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Today's Coverup of Surveillance Crimes and Barack Obama
What we learned in December, 2005 that George Bush and the telecoms were doing -- listening in on the private conversations of American citizens without warrants -- is a felony under clear U.S. law, punishable by up to 5 years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine for each offense. Anyone can go read the section of FISA -- right here -- that says that as clearly as can be:
A person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally -- (1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute; . . . An offense described in this section is punishable by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both.
It was also as clear a violation of the Fourth Amendment as can be. For the Government to invade our communications with no probable cause showing to a court is exactly what the Founders prohibited as clearly as the English language permitted.
But today, the Democratic-led Congress -- with the support of both John McCain and Barack Obama, neither of whom will even bother to show up and vote -- will cover-up those crimes. Law Professor and Fourth Amendment expert Jonathan Turley was on MSNBC's Countdown with Rachel Maddow last night and gave as succinct an explanation for what Democrats -- not the Bush administration, but Democrats -- will do today. Anyone with any lingering doubts about what is taking place today in our country should watch this:
As Turley says, and as I've written many times over the last two weeks, what is most appalling here beyond the bill itself are the pure falsehoods being spewed to the public about what Congress is doing -- and those falsehoods are largely being spewed not by Republicans. Republicans are gleefully admitting, even boasting, that this bill gives them everything Bush and Cheney wanted and more, and includes only minor changes from the Rockefeller/Cheney Senate bill passed last February (which Obama, seeking the Democratic Party nomination, made a point of opposing).Rather, the insultingly false claims about this bill -- it brings the FISA court back into eavesdropping! it actually improves civil liberties! Obama will now go after the telecoms criminally! Government spying and lawbreaking isn't really that important anyway! -- are being disseminated by the Democratic Congressional leadership and, most of all, by those desperate to glorify Barack Obama and justify anything and everything he does. Many of these are the same people who spent the last five years screaming that Bush was shredding the Constitution, that spying on Americans was profoundly dangerous, that the political establishment did nothing about Bush's lawbreaking.It's been quite disturbing to watch them turn on a dime -- completely reverse everything they claimed to believe -- the minute Obama issued his statement saying that he would support this bill. They actually have the audacity to say that this bill -- a bill which Bush, Cheney and the entire GOP eagerly support, while virtually every civil libertarian vehemently opposes -- will increase the civil liberties that Americans enjoy, as though Dick Cheney, Mike McConnell and "Kit" Bond decided that it was urgently important to pass a new bill to restrict presidential spying and enhance our civil liberties. How completely do you have to relinquish your critical faculties at Barack Obama's altar in order to get yourself to think that way?The issues implicated by this bill -- government spying, lawbreaking, manipulation of national security claims for secrecy and presidential power, the extreme privileges corporations inside Washington receive -- have been at the very heart of progressive complaints against the Bush era for the last seven years. The type of capitulation and complicity which Jay Rockefeller and Steny Hoyer embraced is exactly what progressives have spent the last seven years scathingly attacking.All of that magically changed for many people -- by no means all -- the day that Obama announced that he supported this "compromise," when these issues were suddenly relegated to nothing more than inconsequential, symbolic distractions, and complicity with Bush lawbreaking magically morphed into shrewd pragmatism. It's the same rationale that the dreaded Blue Dogs have been using since 2001 to justify their complicity which is now pouring out of the mouths of Obama defenders (we need to win elections first and foremost, and can only do that if we don't challenge Republicans on National Security and Terrorism).
* * * * *
Stanford Professor Larry Lessig has been a hard-core Obama supporter since before the primaries even began. He knows the candidate himself and has all sorts of contacts at high levels of the campaign. Yesterday, Lessig wrote a scathing criticism of what the Obama campaign has been doing over the past several weeks: "All signs point to an Obama victory this fall. If the signs are wrong, it will be because of events last month." This is what Lessig said about the Obama campaign's attitude towards the FISA bill:
Yet policy wonks inside the campaign sputter policy that Obama listens to and follows, again, apparently oblivious to how following that advice, when inconsistent with the positions taken in the past, just reinforces the other side's campaign claim that Obama is just another calculating, unprincipled politician. The best evidence that they don't get this is Telco Immunity. Obama said he would filibuster a FISA bill with Telco Immunity in it. He has now signaled he won't. When you talk to people close to the campaign about this, they say stuff like: "Come on, who really cares about that issue? Does anyone think the left is going to vote for McCain rather than Obama? This was a hard question. We tried to get it right. And anyway, the FISA compromise in the bill was a good one."
So the highest levels of the Obama campaign believe this bill is "a good one." Lessig adds that the perception of Obama's craven, nakedly calculating behavior as illustrated by his support for the FISA bill is by far the largest threat to his candidacy as it "completely undermine Obama's signal virtue -- that he's different":
The Obama campaign seems just blind to the fact that these flips eat away at the most important asset Obama has. It seems oblivious to the consequence of another election in which (many) Democrats aren't deeply motivated to vote (consequence: the GOP wins).
