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The fact that Obama does not want to divert attention from his desired programs and pay out political capital instead for an invetigation of the previous administration's torture porgram does NOT mean he approves of torture (to be precise, it doesn't give you any information one way or the other about his actual position). All you know is that he wouldn't care to give up anything in exchange.

Sorry folks, but that's the way American politics works. It is quite possible there WILL be an inestigation, prosecutions, etc. But in that case with such a "sexy" bunch of hearings in Congress all attention would be diverted to that and you can then kiss goodbye things like health care reform (can you say "single payor") for probably at least a year, maybe longer, maybe until next midterm elections and not then unless the Dems significanty increase their majority.

It doesn't get him anything. There is no political pay off, no, not for the Dems as a whole either. The crowd that would be being put down isn't the current opposition.

And you gonna believe another scumbag in the white house only cause he's black or what does he do to attract your sympathy? Every goverment kills , and you are just another naive person , probably nothing to do with anticapitalist movement.

Are you under the peculiar delusion that we here in the States have more than a small percentage of the population that is "anti-capitalist"?

Once upon a time (a bit over a hundred years ago) the anti-capitalist vote reached as high as 10%.

This being a democracy, although nothing wrong with using the "bully pulpit" to try to sway public opinion, by and large our politicians are supposed to do what "the people" want. No matter how stupid the poeple might be; no matter how blind to the fact that perhaps their best interests would be served by supporting socialism.

Stay tuned. There is significant opinion here among the left side of the Democrats (and Democrat "activists") that perhaps we will proceed against the torturers. In which case the "conservatives" and Republicans in general will extract a price because that's the way our system of democracy is designed to work. You might prefer a different sort of system with a different focus. Say a parliamentary type of democracy where the main focus is "being sure of who to blame when things go wrong" -- or conversely who to praise and reward when things go right (note: origins as ministers of a monarch so this makes sense).

But our system has a VERY different focus. It's designed so that while the majority interests can get most of what they want, the minority interests can get some of what they want by negotiating, cooperating or obstructing, etc. The model is "log rolling" (to get the job done requires mutual cooperation). We almost never have the situation where one political faction can just '"rule" and the other factions just "question". And we certainly do not at the moment.

PLEASE -- do not mistake what I am saying (don't imagine for one moment that I am pro-capitalist). But I am pro-democracy and democracy of our sort. Which has CONSEQUENCES. Political energy that goes in one direction simply isn't available for moving things in another so it does come to choices "which of the things in this basket of wants is most important to yout?"