President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Certainly these times that we live in are worthy of considerable fear. On this site we discuss these fears every day: The economy, the erosion of our rights, health care, rampant warfare and death, the fear of environmental change causing significant problems, and we could go on and on. As President Roosevelt astutely noted, in a day with fears that are certainly analogous in scope to the fears that we hold today, that fear is something to be avoided.
The problem with the FISA amendments is that as a law, like so many passed over the previous seven years, it is justified and grounded in fear. Fear that everyone and anyone could be a terrorist. Fear that if we don't give corporations absolute immunity they won't allow us to save us or themselves. Fear that a disconnected population of people will only see the names of legislation and vote solely on attack ads.
This kind of fear is dangerous, and should be avoided. This country cries out for leadership, and a true leader cannot lead in a state of fear.
On their face, it is difficult to argue with the fear of loss of life and the fear of losing progressive change. However the problem with fear is that responding via fear results in panic. The best choices are not made during times of panic and fear, they are made by men and women who can fight fear back and stand up for the facts on the ground.
I'm sure that some of Barack Obama's supporters believe that is exactly what he's doing... standing up to the "disruptive left wing" of the Democratic party.
Bah... rubbish.
I am a Barack Obama supporter, and a longtime cynic. I still believe that Barack is the most energizing politician I've ever seen. He has my vote, even if he only does 10% of what he claims he will. That is not all that's at stake here, though. Yes, winning the election is so important it can't be jeopardized... but so is regaining the soul of our country. These are not disparate truths. They are directly connected in the most fundamental of ways.
There is no doubt, based on Senator Obama's own comments, that this was a bad law. There is no doubt that offering immunity to the telcos was a bad choice to make. And so we are not faced with a crisis of conscience on the rightness of the issue. We are faced with the fact that this was a politically calculated move. We are faced with the fact that a person who did what almost no one else could do - enlivened people like myself who had given up so long ago - has now forced some of us to question that new-found optimism. This was not a niche issue and it is not an issue that affects a small number of people. It is an issue that in many cases has divided our definition of democracy as compared to despotism.
The Constitution is not a political football. Whether you believe that the administration violated the Constitution or not, an argument cannot be made to keep their acts private and away from the courts. If they did not and they are safe, they would have been proven right in court. The fact that Bush refused to sign any FISA bill that did not include immunity tells us that the central goal was a cover up.
My Senator, Chris Dodd, stood defiantly and often against his own party leadership. I am proud of my Senator. He showed real leadership. He showed that sacrifice for something important like this was not only necessary, but that you could shine with it. I was fairly lukewarm on Senator Dodd until this moment. I generally liked him but had no idea that this kind of leadership could come from him.
I hoped upon hope that Senator Obama was the same kind of leader. I still hope that his capacity for leadership is true, but this FISA vote hasn't just hurt the fourth amendment. It is a black mark on the soul of this nation... and it is not Barack Obama's to bare alone. In some way it is the fault of everyone here in this great nation, for we did not or could not do enough to stop this from happening.
I am not so naive to believe that a politician can act only on principle, but I held out the hope that one politician might be able to stand up for a set of central principles that he claims to hold dear. I was optimistic, but am now returning to cynicism.
Perhaps for myself and others like me, that is the greatest casualty of this FISA fight. We believed that our energy and momentum might be able to fix a system that is decadent and broken. We fought this fight for quite some time and had some successes. Even a vote against this, tilting at windmills though it might have been (and I am not convinced of that... the presumptive next President of the USA carries a lot of weight in his vote and voice) would still have been an act of leadership...
...an act of potential leadership that simply did not happen. And with it, this great illusion of change has left many of us.
I do not say this to impugn Senator Obama. He's still my man on the floor out there and I hope he learns from this and can bring hope back to us, but this is simply my heartfelt perspective.
I urge all of you to support Senator Obama in his bid for the presidency in as far as you believe you can and still serve the best interests of this country. And I urge Senator Obama to read our criticisms for what they are and perhaps learn from us as we so wanted to learn of a different way from him.