I can't count the number of emails I've received demanding that I stop criticizing Obama for his support of this bill on the ground that such criticisms harm his chances for winning -- as though it's the fault of those who point out what Obama is doing, rather than Obama himself for completely reversing his position, abandoning his clear, prior commitments, and helping to institutionalize the destruction of the Fourth Amendment and the concealment of Bush crimes.
Ultimately, it's the sheer glibness of the support for this corrupt and Bush-enabling bill among Obama and his supporters that is most striking. Revealingly, Lanny Davis -- a pure symbol of everything that is rotted and broken in our political culture -- wrote an Op-Ed yesterday lavishly praising Obama for his support of the FISA bill on the ground that it "provided the senator an important chance to demonstrate his 'Sister Souljah moment.'" Beltway operatives like Davis can only understand the world through the prism of this finite set of clichés -- Stand up the Left. Sister Souljah. Move to the Center. That's the same oh-so-sophisticiated political analysis one finds everywhere to justify what Obama is doing. As Dan Larison put it yesterday:
In Obamaworld, apparently wrecking the Fourth Amendment is roughly equivalent to ridiculing some obscure rapper. The only thing more depressing than the conceit that supporting unconstitutional measures is a way to "signal" to swing voters that you are not a radical loon bent on "ideological purity," which is basically to make defending the Constitution a position held only by radicals and extremists, is the dishonest representation of support for the compromise legislation as being a pro-civil liberties position.
John Nichols of The Nation -- one of the most pro-Obama media organs in the country -- pointed out yesterday that Obama won the critical Wisconsin primary in large part by holding himself out to Democratic voters there -- for whom civil liberties is a vital issue -- as a steadfast ally of Feingold on these issues:
Before the February 19 Wisconsin primary, which confirmed his front-runner status in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Illinois Senator Barack Obama went out of his way to associate his candidacy with the name of Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold. . . . Obama wanted to secure the support of the substantial portion of Democrats nationally who, in polls conducted in 2006, indicated that they would back Feingold if he entered the presidential race. Internal polls by the various campaigns indicated that Feingold drew as much as 15 percent of the vote in a number of key states, coming mostly from anti-war and pro-civil liberties progressives. . . .
"I am proud to stand with Senator Dodd, Senator Feingold and a grass-roots movement of Americans who are refusing to let President Bush put protections for special interests ahead of our security and our liberty," declared Obama, who indicated that he would support efforts to filibuster any attack on the ability of citizens to use the courts to defend their privacy rights.
Obama's stance helped him. It was cited in endorsements by prominent progressives and newspapers in Wisconsin and other later primary states. No doubt, it contributed to his landslide victory in the Badger State, where the Illinoisan won a vote from Feingold himself.
Yet, now that he is the presumptive nominee, Obama is standing not with Feingold, but with Bush and the special interests Obama once denounced. He says he'll vote for a White House-backed FISA rewrite -- which is likely to be taken up by the Senate this week -- in opposition to the position taken by civil liberties groups, legal scholars on the left and right and, of course, Russ Feingold.
Who can justify that?
* * * * *
Ultimately, what's most amazing about all of that is that -- as Senate Intelligence Committee member Russ Feingold pointed out yesterday -- even the vast majority of the Congress, let alone Obama apologists, have no idea what these spying programs even entail or how they work. As someone who isn't on the Intelligence Committee, does Obama even know?
Either way, here's what the ACLU's Caroline Fredrickson wrote to The Washington Post yesterday in response to Fred Hiatt's latest Editorial praising Obama and the FISA bill:
The fact is that the revisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act under consideration in the Senate this week would virtually do away with the role of the FISA court in overseeing new dragnet surveillance. Its role would be reduced to little more than serving as a rubber stamp. It is a shame that the paper that uncovered the Watergate scandal, which helped lead to more congressional oversight of executive authority and the checks and balances of FISA, now believes that the president once again should have unfettered power to spy on Americans.
Sen. Feingold -- who, as a member of both the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, probably knows as much about the NSA program as any member of Congress -- added:
The government absolutely must be able to wiretap suspected terrorists to protect our security, and every member of Congress supports that. With this bill, however, for the first time since FISA was adopted 30 years ago, the government would be authorized to collect all communications into and out of the United States without warrants. That means Americans e-mailing relatives abroad or calling business associates overseas could be monitored with absolutely no suspicion of wrongdoing by anyone. This bill overturns the laws and principles that have governed surveillance for the past 30 years.
The San Fransisco Chronicle editorialized today:
Warrantless wiretapping of Americans should outrage Congress into banning the practice. But, in a display of political expediency, the Senate is about to bless it, following a similar cave-in by the House last month.
Making matters worse, both likely presidential candidates -- Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain - plan to reverse their opposition and vote for the White House-backed rewrite of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The bigger of the two reversals is Obama, who earlier this year had promised a filibuster to defeat the bill.
