Welcome to the Desert of the Real. Again.

Lots of ripples in the left end of the Matrix, as various progressives realize that Obama bin Bought.

A good comparison and contrast is over at Chris Floyd's place.

...The FISA compromise bill is abominable, without question; anyone who supports it cannot possibly be regarded as a serious believer in constitutional democracy. Yet behind this truth is another one, noted above: the FISA system itself is an abomination for a free people. And behind this comes yet another, grimmer truth: the FISA system, either old-style or the new Obama-abetted version, is just a miniscule part of the "endless array of weapons" at the disposal of the National Surveillance State...

... Obama has taken some heat for his embrace of the Democrat's deadly FISA farce. Disappointment, even anger, is certainly rife across the progressosphere. For some stalwarts, it has induced a new sense of grim realism, ranging from "ya gotta do what ya gotta do, and I'm glad our guy's got the balls to do what he gotta do" offered by Jonathan Leigh Solomon, to the strange blast produced by Digby, which Silber, in another piece, rightly describes as "We're 2% less shitty than Pure Evil! It's all we've got!"

Digby too has criticized Obama's FISA move, albeit with the usual "I just can't figure out why he would do such a thing" trope, which she has had to apply to virtually every action taken by the Democrats in recent years. [The answer, of course, as Silber has often noted, is plain: they "do it" – sell out to corporations, to warmongers, to authoritarianism and unaccountable power – because they want to do it. It's what they believe in.] ...

It's the folly of thinking you can use a Ring of Power for good. The Power always ends up using you for its own ends.

But really I can no more support Barak bin Lyin than I could John Mc$ame. Nor will I throw a quatloo into Digby's and Greenwald's Stange Bedfellows alliance, nor Al Gore's, nor Silber's tiny hat. Nor would I suggest you do so either.

To financially support the Powers in the quest for Dominion is pure idiocy. Unless you've got several million to toss in the pot, they never even read your email. Nor am I willing to waste my money on other bloggers, nor pro-Constitutional left-right coalitions. Unity? Don't let's be silly.

I'll vote Democratic this time around, and suggest you do too. Because these crooks continue to seem to be the ones most capable of muddling onwards without precipitating global thermonuclear conflagration. They seem to be the ones most likely to think about the development of alternative energy to fossil fuels. There's list of issues the Democrats are more likely to act on than the Republicans- because a world people can survive in is better for business. The Republicans can't see any further than the next paycheck.

But end the Empire? Destroy the Ring of Power? Don't be silly. The Democrats won't do it, not in this age of this world.

But whether the Dominionists like it or not, every day their Armageddon is postponed is one day closer to the time the species gets off the surface of this world.

It took thousands of years for the human race to spread out of Africa. Ever since, the hold of the alpha male apes on the human race has tended to wane. Ever since, as bloody a path as we've cut, it's no more bloody than our ancestors, and in many ways less for some of us.

Maybe when the Earth is in the rear view mirror, those of us able to look back at it will be a better species. Maybe not. But the choice now is between certain stagnation and decay under the same autocracy, or a possible new deal.

My business is to ensure the survival of human sapience for its own sake.

In the desert of the real, one travels at night, and learns the stars.