1.24.2009

thoughts on obama's first days

Yesterday I was thrilled to see that President Obama lifted the much-hated "global gag rule" on family-planning organizations.

Originally instituted by Reagan in 1984, formerly known in the movement as the "Mexico City Decision," the gag rule has been the scourge of reproductive rights and population control from Reagan to Bush I, with a break during the Clinton years, then again for the past eight years. The law denied funds from the US Agency for International Development to any organization that even mentioned abortion. That is sometimes referred to as "organizations that provide or promote" abortion, but "promote" meant even communicating to women that abortion was an option.

It was a horrible law that caused much pain and suffering throughout the world, suffering most of us never saw or knew about. Its demise is very welcome news.

This was the latest of Obama's immediate steps after taking office. As you know, he signed an order to close the concentration camp at Guantánamo Bay within the year, close the secret CIA prisons, and make a full review of US detention policies and procedures. He also delayed the trial of Ali al-Marri, which the ACLU has been fighting for, under a review of the indefinite detention policies. The ACLU is asking us to thank President Obama to show our support for these decisions.

Beyond that, Obama has put an immediate hold on all of the Resident's last-minute power grabs - including the one that would have led to the slaughter of wolves.
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel Tuesday sent a memo to the heads of all executive departments and agencies, ordering a stop to all pending regulations until a legal and policy review can be conducted by the Obama administration.

A rule that would eliminate Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains except for those in Wyoming was scheduled to be published on January 27. Now it will fall under review with the new administration.

Among others, the Bush administration recently finalized rules that significantly weaken the Endangered Species Act, allow for mining deposits to be dumped within 100 feet of flowing streams and exempts large-scale factory farms from notifying government officials when they release unsafe levels of toxic emissions into the community. Earthjustice, a public interest law firm, filed suit against all of these rules.

Obama imposed new rules on government transparency and ethics, freezing the salaries of senior White House aides, putting new limits on lobbyists and requiring the federal the government to disclose more information more easily.

He is rolling back the expanded powers of the imperial presidency.

I know I'll dismay my most cynical readers when I say this, but to me this signals that Obama is keeping his promises.

We've all wondered and feared, and perhaps expected, that the changes wrought by the Cheney Administration would become the new normal. (Even worse, I wasn't convinced Obama would actually take office, so I breathed one hell of a huge sigh of relief over that.) Now I see there actually will be change.

Of course it will not remake the US completely. Why would it? Obama is a product of the system, not a socialist messiah. Foreign policy will be much the same. Although the rhetoric will soften, the US will not break its addiction to foreign invasions and overbloated military spending. Whether or not the US adopts a rational and humane health care system is a huge unknown. Whether or not lesbian and gay USians become fully equal citizens also remains to be seen.

But that doesn't mean there won't be significant change. The world is not all good or all bad.

These changes, and those we'll see in the coming weeks and months, are important. I would hate to be so locked into my own world view that I can't see the improvement.

Then there's the emotional difference.

Everyone who I'm in touch with in the US, all my family and friends, say the same thing: "We have hope again". People use nearly identical words, noticing the hopefulness and optimism around them, and say, "If nothing else, that feels so wonderful."

To relate, I have to think how I would feel if I had stayed in the US. Although we moved to Canada in 2005, we were preparing to leave - psychologically, emotionally - ever since making the decision in 2002, then filing our applications in 2003. I was still angry and frustrated and sad about the US, but I was also mentally distancing myself from it - a self-preservation mechanism, I think.

So to really empathize with my friends in the US, I have to imagine what it would have been like to not have had that internal escape hatch all those years, and be living there still. I can scarcely imagine how overjoyed and relieved I'd feel - and yes, how hopeful.

I watched the Obama inauguration with joy and wonder because of the historic occasion of the first African American President. But how would I feel if I had still been living in the US all this time? I wonder if I would have succumbed to Obamamania and, as so many of my very progressive friends there did, work for his election. I might have. Who knows, I might even have voted for him.

I'm happy for the US, and for the world.

Now to work on getting Canada a new government.

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