These are just facts -- facts about Barack Obama, the FISA bill he supports and which the Democratic Congress will approve today. Recall that James Comey testified last year that what he and other DOJ officials learned in 2004 about Bush's spying activities for the several years prior was so extreme, so unconscionable, so patently illegal that they all -- including even John Ashcroft -- threatened to resign en masse unless it stopped immediately. We still have no idea what those spying activities were. We know, though, that even the right-wing DOJ ideologues who approved of the illegal "Terrorist Surveillance Programs" that we know about found those activities indisputably illegal and wrong. But Barack Obama and the Democratic-led Congress will today enact a bill to immunize all of that, to protect the lawbreakers who were responsible.
As I've said many times before, there are clear differences between an Obama and McCain presidency. Denying that is just as irrational as those for whom the only political rule is Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill of Obama.
But it's equally clear that politicians like Obama are unable within the prevailing political establishment to do much to stop the continued growth of the lawless surveillance state and our two-tiered system of justice, even if they wanted to stop it, even if they were willing to expend political capital to take a stand against it. And Obama -- with his support for this wretched assault on the Constitution and the rule of law -- is demonstrating that, contrary to his many prior statements, these issues are anything but a priority for him (Larry Lessig: Obama aides say "the FISA compromise in the bill was a good one"). Differences between Republican and Democrats exist and are important in many cases, but those differences are often dwarfed by the differences between those entrenched in and dependent upon the Washington Establishment and those -- the vast, vast majority of American citizens -- who are not.
UPDATE: The Savannah Morning News has an article on the ads running against Democratic Rep. John Barrow.
The vote on the Dodd-Feingold-Leahy amendment to remove telecom immunity from the bill is taking place now. I will post the vote total and details as soon as it is done.
UPDATE II: The Dodd-Feingold amendment to remove telecom immunity from the bill just failed by a vote of 32-66. I was mistaken about Obama's not showing up to vote (that was the case, as I understood it, when the vote was scheduled for yesterday). He is in the Senate and, as he said he would, just voted (along with Hillary Clinton) in favor of the amendment to remove telecom immunity from the bill.
From listening, these are the Democrats who have voted in favor of removing immunity from the bill: Akaka - Baucus - Biden - Bingaman - Boxer - Brown - Byrd - Cantwell - Cardin - Casey - Clinton - Dorgan - Durbin - Feingold - Harkin - Inyoue - Kerry - Klobuchar - Lautenberg - Leahy - Levin - Mendenez - Murray - Obama - Reed - Reid - Sanders (I) - Schuemer - Stabenow - Tester - Whitehouse -Wyden.
Every Republican voted against removing immunity (including Arlen Specter, who spent all day arguing against immunity). Democrats voting against removing immunity: Bayh - Carper - Conrad - Feinstein - Johnson - Kohl - Landrieu - Lincoln - McCaskill - Mikulski - Nelson (FL) - Nelson (Neb.) - Pryor - Rockefeller - Salazar - Webb. Specter's amendment is next (to ban immunity if the spying was unconstitutional). Then they will vote on the Bingaman amendment (which I wrote about yesterday). They will both fail, and then they will vote on the final bill in its unchanged form.
UPDATE III: Specter's amendment -- merely to require the court to determine the constitutionality of the NSA spying program and condition immunity on a finding of constitutionality -- just failed 37-61. Obama voted in favor of the amendment, and Specter was the only Republican to do so.
All Republicans voted against, and these were the Democrats voting against: Bayh - Carper - Johnson - Landrieu - Lincoln - Mikulski - Nelson (FL) - Nelson (Neb.) - Pryor - Rockefeller - Salazar. [NOTE: I'm recording these roll calls from watching the proceedings, and so it's unlikely there are some errors and omissions. I will correct them as they are brought to my attention and will link to the official roll call vote once it is available. The Bingaman amendment is next.
Glenn Greenwald was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. He is the author of the New York Times Bestselling book "How Would a Patriot Act?," a critique of the Bush administration's use of executive power, released in May 2006. His second book, "A Tragic Legacy", examines the Bush legacy.
© Salon.com
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Show Allsay goodbye to a nation that respects its own constitution, and HELLO TO BLATENT FASISM!!!!
In the video, Turley compared this to "someone being attacked on street while 100 witnesses do nothing." Yet the only one of the "100 witnesses" who is mentioned in the headline to this story is Barack Obama. I'm usually a Greenwald fan, but I find his singling out of Obama to be particularly unfortunate. What about Pelosi, Reid, or Hoyer? What about the long list of other Dems who are on board for this "compromise"?
I'm horrified at this capitulation; it seems unnecssary and spineless. But to single out Obama for the lion's share of the criticism just seems, to me anyway, to be another example of the Democrat's tendency to form a "circular firing squad".
Obama is trying to win an election. For him to stand up alone and fly in the face of the Dem leadership makes no political sense at all.
Sorry Glen, but you've gone way off course on this one. You want to hold someone responsible? Fine, start with the leadership. But from where I sit, you appear to be obsessed with pounding Obama. Please stop. Let's get the man elected.
sipsey, you are absolutely correct and all CDers should heed your words.
