In a sea of Jay Rockefellera and Dianne Feinstein -- hacks who've forgotten for whom they work -- emerges the silver-haired lion, finding his roar to make a last, valiant stand for the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Telling Harry Reid to go suck an egg, Dodd has put a hold on the FISA bill.
Of course Reid, showing himself to be in the pockets of the telecommunications industry, promptly fought back for the interests of his true bosses:
Tim Starks of Congressional Quarterly reports that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) plans to bring the Senate's surveillance bill up for floor debate in mid-November. That's despite the hold that Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) plans to place on the measure -- something first reported by Election Central's Greg Sargent.
The Senate intelligence committee is still marking up the bill behind closed doors, according to staffers. A joint statement from committee leaders Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Kit Bond (R-MO) will follow when the mark-up concludes, but that may not occur today.
For this we elected a Democratic Congress? Harry Reid just went around one of his own guys to make sure that the telecommunications companies get immunity for turning our telephone records over to George Bush and Dick Cheney without even questioning the requests' legality -- and to make sure that George Bush and Dick Cheney can continue mass spying on Americans for no good reason at all, without warrants, all in the name of "fighting terrorism."
The scariest part isn't even that Harry Reid has revealed that he's for sale; that's no surprise to me. The scariest part were the callers to Randi Rhodes yesterday invoking the "If you haven't done anything wrong you shouldn't mind the government having this information" meme. It was one thing when we were fresh off the horrors of 9/11, when most of us had never even conceived of an attack of this magnitude on the U.S. (even though the World Trade Center had been hit before without this kind of hysteria, because after all, that was just some bad shit that happened in Godless Communist Heathen Liberal Homosexual New York). But it's no small irony that the very people with the "Land of the free, Home of the Brave" ribbon magnets on their pickup trucks are still defecating in their pants in fear. Back in August, Sara Robinson had some insights into the dynamic of what draws people into conservative Christianity, but it applies equally to an conservative movement that professes to be the real adults, but in reality are five-year-olds looking for an authoritarian Daddy to keep them safe:
They join up because they feel overwhelmed by the complexity and nuance in the world. There's just too much to keep up with, too much responsibility, too much chaos. Often, they've been caught in the gears of the machinery of modernity, and have had large parts of their lives chewed up by the works. It all feels out of control. (Chris Hedges, in his new book American Fascism, describes how Christianist proselytizers are taught to seek out people going through hard times-- they're the hottest conversion prospects.)
Unfortunately, seeking this regression means giving up on quite a few of the most important attributes of adulthood. First, there's the intellectual sacrifice. There's a huge cognitive leap that occurs around the age of seven (it usually comes in right alongside reading fluency) that enables a far greater level of abstraction -- typically, at the expense of magical thinking, which drops off dramatically once kids learn to read. At this age, kids give up fantasy play and Santa Claus in favor of a more empirical approach to life, and more serious pursuits leading to the mastery of adult-world skills. Developmental psychologists call this leap "the age of reason."
Right-wing authoritarian (RWA) followers have little use for reason; but are very invested in their fantasy lives. They take myth and metaphor absolutely literally, because interpreting them requires a level of abstraction they aren't comfortable with. In other words: they are voluntarily choosing to operate at the intellectual processing level of a first-grader.
They also have to give up on adult-level emotional functioning (which, as I mentioned, may be welcomed as something of a relief after adult life has blown up under you a few times). Authoritarian followers crave someone who will keep things ordered and safe, someone who will provide and protect and set firm rules and boundaries; someone all-powerful and all-knowing who can teach you right from wrong and keep the harsh parts of the world at bay. Someone, in short, who looks like Daddy looked when you were about five years old.
The Constitution is there for a reason, and it is the fundamental basis of this country -- something Harry Reid doesn't seem to understand, blinded as he is by fear of being called bad names and in thrall to telecommunications cash.
Last night I sent money to Chris Dodd's campaign, because I think guts like this deserves to be rewarded, even if you're supporting other candidates. Obviously Barack Obama's people were concerned about Dodd roaring his way into the top tier, because Obama has now raised his hand and said "Me too." Predictably, the Kossacks who support Obama are elevating his following along once Dodd took the lead and put himself into a position to take the first metaphorical bullets, as some kind of Profile in Courage. But it's yet another example of Barack Obama's refusal to take a leadership role in anything that's controversial. He'll tag along when someone else makes it safe, but he's never at the forefront -- and that's why I'm not supporting his candidacy. Note also the silence of Hillary Clinton on this matter.
What Chris Dodd has done here is even more remarkable when you realize that this is a fourth-term Senator. He's been in Washington for twenty-four years and ought to be as big a hack as Reid has turned out to be. and yet he isn't. And in what he did yesterday he put every other Democrat in the Senate to shame.
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