Healthy.

[prog]

So, the country is set to walk a sane path again - can you believe it? - and I had my last PT session today, as well as a flu shot. My hip isn't popping (nearly as much) any more and I'm told the relevant muscles are much stronger than they were a month ago. Yay.

As for the other stuff: I'm no fanboy, and I'm already working on a healthy dose of skepticism about all of this. But. What I saw last night is that it is possible to sell a national population on Hope, even when Fear is so cheap and abundant. I suppose I'm saying that it's the voting public I'm really impressed and hopeful about, moreso than the president-elect - though all props to him and his for making it happen.

As far as I can tell, Obama's true campaign platform was less "My policies are the best" and more "This is who we can be". And a majority of Americans said: OK, I'm game. Let's try this. I'm feeling quite optimistic that a stronger, saner national self-image will, eventually, result in good policies. We all have a lot of work to do, but it really feels now like - begging your pardon - yes, we can do it now.

...and I would like to see one of his first actions in office be to start rewinding those terrible double-secret executive powers that Cheney and pals set up. And I am not sure how to best communicate this to his office. More writing congressfolk, I guess.

Comments

[dangerforce.livejournal.com]

Obama has actually said that among his first actions in office will be to pass executive orders to overturn any Bush admin ex. orders that are found to be unconstitutional. (The other is to go through the federal budget line by line).

This is something he can do unilaterally, and as a former professor of constitutional law, I think he has the good standing to perform this function.

[cramerica.livejournal.com]

^That's great. I hadn't heard him say it explicitly.

[ahkond.livejournal.com]

Agreed about the constitutionality. I'm a fan of Salon.com blogger/columnist Glenn Greenwald, who said this last Sunday:

It certainly seems, by all appearances, that Barack Obama and Joe Biden will win on Tuesday (though anything can happen, don't assume anything, etc. etc.). For reasons I've explained many times before, I consider that to be a good and important outcome (principally due to the need to excise the Right from power for as long as possible). But the virtually complete absence from the presidential campaign of any issues pertaining to the executive power abuses of the last eight years -- illegal eavesdropping, torture, rendition, due-process-less detentions, the abolition of habeas corpus, extreme and unprecedented secrecy, general executive lawlessness -- reflects how much further work and effort will be required to make progress on these issues no matter what happens on Tuesday.

Much of this is deeply embedded in the political culture. Very few people in the political and media establishment object to any of it; most either tacitly accept or actively believe in it. And the natural instinct of political officials -- especially new arrivals determined to achieve all sorts of things -- is to consolidate, not voluntarily relinquish, extant political power. It will help to have in the Oval Office someone who has, at least at times, evinced the right instincts on these matters (even though during other times he has acted contrary to them), and the better outcome on Tuesday (the defeat of John McCain) will likely ensure some very modest, marginal improvements in terms of the rule of law, executive power abuses and constitutional transgressions. But that outcome is merely necessary, not remotely sufficient; the election by itself will not produce fundamental changes in most of these areas. That's going to take much more than a single election, standing alone, can or will accomplish.

The unprecedented expansion (in scope and sheer number) of "signing statements" to basically pick and choose which laws would be enforced, and how, fits under this umbrella even though he doesn't mention it specifically.

[in-parentheses.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell, Obama's true campaign platform was less "My policies are the best" and more "This is who we can be".

Yes, exactly. Well said.

[misuba.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure you're allowed to just write to the president.

[prog.livejournal.com]

My impression is that the only people who exercise this are schoolchildren and the insane, and I assume that letters not from one will be treated as from the other.

It might be worth doing anyway just as an exercise, I guess.

[misuba.livejournal.com]

They are very likely, for all political offices, mostly from old people, who are of course legendarily frequent voters. So they get read by some aide, at least far enough in to get a sense for what issue they are either for or against, then counted and discarded and answered with a form letter. A random and/or exciting few get some more dignified sort of treatment. The office of the President likely does exactly this same thing, only with more aides.

It is more worth it than sending an email, and maybe marginally more worth it than a phone call.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Try this!