Obama was elected to the presidency because we the people were ready for a change from the Bush regime. We were tired and angry with the Texas swagger and the bully-like approach to foreign policy. (”You’re with us or you’re with the terrorists!”) We expected Obama to waste no time in reversing the Bush administration’s more heinous (and, some say, illegal) policies in the so-called “war on terror”.

We expected Obama to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay as promised and end the unfair military commission system there. But talk is cheap. And now it looks like we’ve been fooled.

On March 7, Obama issued an executive order to continue the Bush-era policy of indefinite detention of certain Guantanamo detainees, and resuming the military commissions. As Dana Milbank described it in a Washington Post column, Obama “has essentially formalized George W. Bush’s detention policy.” Yes, Obama, a constitutional attorney, has formalized the denial of basic human rights via these policies of indefinite detention and offshore kangaroo courts. And unlike Bush, who had Cheney pulling the strings, Obama has no shady puppet master we can blame it on.

Some Obama apologists want to pin the blame on Congress, which passed a defense spending bill last December that specifically prohibits the use of defense funding to establish an alternative prison in the United States to hold Guanatamo detainees, or to transfer Gitmo detainees to the U.S. But, on January 7, President Obama willingly signed it into law. And now, with the March 7 order, he has taken a further step backwards.

As Glenn Greenwald pointed out at Salon.com, “The preservation of the crux of the Bush detention scheme was advocated by Obama long before Congress’ ban on transferring detainees to the U.S. It was in May, 2009 — a mere five months after his inauguration — that Obama stood up in front of the U.S. Constitution at the National Archives and demanded a new law of ‘preventive detention’ to empower him to imprison people without charges: a plan the New York Times said ‘would be a departure from the way this country sees itself.’ It was the same month that the administration announced it intended to continue to deny many detainees trials, instead preserving the military commissions scheme, albeit with modifications. And the first — and only — Obama plan for ‘closing Guantanamo’ came in December, 2009, and it entailed nothing more than transferring the camp to a supermax prison in Thompson, Illinois, while preserving its key ingredients, prompting the name ‘Gitmo North.’”

If we in the progressive community can see past Obama’s fancy, clever rhetoric and detect the underlying lack of progress for human rights and the rule of law, surely the rest of the world can see it as well. And I find it disgraceful and embarrassing at best.

Perhaps the only good thing about all this is that the policies might have grown even more abusive had McCain and Palin won the 2008 election.

But I wonder if there will ever come a day in my lifetime when we’re no longer seeing most of our elected Democrats as the lesser of two evils.

March 8 is International Women’s Day (IWD), a day celebrated worldwide to mark the economic, political, and social achievements of women. And, while women’s rights have advanced considerably in a world of still mostly patriarchal cultures, we nevertheless have a long way to go to achieve true equality.

This year’s IWD theme, as designated by the United Nations, is: Equal access to education, training, and science and technology: Pathway to decent work for women

I completely agree that access to those resources is necessary for women to progress in the workplace. However, there are other, more basic, considerations that must not be overlooked: Access to sex education and family planning services. After all, even today in the modern industrialized West, many girls and young women still find themselves having to drop out of high school or college due to pregnancy. And this sets them on a potential course to lifelong underachievement. Most pregnant teenagers do not share Bristol Palin’s socio-economic privileges, and cannot feed their families by dancing with the stars.

WomensHealthChannel.com lists the following grim statistics on the consequences of teen pregnancy:

> Teenage births are associated with lower annual income for the mother. Eighty percent of teen mothers must rely on welfare at some point.

> Teenage mothers are more likely to drop out of school. Only about one-third of teen mothers obtain a high school diploma.

> Teenage pregnancies are associated with increased rates of alcohol and substance abuse, lower educational level, and reduced earning potential in teen fathers.

> In the United States, the annual cost of teen pregnancies from lost tax revenues, public assistance, child health care, foster care, and involvement with the criminal justice system is estimated to be about $7 billion.

Still, many on the political right are doing all they can to undermine any chance of dealing with the problem in a practical, scientific manner.

For years they have been pushing for abstinence-only sex education, as opposed to safe-sex education, and that has proven to be ineffective at best. Telling kids not to have sex is not ultimately going to stop them. It just makes them unprepared for dealing with the potential consequences when they do have sex.

To further compound the problem, the right has waged an all-out war on the Planned Parenthood organization. In their first line of attack, anti-choice groups and individuals have been saturating the airwaves with distorted video and audio clips suggesting that Planned Parenthood provides services to illegal sex traffickers and encourages abortions for teenage rape victims without reporting the crimes.

In another line of attack, Republicans on Capitol Hill are trying to block federal funding for Planned Parenthood, even though, as Elise Foley pointed out at the Huffington Post, “Planned Parenthood does not currently spend federal money on abortion services.” With the abortion issue out of the federal funding picture, it’s just about women’s health – low-income women’s health. And, if the Republicans succeed, countless low-income women may have to go without birth control and – more importantly – without health screenings.

This could result in more unwanted pregnancies due to harder-to-obtain contraception. It could result in an increase in cervical cancer due to harder-to-obtain Pap smears. And it could result in an increase of sexually transmitted disease due to reduced availability of STD education and treatment.

Overall, it has the appearance of a Republican war on women. Or, rather, a Republican war on non-rich women.

And we must fight back hard. Only with well-informed reproductive freedom can we hope to someday achieve true equality in education and the workplace.