Obama is just another politician, another job seeker, who would sell his mother to cannibals if it got him a few votes.
First off, let's embrace the technology. As much as corporations would prefer the very act of surveillance to be a proprietary, tightly controlled business asset (draconian leviathans such as Verizon) a democratic balance can be achieved if the foundations of their profit model are under wide open scrutiny for all to see. Nothing terrorizes status-quo power more then the fact that very technology that's oppressively used for tyrannical control can also serve to Democratize and illegitimize the Al Capone types who are driving Obama's quest to be the next American idol. What better fundamental issue shows Americans that both "choices" are atrocious?
Further evidence of the need for us all in ALL ELECTIONS (not just Presidential) to vote for alternative parties. Yes, in time any party will become corrupt; but yes, also, we need to stop voting for so-called "nice" people such as Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, JOhn McCain, etc. and put an end to the tyranny & fascism being provided by BOTH parties. For now, all we can do is keep on building and getting higher percentages each cycle and gain some ground. It's useless to bemoan the lack of unity - instead, I choose to be thrilled that in the presidential election there might be TWO really great candidates to choose from! (Nader & McKinney).
What I want is a national party that is modeled on the Progressive Party of Vermont.
Thanks, sipsey and hamster, above. You are part of a small but growing group of posters at CD that have good sense. The rest mostly want to expound until John McCain replaces all the remaining liberals on the Supreme Court.
Obama's failure to lead on the FISA amendments suggests his presidency will be similarly marred by craven opportunism, talking out of both sides of his mouth, and a rightward drift that imperils everything from getting out of Iraq to health care to reducing poverty to education.
The arguments he's not making are the correct ones, and the Bush/Cheney whitewash he's embracing is a national disgrace.
This is not change anyone with a brain can believe in.
I actually disagree with Sipsey. Obama is singled out because as the nominee he is the leader of the Party. This is an unofficial role, but you have to be sure that if he took a harder line and made this a campaign issue, more Democrats would have followed him. His vote against immunity was indeed echoed by Party leaders (this shows he did not vote against official leaders, but pulled them toward his position), but this was just not enough. He should have done more.
Do any of these Senators realize they're authorizing Bush to tap their own phones and emails? I wonder if he's already done that and has enough dirt on them to force the votes that we're seeing now.
Interesting how Obama supporters have jumped in on this one adding little in criticism of Greenwald's arguments except claiming he is wrong. Doesn't add much to the discussion for those of us who are always open to changing our minds. There are people making arguments that are interesting in support of Obama just not on Common Dreams it seems.
The only person who will clean this up is Ralph Nader. Elect him or suffer.
The way "your" representatives respond to illegal eavesdropping is the same way they are addressing changes to the war powers act. Notice that both FISA and the war powers act were in response to government law breaking by Nixon.
Today instead of enforcing the laws that have been broken by the lies told to get the US into Iraq and the wholesale spying on citizens, Congress is saying that in a conflict between the law and the government, the fault lies with the law.
This puts America squarely in the camp with countries like China where the law is whatever the party (or in this case parties: D & R) says it is. Law thus becomes simply a tool to enforce edicts from above. It is the end of, what did you call it "a nation of laws, not men" whose lineage can be traced back to Magna Carta.
Did you guys read the article and watch the video? Those are DEMOCRATS that are exonerating the war criminals, the murders, the thieves that spy on you and me and anyone they goddamn please. The DEMOCRATS fund the war, legalize wiretapping, and help the neocons shred the constitution.
So you who support the democratic party, I hold in equal contempt as I do Bush and Cheney. You are asleep, drugged by your own "hopeful" illusions, dreaming of a better day while your democratic party turncoats smile then stab you in the back.
As Carlin said, "fascism with smiley faces."
Where is the desired "Change" in the way things are done in Washington? It sounds very much like the "business-as-usual" process of making legislation which is often likened to "making sausages". If I had to sum it all up I would do so as follows:
1. National leader of party A violates the constitution and breaks the law to usurp powers that could easily be obtained legally.
2. National leader of party A is caught doing so and exposed in mainstream media.
3. National leaders in party B pass laws to legalize lawbreaking by leader in party A.
4. National leaders in party B congratulate themselves on leading us toward renewed liberty and respect for the rule of law.
A sad fact about the retroactive immunity for the telecoms is that the senators on either side of the isle have no real idea of how flagrant the law-breaking really was, or to what extent it was, or who all it included. This is really shameful, because now it will be covered up and no one will ever know. This coverup is what the vote is really about. None of our Congressional leaders deserve to be returned to office after their next election.
This article seems a little shrill.... it read like a siren going off in my head...
If we are lucky, congress will introduce legislation to gut the 2nd amendment next.... Something like granting immunity to scrap metal recyclers for prying the gun from your cold dead fingers once the government has determined through eavesdropping and surveillance that you might have an illegal fully automatic BB gun in your possession and have recently read 1984, therefore you could be considered a threat to national security, and a person of "intrest".
