“On a related note, one would think the Supreme Court would want to uphold the Constitution, no?”

Good luck getting this in front of the Supreme Court, let alone a federal judge. Since the whole damn program is secret, how the hell can you establish standing in litigation? How can you prove that you were injured, if you can’t prove that spying happened to you? If you can’t prove that you were injured, you have no standing. If you can’t prove standing, you have no case that a federal court will hear. With telco immunity, everyone is going to get tossed out on their asses, and you’re never going to be able to prove a damn thing.

I’m no expert on things of this nature, but I do know that courts won’t strike down a law unless someone can prove an injury typically.

Very well said.

‘ Black people have been giving it away for NOTHING in return but a hope and a sense of fairness.
Black people have been giving it away for NOTHING in return but a hope and a sense of fairness.’

So true. This is why the Father’s Day speech bothered me, I didn’t think it was fair and I was very disappointed and feeling like more of the same.

I feel the same way you do about the other issues and think the variables make it difficult to please everyone.

Michelle

I understand, your frustration is about the uproar over FISA – I agree with Hearts on this. Though I do believe the driving force is that many corporations are involved and the litigation would be voluminous and I’m sure they is much more to this story than the general public is privy to.

go read the constitution and the bill of rights. it’s apparent you have no idea what those documents mean or what went into the making of them.

then you’ll know what i’m so “personally” upset about. good grief, you’re making this into some kind of personal psychological issue?

there’s a term for that: projection.

The whole thing but in particular for me right now these parts:

4. Thinking ‘change’ means wiping the slate clean or starting over from scratch. I think the entire system is flawed and was broken back when the Founding Fathers: stole people and enslaved them, used the income to fund their own war of independence from another ‘oppressor’ and actively enacted laws that kept slavery in place in violation of ignored laws opposing it.

I know people are attached to the Constitution but they intentionally discounted people from participating and benefitting from it’s laws. So people today hold it up as this pillar when it has rarely been used in its entirety in the first place.

……..

Why we feel entitled to our lifestyle without accepting responsibility of the actions required to support it.

ex. people who support a vegan lifestyle and oppose animal abuse [and make it into a moral and/or political issue and have an air of superiority about "doing the right thing"] but don’t consider the lives of the migrant workers who toil to make fruits/veggies available.

…….

6. FISA rules being followed, being broken, the illusion that citizens are not to spied upon, but historically how the gov’t has always spied on people; see MLK, Malcolm X, Black Panthers, Anti-War groups, Hoover. I’ve heard certain words are coded and get flagged and that we are in fact being monitored all the time.

And really the whole thing.

I know it was a reply to Ms Martin but I will say: thank you so much for this comment, thank you.

Right now for me, it’s the energy of the people who are upset at him because of his statement and actions/lack of actions re: the House vote on FISA.

For some — NOT ALL but some — there’s this personal sense of dramatic psychological betrayal in how they make their public declarations about how they feel and what they are now going to do. Some of which I have seen on this site, though not as much as elsewhere.

I understand disagreeing with him and wanting to hold him to task and don’t have any problem with comments and people coming cleanly from that space.

But the intensely personal-drama feel of some people’s responses is really repellent to me. When I was sorting through what I felt going on I realized that it felt to me like relationship or “family drama” of the sort that is extremely self-referential for the people who are so upset.

I’m not entirely how best to name *what* some people are projecting on him around the FISA-Obama-drama; it may be a various things depending on the person, since IMO it really is pretty self-referential to whatever the individuals internal “issues” are.

(again — I am NOT talking about the comments and people who are politically disagreeing in a clean sort of way, it’s the ones with all the angst and personal drama energy I’m talking about).

My girlfriend sees some of this drama as coming from rigid ungrounded ideologies that get projected outward. I see some evidence of that too but not sure precisely how it gets so linked into the personal-drama feel of things.

There’s a fair amount of what I am repelled by on the dailykos, which I never read before this election season and may have to stop reading again.

And, some of the comments from bigassbelle on this thread and Friday’s open thread to me illustrate a vivid and particularly extreme version of what I am talking about. In this case the FISA statement seemed to serve as the catalyst for an individual to feel so deeply and personally betrayed and freaked out that she wrote that she prays for suffering on people in a country — The U.S. — we later find out she plans to leave. Praying for others to hurt while you plan to scape the pain, because you are so internally self-referentially upset … I will not say the words that I have for this kind of thing. I do also see some evidence of a rigid ideology in these and other of her comments as well, which is along the lines my girlfriend is thinking.

they want it. they want it for their “people” ~ the corporations.

they are enormous donors to political campaigns, the telecoms.

the fisa bill has been fought back by activist democratic citizens several times now.

the democratic sellouts in congress keep allowing it to come up. over and over.

they want this bill to pass. want it.

the democrats could, if they wanted to, do precisely on this bill what the republicans do over and over:

play obstructionist politics and filibuster the motherfucker. but no, that would require some bit of spine and there doesn’t seem to be a fucking backbone in the whole lot of them (feingold, dodd and a few others excluded).

