Thank you Glenn for keeping us posted on what the Democrats aren't doing in Washington. I only pray this time Bush does not win!

@Dirigo: I'll agree that actual filibusters are rare, but that alone will not catapult this story into the national spotlight.

Even if Clinton, Obama, and Biden were to return to the Senate chamber and participate in this filibuster, without Reid's 18, it will fail.

The point is that it would be more difficult to ignore the story on the traditional media.

This is largely a matter of getting the message out - with "the sound turned off" - to the majority of Americans who still follow and trust traditional media.

Clinton, Obama, and Biden would bring only one essential element to the table - a spotlight - an element essential for our nation's recovery.

Thanks to all for wonderful commentary.

As I write this, Dodd is speaking. He is forceful, informative, and a patriotic man who is trying to wake his fellow Americans from their long sleep.

We have all been sleep walking. We have all been guilty of letting things slide and thinking that it can't happen here, when it has already happened.

Authority rules. We do not have any authority, not even the insurance of a secure ballot at the polls.

Hillary, Obama, and the rest of the candidates on BOTH sides should be taking on this prevailing policy. Once again it falls on the shoulders of the Democrats to try to keep this country free and not sacrifice liberty for "enhanced security."

Ask yourself...do YOU feel secure?

And once again in light of this issue I want to ask Senator Clinton what she meant when she said "Obama is too far to the left."

When the rightists are supporting spy legislation such as this, just how far IS too far?

that's what makes the work here so important — I don't believe it will directly change politicians' minds much, but it can change (and has already done so) the way the popular perception of events is formed. And when it comes that's a transformation that will last."

And that's really the key. Glenn's blog, Digby, some of the writers at FDL and so many internet outposts elsewhere in the so-called Lefty Blogosphere (not really "leftist" at all, barely left-tinged libertarians almost to a one) are educational efforts that are having a profound effect.

Much as protest actions -- such as marches and strikes and whatnot -- provide a physical means for like-minded people to connect and educate one another and to see for themselves they aren't alone.

Direct political action by joining in the Party political fray at the local and state levels is enormously educational for those involved. It can be trememndously disheartening, too.

Education this way is viral, not top-down authoritarianist and directed. That means it takes a while for everyday people to shake off the stupor induced by the mass media and traditional "education", but once they do, they don't go back to previous ways of thinking and believing. That's how we get to the point where the overwhelming majority of Americans reject the lies and distortions and outright fabrications of the Busheviks in favor of something closer to reality. That's how we got to overwhelming opposition to the Iraq Conquest. That's how we got to the point of complete disgust for the craven political hacks and phonies who infest our political establishment, in Congress, in the media, and throughout their corporate sponsors' board rooms.

But as Amity suggests, so far this "overwhelming" sentiment among The People hasn't translated to throwing the bums where they need to be thrown, nor has it resulted in any significant collective action to stop or even interfere with Staying the Disastrous Course we've been on.

Part of the problem, perhaps, is that the collective -- let's call it The Public Interest, since collectivism is anthema to Americans -- isn't part of the educational effort so far. Only a handful of Americans still join and are active in labor unions, for example, and the assault on them is unrelenting. Mutual interest and joint action are still seen as choices made one by one by individuals, who never really become melded into a coherent whole. The focus on the individual is still so strong that we somewhat instinctively seek a Hero to step in to "solve" the mess the Busheviks have made of everything almost single-handedly, rather than taking steps to ensure that the overwhelming majority interest becomes dominant through joint or collective action on behalf of the Public Interest.

What we do here or in the streets or in our Party meetings and so on has very little direct effect -- if any at all -- on politicians currently serving in DC. Their current disinterest is driven a host of forces, none of them having directly to do with us. I believe it was Digby who referred to us as "bloggnats" swirling around their heads. That's close to the reality of the situation.

They believe they need not pay attention to the Public Interest (as expressed) because there is nothing we can -- or more importantly to them, will -- do to them if they don't.

Today's spectacle in the Senate House should be interesting, but the conclusion is already set, isn't it? Dodd's hold is not being honored (and Harry claims that's the way Dodd wants it), and the filibuster will fail in short order. Whether or not the ultimate Senate FISA "reform" measure contains retroactive immunity is still unknown. It probably will, but it may not. After all, there are all sorts of things going on out of public view, backroom deals being cut right and left. What we can see is only the tip of the iceberg as it were.

Got to keep up that education...

They [corporations] need to be held accountable as if they were part of the government, since they have been acting by proxy for the government. The founding fathers did not foresee this development.

Alas, the founding fathers did foresee this development, and indeed the power of wealth has always sought to subvert democracy in America as an impediment to its profits, from the beginning to the present day, and many have said so:

Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains. I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

- Thomas Jefferson

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.

- Andrew Jackson

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

- Abraham Lincoln

The communism of combined wealth and capital, the outgrown of overweening cupidity and selfishness which assiduously undermines the justice and integrity of free institutions, is not less dangerous than the communism of oppressed poverty and toil which, exasperated by injustice and discontent, attacks with wide disorder the citadel of misrule.

- Grover Cleveland

There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The DEMOCRATIC idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests upon them.

- William Jennings Bryan

We can have a democratic society or we can have the concentration of great wealth in the hands of the few. We cannot have both.

- Louis Brandeis

We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the world - no longer a Government of free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men.

- Woodrow Wilson

In the councils of government, we must guard against unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

The combination of economic and political power in the same hands is a sure recipe for tyranny.

- Milton Friedman

Keep in mind that many in the US corporate establishment sided with the Nazis, and that one of the leaders of American corporatist fascism was Prescott Bush, Dubya's grandfather.

Many scholars believe the last fifty years of progressive middle-class freedom and prosperity to have been only a temporary aberration of history, since most of human history has been characterized by large poor populations dominated by small ruling classes. Indeed, fascism appears to be the natural political disease of modern society for a number of reasons, and may indeed be the natural end result of human civilization.

Totalitarian fascism in the 1930's found democracy, because of social distortions, inequality, and resultant economic weakness, completely unprepared for the heavy and decisive blows which its implacable enemy intended to deal it, through propaganda, terror, and war. Thus it happened that it became a world-wide movement which put democracy not only on the defensive but in mortal danger.

The reforms of FDR in the 1930s delayed the conversion of American democracy to fascism, but could not prevent it. It has taken fascism in America fifty years to recover from the reversals it suffered from the Great Depression and WWII.

Therefore we now see that corporatist fascism has returned, led now by the grandson of Prescott Bush, and the reforms which delayed fascism in America are now being voided so that fascism may now be enabled.

History teaches us that we learn nothing from history.