The Price of Freedom

I have to say that I was surprised that the vote to give the telecoms immunity failed yesterday, along with the effort to extend the FISA laws--which means AT&T doesn't get a pass for helping the Administration spy on us without our knowledge or consent and the Administration has to get a judge to approve any future wiretapping. Maybe there is a chance for us to save our country yet--but I'm not holding my breath. The fact that any item on their freedom-to-fascism agenda is un-Constitutional, immoral or just plain un-American has yet to stop the current Administration from proceeding with that agenda--it just slows them down a little bit while they figure out a way to do it without it showing up on anyone's radar. It must be frustrating for them to realize just how many people are actually watching the radar. It must be just as frustrating to find that the political apathy upon which they counted so much and worked so hard to spread among the populace isn't as widespread or as deeply rooted as they thought it would be. That people do actually still care about things like Truth, Justice, Freedom--ideals for which Americans have fought and died since the very beginning of our nation.

What worries me, now that the tide seems to be turning against the evildoers who want to do us harm (by that I mean the BA and its allies in its war against us and our sincere, if somewhat naive, idealism), is how far the tide will carry us before it starts to swing back and what form the next attack will take. They have put too much effort into accomplishing their goal to abandon it because it's finally facing some stiff resistance--after all, having to take one step back after taking two steps forward is still considered forward progress. Some would call it a dance, in which case, WE need to make sure that WE are calling the tune! The biggest problem is that anger, like fear, can only be maintained for so long before it either cools back down into complacency, or erupts into violence--neither of which is a very good solution for the problems that confront us. The fact that we're watching NOW (and that they KNOW we are watching) will only push them back so far. Maintaining such scrutiny is exhausting when done by only a small group within a huge population--especially when those brave few face such condemnation by that population for their lack of "patriotism" and "paranoia." But which is more unpatriotic: those who hold governmental malfeasance up to the light of day, or the perpetrators of that malfeasance? And which is more paranoid: the people who know they are being spied on or ones who are spying so that they can catch the watchers and stop them from revealing what they know?

The vote yesterday was important in that it reminded the BA that there are some members of Congress who do still care about what the People think--especially those who want to keep their jobs--but it was only one step back. Bush's "you're all going to die if we can't spy" fearmongering still works in certain circles, and the fact that he can still rally the Republican faithful to his cause means that we can expect some kind of blowback (another 9/11?) for thwarting him in his march toward becoming the first American Caesar. It also means that we need to keep watching, keep pressuring our elected officials to hear us and respond to OUR will. It was our complacency and apathy that allowed them to succeed as well as they have--now, we have to show them that we have the will to resist sinking back into that complacency and to maintain the kind of eternal vigilance that is the price of freedom.