Sunday, May 30, 2010

Imperial presidency still in effect

While I've been busy focusing on the daily erupting volcanoe of conspiratorial crazy that is Glenn Beck, Glenn Greenwald has lately written a series of important posts documenting and commenting upon the ongoing human rights abuses by the Obama administration, as well as about its hypocrisy in prosecuting whistleblowers despite campaign promises of transparency in government and the vapid mantra of Looking Forward, Not Backward which only seems to apply to people involved in torturing people to death, unleashing devastating illegal war or massive illegal surveillance, not to people who expose government wrongdoing.

I really can't add anthing to what Greenwald has written, but I can tie it into why I find Beck's prominent role within conservative politics to be so distressing (and infuriating): above you have Greenwald - who has consistently written against the abuse of civil liberties in the name of waging war on "terror" - giving actual, real world examples of the imperial presidency being abused. Meanwhile, Glenn Beck is busy telling his audience that it should be preparing itself for an apocalyptic battle with a fictional foe (the Satanic, Marxist Manchurian Obama administration that is a figment of Beck's imagination) that is going to take away their liberties. And that would be the same Glenn Beck who helped propagandize the populace in favor of giving the imperial presidency powers to abuse civil liberties in the name of fighting "the war on terror."

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