The continuing rEVOLution
columnist: George Dance

Topic: The Revolution
Greenwald on Barr and Political Realignment

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Columnist sees Bob Barr's endorsement as further evidence of the new political divide in America "between the Beltway political establishment and the rest of the country."

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by George Dance
(libertarian)
Monday, August 4, 2008

A lot of media attention has been focused on our privacy or, more appropriately, the invasion of our privacy by the government. The recent law that allows the government to intercept our phone calls and emails without any legitimate probable cause is the most glaring example. Ultimately we lose some freedom with virtually every new law or government regulation, but this particular law, FISA, is the granddaddy of all invasions of our privacy.

For the last several years Bob Barr has been fighting the government's intrusion into our privacy at every step. There have been other organizations standing shoulder to shoulder with Bob. But, the recent focus on the invasion of our privacy has motivated a whole new group of concerned activists to join together in an effort to stop the government's encroachment into our lives.

Some of the names of the organizers of this new group, AccountabilityNowPac, may be familiar to you. They come from a large variety of backgrounds and political beliefs joined in the common interest of protecting our privacy.

If you get a chance please take a look at their web site to learn more about them.

We welcome the leaders and supporters of Accountability Now Pac to the fight to protect our freedom and liberties.

Comments Greenwald: "We hope and expect that this will be but the first of many prominent endorsements from both the left and civil-liberties-minded libertarian right of our campaign against the political establishment's assault on core Constitutional liberties, privacy rights and the rule of law. "

Throughout the 1990s, one's political orientation was determined by a finite set of primarily domestic issues -- social spending, affirmative action, government regulation, gun control, welfare reform, abortion, gay rights. One's position on those issues determined whether one was conservative, liberal, moderate, etc. But those issues have become entirely secondary, at most, in our political debates. They are barely discussed any longer.

Instead, what has dominated our political conflicts over the last five years are terrorism-related issues -- Iraq, U.S. treatment of detainees, domestic surveillance, attacks on press freedoms, executive power abuses, Iran, the equating of dissent with treason. It is one's positions on those issues -- and, more specifically, whether one agrees with the neoconservative approach which has dominated the Bush administration's approach to those issues -- which now determines one's political orientation.

"These issues simply can't be addressed by looking at our political establishment through a simplistic Democratic v. GOP prism," he adds. "That just isn't the dividing line that shapes Government action with regard to these matters."

One one side of the new dividing line, Greenwald notes the convergence of progressive and "libertarian right" views on the civil-liberties side of all those issues: "Just to get a sense for how like-minded Bob Barr and many progressives are with regard to these vital issues, here is a 45-minute Bloggingheads discussion between liberal blogger (and Strange Bedfellow member) Jane Hamsher and Rep. Barr that was a virtual festival of harmony (they discuss the FISA bill here, and they discuss the left-right civil liberties coalition in Britain here)."

On the other side of that line, Greenwald notes some examples of how the "neoconservative approach" cuts across party lines:

• "the sleazy operating methods of Steve Farber, the chief financier of the Democratic National Convention who is a partner in his lobbying firm with scores of the most well-connected GOP lobbyists, including the former Chairman of the RNC as well as the Republican wife of Charlie Black, John McCain's leading lobbyist-adviser."

• "This week, Matt Stoller noted that long-time Democratic incumbent Rep. Ed Towns is having a fund-raiser hosted for him by former GOP Rep. and current Beltway lobbyist J.C. Watts.... To induce corporate lobbyists to attend the event, Watts just shamelessly advertises the Committees and Subcommittees on which Towns sits like it's a menu of products that are available for purchase."

• "As the most recent, astonishing piece of evidence, look at House Resolution 362, a resolution sponsored by Democratic Rep. Gary Ackerman which spouts every neoconservative accusation against Iran and then demands -- literally -- that the Bush administration order a naval blockade against Iran (see clause 3), an act of war. That Resolution now has over 200 co-sponsors, roughly half of whom are Democrats (see them here). A similar resolution in the Senate -- sponsored by Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh -- now has 32 sponsors, a list that includes, in addition to Joe Lieberman and some of the most extremist GOP warmongers in the Senate, 13 Democrats as well."

Greenwald's conclusion:

Critical political debates are at least as often driven not by the GOP/Democrat dichotomy, but by the split between the Beltway political establishment and the rest of the country. As the above-chronicled events demonstrate, all of these assaults on our core civil liberties and the rule of law are not Republican attacks with Democrats fighting against them. They are attacks launched by the political establishment against the citizenry, and they ought to be responded to as such.

He adds: "The endorsement of our Accountability Now/Strange Bedfellows coalition by Bob Barr -- who, to a 1990s liberal, was as close to Satan as one could get -- illustrates that dynamic rather potently, as does the broad agreement on these issues among people from across the political spectrum and in opposition to our corroded political establishment."

[link edited for length]

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©2008 George Dance, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Monday, August 4, 2008
Last modified: Tuesday, September 23, 2008

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