This was in response to a fellow at B. Obama’s official campaign site, who asked that I vote for Obama, his capitulation to the FISA/telecom Immunity bill notwithstanding:

• Sender: trog69
• Subject: Voting for Barack
• Received: 6/27/08 6:13PM

Thank you for your response to my comment, and in let me say in answer that I will probably vote for Mr. Obama; In any case short of mass murder by Barack, (And I’d still want to know who and why first.)there is no possible chance of me voting for the warmonger on the Republican ticker. Er…ticket.

OTOH, I have no intention of participating in anything resembling Obamania. I will strive to always remember, as I hope others will, that Barack Obama is a politician first. As anyone paying attention will attest, after winning the nomination, seeing him fling himself as far right as possible to reach out to the Republican voters who, like me, do not trust the party itself anymore, and who learn what they can about the candidates from a variety of sources. I do indeed understand WHY he is doing that, and I’m not condemning it out of hand. I merely point out the similarity to past elections, and how it shows that Barack Obama hasn’t done anything that past candidates haven’t also done.

I do not watch TV, nor do I read the actual newspapers anymore. I am, for good or ill, tied exclusively to the internet. (Which of course relies on those shunned news delivery vehicles, but anyway…) I mention this because I care a great deal about the internet’s freedoms, and our right to read and say whatever we want, with no fear of repercussions by government eavesdroppers. So you can imagine my shock and horror to learn about Mr. Obama’s recent capitulation on the FISA/Telecom Immunity bill. I refuse to just keep quiet about this, just because Barack’s positions mirror mine on most other topics. To me, this goes to the heart of the problem we already face. The news media, considered by T. Jefferson to be one of the most important tools the common populace has to keep our elected officials somewhat honest, is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of corporate interests. Newspapers themselves are turning to the internet to save money, since they’ve laid off or by attrition lost most of their reporters and overseas bureaus. So, if the only way to get some basic, honest reporting is from my laptop, I don’t want to fear that my profile in the gov’t. database is flagged because I frequent liberal websites. Sure, I’m probably worrying needlessly; I don’t want to have to consider it, though. Giving the NSA the ability to not only datamine, but without oversight, is not my idea of protecting our rights. I won’t even go into why the immunity for telecoms is so blatantly against the Rule of Law, and instead shows the two-tiered standard of ‘justice’ now being openly  considered .

Even if I decide not to vote at all, in protest, I would not do anything to derail Barack’s election chances, in case someone thinks I’m one of those “Repub. trolls sicced on the liberal sites.

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