Setting Sights on a Just Presidency

[Andy Canuck]

Setting Sights on a Just Presidency

The Presidential win by Barack Obama is a hopeful change for the United States and the world. There has been joy in the streets and renewed feelings are rising up of great aspirations and possibilities. A revitalized future is in sight. The joy is an endorphin high, a feeling of relief & release that is protecting us from the pain of reality. I am so glad Obama won. I watched a Youtube clip of the spontaneous singing of The Star Spangled Banner in the East Village of New York City and I cried. A full on weeping of relief. I heard in the singing of the American National Anthem a true and honest patriotism, a singing of voices; voices that had been repressed and ignored for the last eight years, set free to sing that they too are part of the United States of America, that they too love their country. The world is ready to listen again, the world is hearing a new verse to that old song.

The celebratory endorphins are going to wear off and then we will see how far we have come from the last eight years. Then we will see if the Guantanamo Bay torture centre is closed. Then we will see if people’s rights are preserved and xenophobic reactions lessen. Then we will see if Habeas Corpus is reintroduced as the law of the land. Then we will see if once again people understand that personal liberty means personal safety. Then we will see if the war in Iraq is ended and Afghanistan is healed. Then we will see if the economy is rebuilt with value. Then we will see if there is peace toward Iran. The we will see if we are all freer, safer and more financially secure.

The forces of the last eight years will still be lurking about, because those forces aren’t just people, they are humanity’s dark heart. The people who have acted out the dark dreams of humanity for the last eight years, need to be purged and brought to justice. There needs to be an understanding that when we allow, live within and condone the monster’s psyche of humanity we all become monsters in some way. By succumbing to their shadowy call of fear and vengeance we instil in ourselves the rationale for violence and rage.

The people who manifest those dark forces, who espoused war, fear and hate, need to experience the full ramifications of the laws forbidding their actions. They need to go to jail and experience the only pain they truly fear, the loss of privilege. Men and women who have grown up believing they are not part of their own society, and played the game of politics as if they were divined in their leadership, need to face the truth that they are as divine as all humans and as corporal as any animal. They need to face a court and be imprisoned for their crimes. Only through the acts of judicial justice can the United States be restored, only then, will men and women who believe they are exempt from civilian laws and human decency, will they pause before they declare a war of desire and ignore the suffering of their fellow citizens.

Be happy about Barack Obama’s glorious win, celebrate it, honour it and work with it, but as in any democracy hold him to his word and to the constitution. It will be Barack Obama’s job to enforce and live by the constitution of the United States. For him to have a just administration means he has to repudiate the unlawful powers the Executive Branch has usurped over the last eight years. In order for Barack Obama to have a just Presidency, it means he has to mete out justice for the illegal acts of the Bush Presidency. Otherwise the dark forces will hibernate and just wait for a new political spring, instead of going through the arduous and uncertain process of rebirth. Ensuring justice for the Bush Administration’s crimes will have to be part of President Obama’s job, if he wants to have a legitimate Presidency.