Enjoy your delusion of freedom, oh you magnificent fools...
KCT
sipsey, Harry Reid said yesterday he is voting against the FISA bill and advised his colleagues to do the same.
This is a depressing day for America, and I'm so disappointed in Barack Obama. He is just another politician after all.
What is missing from this discussion is recognition of the new political realities in a world where external "commie" threats to the elite establishment have become secondary to popular unrest. In such a world, dissent must be detected at the earliest possible stage of development so that it can be classified and dealt with as potential "terrorism" wherever it arises.
In that context, geograpic boundaries are largely meaningless and the domestic populace can no longer expect any special exemptions from the methodologies required to proptect and defend the status quo. USans had better get used to being treated as potential enemies by the imperium's governing powers and adapt their behaviors accordingly. The rest of the world learned to accept that longstanding necessity long ago.
Daniel David, we all had to support Clinton when he and Gore were pushing in favor of NAFTA because the other side could win. The Telecommunications Act, the gutting of governmental social services, the continued expansion of the military budget, we've had to look the other way on the war because the other side could win, the FISA bill now that guts basic constitutional protections, we can't object to the murderous foreign policy that this country has when a Democrat supports it (surrounding himself with people who will advise him to continue the same immoral, status quo foreign policy) and is running for president, nothing can be said of him surrounding himself with right wing economists, there is more. We're now down to voting for Obama, despite the fact that he was already to the right of the public on the issues and has moved farther to the right since his nomination (which couldn't be the result of the golden advice from his status quo advisors now could it?). How much should be sacrificed before another option is taken up? Whatever option is chosen will take time, it will involve temporary losses. I'm just wondering how close the Democratic Party is allowed to mimic the reactionary right wing policies of the other corporate controlled party (the policies that would be off the chart right wing in most other industrialized countries) before people like you say enough is enough? Our democracy, with all the huge issues we're facing now that require fundamental change, is now being decided by who will appoint better judges. We're at this point because people make excuses for having no morals, for being blind partisans and never taking a damn stand on anything. This never changes, the same issues will be with us next election and people like you will say the same thing. Then the next election, and the next. It never freaking ends and it never works. People like you claim that, when elected, we can hold his feet to the fire, how? How are you able to hold the Democrats, elected to do the exact opposite of what they're doing now, feet to the fire? Remember, the other side can win if you really do.
It may well come to pass that the Democratic Convention may not be business as usual...
Just remember one thing. The alleged Democrats love what the Bu$h government has done. They will not interfere in it for anything, because they intend to inherit it intact for their own use. As long as they take no effort to correct it, or enforce the Constitution, they will have eight years of legal precedent to fight any attempt by We the People to reverse it later.
We the People are nothing to our alleged representatives. They belong to the corporations that have bought and paid for them.
They are all honest politicians, by my Dad's definition of an honest politician. "One who STAYS bought."
We the People don't have the money or power to buy them back, and we don't seem to have the backbone to throw them out.
Vale, America. It was a wonderful experiment.
Support the Republican Party, Vote Democrat!
Sipsey, please reread your post. Its a logical fallacy.
You are complaining that Greenwald should be criticising the Democratic "leadership" rather than Obama. As the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, Obama IS the putative leader of the Democratic party.
For the record, Greenwald nowhere excuses any Democrat that supports this bill. It is precisely because Obama is the Democratic candidate for President - the leader of the Democrats in this election cycle - that he is - and should be - singled out.
The fact of the matter is, if Obama had forcefully opposed this abomination, it would have been extremely difficult for most Democrats to support it - the amendments might still have failed because of blue dog Democrats and those in conservative districts (maybe a meaningless distinction) however a filibuster certainly could have been sustained. In fact, Reid and Pelosi probably never even would have brought the bill to the floor. There really was no reason - other than bowing to telecom pressure and money OR a tragically misguided attempt to burnish Obama's security cred - to bring this bill up now.
Also, as Greenwald notes, Obama forcefully opposed this bill when he was seeking the nomination. He has claimed to be a man of principles and a different type of politician. His newfound support for this bill belies those claims and makes him a legitimate target for such criticism.
I have been a registered Democrat for 30 years and have been asked to run for our Town Council twice by the local Democratic party. But I am drafting a letter notifying them I am changing my registration to Independent. I simply can not associate with a party that would sanction, let alone support, such an attack on the Constitution - one of the documents that, to me, practically defines liberalism.
Personally, I am sick to my stomach with the choice I now face. I have vehemently criticised the 2000 Nader voters and still find their arguments to be rather disingeniuos and full of ... well, let's say, rationalizations. I can't fathom putting another Republican in the White House - the impact on the Supreme Court alone would cripple this country for a generation or more.
Yet, I would be physically nauseous if I had to pull the lever for Obama after this vote.
Fortunately, for me, I live in NY, so my vote probably won't be an issue.
But, going forward, its going to be a hell of a lot harder to argue with those who spout the "not a dime's worth of difference" line. I'll have a really hard time holding people who vote for a third party candidate this time in the same contempt that I have for the Nader voters that helped install Bush in 2000.
