Obama and Gitmo redux

It appears that Obama no longer "rejects as false the dichotomy of our ideals and safety". He's created a special kind of "justice" for some of the Gitmo prisoners that will enable him to detain them without charges. I'm not happy about this, because I think it's wrong, and I think it will compromise our security more than letting those people go. To convict those who can be proven guilty, and let the rest go (preferably with compensations for the damage done to their lives), would have been a powerful blow to the Al Qaeda propaganda machine. But let's get real here, and not pretend that this shows that there is no difference between Obama and Bush. Obama is winding this up at a faster rate than Bush did, and he is also creating a system that will evaluate prisoners on an objective criterion, rather than making their imprisonment a matter of presidential whim. Those are steps in the right direction, although not far enough.

I think Obama has taken this position because he knows that fear of terrorism is the most powerful card the Republicans have, and that doing the right thing in this context could be fatal politically. I think the best thing to do would be to call their bluff, and argue aggressively that we are safer with this issue behind us. But I don't have to agree with Obama to be grateful that he is the best president we have had since Clinton. I think that given time, I will end up saying that he is the best president in my lifetime.

Did Woodstock Matter?

Woodstock was in one important way, a radical counterexample to the basic tenets of Western Christian Morality. The assumption of that morality is that if people relax, follow their desires, and do what they like, there would be chaos. This is why sex and sin have always been linked together. What happened at Woodstock is that people had sex, did drugs, took off their clothes, did no productive work --and things turned out OK. Nobody got hurt, and people exhibited all the most important Christian virtues--kindness, generosity, patience--without being nasty and self righteous. This was scary to some people and exhilarating to others. John Calvin would have turned over in his grave, if he'd known.

Since then, of course, this kind of abandon and license has proved to be unsustainable. But for a few shining moments, it seemed that Rousseau was right--that if people just did what came naturally they would be good, and that traditional moral rules actually got in the way of goodness. Like all half-truths, this idea can be dangerous. But let us not be so sure that we are completely certain which half is true at this point in history.