I expect it will take the people making a lot of noise. The press has failed us in this matter, so firstly pressure needs to be put on media outlets to cover this issue. This can probably be accomplished at the local level more efficiently than at the national. After that, I'm not sure. But becoming aware of the problem is the first step.Such a plan has been formulated, it appears. The plan is to get natives of Kansas to write letters to their local papers pressuring the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Patrick Roberts (R- Kan), to call for an investigation of the NSA surveillance program. I have my doubts about whether or not Roberts can be swayed to deviate from his history of partisan protection of the Bush administration, but I welcome the effort.
And for added fun, here is Glenn kicking me in the ass for being overly pessimistic. Which kind of got under my skin, so I think I'm going to have to write the best darned letter to the editor that our local paper has ever seen.
2 comments:
Overly pessimistic? How can anyone be overly pessimistic these days? It's hard for me not to be morbid and lie about in a depression most of the day. Actually I am kidding. Perhaps I will be optimistic when Roe V Wade is overturned, when terrorists attack one of our ports, when Bush declares new and unprecedented powers for himself and announces that he will seek to repeal the 22nd amendment so that he can run again for President, when Bush is able to appint two more Supreme Court justices, and when Alberto Gonzalez announces a huge domestic wiretapping program on everyone who might disagree with Bush and declares it, a priori, a legal act.
Although it is not a foregone conclusion, we might optimistically hope that after all those, perhaps the American people might awaken from their deep slumber and kick the bastards out on their asses.
It's a stretch, but I am caustiously optimistic.
In the Ancestor's Tale, Richard Dawkins uses a cork in the Gulf Stream as a metaphor to describe the course of evolution.
At any given point that you view the cork, it may be seen to go one direction or the other, but if you scale back and look at the overall trajectory of the cork, you will see that the Gulf current is carrying it towards Europe.
That's sort of how I see American politics.At any given point, public opinion could shift in favor of one party or another, but overall we seem set on a specific course, a course that we've been on since post WW II.
That's why I'm pessimistic. I think the system is somewhat rigged, and as long as we continue to attempt to work within the confines of the two-party duopoly nothing significant will change.
I believe that real reform will take structural changes that open up the election process to third parties and which stops the lobbying madness.
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