Obama's Denver speech

From the post-speech discussion at Obsidian Wings:

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socratic_me reported:

My sister, a long time very conservative Republican from the middle of Oklahoma, decided tonight that she was voting for Obama. ... Her reason: She is tired of the fact that Republicans always want her to be frightened and angry and Obama has clearly set forth for her a better way.

The "socratic_me's sister" metric proves once again I am not a very good politician.

I'm one of the few people who was disappointed by the speech because he made almost no acknowledgment of the fear, rage & shame I feel when I think about the Bush administration. Torture, black sites, mercenaries, ceaseless surveillance, imperialistic invasion, rape both figurative and literal, arbitrary and unchecked Presidential power aka tyranny -- as Glenn Greenwald said yesterday, those are the issues that no-one at the DNC seems willing to call out and reject.

But socratic_me's sister won't vote for change if she feels ashamed of her country -- even though she *should* feel ashamed. My approach would be wrong, Obama's is right -- or at least, it is likely to work.

But it still sticks in my craw that we won't get war crimes trials, and I'm afraid that without them we're going to get future war crimes.

FISA and Capitulation

Last week was really bad, politically speaking. Hunter at DailyKos kind of sums it up for me:

We are against the torture of innocents, and that is enough to disqualify us from being serious about the fate of our nation. We believe illegal acts should be investigated and punished, and that makes us too naive to be proper guardians of discourse. We once thought even a president was required to follow the law; we have been disabused of that notion not only by the President, but by Congress as well.

Glenn Greenwald righteously sums up my wrath and disappointment with Obama:

Whatever the motives -- and I don't know (or much care) what they are -- Obama has embraced a bill that is not only redolent of many of the excesses of Bush's executive power theories and surveillance state expansions, but worse, has done so by embracing the underlying rationale of "Be-scared-and-give-up-your-rights."

Hilzoy's post was succinctly titled Bleccchh.

At Unfogged, Apostropher asked What do you call an opposition party that refuses to oppose?. Very good discussion ensued. My comment:

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I'm starting to think it's actually Liberal vs Authoritarian vs gutless Authoritarian.

I think there are two intersecting problems:

1. the voters are statistically less authoritarian & sheeplike than Congress, as seen e.g. in the public's opposition to the war or telcom immunity, which are much stronger than anything Congress has been able to express.

A lot of this IMHO is economic: wealth leads to complacency leads to the Dark Side, and Congresspeeps are *much* wealthier and more economically secure than the people as a whole.

2. We need better stories. Republicans are using a Macho Sue template for leadership (and masculinity), which comes with a complete set of inspiring cultural icons and exciting movies. I think the gutless division of the Democratic Party is saying "mythic figures are unnecessary and tacky" -- but human beings don't work that way, so emotionally they're still in thrall to Macho Sue and will lick his boots reflexively.

The spine-enabled Democratic Congresspeeps (including my own, you wish you had one) *do* have cultural icons and role models -- Atticus Finch, for instance -- but not as many, and frankly they don't come with as many shiny accessories (whether Glocks or Manolos, a distinction without a difference) and explosions, which are apparently necessary if we're going to switch the allegiance of the gutless.

Dear Obama supporters; also, Dear Clinton supporters

-- especially any of you who might be actually working on the campaign, or whose donation pockets are deeper than mine (please imagine a wallet with a moth flying out).

Glenn Greenwald has been documenting the yearning of some Congressional Democrats to pass a FISA bill giving telecoms amnesty for lawbreaking they did at the Administration's request -- amnesty that would, by an *amazing coincidence*, remove the evidence for this lawbreaking from public view. This battle is also being documented over at Daily Kos.

A lot of us feel that it's time for Senator Obama step up to the plate and *lead* on this issue. He's said that he's opposed to telcom amnesty -- encourage him make a serious speech about it. Encourage him to "encourage" other Congressional Dems to "encourage" Hoyer & the other Telecom Congresspeeps to reconsider. Make "Rule of Law" and "Respect for the Constitution" serious rallying points. Please, if any of you have any good offices to use, *use them*.

And to those of you who supported Senator Clinton's campaign: she has a great Leadership-with-a-capital-L opportunity here, as well. Encourage her to prove that she can be just as great a Majority Leader as she was a campaigner. The opportunity is here, begging to be used.