A Third View

This is sort of an update to my post below titled, "Two Views of the World." Here's what Meteor Blades says over at Kos. I think I'll try to buy into this one:

For now, I'm laying off the recriminations. Instead, the first thing I'm doing as soon as this is written is to call my two Senators - Boxer and Feinstein - to tell them I appreciated their "No" votes. And I urge others to do so as well. But, more important, I urge others to put their energy into a new fight. Because the Alito nomination is all over but the final vote, and we need to invest the next week into making something useful out of next Monday's Senate Judiciary Committee's hearings on "Wartime Executive Power and the NSA's Surveillance Authority."

Given what an atrocious job most of the Democrats on the committee did in querying Samuel Alito, particularly bad when it came to follow-up questions, and in framing the issues of concern raised by Alito's extensive judicial record, it is incumbent upon us to try to ensure that Democrats ask tough questions at these hearings. We need to push the Dems away from playing enabler for what is sure to be Attorney General Gonzales's efforts to make the hearings nothing more than a forum for the idea that the Administration's evasion of FISA is being done to protect us from the bad guys.

Many of us are, I know, psychologically exhausted from seeking victory that we knew since November would be a long shot. And I've seen a fat chunk of comments saying: what's the use, the right wing has won, there's no point in fighting anymore. Understandably. But a battle is not a war. And, disappointing as it was, and as devastating as Alito's tenure on the court may turn out to be, giving up is simply not an option.

No matter what the odds, and no matter how few of our elected representatives we can count on to stand with us on this matter, and a hundred others, we have to keep up the fight. The war against Big Brotherization is as crucial as that for abolition, for women's suffrage, for civil rights.

In every case, the warriors in those wars suffered immense setbacks, repeatedly so, and found it hard to get the politicians to speak up and stand up for them. Eventually, however, because they refused to surrender, and because they took the fight beyond the electoral arena, they won.

We will, too.