[Fwd: [Marxism] Obama Voters Protest His Switch on Telecom Immunity]

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Eerste haarscheuren zichtbaar in het Obama-kamp:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	[Marxism] Obama Voters Protest His Switch on Telecom Immunity
Date: 	Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:53:06 -0400
From: 	Louis Proyect <lnp3 at panix.com>
Reply-To: 	Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition
<marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu>
To: 	aorta <aorta at home.nl>



NY Times, July 2, 2008
Obama Voters Protest His Switch on Telecom Immunity
By JAMES RISEN

WASHINGTON — Senator Barack Obama’s decision to support legislation
granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated
with the Bush administration’s program of wiretapping without warrants
has led to an intense backlash among some of his most ardent supporters.

Thousands of them are now using the same grass-roots organizing tools
previously mastered by the Obama campaign to organize a protest against
his decision.

In recent days, more than 7,000 Obama supporters have organized on a
social networking site on Mr. Obama’s own campaign Web site. They are
calling on Mr. Obama to reverse his decision to endorse legislation
supported by President Bush to expand the government’s domestic spying
powers while also providing legal protection to the telecommunication
companies that worked with the National Security Agency’s domestic
wiretapping program after the Sept. 11 attacks.

During the Democratic primary campaign, Mr. Obama vowed to fight such
legislation to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or
FISA. But he has switched positions, and now supports a compromise
hammered out between the White House and the Democratic Congressional
leadership. The bill is expected to come to a vote on the Senate floor
next Tuesday. That decision, one of a number made by Mr. Obama in recent
weeks intended to position him toward the political center as the
general election campaign heats up, has brought him into serious
conflict for the first time with liberal bloggers and commentators and
his young supporters.

Many of them have seen the issue of granting immunity to the
telecommunications companies as a test of principle in their opposition
to Mr. Bush’s surveillance program.

“I don’t think there has been another instance where, in meaningful
numbers, his supporters have opposed him like this,” said Glenn
Greenwald, a Salon.com writer who opposes Mr. Obama’s new position. “For
him to suddenly turn around and endorse this proposal is really a
betrayal of what so many of his supporters believed he believed in.”

Jane Hamsher, a liberal blogger who also opposes immunity for the phone
companies, said she had been flooded with messages from Obama supporters
frustrated with his new stance.

“The opposition to Obama’s position among his supporters is very
widespread,” said Ms. Hamsher, founder of the Web site firedoglake.com.
“His promise to filibuster earlier in the year, and the decision to
switch on that is seen as a real character problem. I know people who
are really very big Obama supporters are very disillusioned.”

One supporter, Robert Arellano, expressed his anger on the Obama site.

“I have watched your campaign with genuine enthusiasm,” Mr. Arellano
wrote, “and I have given you money. For the first time in my life, I
have sensed the presence of a presidential candidate who might actually
bring some meaningful change to the corrupt cesspool of national
politics. But your about-face on the FISA bill genuinely angers and
alarms me.”

For now, the campaign is trying to put a positive spin on the new FISA
fight among its supporters.

“The fact that there is an open forum on BarackObama.com where
supporters can say whether they agree or disagree speaks to a strength
of our campaign,” said Bill Burton, a campaign spokesman.

Several activists and bloggers predicted that Mr. Obama’s move toward
the center on some issues could sharply reduce the intensity of support
he has enjoyed from liberal activists. Such enthusiasm helped power his
effort to secure the Democratic nomination, and it has been one of his
campaign’s most important tools for fund-raising and organizing around
the country.

Markos Moulitsas, a liberal blogger and founder of the Daily Kos Web
site, said he had decided to cut back on the amount of money he would
contribute to the Obama campaign because of the FISA reversal.

“I will continue to support him,” Mr. Moulitsas said in an interview.
“But I was going to write him a check, and I decided I would rather put
that money with Democrats who will uphold the Constitution.”

Greg Craig, a Washington lawyer who advises the Obama campaign, said
Tuesday in an interview that Mr. Obama had decided to support the
compromise FISA legislation only after concluding it was the best deal
possible.

“This was a deliberative process, and not something that was shooting
from the hip,” Mr. Craig said. “Obviously, there was an element of
what’s possible here. But he concluded that with FISA expiring, that it
was better to get a compromise than letting the law expire.”

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