I'm way past anger. Today I am feeling as stunned as when I sat, frozen, and watched the WTC collapse. As gut-wrenched as when I watched the "shock & awe" rain down on Baghdad.
As I watch on c-span, Congress is authorizing our rights as citizens to be ripped to shreds. I have no doubt that this action will open the door to more of the same.
I'm in my 60's; I am not naive. I read CD daily, but seldom join in the commentary. There are some of you who blog on this site that will simply reiterate what has been going on the last eight years, and write their usual recounting of past sins, yada yada yada.
But this is different. This is the worst thing that has happened to this country since 9/11. It is the beginning of the destruction of our country's core principles.
Yes, this administration has been eating away at our rights from the beginning. Yes, the Democratic majority in Congress has been acting in ways we couldn't predict in 2004 when we voters gave them the top chair. Yes, the government has disregarded our voices, our rights since the beginning. Yes, some of us thought Obama could be the answer -- BUT THIS IS DIFFERENT!
The world must be laughing at us. Our global reputation as the leader of the "free" world is shattering today. I sit here, stunned and afraid. Bush has wanted me to be afraid for years, but I wasn't -- I was just angry and appalled. I have been ashamed at many things our government has done in my name for years. Now I am afraid.
This morning I listened to David Sirota on NPR, talking about his new book, "The Uprising." He spoke of the laying of a "groundwork for a new populist movement." He said there is one movement afoot to vote out every incumbent member of both the House and Senate. And if it doesn't work, do it again at the next election. Chaos? Certainly!!
I think we should all read this book; I certainly intend to. It is the only hope I have left.
I'm wondering if several Supreme Court seats weren't up for grabs in the next several years if the Dems would even win the next election????
The supposed "differences" between Dems and Repubs is an "apparition," finagled by both parties to seem to be in the "interests of the people," but really not; not in a truly progressive society.
We are doomed to failure as a democracy because for too many years we have "elections" that are won by a minority of voters and that is, "tyranny of the minority!" That which we constantly reminded everyone was the dark side of the old Soviet Union.
We are slipping into a type of Fascism well suited to a plutocracy; kind of different (so far) than the Italian/German kind of prior and during WW2.
Maybe the oncoming economic disaster that is unfolding will accelerate our demise; who knows?
It's a sad century!!
DEAR MR. OBAMA,
IT'S NOT ABOUT HOW BAD McCAIN IS, IT'S ABOUT HOW BELIEVABLE YOU ARE. IF YOU LOOSE THE TRUST OF YOUR SUPPORTERS YOU HAVE N O T H I N G ! ! -- AS GORE AND KERRY FOUND-OUT.
Granted you don't have to worry about true Democrats voting for McCain, but you do have to worry about pissed-off voters simply staying home on Election Day.
If you're offering real change, how-about proving it, by firing your advisors on FISA.
Good luck.
Next step: constitutional challenge to legality of the FISA bill (unless McCain is elected to appoint the next Supreme Court justice, in which case kiss democracy goodbye, hello corporate fascism).
I agreed with most of what you said, accept for this: "I'll have a really hard time holding people who vote for a third party candidate this time in the same contempt that I have for the Nader voters that helped install Bush in 2000."
For one, far more Democrats voted for the down home I can have a beer with him Bush than people who voted for Nader. The Democrats have used that excuse to attack the left (who they long ago abandoned) and to pass the blame. It, like everything else, should have to be logically defended, not accepted. More votes were thrown away or turned over by the electronic machines. The Nader voters however are disgusted with the Democratic Party because the Democratic Party's selling out began decades ago, not since Bush took over or recently. Why is the left supposed to vote for the Democrats when the Democrats run away from the left every election, holding them up (and not the pro corporate right wing they're moving closer to, who are in direct opposition to the public's opinion on the issues) as extremists? For Christ sake, the left takes the logically defensible stand on the freaking issues! We live, theoretically at least, in a democracy. No party should get support from a group of people that they hold in contempt and voting for the Democrats does nothing but destroy the country, just a little slower than with the right wing.
Otherwise, I feel you pain and agree with what you said.
Democrats. What more proof do YOU need? Obama doesn't even have the guts to show up and cast a ballot. He doesn't have the constitutional fortitude to protect and defend the US Constitution. The ONLY thing that the Democrats will respond to is a MAJOR REVOLT in their ranks. I don't give a hoot if that is a vote for Nader. McKinney, or Mickey Mouse, as long as it is not for either of the two Corporate parties. Do you get it now? As for those who say Obama is the best hope? Please, stop deluding yourself. The best hope this once great possibility of a nation has is slipping away and only the people can do anything about it. Voting Republican or Democrat IS PART OF THE PROBLEM. Care enough to tell the duopoly to stick it where the color of their fascism is prevalent. Dump them!
