My Barack Obama

Original Link: http://falconsgyre.blogspot.com/2008/07/my-barack-obama.html

Barack Obama has been moving to the right since the middle of June. He's always advocated Social Security "reform," and several times he has praised Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party as "the party of ideas," but now he's folded on FISA along with most of the so-called Democratic Congress.

That's right. Barack Obama, right now at least, has no use for the Fourth Amendment. Furthermore, he's basically promised to use his powers to spy on us without warrants only for good.

Do you believe him? I don't.

I admit, I was angry and I got down. Obama is pandering to the conservatives in hopes of getting their votes. Leaving aside the question of why he thinks they'll ever vote for him, I think this is a self-defeating strategy: the further right he goes, the more people to his left fall off the bandwagon.

I felt powerless. I have a vote. I could abstain from voting at all, but who would notice? And if Obama lost in November, how much blame would they heap on the collective shoulders of the abstentions? Voting for McCain is out of the question, never mind that if Obama doesn't stop his slide to the right, he's going to end up somewhere in McCain's vicinity.

Then, today, I found this. It's a group set up on my.barackobama.com to pressure the presumptive candidate to uphold the filibuster on the House FISA bill that immunizes the telecoms from civil prosecution.

If I'm angry and upset, and I admit that I still am, just sitting around counting my grievances won't help the country. I need to get involved. So I joined up.

Maybe I can get something done.