many other ideas on an election reform to-do list, but making 
voting more accessible, dignified, transparent and elevating the 
possibility for more detailed public debate would be a very good start.

www.TyrannyofOil.org 
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