More fuel for more fires

[solarbird]

New.

Parties.

Now.

Torture States Love Using Spy Satellites On Their Own Country:

Sky snoops
August 19, 2007
Baltimore Sun

Should have seen this one coming.

Once the federal government had rationalized its authority to violate the privacy of Americans by tapping their phones, reading their e-mail, surveying their library selections and poking through their bank records, it was only a matter of time before the Department of Homeland Security would point spy satellite cameras intended for foreign enemies into the private lives of Americans as well.

Indeed, the country is becoming so inured to the Big Brother tactics of the Bush administration, news of this intrusive new eye in domestic skies has provoked little outrage. Congress has apparently given the plan its blessing, totally abdicating its oversight role.

[...]

According to the Department of Homeland Security, Congress has signed off on this expanded use of spy satellites and provided funding for it to begin this fall. An aide to the Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed the committee was aware of the program and was monitoring it. Yet, there appears to have been no plan to make it public until The Wall Street Journal broke the story last week.

Congressional acquiescence in violating the freedom of innocent Americans not to be spied upon by their government is outrageous - but somehow not surprising coming from a group of Democratic-led lawmakers who recently got rolled by President Bush on the issue of domestic wiretapping without court approval.

The Democratic Party is handling their knife-edge majority in the Senate in the worst way possible, not just from a political standpoint - where they continue jumping up and down on the fractured remnants of the dust of their credibility with crap like this - but from a standpoint of duty-to-country-and-Consitution. They have no such excuse in the House, where the majority is slim, but not so slim as that. By appeasing the Liebermans who enable the authoritarian Republican Party, they actively enable that party's authoritarian agenda.

In my opinion, the Democratic Party should call Lieberman's bluff, and if they lose the Senate for another year and a half, that's - well, it's not fine, but it's better having the Senate and still losing, particularly in a chamber where you can stop anything with 40 votes. Then actually fight this crap in the House, really fight, really stop approving more of this crap, and maybe they could start earning back a reputation as a party that either cares about... anything, while - just maybe - being a little more effective. The alternative - the one they are pursuing now - makes them as damaging on these fronts as the GOP, as they stop nothing, and, by stopping nothing, help institute the Republican torture-and-surveilence state as the new normal. Perhaps Karl Rove actually resigned because, really, there wasn't anything left for him to do. Does the "permanent majority" really have to refer to the GOP by name, or can it include the enablers?

But, of course, I am a fool, unable to see that the Democratic Party is Our Only Hope, and that it will, someday, eventually, later, when it's safe, do the Right Thing.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Somebody needs to find the North Hollow files that the Rovemeister has on this bunch of milquetoast we have for a Congress, and either send'em to the New York Times or burn'em.

There aren't going to be new parties until somebody charismatic enough to lead a full majority shows up, and frankly that person, don't care who it is, scares me. Anything less throws the election into the House and Senate, and you're back to square one.

We're gonna have to work this out the hard way, within the states and by beating the snot out of our own Congresscritters or drafting new ones to run agin'em. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither will we get a velvet revolution quickly. Anything faster will take a shooting war, and I for one don't want that if we can do it bloodlessly in a reasonable amount of time.

And the DNC isn't our only hope; thankfully, several of the last few principled so-and-so's left in the Elephants are actually running this time. I think the best declared candidate so far *is* a Democrat (Obama)... but for once I do not think this election will be a total disaster if he loses.

I'm not sure how to do it and be fair, but I think it ought to be a misdemeanor to vote for a measure which is later found to be unconstitutional on civil rights grounds... and a third conviction on this charge is a felony, the penalty for which is simply the usual collateral side effects of being a felon: Loss of civil rights and the right to hold public office.

[uniquecrash5.livejournal.com]

bradhicks posted something interested recently about 3rd parties, and their lack of viability. Brad is usually a very good read, and I think you might enjoy his journal. He was asking folks what kind of news is going on today, and I pointed him at that Family Security Matters opinion piece you linked to yesterday, and recommended your journal to him....

