Illegal

The Vichy Democrats ( term via Daily Blague (scroll to bottom on both links) ) have decided that fussing about illegal wiretapping is a non-starter. As is, of course, filibustering Alito. And breathing. Here is firedoglake in response:

Sometimes, governing is about doing what is right, even if it requires you to do a lot of hard work that you wouldn't otherwise have to do -- and which might cut into your fundraising time. Sometimes calling the President on his illegal actions is the right thing to do.

Sometimes, what you really want in your elected representative is for them to grow a spine and actually represent your interests and the interests of the whole nation. Let's call the President's actions what they are: an illegal power grab. And then let's hold him accountable for it.

The Administration went ahead and issued its opinion on why the NSA program is not, actually, illegal: cuz the preznit said so, of course.

They are daring us to contradict them. They are daring Congress and the Courts to reign them in. Let's all hope that Congress and the Courts do their job, with a lot of prodding from us. If we cannot get Congress and the Courts to contradict them, if we are unable to replace our Congressional reps in the November elections with people who will do their job and contradict them, what then?

I think at that point we can all be justified, nay, required, to engage in serious civil disobedience. Yeah, even those of us who would really prefer not to get arrested.

Of course, even though I'm always warning others against this, I recognize that my own willingness to be arrested is always receding somewhere into the future, where I don't have to deal with it quite yet. I am not very brave, really. That's one reason I thought (think? I don't know what I think anymore...) we should emigrate. People say "stay and fight" but they don't really mean that, and I don't really want to. I am lazy and afraid. But I do not want to accept our country as it is now, either. I do not want to accept an all-powerful president and a permanent state of war. And I do not want to simply avoid that reality because I don't want to deal with it. I believe it is important to see. I do not think I have the strength to see and act on what I see. So I guess some part of me thinks I'd rather live someplace far away, where I can see, but not be required to act. If I abandon my country, if I throw in my lot with another country that still has a democracy, will that make a difference to the world? To my life? Will it be less painful for me to watch this train wreck? Or is this train wreck, in any case, destined to spread down the tracks, across the world? And in 20 or 30 years, as the world gets warmer and the oil runs out, will this train wreck even matter?

Would it be possible for our democracy to make it through climate change and peak oil in any case?