Welcome to the website. I'd like to say welcome to everyone here in New York City, and all of those who check in from across the country and different parts of the world.
Today...
A guest writer.
This is not going to be the usual FUN update.
I mean, hell... we have an awful lotta fun around here. We have music at the center of our lives and we laugh a whole lot more than we don't. And... I love the company.
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And again, thank you to every single person who showed up last night for that little artistic experiment in The Thalia Theater last Thursday night.
THANKS -- from the bottom of my heart.
Now, that you've had a few days to let the whole concept of "DECADE" wash over you... how you feeling about the idea? Any added comments or any thoughts you didn't get to share during the Q & A session after the gig last night?
HIT THIS LINKif you've got any comments or thoughts you'd like to share today.
I appreciate ALL feedback.... even the seemingly negative comments. I learn something from everything.
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BUT...
Today I want to make even clearer the reasons that I'm going back into the studio today with engineer Brian Bauers to record "The Last Protest Song".
Remember this song and video?
Click on the image to watch the video
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And remember sooooo many songs like it over the past 8 years?
Well...
Here's an article by a Constitutional lawyer, patriot and man of Reason:
One of the very few commendable steps taken by the Obama administration toward reversing the Bush/Cheney Constitution/Terrorism template was the DOJ's decision to try the five accused 9/11 defendants in a civilian court (just as the rest of the civilized world does with Terrorists). But ever since that was announced, Obama officials have been clearly signaling that they intend to reverse that decision in response to the GOP's political attacks (while Rahm Emanuel has been busy making clear he disagreed with Holder's choice), and a new story in The Washington Post this morning provides the clearest evidence yet that this will happen. The article reports that "President Obama's advisers are nearing a recommendation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, be prosecuted in a military tribunal . . . a step that would reverse Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s plan to try him in civilian court." This reversal will be due to "demands, mainly from Republicans, that Mohammed and his accused co-conspirators remain under military jurisdiction."
I obviously don't know whether this will in fact happen, but because these signals have come both from Eric Holder on the record and what are clearly coordinated, authorized anonymous White House "leaks," it seems quite likely. Without assuming that this is a fait accompli, I want to make several points about what it would mean if Obama does reverse Holder's decision and puts the five 9/11 defendants before a military commission:
First, although they will try, it will be extremely difficult even for his most devoted loyalists to deny the fundamental cowardice of Barack Obama. Think about how many times this will have happened:
During the primary campaign, Obama unequivocally vowed to filibuster any FISA bill that contained telecom immunity, only to turn around -- once the nomination was secure -- and vote against a Democratic filibuster of such a bill, and then in favor of the underlying bill itself; in other words, he blatantly violated his own unequivocal vow in order to avoid being called Soft on Terror (but did so assuring his believing supporters that, once in office, he'd fix the surveilllance excesses he helped enact; don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen). Then, last May, Obama announced that he would comply with two court decisions by releasing photographs of detainee abuses in the Pentagon's custody, only to turn around two weeks later and completely reverse himself after Liz Cheney and friends accused him of Endangering the Troops and Helping Terrorists. If, in the face of "GOP demands" that Mohamed be denied a civilian trial, he again reverses himself -- this time on the highest-profile civil liberties decision of his administration -- he will unmistakably reveal himself, even to his most enamored admirers, as someone so utterly devoid not only of principle but also of resolve: you just blow on him a little and he falls down and shatters into little pieces.
Even just as a political matter, is there any better way to ensure that Americans will view him as weak than by abandoning one key decision after the next as a result of the slightest pressure? What kind of person could possibly admire a "leader" who does this?
Second, Obama supporters spent months vigorously defending the decision to try KSM in a civilian court on the ground that Obama was upholding the Constitution and defending the rule of law. What are they going to say if he reverses himself and uses military commissions instead: that he's shredding the Constitution and trampling on the rule of law? If they have any intellectual integrity at all, that's what they will have to say. The reality is that this praise for Obama never made any sense -- how can one claim that civilian trials are compelled by "our values" and "the rule of law" and praise Obama for following those principles when he's simultaneously denying civilian trials to most detainees? -- but since that's the argument they made to defend him, they should follow that through to its logical conclusion if he reverses Holder's decision. Here's the only way an intellectually honest person could react to such a decision, from the Post article:
Marine Col. Jeffrey Colwell, acting chief defense counsel at the Defense Department's Office of Military Commissions, said it would be a "sad day for the rule of law" if Obama decides not to proceed with a federal trial. "I thought the decision where to put people on trial -- whether federal court or military commissions -- was based on what was right, not what is politically advantageous," Colwell said.
