Long time coming, yes, but still a long way to go

If Barack Obama is really a progressive candidate and not just the new face of the business interests that truly rule Washington, then together with the Democrats that now reign as a party there are some clear goals I’d like to see worked toward:

1. Stop the drug war: Obama can’t do anything about mandatory sentencing or funding drug treatment programs as opposed to incarceration — much of that is left up to the states. What he can do is stop funding intervention and eradication efforts in countries around the world, especially in Central and South America. No more crop-spraying, no more money for paramilitary juntas, no more federal funds for local police departments to pursue American citizens at home who are criminalized for using and abusing drugs and the expansion of the world’s largest prison system.
2. End the other wars (and don’t start any new ones): The war in Iraq was, from the start, an imperialist war of aggression and in no way any effort to liberate anyone from anything (except maybe the Iraqis from their oil). Afghanistan is a little more complicated, but again, why is the United States cleaning up the messes made by the British Empire? The thought of broadening that conflict to Waziristan, within the borders of a nuclear-armed Pakistan, scares the living shit out of me. Yet Obama has made it perfectly clear in his speeches that this is exactly what he plans to do.
3. Solve the deficit by reducing military spending: If you want to reduce taxes, increase spending on healthcare and education while reducing the budget deficit and not significantly increasing the tax burden, you’re going to have to cut the money spent on the military. The Keynesian spending of the New Deal never did end — the money just went into the defense industry instead of the WPA.
4. Do make war on corporate welfare and tax evasion:From $700 billion bailout packages to massive tax credits to offshore accounts, Obama can veto more handouts to large corporations and keep the income due to the treasury from flowing into offshore havens. The IRS and the DOJ need to lead the way, combined with a congressional rewrite of the tax code to excise loopholes, would do much to get the wealthy to pay what they owe. If they did, then you could probably reduce taxes in the long run for everybody.
5. Abide the rule of law: The Guantanamo Bay detention center needs to be shut down today. If there are actual concerns that detainees are threats to society, then they should be tried in the appropriate jurisdictions by applicable local laws and amongst their peers. Illegal extradition worldwide and the suspension of habeus corpus domestically needs to end now, along with wiretapping and the quixotic quest for an omniscient security state.
6. Prosecute war criminals and profiteers: Obama has an opportunity to appoint a new Attorney General, and that appointee should go after military leadership, independent contractors like Blackwater and White House officials who aided and abetted war crimes, from torture to the rape and murder of innocent civilians. Same goes for corruption in awarding defense contracts and prosecution of corporate collaborators in domestic spying programs. American exceptionalism when it comes to the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in the Hague needs to end.
7. Roll back expansion of executive power and privilege: Stop the practice of “presidential signing statements” and stop claiming “national security” to cover up corruption and abuses of power. The expansion of executive power under the Bush administration severely damaged the system of checks-and-balances. The president’s role is to enforce the will of legislators elected by voters, not rule by fiat. My worry is that the Democratic party, once it inherits the powers the Republicans claimed for themselves in the last eight years, will be more than happy to run with it.
8. Keep corporate interests out of foreign policy: From demands for liberalized economies to demands for new intellectual property laws, not to mention ignoring human rights abuses in places like China and Russia to keep cheap goods flowing new markets open for exploitation, business interests need to take a back seat in diplomatic negotiations and let human rights, economic justice, environmental concerns and peaceful resolutions to international disputes lead.
9. Free Cuba from the embargo: It’s not helping us, and it’s actively hurting Cubans. The policy of containment was and is an ongoing joke. And the entire Monroe Doctrine that gives America the self-declared right to indirectly rule the entire Western Hemisphere should probably be put to bed (and the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war strangled in its crib). Meanwhile, the practice of supporting petty dictators through financial and military assistance, covertly or overtly, needs to stop if America wants to honestly have any pretension to “spreading democracy.”
10. Support education, healthcare, food security, transportation and affordable housing: These things need to be assured, if not guaranteed, for the American people. When possible, the new administration should throttle the flow of wanton privatization and stem the ebb of the public commons. The changing tide should lift all boats, not be another trickle-down tsunami swamping the smallest while the largest surf the crest.

If Obama and the Democratic majorities in the house and senate move to achieve these goals, then and only then will you find me dancing in the streets. Hell, just putting a national end to the barbarous nightmare of the death penalty would be enough to get me canvassing and phone-banking in 2012.

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