I disagree. For anyone that understands politics understands that things can get done by applying a significant political push. I think Obama symbolically tried, then threw his hands up in the air in defeat when he got some resistance from Congress. I assume this is because the political chips he would lose by pushing harder on closing Gitmo are chips he was not willing to lose.
Meanwhile, CISPA, which was already defeated once, is making its way through Congress again. It's a perfect example of "political push" (and if you read between the lines, that means "money").
For anyone that understands politics understands that things
can get done by applying a significant political push.
I've lobbied. A fair amount for an amateur. We had some small victories, but mostly lost ground.
The victories we had were because we packed the hearings with warm bodies.
Where are the people willing to pack the chambers over Gitmo? It absolutely should be closed. But Gitmo is not a motivating issue.
Down thread, you cite Obama's enthusiasm for gun control. What's the salient difference?
People are going to show up for gun control hearings.
If Obama et al truly felt that closing Gitmo was a priority, the news would be packed day after day with stories from the prison, humanizing the prisoners, and introduction of one legislation measure after another, all to drum up support (just like gun control). But that just isn't happening, which makes me conclude it's a lack of effort for whatever reason.
In your experience, the ground that you did lose, was it because of lack of support? Could you have tried again and how? (I don't have any political experience, so I'm kind of curious)
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I worked on election integrity. Stuff like opposing internet voting, touchscreens, purging the voter registration databases, etc.
When we lost it was because we were a day late, a dollar short, outgunned, exhausted, ignorant, naive, internal strive, etc.
It's important to remember that our opponents have essentially unlimited resources. They also have the long view. You won this time? No biggie. They'll be back. They're happy with incrementalism, and will convert those inches into yards into miles.
A few years ago, remembering the prior overwhelming opposition to internet voting, they suspended the rules and fast-tracked the legislation. So no public hearings. The deed was done before we even noticed. This is why interest groups hire lobbyists; activism is not something you can sustain on a casual basis.
I will try again. Not quite done recharging my batteries.
Meanwhile, I'm working on better advocacy tools. So that future me and other activists have better data, tools, resources. A bit like the open government stuff from Sunlight Foundation. But more like the commercial legislation information systems that big lobbyists use.
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Some non-political friends wanted to know how to get involved. The key is to show up.
I encouraged them to pick their local city council meetings and just start showing up. (Many are televised or available via web.) Just being present will change their behavior. And there's absolutely a current local issue that you have an opinion on. So once you figure out what's what, you should testify.
Obama is not an amateur.
Absolutely.
I make no defense of Obama, or any other elected. I just want to understand the game better, to play it better. So I'm more curious what it'd take to close Gitmo.
Not my issue, so I haven't looked. But key policy makers (blocking no votes) would have to be identified and moved. And that would take sustained years long local action, eg me and 100 of my friends camping in my Senator's or Representative's office. Ditto probably 40 other local groups. Hard to pull off.
Sen. Henry Waxman's book The Waxman Report relates how his office has worked on some issues for decades, what it takes to move the needle. Very pragmatic, so in a way very optimistic.
I'm currently chewing through The Politics of Attention, which melds Stephen Jay Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium with social influence (power ranking). The basic idea is that policy makers have limited attention and stuff changes all at once when an issue rises above the noise.
Yeah, Obama doesn't have to do any of this. Maybe the "sustained years" part for some issues, but that's the limits of commonality between your tools and Obama's.
Nobody can say the President isn't trying hard enough in those cases, whichever side of the fence you happen to fall on. Yet, when we talk about basic human rights, the President somehow gets to just give up on the issue, and we should be OK with that? In my opinion, there is definitely a lack of effort by the President to do something about closing Gitmo, and I find that almost as disappointing as Gitmo being opened in the first place.
What would have had him do, specifically? He tried, it clearly wasn't happening. Maybe he should try again, but I can tell you the same exact thing would happen again. That would be your symbolic gesture.
For Obama to MOVE THEM would have required some kind of law to put them in Federal courts, or even standard Military courts. Also, congress threatened to EXPLICITLY tell the President no funds were available.
... Kind of like how the 1980 congress told Reagan there would be no funds available to trade for hostages. In 1980 Reagan just went ahead and BROKE THE LAW something Obama has too much respect to do. The issue was divisive enough That Obama couldn't count in his own slim majority to vote on his side. Because Obama doesn't RULE the Democrats like Cheney did.
In that stalemate, you negotiate. And the Congress certainly wants at least some of the prisoners to be tried in the US court system. So the President, in the absence of getting the funding to move them into the private court system, threatens to simply release them all back to their home countries.
The leadership here is that "we" as a nation don't deprive people of their liberty without due process on principle. And while we recognize the expedience of detaining people during war time, nearly everyone seems to be believe that the prisoner's at Guantanamo are not sanctioned "prisoners of war" per the Geneva Convention. Being neither duck nor fowl puts them in limbo.
The President promised to change that, he did not. He could have (not in a way that Congress approved) but the world in general would be much better off if you either shot these people in battle when they were shooting at you, or you charged them with a crime and tried them, or you let them go. When he left these people incarcerated, he removed another item where the US used to be 'different' from authoritarian regimes, and as a voter I've been working to change the regime through the institutions available to me to do so.
I recommend this Salon article by Glen Greenwald from July 2012
The Obama GITMO myth: New vindictive restrictions on detainees highlights the falsity of Obama defenders regarding closing the camp
I think that as much as in specific deliverables, "the Left" feels rather thoroughly betrayed, on that front.
In this specific instance, he should have called Congress out on their behavior.
People understand real compromise. They also understand that when the other party is completely intractable, there comes a time when you confront them on this. Or you lose power.
Or... your original position was actually different from what you projected.
It accomplished absolutely nothing.
Look, when you have an entrenched party, backed up by the ultra-rich, that has sworn to do anything in its power to make sure you fail, there's not much you can do, even if you are the President of the United States.
Due a lawsuit and illness and death the Democrats had a filibuster breaking majority for something like 58 days. And even then it would require every single senator to be in agreement.
I remember when we expected statemen to work out difficult conflicts. Now they just throw up their hands and say "He did it" while people cheer them on for "sticking to their guns". It isn't our fault, they are the ones that refused to compromise by accepting my proposal...
For anyone who actually understands politics, the failure to close Gitmo was not Obama's fault.