I thought so, too. Of course, many hardened Obama supporters amazingly found ways to justify both his original position and his 180-degree reversals on FISA and detainee photos (pragmatism!!), but how can anyone with a working brain or a mirror possibly venerate civilian trials as compelled by the Constitution and the Rule of Law, and then refrain from harshly criticizing Obama for denying those very same civilian trials?
Third, remember all the loud, righteous Democratic complaints about how Alberto Gonzales had "politicized" the DOJ and allowed the White House to intervene for political reasons in prosecutorial decisions? That's exactly what this would be. They're not even trying to hide the fact that it is the White House that will intervene and reverse the prosecution decision of the Attorney General and his career prosecutors for purely political reasons. There are no words in the English language sufficient to describe the intellectual dishonesty and hypocrisy of those who objected to Alberto Gonzales and Karl Rove's "politicization" of the DOJ yet who would refuse to voice the same complaints here. And that's to say nothing of the glaring hypocrisy of Democrats' having spent years railing against military commissions generally, only now to turn around and embrace them.
Finally, the political excuse being offered -- that this will help secure votes to fund the closing of Guantanamo -- makes absolutely no sense for several reasons (aside from the fact that it borders on corruption to override the DOJ's decisions about prosecutions based on political horse-trading). As The Post article makes clear, the objections to trying these defendants in a civilian court comes "mainly from Republicans," who only have 41 seats in the Senate. If Republicans want to de-fund the closing of Guantanamo, it will be the GOP -- not the Obama White House -- which will need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster in order to enact that ban (just as Democrats needed 60 votes when they tried to impose limits on the funding of the Iraq War). Funding decisions themselves are not subject to filibuster and require only 50 votes to pass.
The prior decision of the Senate not to fund the closing of that camp was due to the fact that Obama had not yet revealed his plan for closing it, and Senators -- understandably -- did not want to fund something that had not yet even been disclosed. Now that Obama has announced his plan for its closing, very few Democrats have expressed opposition to it or to civilian courts. The claim that reversing Holder's decision will help close Guantanamo is pure fiction. And even if it were true, it raises the question nobody can answer: what is the point of closing Guantanamo if the core Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld system -- military commissions for some and indefinite detention for the rest -- is retained in full by Obama?
For years, Democrats have failed to grasp the fact that they are perceived as "weak" not because of any specific policies, but because they are perceived -- rightly -- to believe in nothing (or at least nothing that they claim to believe). It is hard to imagine any act that could more strongly bolster that perception than to watch Barack Obama -- yet again -- scamper away from his own claimed principles all because the GOP is saying some mean things about him.
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Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzalez and others obviously flouted and corrupted our principles and broke our laws with impunity. The hapless and unprincipled George W. Bush, merely by the fact of the office he held, was ultimately complicit.
In 2006, then-senator Barack Obama released his second book called "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream"
I think it's time for another book:
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"Fundamental Cowardice: Politics over Principle"
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It's certainly time for another song.
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The Last Protest Song
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See you back here tomorrow.
If you're new around here you might wanna start with this little gallery of photos from last summer which were shot my Laura Manske and others that lots of people have sent in to the website.
As you may know I am producing a documentary about "That Guitar Man from Central Park". I would like to ask all David's fans out there to write me and tell me any stories you may have about David and his playing in Central Park and how it has affected you or what it has meant to you. I've already heard some great stories, but I know there are more that I haven't heard. So if you got a story to tell about David and his music, please briefly write it out and send it to stories@thatguitarman.com . I will be contacting people from the stories submitted to interview them for possible inclusion in the film. Thank you and I look forward to seeing everyone on the hill this summer. - Dean
Wouldn't Want It Any Other Way (CD)
I Love The Company (CD)
Common Ground
The People on the Hill
Crazy On The Same Day
It's Just Us (Live)
Talk Louder (single)
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Right now in Central Park:
