Activism Across America

Seen today at the convergence Goodman Avenue and East Avenue in Rochester, New York today: A determined anti-war protest, with demonstrators holding signs with slogans like Stop the War System on all four street corners.

Some people are trying to suggest that, simply because America’s wars have been going on for so long, there is no point in protesting against them any more. They call peace activists nuts for keeping up their efforts. I say that they’ve got it backwards. It is precisely because America’s Homeland Security wars have been going on so long, with so little success, that it is necessary to maintain protests against them.

New York’s U.S. Representative Maurice Hinchey represents an oddly-shaped district that twists from Poughkeepsie on the eastern shore of the Hudson River all the way along the border with Pennsylvania up to Ithaca, New York in the Finger Lakes. Yet, he represents his constituents well, defending the constitutional freedoms in which residents of his district place their trust.

On June 20, 2008, when so many other Democrats in the House of Representatives panicked and ran into the arms of the Republicans, voting for George W. Bush’s FISA Amendments Act, Congressman Hinchey kept his head. He voted against the FISA Amendments Act.

Hinchey explained,

“The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has been in effect since 1978 and provided every president and his administration since that time with the tools and resources needed to effectively monitor the activities of those wishing to harm the United States. I recognize the need to modernize our surveillance laws and have been willing to make adjustments to improve them, but sacrificing our basic civil liberties and granting de facto immunity to telecommunication companies that may have violated the law to appease the Bush administration is simply unacceptable.

The United States government should have all the tools it needs to keep us safe, but we must recognize that we can definitely achieve that goal without sacrificing the defining principles of the Constitution. Privacy rights must not be compromised simply because this administration is trying to scare everyone into believing such actions are necessary.”

Maurice Hinchey is right. The government should have all the tools it needs to keep Americans safe, provided that those tools do not violate the Americans’ rights.

The FISA Amendments Act is not a necessary tool for America’s security, and it deprives Americans of freedoms that are essential to the survival of democracy in the USA. On both counts, Maurice Hinchey did the right thing in voting NO on the FISA Amendments Act.

Thanks to Maurice Hinchey for doing the right thing, and voting with his head instead of pandering to the politics of fear.

Once again, Barack Obama supporters are showing that the Obama campaign is really about much more than just electing Barack Obama President of the United States. The campaign is really about promoting a better way of life, founded upon a more positive vision of what it means to be an American.

That vision includes finding a cure for breast cancer. Why? The progressive ideals that fuel support for the Obama campaign include the idea of health care for all people, as well as the more general idea that people in our communities should care for one another.

That’s why in Syracuse, New York, supporters of Barack Obama are using the Obama campaign infrastructure to organize their involvement in the local Race for the Cure - to take place on Saturday, May 17.

For more information, see the events calendar on the Barack Obama campaign site.