There is a movement in the left blogosphere that has gotten stepped on by the Obama administration and Washington DC Democrats: the liberal civil libertarians and people in general who support the Constitution, particularly the Bill of Rights, particularly the 4th amendment, who have been ignored, ridiculed by senior Obama officials, and just generally isolated.
Did Democrats really get that cocky? Yes. They briefly tried to return to the same old crap from the Old Democratic Party years but now they know that shit ain't gonna fly. They thought liberal civil liberties people would just roll over knowing how God awful the alternative is: the Republican neo-fascists who, more than anyone, hate the 4th amendment of the United States Constitution.
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.
I say all that as an Obama supporter. Here's why:
It's unreasonable to be searched for God-given plants. Who gave the oligarchy the authority to invade people's homes based on some arbitrary law established by a by-gone era of ultra-conservative fascists?
Prohibition is just another name and another incarnation of the brutal Catholic Inquisition. It accomplishes the same thing: control of the populace.
Obama, as the first African-American president, as the first "brother-in-chief," can't deny his whole race, whose collective heads have suffered the most under the collective heel of the oligarchy, and all the rest of us who have toiled in the lower rung of jobs. (I now work in IT and managed to get up a couple of tax brackets.)
I say all that as a "liberaltarian" who still supports Barack Obama. I haven't given up on him. Because I know that in the end, he can't turn his back on these people, many of whom won't ever rise above their situation to even vote for him. But they're watching. I guarantee you that. I was when I was stuck in crap jobs right after college in the crappy economy of that time (Bush I's recession).
Here's what I think Barack needs to do to mend fences with the civil libertarian crowd, some of whom are actually taking up with the anti-education, ultra-ignorant, bribed-with-religious-power teabaggers, yes the Republicans. Wash, rinse, repeat: teabaggers are Republicans, teabaggers are Republicans, they're a cute concoction of REPUBLICAN.
As with any profound argument with someone you care about, you have to discuss the precedents that are being set, you have to acknowledge their greivances.
Barack hasn't done that yet.
He hasn't wanted to acknowledge... yet... that he needs civil liberties liberals.
He wants to continue his "president of everyone" denial game for awhile longer. He feels he has to do this because he's black and to go the extra mile to show that he's "president of everyone."
That's understandable. But enough's enough: deal with the situation with the MIC, deal with the situation with the Holy Drug Inquisition.
Do it now.
Addressing the military industrial complex, the key group in the way of civil liberties in the world, should be your first task Mr. President.
Like China and their military industrial complex run amok, America suffers from an oligarchy of the rich.
Barack knows their power. He's not one of them but he knows he wants to be one, like the Clintons got to do. I don't blame him. But he can't let it slide like Bill Clinton did, who said on his way out of office that he wishes he would have decriminalized marijuana: he has to do it.
And he will. California is about to legalize marijuana. And Obama isn't going to go in and start up a national police force to stop it because the California cops won't do the busts for them: they can't.
I hate to say it this way but it's the truth: Barack Obama CAN'T be the ultimate "Uncle Tom" and bend over for the oligarchic military industrial/ multinational corporation behemoth.
He can't.
And he won't.
So I am still his supporter.
Disclosure: I haven't a CLUE about latest idiotic energy vampire flame war. I just know that blackwaterdog has contributed to helping me keep the faith and be patient.
I hope the Obama critics can try to be patient and get back to fighting the good fight against the real barbarians: the Republicans and their oligarchy puppet-masters.