yes ... thanks brother/sister. :) i intended no snark with my last note.

Yep, I knew that, but like to make sure that the lurkers do, too.

[sister]

As a life-long Democrat, I was sure that G.W. Bush was an anomaly when he got into the White House but it didn’t take me long to realize that the GOP was his willing enabler in radically re-making the way our nation is governed. I recall thinking that once the Democrats re-take Congress and perhaps the White House, the damage to our nation done over the past seven years would begin to be repaired.

Now, Glenn’s post has made me realize the horrific depth of the problem - that our Democratic representatives (especially in leadership roles) in Congress have greater allegiance to the Beltway Club than to the governing principles laid down by our founding fathers. How do we fix this when even our own Democratic representatives in Washington have sold us out?

It’s too late to do anything about Bush and we Democrats can’t change the Republican party; so our last, best chance is to re-take the Democratic party from the current pretenders occupying offices in Congress. That’s going to be a tall order because of all the political power arrayed against us. I despair at the awful odds of being successful in this but if we don’t try, we have no hope in our generation or for future ones!

Both you and John have misunderstood what I said. My point wasn't about optimism or pessimism being the proper attitude; it was simply that nothing so grand as either of you see in your own versions of The Decline of the West bears much genuine historical scrutiny. The Soviet Union and the United States were about as alike as chalk and cheese, and neither much resembled Rome, except in the fancies of the millenialists of both left and right.

If inevitability is the question, then the present moment is far too early to provide the answers you seem so confident about. The Soviet Empire lasted about seventy years, the Roman Empire about 500, give or take. Both ended badly. Britain, on the other hand is still around today, much diminished by two ghastly wars, but its people don't seem notably worse off than they were during the Napoleonic Era, and the last time I looked, the Houses of Parliament weren't notably less democratic.

That a minority holds power in a country isn't quite the indictment that some folks think. A minority always wields power in human societies. How that minority is chosen, the effectiveness of restrictions placed on the exercise of its power, and what is done with that power by the minority who wield it are all subject to many influences, and no particular outcome is ever inevitable, not unless we concede that the application of political power is a science, and that the majority are always condemned to being objects rather than subjects.

It would be great to have a site that books contributions to a fund for challengers of incumbents so that when our representatives act against the wishes of citizens those citizens could donate $10, $50, $500 to register their disapproval. I would have contributed a fairly large amount by now to any challenger to Senator Feinstein. I will contribute $500 to the most likely Democrat to run against Harry Reid and will even contribute to his Republican challenger in the general election. Accountability iw a worthy goal.

I've created a Wiki:

http://fisa.wikispot.org/FISA_Debate?action=show&redirect=Front+Page

The objective is to create a simple, easy to understand "talking points" document that summarizes the arguments in favor of telecom immunity and the Intelligence Committee version of the FISA bill, and the counters to those arguments.

Anyone can edit and contribute, though you must create an account (easy to do).

Instead of working today, I parsed the debate transcript from Monday and quoted arguments in favor of the Intelligence bill and Telecom Immunity. You can find that here:

http://fisa.wikispot.org/FISA_Debate_Quotes

Next step is to roll these up into the main proponent arguments. I hope you find it easy to use and I hope you will contribute!

I have said it before and I am saying it again. The United States government through the NSA and various other agencies have been in the business of intercepting American telephone calls, radio transmissions, and more recently faxes, emails, etc. - for decades. This collection occurs at the macro level, through giant antennae that suck up all radio transmissions, cell phone calls and in the form of taps on the giant switches through which all communications must pass. They also intercept all satellite transmissions. Essentially they get everything. Those many terrabytes of data are then processed by hyper-advanced super computers which look for key words, key voice prints, addresses et al. Communications deemed suspicious or of interest are then flagged for human intervention.

Since they have been doing this since the 50's it means that elements of your government, from both the Democrat and the Republican parties have been complicit. Since the intercepts are global, and as I said essentially complete, this means that "they" have been spying on not just the "Commies" and nowadays "Islamofascists", but also Americans, illegally - not to mention unconstitutionally.

They are all guilty, Democrats and Republicans. This is the real reason why Bush and Reid, working together, will get what they want, what they have always had - total awareness of your "private" communications.

So nothing will happen. The bill will pass, and another nail will be driven into the coffin into which Bush has placed your Constitution and Bill of Rights. Chris Dodd seems to be sincere and good for him, but he has no chance of being president. And he has no chance of blocking this bill.

Will Americans rally round Dodd? I see no sign of that at all. Instead I hear broken, fearful and bewildered American serfs repeating memes like, "If you have nothing to hide..." That is when I hear anything at all.

Some of you here have suggested that I am being negative to the point where I am suggesting that we just give up! I am not saying that at. Fight these bastards, take your freedoms back before they are gone, but understand the length, breadth and depth of just how big this is and just how corrupted democracy and freedom in America has become.

It is still possible for a movement to begin, and those of us who are awake and aware, such as the many fine and perspicacious posters at Salon, must form the nucleus of such a movement; but be aware that any such revolution must occur from without your system, not within.There is an "opposition" but it cannot be found in your Senate, your Congress or your slave corporate media, it can only be found in the people, who, united, can never be defeated.

Such is the threat, as Senator Frank Church warned the American people over twenty years ago. 'At the same time, that capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such [is] the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology…'

http://home.hiwaay.net/~pspoole/echelon.html