But the “liberal media” isn’t discussing McCain’s age and its effect on his electability with the same vim and vigor that it’s discussing Barack’s race.

Even though every single poll in the last two weeks tells us age is a bigger issue for voters.

::

For all of our discussions of the Constitution and FISA, has anyone expressed any outrage about the politics behind the way this bill came up for the vote the way this bill came pu for the vote?

On a related note, one would think the Supreme Court would want to uphold the Constitution, no?

What’s the Supreme Court going to do when it decides to review this bill?

And what else is attacked to this bill? Isn’t there something attached to this bill that extends unemployment benefits? Or did I hear that wrong?

In a Post-ABC News poll last month, nearly nine in 10 whites said they would be comfortable with a black president. While fewer whites, about two-thirds, said they would be “entirely comfortable” with it, that was more than double the percentage of all adults who said they would be so at ease with someone entering office for the first time at age 72, which McCain (R-Ariz.) would do should he prevail in November.

European officials are increasingly concerned that Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign pledge to begin direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program without preconditions could potentially rupture U.S. relations with key European allies early in a potential Obama administration.

The article is just one reflection of what happens when leftists get their way. Leftists are actually communists/socialists — though most deny it, or don’t even realize it — who believe that the government is suppose to help them and others, by forcefully taking from others.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs! – Marx

Look at some of their other issues, e.g. 1) ‘man-made’ Global Warming. At one time — on earth — oceans were covered in an ice-sheet that was one-mile deep…the entire planet earth was covered in ice. Mankind wasn’t around, so how did the ice go away? And, that was just one Ice Age. 2) Environment – “save the trees”…by letting forest fires destroy the forests, instead of allowing loggers into the forests. “no drilling for oil”…lets fund terrorism instead. “Bush caused Katrina”…of course, the environmentalists got a pass on the damage caused by Katrina, even though it was them who had stopped anyone from touching the Mississippi River and the marsh areas around New Orleans. 3) World Peace – “no more wars”…that’s a good one. Leftists think that they can stop the enemy by talking to them, or by threatening them with court systems.

From the above link: Alice Walker believed so strongly that children enslaved their mothers she disowned her own daughter…saw motherhood a form of servitude…etc.

But I have supported him in large part because of his stand on foreign policy ~ that we must do things differently, that democrats are the better party to “keep us safe” (so fucking tired of that phrase).

With his support of FISA, he did a 180 degree turn back to the tired old destructive republican narrative that we can only be strong on security if we trash the Constitution.

As ptcruiser said: “Obama either believes the government can act unlawfully against American citizens or he does not.”

which is it? and one of the most disappointing results of his statement is the sudden appeasement being promulgated by former staunch advocates of the defeat of this bill. it seems that the thing is just to elect Obama, no matter what, no matter what he does, says, anything. just elect him!!

bullshit. if we don’t hold our candidates’ feet to the fire ~ all of our candidates ~ we have nothing.

::

Say it again. It amazes me how much his opponents are doing their best to paint him as a radical.

It won’t work.

Anybody who’s paying attention knows Barack is not that liberal.

His opponents are talking to those who aren’t paying attention and to them only.

I’m no fan of David Brooks and I reject some of his more dismissive and sarcastic language in his recent column, but he basically put out a warning to Barack’s opposition.

If they keep underestimating them, they will be run over.

You think Barack has sold his soul. I see no evidence of that. Clearly we have different thresholds a pol must cross before coming to that conclusion.

That’s all.

::

Whoever wrote that Barack didn’t cite a single example of a race-based attack when talking to the Floridians at that fundraiser is lying. They are also lying to say that he’s suggesting that any criticism against his policies is racist.

Barack called out Floyd Brown, independent slimethrower, who has already created and aired two ads painting Barack as a scary Black Muslim terrorist. One of the ads ran in North Carolina, the other ran in South Dakota.

The “Barack lied about never being a Muslim” ad has nothing to do with policy issues. It includes lies that have already been debunked. It has everything to do with exactly what Barack said in Florida. It is about making the voter scared of him for reasons that have nothing to do with his policies or his politics.

::

d.,

I haven’t lost my enthusiasm for Barack’s candidacy because I never had any doubt that he was capable of playing tough politics in order to win. Chicago politics ain’t never been no tea party. Ambition is the central ingredient for any politician running for President.