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As for the above: "I'll have a really hard time holding people who vote for a third party candidate this time in the same contempt that I have for the Nader voters that helped install Bush in 2000." [Expletive]. Nader voters did not help install Bush. GORE DID! Gore and the 350,000 Democrats who voted for Bush in Florida. And, Mr Green, Al Gore, who rolled over and let it happen. There has been and is NO DIFFERENCE between the two halfs of the Corporate Franchise that has taken over the government. As for the Supreme Court, god damn it, the Democrats approved all those right wingers that are on it. What is the matter with Democrats? If you can't fathom putting another Republican in the White House then don't vote for either Obama or McCain. They are both of the same mold. What you see on TV is the facade. Wake up. Wake up. WAKE UP!
sierra July 9th, 2008 2:42 pm -- "We are slipping into a type of Fascism well suited to a plutocracy ..."
Princeton's professor emeritus of politics, Sheldon Wolin, calls it inverted totalitarianism. I would submit, however, that your description of the slippage in the present progressive tense may be more than slightly out of date.
Seasonedcitizen and Rich M,
As 61 year old American, and world member of the species, I concur that now we have every reason to know in the worst possible way that the country I once served for, taught in a prison for, is no more. There is no humanity left in this government nor the principles of every enlightened American philosopher, writer, poet and artist, teacher and doctor, priest and pacifist this country ever nurtured and "allowed" to bloom, including every founding figure and President worth the title.
Now I am worried. Now I can only prepare for the worst. I will dismantle my connection...Watch your backs.
Flip Flop Flip Flip Flip Flop Flip Flop Flip Flop - just another flip flop. There's no hope left. Nothing. DogLeg is right, absolutely.
I have been a registered Dem for over 8 years now.
I can not vote for McCain (lingering issues over his ties to Keating, ...who walked, by the way), he offends my sensibilities.
I can not vote for Obama just to not vote for McCain.
I refuse to vote for an elitist who doesn't even walk his talk, no matter how smooth a talker he is.
So I guess I'm back to voting for Mr. Nader, if we can get him on my state's ballot.
I question the thought processes in anyone who claims Nader was responsible for 8 years of W. He wasn't on the supreme court. He is the only alternative who actually supports and defends your rights to be an American and all that entails.
Bah! I can't stand the stupidity.
Thank you seasonedcitizen for helping put words to the feelings - beyond anger to shock and sadness - sounds like the stages of grief - grief for the soul of a nation.
I too have been annoyed at the third parties who make the clear lines blurred by stealing away dissenting votes. However, I now believe viable alternate parties are the only answer to destroying the stranglehold of the republicans and democrats (using lower case as most don't deserve to be capitalized).
Reading about who was against this and who was for being against that is downright confusing. So let's make it loud and clear:
We don't want the government to eavesdrop on our conversations because we value our freedom to say whatever we want, and not be fearful of being dragged out to some penal colony as a traitor. The living free from fear of our government part is very important. If the companies who did do this at the behest of this very oppressive government, are not penalized, it doesn't matter to me as much as that IT STOPS!!!!!
So, please will everyone just put your energy and derision where it belongs -- on this criminal administration!!!!!!
FISA passed @ 3:19 pm EST
Bandido said :
"Obama is just another politician, another job seeker, who would sell his mother to cannibals if it got him a few votes."
So Bandido tell us who are these cannibals, where do they live and how do they look like, what language do they speak. Are they occasional readers of Common Dreams? These kinds of wild outbursts that equate other people to cannibals reminiscent of 18th colonial authors have no place in today's progressive world. They do however have a welcoming home in faux news or right-wing talk shows.
Yeah, the Fourth Amendment has been gutted !!
Mission Accomplished !!
Campagne in the White House !!
Tomorrow Karl Rove will defy a subpoena !!
And now the Senate moves to gut Medicare !!
What a day !!
America is dead, finished and the dream will be but a memory to some future generation. RIP 3:19 pm EST. I just had great pleasure in canceling my cell phone service with Verizon.
So what will all the happy go lucky sheep do?
Run as fast as they can to the voting booth and elect Barack and his band of merry men otherwise called incumbent Democrats.
Man, the facists have won and led by the very Cat they now assert will bring them change.
Soon they will be banging on doors and people will begin to diappear much like Argentina years ago.
sipsey, you didn't read the article in your haste to reflexively defend Obama. Greenwald actually points out that Obama voted with the leadership (incl H Reid) on this. The betrayal came in supporting the "compromise" then casting the amendment votes which they knew would not pass. And Reid isn't running for Pres; Obama is. And as Greenwald points out, all this pandering doesn't even result in political success it is supposed to achieve. Quite the opposite it makes Obama look like a flip-flopper, a panderer and a rank triangulator without principle or conviction. This will lose Obama as many votes as he picks up by "tacking Right". It will, as Greenwald points out, drive Dems and independents away from the polls, resulting in low turnouts which always favor the Repubs. In other words, he lied to us, burned us, threw us and our Constitutional liberties under the bus and it won't even help him get elected!!!
