You won't find anyone here who's been more critical of the FISA capitulation than I. I did my best to try to incite a riot for a week - and got troll rated for it plenty.
I had hoped that we could muster up enough angst to scare Obama's campaign and perhaps some in the leadership to abandon this vote by thinking that it was going to cost Obama too much political capital. But alas, for our Democratic leadership, no cost is too high to protect their masters in the telecom industry, and the national security state.
But as disappointed as many of us have been over Obama's reversal, there's some things to keep in mind. I didn't express this in the last week because it wasn't in our interest to do so. But now that the vote is over, a little perspective is warranted.
First, for those who are unsympathetic with Obama's situation:
To really grasp this, you first have to understand who really runs this country and what real power is. Our country is a Plutocracy. It has been for over a century at least. I have spent the last 10 years intensively studying how this plutocracy came to power, and what the instruments of that power are. It is not a conspiracy. It is just the order of things. And most presidents dare not disturb that order, much less a candidate who hasn't even received his party's nomination yet.
In the hierarchy of things, the most plutocratic branch of the federal government is the Senate. And the most most dangerous subgroup of the Senate is the Intelligence Committee. And while Obama's been out campaigning, the plutocrats on the Intelligence Committee have been negotiating this FISA deal.
I have to say, I wanted Obama to oppose John D Rockefeller and the others who pushed this on us and their fellow senators. But that doesn't mean I'm nor completely sympathetic to Obama's position.
What we were asking him to do was to give the finger to the most powerful people in his own party. What we were asking him to do was to defy the leadership before he's even given his nomination speech. Obama was clearly aware that waging a fight on this issue, with these people, could have had grave consequences for his presidency - even his candidacy.
Read this quote from Woodrow Wilson:
"Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the Field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere -- so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive -- that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."
Now I have no idea who Wilson was talking about here. I've scoured his writing for a clue. But the point is, and this is something we should all understand as we measure our expectations for Obama, our government is not nearly as powerful as it should be. The plutocrats have their tentacles so deep that most politicians dare not defy them.
Obama may have been very wise to have conceded on FISA. Some times, it really is better to keep your powder dry. We'll probably never know. Who got to him and what they said is for future history books perhaps. And while I wanted to see sparks fly, as did many of us, I cannot underestimate the pressure he was under. Because I understand a bit about how power works. I should. I've been researching it long enough.
The second point I want to get across is why, even for us rabid constitutionalists, there is still much to be excited over an Obama victory.
On January 20, when Obama is sworn in, it won't just be John McCain who will be gnashing his teeth. It will be an entire culture of rabid, militants.
Not all plutocrats are created equal. Some, thank god, are even relatively decent people. But the ones who empowered George Bush and Dick Cheney for the last eight years are the the most monstrous characters our country has ever known. And it will be they who are defeated. And so with them their pax Americana invasion of the world.
Let there be no doubt, when Obama is sworn in, one of the darkest eras in American foreign policy will be finally over. That darkness began before Iraq, before 911. It began the day George Bush took office. Remember, the Bushes weren't even unpacked before his Cowboy unilateralism started offending our allies.
And it went down hill from there. But we actually have the chance to show the world that evil does not win for long.
If this sounds like the long way around to "we have to defeat McCain", your wrong. I'm saying we have to defeat a whole culture. Its power center is in Texas. It comes from oil and defense contracts. And it very much wants to keep the US in a state of perpetual warfare so it can feed off of our common wealth. And it very much wants Obama to lose the election.
It will not die from Obama's victory. But it will suffer a severe blow. And it will no longer be pulling the strings in Washington.
If you cannot bet excited about anything anymore, get excited about these monsters being purged from the offices of our federal government.