He’s so inexperienced, he’s so naive, folks say.

Uh huh.

The man is a shrewd, calculating, intelligent and talented politician who knows what’s up.

Whether he’s ultimately elected or not, I haven’t seen a bigger political talent in my lifetime.

Obama is flat out wrong on this issue and his position demonstrates not the sort of practical pragmatism that is the stock-in-trade of politicians but a sort of craven cowardice and fear that is generally displayed by politicians with far less talent than he possesses. Getting elected president of the United States is a process of straining for symmetry, that is, trying to bring irregular halves together by occupying the middle. There is not, unfortunately, a middle position on the protections we are afforded under the 4th Amendment. Obama either believes the government can act unlawfully against American citizens or he does not.

s: hahahaha!! obama a “hard left liberal”? please. he’s a center right politician.

michelle: what people aren’t getting about FISA is this:

George Bush swore on a Bible to uphold and defend the Constitution. Then he wiped his ass with it.

The FISA betrayal is not about drama or emotion or any of that, it’s about the foundation of this country, the Constitution of the United States. The one the Republicans have run roughshod over for the last eight years.

It’s not a political issue, it’s not a talking point, it’s the fucking foundation of this country. To blow it off ~ especially while parroting the worst of the right wing terrorist talking points ~ is a fucking outrage.

Tell me how a constitutional law professor could even think of doing that?

Here, I’ll tell you: corporatocracy. End of democracy.

Apparantly, these members don’t understand that Obama has a general election campaign to run and he must move to the middle and not focus on the few dissatisfied women who support McCain.
According to Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., Obama then said, “However, I need to make a decision in the next few months as to how I manage that since I’m running against John McCain, which takes a lot of time. If women take a moment to realize that on every issue important to women, John McCain is not in their corner, that would help them get over it.”

Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., a longtime Clinton supporter, did not like those last three words — “Get over it.” She found them dismissive, off-putting.

“Don’t use that terminology,” Watson told Obama.

Clarke did not react the same way.

Watson must be looking for a primary challenge

I’ve been reading a lot of blogs and between Al Giordano’s and Lisa Vasquez -

http://blackwomenblowthetrumpet.blogspot.com/

– I have been sorting through my perspective on a LOT of things.

*****************************

Ms. Martin,

I was not speaking of specifics per se, just that people have had an emotional response to Obama and now for some he’s ‘letting them down’ or ‘pissing them off’.

1. Messiah complex – there is no savior.

2. Assuming his agenda is ‘liberal’ or ‘progressive’ and not defining what that means – or assuming it means something specific. It is something different for everyone, so without one specific set of ifs, ands or buts who considers themselves being heard and who doesn’t?

3. No understanding of how the government operates and expecting outcomes specific to a set of circumstances falling into place.

4. Thinking ‘change’ means wiping the slate clean or starting over from scratch. I think the entire system is flawed and was broken back when the Founding Fathers: stole people and enslaved them, used the income to fund their own war of independence from another ‘oppressor’ and actively enacted laws that kept slavery in place in violation of ignored laws opposing it.

I know people are attached to the Constitution but they intentionally discounted people from participating and benefitting from it’s laws. So people today hold it up as this pillar when it has rarely been used in its entirety in the first place.

5. Free market vs. Capitalism vs. Regulation vs. De-regulation vs. ‘No Big Gov’t vs. Corporate Welfare, Earmarks and Kickbacks. Union-busting vs. NAFTA
Living Wage vs. Minimum Wage.

Why the Federal Reserve wields so much power with no oversight.

Why we feel entitled to our lifestyle without accepting responsibility of the actions required to support it.

ex. people who support a vegan lifestyle and oppose animal abuse [and make it into a moral and/or political issue and have an air of superiority about "doing the right thing"] but don’t consider the lives of the migrant workers who toil to make fruits/veggies available.

6. FISA rules being followed, being broken, the illusion that citizens are not to spied upon, but historically how the gov’t has always spied on people; see MLK, Malcolm X, Black Panthers, Anti-War groups, Hoover. I’ve heard certain words are coded and get flagged and that we are in fact being monitored all the time.

7. How much power we abdicate.

Do I think an Obama presidency will be good? Yes. Will MY needs be met? That is yet to be determined. It comes down to exacting a value to my support. Black people have been giving it away for NOTHING in return but a hope and a sense of fairness.

AIPAC doesn’t care about what’s ‘fair’ they want certain actions to be taken even though a larger group of people want something different. But you see who gets catered to? We have to be like that. And it would be great for some balance while we’re at it.

So that was long but this is off the top of my head.