(I'd say more about 3rd parties & my opinions thereof but I'm a little rushed right now.)

[solarbird]

The kind of "new parties" I really think have any chance are ones that would be formed from schisms within the two current major parties. I don't think this is likely, really, either - but it strikes me as the least unlikely path to a better outcome.

Similarly, in the long run, I'm more hoping for a transparent society than a surveillance-free society, tho' here I am still fighting for the latter. I see it as possible that a transparent society can still be a free society (tho' requiring more courage, which is a problem); I do not see it as possible that a surveillance society can be a free society for very long at all.

[solarbird]

Also, because it seems weird to me to follow you over there to suggest a news item, I'd suggest you mention to him that PEMEX is now saying that Mexico will not be an oil exporter for very much longer. (Five-year timeframe.) Mexico is the second largest exporter of oil to the US. Canada is the only country with both the reasonable capacity (via the oil sands) and political climate (ahem) to fill the gap, but it's unlikely they can actually do so, and even if they did, there wouldn't be enough natural gas to meet expected demand. (Oil sands conversion burns natural gas. Also, there are water issues. Lots of water issues.)

I can't find the original article I was reading, but Seeking Alpha's summary of the Mexican side of the situation doesn't seem too bad, tho' it doesn't talk much about Canada.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

I don't think you've thought this through. A schism in the current parties would leave one minority party that votes the right way (the Democrats), one minority party that is slightly right of center that votes the wrong way (the Liebermanites), an incredibly small right-wing libertarian party that votes the right way (Ron Paul, maybe Arlen Specter, and at maybe ten others in both houses), and the theocon/neocon/far-right GOP.

The libertarians wouldn't have enough votes to matter. The Liebermanites would, but then they already do. The other remaining parties would vote the way they already do. The end result would be exactly the same.

We need to replace existing elected officials (and in particular getting rid of some of the accomodating committee chairmen) so that more of them will vote the right way. Adding new parties doesn't get us any closer to that goal.

And your point about the 40 votes in the Senate being able to block anything? The good faction of the Democrats in the Senate is not always that large. You've got something like 35 reliable Democrats. So it's a 2:1 party majority for the right position even in the worst of cases. The Republicans have 50 even on party-line votes, so they can block any legislation lifting previous bad legislation. On new legislation, they only need to get 10 of the 15 squishy Democrats to keep the others from filibustering. Cloture's a bitch.

I don't think you're a fool, and I don't think the Democratic Party is our only hope. However, I don't think there's any way additional parties would help improve the situation, and that we have to work with the means available to us that could improve things. The Democratic Party is one of several means available to us, and should not be dismissed because legislative action is inherently inefficient and compromised. Political pressure outside the federal party structure, including groups such as the ACLU, state governments, and even street demonstrations where they can be focused and effective, are even more important means.

[solarbird]

I don't think you've thought this through.
I think everything through.

The end result would be exactly the same.
Which would be worse, how?

Also, I disagree. I do not think the end result would be exactly the same, because then you would at least have non-authoritarian parties which, one can pray, would actively promote their agenda, rather than continually and endlessly intimidating themselves into a pathetic loser's game of "how much do we give up today?" Currently you have a GOP that advocates its authoritarianism, strongly. Advocacy actually does change minds. You also have a Democratic party that, as a party, doesn't advocate or push for jack shit. The only negotiation is "how much do we give up" and "how much do we embarrass ourselves." There is no party advocating against the authoritarian state and there is no party actually working as a party to even stop - much less reverse - the "unitary executive." That is a guaranteed route to failure.

In the realignment as you describe it, we go from no parties advocating the anti-authoritarian side up to two. That sounds like a huge win to me.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

I agree that it would be good to have a party (with actual elected officials) that openly and proudly advocated for a non-authoritarian agenda. I just think it would be a lot easier to get there by changing a party that's 2/3-4/5 of the way there already, rather than creating one from scratch.

I share your disappointment about the absence of that party, though.

[risu.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I wonder if it would be possible for a third party to define its mission as "win a Democratic or Republican primary nomination first, then exploit their resources to win the race."