Obama's seemingly sudden political deafness, or "triangulated transformation" should I say, is remarkable for how quickly it's happened. Wesley Clark was not defended by Obama for stating what should be obvious, that being a prisoner of war does not a foreign policy credential make. By the same token, scurrying away from a fight on matters such as FISA in order to avoid being called names by the opposition isn't much of a profile in courage either. Yet worse still, if Obama believes that legislation to be acceptable (and his only stated reservation regarded the immunity provision), then his political antennae are either deaf, dumb and completely inoperative to the demands of his party's members, or dismissively turned off.

Obama has shown scant regard for the netroots blogosphere who supported him early on. He has built a campaign organization that has sought to avoid hearing the voices of others who have every right--indeed, obligation--to speak on matters of privacy, war, economics and health insurance, to name a few. Sure, he's better than McCain, but that's a pretty low threshold.

It's a painful irony that the real threat of anti-semitism is being rekindled thanks to the words and deeds of the neocons themselves. Because they have so successfully conflated their desire for an imperial America with their pernicious "defense" of Israel argument, they've poured fuel on those long-burning flames of a Jewish/Zionist international cabal, that seeks control of, among other things, international banking (to name but one iteration).

Thus the "dual loyalty" argument, a truly damaging one, feeds the frenzied conspiracists' lust for "proof" that Jews (rather than Zionists, since many of these conspiracists care not at all about Zionism except that it supplies yet more evidence of that all-powerful cabal) control the reins of government and cannot be trusted. The beating of the drums for a war with Iran will simply continue to stoke these unholy fires and provide yet more "evidence" for those who truly are anti-semitic. So to the neocons I say, congratulations; by your stupidity, you've breathed life into the very creature you've supposedly sought to slay.

I wish you'd be honest enough to explicitly state what you're advocating. If you're stoking the fires of revolution (violence implied, notwithstanding your less than honest "let's try it without the guns first"), then say so. It's clear you think the current system is not responsive. Fair enough. Many agree with that. You say "[d]irect action ... is all that remains." Then you believe some sort of taking-it-to-the-streets will accomplish what other avenues of citizen protest (letters and phone calls) have not? And the only way to prove this (or disprove it as the case may be) is hundreds of thousands upon hundreds of thousands of people, what, marching?

You've secured for yourself a safe rhetorical position--you know, as do we all, that as it stands it isn't very likely that hundreds of thousands if not millions will organize themselves and march on Washington (and for several reasons not related to your apparent ideal form of protest: I'm thinking here of work, $$, family obligations, etc., which you'll probably ridicule as being pathetically bourgeois). Yet, because protest doesn't take your preferred form, you feel safe in making a mockery of citizens' efforts to thwart the intransigent and illegal behaviours of this government.

You cite "our founding fathers, Abolitionists, the Molly Maguires, the Knights of Labor, the IWW, the Women's Suffrage Movement, MLK Jr. etc. etc.," that none of them "thought it was a good as it could get." Certainly true. And yet the absence of street marching doesn't mean people aren't protesting. There are many ways to voice one's political view; shouting down the cops in a public street isn't the only one.

Several months ago, I objected in writing to NPR's ombudsman over their retention of Liasson, Juan Williams (both of whom work for Fox, of course) and David Brooks. These people are representative only of those like themselves of what is rightly called the Washington D.C. echo-chamber, yet have the gall to pretend to speak for the majority of Americans. Naturally, I received no reply from NPR, probably due to my being one of the great unwashed.

This problem is illustrated remarkably well by a June 18 editorial in the LA Times by Tim Rutten who, writing about potential war crimes charges against Rumsfeld, et. al., had this to say:

"It's true that there are a handful of European rights activists and people on the lacy left fringe of American politics who would dearly like to see such trials, but actually pursuing them would be a profound -- even tragic -- mistake. Our political system works as smoothly as it does, in part, because we've never criminalized differences over policy. Since Andrew Jackson's time, our electoral victors celebrate by throwing the losers out of work -- not into jail cells."

Here's a man who blithely states that an illegal (never mind immoral) torture policy that violates any number of domestic and international laws and agreements is merely a matter of policy difference, that those who think otherwise comprise "people on the lacy left fringe."

It's little wonder objections to issues like FISA have been mocked as being little more than an obsession among that "lacy left fringe." As we learned from the refusal of conventional media to admit to their complicity in hiring former generals who work for defense contractors even as they offer their laughable objectivity on Iraq (and all the while never mentioning that contractor relationship), the complicity of media regarding criminal behavior (as in, dismissing those who actually call it what it is--criminal) is part of the weave of this dank, degenerative fabric that seeks to smother efforts at accountability.