R.I.P. (updated)

No, not Michael or Farrah: Habeas corpus (1215-2009).

The idea that we are citizens instead of subjects. The rule of law instead of Presidential whim.

ProPublica reports that the White House is considering an "executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate suspected terrorists indefinitely".

Citing "three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations", the ProPublica article states Obama's administration has turned away from the option of creating a national security court "to supervise the incarceration of detainees deemed too dangerous to release but who cannot be charged or tried". The reason give for this decision is that "legislation establishing a special court would be both difficult to pass and likely to fracture Obama's own party."

No shit, Sherlock.

If you have legitimate grounds to detain someone in prison, you have enough grounds to charge and try them. At least, that used to be the way things worked, under habeas corpus. Even in 1215, they grasped the justice of this principle.

I hope this article is wrong, utterly wrong. I hope it's the work of Washington Post reporters who are in the pocket of the Religious Right, who would LOVE to see the gains insured by the Magna Carta rolled back to further their chances of restoring theocracy. I hope Obama and his power-hungry, manipulative terriers are not even considering such a step. But I'm starting my mourning now, because it looks bleak.

At least I was born into freedom.

UPDATE: Digby at Hullaballoo has two posts today I recommend reading. The first is Transparent Obscurity, where she speaks of seeing clearly through the "haze of hopenchange" to understand "The irony, of course, is that the man who ran on transparency is actually turning out to be less transparent than the president he excoriated on the campaign trail for his secrecy."

This is a follow-up to her post Legacy, where she directs us to The Nation's article reporting on and validating the ProPublica/Washington Post report I quoted above, Obama Courts Disaster With New Detention Plan.

In each post, Digby refers us to Glenn Greenwald, first to his fact-bearing report Overwhelming majority oppose preventive detention without charges. The second link is to his updated and definitive Obama contemplates Executive Order for detention without charges. Read 'em and do WHATEVER YOU CAN to stop this man's continuation of The Worst of Bush.

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A Great Banned Song, Featuring a Great Blacklisted Songwriter

Arlo Guthrie & Pete Seeger "This Land Is Your Land"

Which a lot of folks don't know, was written as a protest song. Woody Guthrie was riding frieght trains around the Central Valley, trying to organize workers and pick some fruit, and some guitar when he could. I've done both myself and I'd a damn site rather pick guitar or banjo than fruit.

Woody was there riding the rails, during the depression when he heard Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" being belted out by Sophie Tucker. That wasn't the America Woody was seeing. This is what Woody wrote:

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me

As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

I've roamed and rambled and I've followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

The sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tress passin'
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!

Chorus

In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.

Chorus (2x)

Later in his life, Woody knew he was dying. One of the things he made sure to do before he died was to make his son Arlo, his good friend Pete Seeger, Rambling Jack Elliot, and just about every other musician he knew, Cisco, Burl Ives, all of them; Woody made them promise that they'd do the whole song. He made them swear to perform the last two verses. Those bitter verses.

Sing them all folks. Sing them out proudly.

We may have to all go down, but we can damn sure go down singing. When we're locked away in Guantanamo or what ever concentration camps they have Halliburton build for people of conscience, I promise to teach ya'll the words to "Guantanamera."

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