On this basis, you can quite accurately say that this piece is profoundly pro-Obama, because it is filled with valuable political advice. Advice that would likely help Obama over the top. Unfortunately, your hero is a shallow, ambitious man without a core of convictions and beliefs, whose only real motivation is getting to the WH, even if it means giving up on all the useful power he might have had when he got there. In this Obama is America's best student at the school of Clinton. In fact, I would argue that by winning the primary, Obama showed that he is a better "Clinton" than Hillary herself.
No wonder Bill was so pissed off...
This is the year to vote Green.
There's little difference between the liar that is Obama and McCain on issue after issue. And that difference is so small that its not worth it to throw away our vote voting for another pro-corporate, pro-police-state candidate. Instead, its time to start working for ourselves and building our own movement for our own future.
Vote Green.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
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These are not optional things the government might do if it feels like it. These are the terms by which the American people agreed to this Constitution in the first place. The Constitution, as written, without the Bill of Rights, was REJECTED by the American people. It was the addition of the Bill of Rights that created the deal by which the American people then regarded the Constitution as minimally acceptable and thus they ratified it.
Essentially, this means that if the government stops respecting the Bill of Rights, the deal is null and void. The Constitution and this government become illegitimate if they refuse to honor the original deal.
Ah, once again the self-styled "pragmatic" loyal Democratic partisans commiserate and clutch their collective pearls over a trenchant and profound criticism of their anointed lesser-evil candidate. Why is this Greenwald person being so MEAN about Obama? Why isn't everybody saving their criticisms for the evil Republics? They're the ones who got us INTO this mess!
Let me try to dumb it down for you a shade: Change You Can Believe In.
Obama is given Dishonorable Mention precisely because he put himself forward as the best person to restore the rule of law and purge the vast range of unconstitutional and anti-constitutional depredations generated by the criminal maladministration, and FULLY ENABLED AND SUPPORTED by the Democratic Party leadership.
Soon after Clinton pulled the plug, your Hero promptly put his ducks in a row by kissing up to several wingnut constituencies, and coolly dissing progressive and civil-libertarian constituencies. And when this quondam professor of constitutional law was confronted with the admittedly sticky issue of taking a position on legislation which is utterly contrary to the Constitution and the rule of law, but which his opponents would characterize as "necessary for 'national security'" in an attempt to weaken him politically, Obama didn't hesitate to side with the very same depraved President who gives the lesser-evilists fits.
Worse yet, he went to the well once too often and covered his hypocritical ass with the usual Obama Knows Best stance filled with disingenuousness and disinformation. So this would-be post-partisan, transcendental wunderkind turns out to be just another scheming neo-liberal conservative. A Lieberman Democrat!
Do the criminals in high office in both parties also deserve bitter recriminations and condemnation? Mais oui! But it's not a zero-sum proposition-- there's plenty of disapproval to spread around. But Obama deserves particular emphasis because when our corrupt Congress saw fit to pass legislation amounting to a Get Out of Jail Free card for the unholy alliance of corporate and political crooks, Mister Change You Can Believe In was busy putting gas in the getaway car.
"Shrill", indeed! Better keep the smelling salts handy.
This community makes me embarrased to call myself a progressive. Many of you folks seem to specialize in the ole circular firing squad.
The nation elected the Democrats to lead the Congress in 2006.
The Democrats in Congress have shown absolutely no interest in protecting the Constitution, or basically doing anything besides rubber-stamping Bush's policies and protecting Bush and his minions from impeachment and prosecution.
There is absolutely no reason to believe that Democrats would defend the Constitution if elected. We have the track record of this Congress to tell us that. Especially since they have failed precisely in the DUTY that the authors of the Constitution gave them in acting as a check and a balance to executive power.
Essentially the message from the Democrats is the same as an officer in the another big war the Democrats supported (Vietnam) who said 'we had to destroy the village in order to save it'. The Democrats are now trying to spread the con that they had 'to destroy the Constitution in order to save it.'
The problem is of course that once its destroyed, its gone. And its a complete matter of trust to believe that by giving power to one of the parties that's willingly just destroyed the Constitution, that they will then save it.
What seems far more obvious is that the Democrats are just as happy with a fascist police state as the Republicans. Their only complaint is that they should be the ones running it.
Actually, we seem to mostly all be pretty much in a line and firing towards the far right ... which is where the Democrats stand with the Republicans against us.
That's Okay ~HUCK~, we're way over populated and when Florida and the Gulf states, New Jersey, etc, are underwater, less people will be a boon for mankind.
"Worse yet, he went to the well once too often and covered his hypocritical ass with the usual Obama Knows Best stance filled with disingenuousness and disinformation. So this would-be post-partisan, transcendental wunderkind turns out to be just another scheming neo-liberal conservative. A Lieberman Democrat!"
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Nothing new there really. Those who remember 2004 will remember that Obama sided WITH Lieberman against the progressive challenger Ned Lamont. Obama has ALWAYS been a Lieberman Democrat.
He just lied his ass off to try and hide it during the primaries and thus con gullible Democrats into giving him the nomination.