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Warrantless, illegal preemptive intimidation and harrassment of suspected (peaceful) protestors in MN:

Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com reports that protesters in Minneapolis, where the Republican National Convention will soon begin, have been subjected to massive, pre-emptive police raids. Those arrested include members of Food not Bombs, and a group calling itself the “RNC Welcoming Committee,” and a group that uses video to protect civil liberties by documenting police activity at first amendment events.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/30/police_raids/

The worse Bush gets, the more McCain supports him… unbelievable.

I wrote a lengthy comment in response to another great post from Jon Taplin here:
http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/2008/08/03/anthrax-the-lure-of-big-military-money/
and wanted to share it.

I agree there’s no chance McCain would do anything to correct the many egregious changes we’ve seen in our government’s relationship to the Constitution during the Bush administration. And like you I think this country badly needs Obama and the change his candidacy generally represents. But I’m also deeply disappointed in Obama for his recent vote on FISA. See http://getfisaright.net/

Even if an Obama administration conducts itself with orders of magnitude more integrity than the current one — as I believe it will — this kind of erosion of civil liberties and privacy are like a ratchet, they only change in one direction. So while Obama’s administration might not abuse its power, at some point in the future there will likely be other terrible, even Bush-like presidents who will take every opportunity to do so. At that point, if the constitutional mechanics of checks and balances have already been dismantled or reconfigured to grant essentially kingly power to the executive branch, and we’ve all gotten used to the idea that it’s ok for the government to spy on all of us all the time, we’ll be in even deeper trouble than we are now, when there’s still at least some outrage at this illegitimate, illegal, un-American, fascist behavior of our so called leaders.

Perhaps Obama will reconsider when he becomes president; he did express concerns about the bill and certainly seems interested in listening to his supporters (virtually none of whom support the position, and nearly all of whom, if aware, oppose it). We need to pressure him to do exactly that.

I also have some hope that our maturing collective ability as citizens to use similar tools of transparency to shine a spotlight on what our elected representatives are actually doing, to turn the tables and essentially “spy” on our (supposedly open) government, will help. Jon Udell’s recent writings on GovTrack and MAPLight are relevant here, see e.g. http://blog.jonudell.net/2008/07/23/kudos-for-maplights-visualization-of-congressional-activity/
and the Change Congress movement founded by Larry Lessig http://change-congress.org/ is a force for good… but given the public’s lack of outrage against Bush et al, this may not be enough. If those of us paying attention do nothing, it certainly won’t be. So:

Write! Talk! Take action!

Something to consider: we are not at war in Iraq, we won the war a long time ago. Rather we are in the midst of an occupation. Iraq’s government and military have been dismantled and rebuilt, all the major cities have been taken over, and the violence is that of resistance to occupation, not two countries battling for supremacy. The important distinction is, you don’t “win” an occupation, you end it.

The Cost of Empire « Jon Taplin’s Blog.

This might be the most complete and informed account of the current mess we’re all in I’ve seen. Too broad and too rich with insight to paraphrase easily, but its closing serves well enough:

It will be our task to imagine a way to free our country from the grip of a permanent war economy.
It will not be easy, but it must be done.

Please read it.

This is a few days delayed, I’ve been (and still am) very busy, but I wanted to record my excitement and relief at Obama’s securing of the nomination.  Fist-bumps all around to everyone who’s been supporting him. On to defeat McBush in the Fall….

Obama on foreign policy change and ending the war:

Thanks to Taplin for posting this, and to Greenwald for the video:

Obama continues to distance himself from Clinton/McCain, who seem ever more similar to me.
Clinton and McCain both supported the war, both supported NAFTA, both are part of the huge anti-middle-class political machinery in D.C., and both are pushing for a ridiculous, useless political gimmick in the form of a temporary lifting of the gas tax. Analysis shows it won’t actually save people money — and even if it did, what a crazy energy policy in a time of decreasing supply, to increase demand,  borrow ever more heavily from the Chinese, and increase our dependence on those who most wish us harm. It boggles the mind. I’ve never felt so strongly about a political candidate in my life, I continue to donate as much as I can afford to Obama’s campaign and I hope anyone reading this does the same.

Check out this short video:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/gasprices1