[Politics] Is Barack fighting for us yet?Frankly, considering the state in which the neocon-infested GOP has left the economy on which we depend--and the nation that I love--there's no goddamn reason any presidential poll should be even close to tied. Surveys should favor Democrats, hands down, in every contest.
There's a great article in the New Yorker (it's brief and highly recommended) describing the opposition Obama is facing from The Borg--particularly that from Jerome Corsi, author of many trashy, ethically void pseudobiographies, including one called The Obama Nation. Apparently for the same reason Corsi's past bullshit books have garnered lots of airtime, his newest smear against Barack Obama seems to be getting some play.
Now, regarding the weird evenness in the polls, anybody who cares to look closely into my wardrobe knows that I do own a tinfoil hat. And, from the standpoint of accessorizing, it goes with everything during years that are divisible by 4. (Political polls are, after all, controlled by corporate overlords adept at employing weird shock-doctrine tactics. And they always freak us out.)
Still, this year is slightly different in that it's easy to locate a concrete, non-paranoid rationale for the Democratic candidate's sudden popularity lapse. It's Obama's Senate vote in support of the unconscionable FISA Amendments Act (FAA), which not only provides immunity for bootlicking telecoms that agreed to spy on American citizens during this protofascist George W. Bush era, but also seriously undermines the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978.
Now, FISA is a good thing. Surveillance of citizens by despotic U.S. presidents is nothing new. FISA was enacted in response to Richard Nixon's freaky domestic-spying program. It limited government wiretapping and the arbitrary abrogation of citizens' Fourth Amendment rights.
The evil FAA crippled FISA. It said that the phone company is not required to abide by the U.S. Constitution. It made it easier for the government to spy on us for whatever whimsical reason it chooses, therefore normalizing the nosy, un-American policies of the George W. Bush administration. In case you've been wondering why everybody's so afraid these days, it's because of the FAA.
Barack Obama, our agent of change, voted for the FAA--to our surprise--and therefore voted for the continuation of nanny-government Bush policies. That made me a lot less excited about his candidacy. It also brought his poll numbers down to dreary McCain levels.
There's still time for Obama to renew all that hope he's been running on. But time is running out. Obama needs to take a strong stand against these creepy neocon policies which, suddenly, have made our lives a lot less private and much more subject to government intrusion.
Any forceful, symbolic stand will do. He can pick one of Bush's most chilling executive orders, and vow to repeal it once elected. That's what's going to convince me of "change." Yes, I am desperate enough that I'm willing to get back on the bandwagon for a token gesture, as long as it sounds sincere.
Will he make such a gesture? The DNC would be an awfully good time for it.
(Brandon Burt)
