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Today's Top News
The NDAA: A Clear and Present Danger to American Liberty
The US is sleepwalking into becoming a police state, where, like a pre-Magna Carta monarch, the president can lock up anyone
Yes, the worst things you may have heard about the National Defense Authorization Act, which has formally ended 254 years of democracy in the United States of America, and driven a stake through the heart of the bill of rights, are all really true. The act passed with large margins in both the House and the Senate on the last day of last year – even as tens of thousands of Americans were frantically begging their representatives to secure Americans' habeas corpus rights in the final version.
NDAA critics say that it enables ordinary US citizens to be treated like 'enemy combatants' in Guantánamo. (Photo: Paul J Richards/AFP/Getty Images)
It does indeed – contrary to the many flatout-false form letters I have seen that both senators and representatives sent to their constituents, misleading them about the fact that the NDAA destroys their due process rights. Under the act, anyone can be described as a 'belligerent". As the New American website puts it,
"[S]ubsequent clauses (Section 1022, for example) unlawfully give the president the absolute and unquestionable authority to deploy the armed forces of the United States to apprehend and to indefinitely detain those suspected of threatening the security of the 'homeland'. In the language of this legislation, these people are called 'covered persons'.
"The universe of potential 'covered persons' includes every citizen of the United States of America. Any American could one day find himself or herself branded a 'belligerent' and thus subject to the complete confiscation of his or her constitutional civil liberties and nearly never-ending incarceration in a military prison."
And with a new bill now being introduced to make it a crime to protest in a way that disrupts any government process – or to get close to anyone with secret service protection – the push to legally lock down the United Police States is in full force.
Overstated? Let's be clear: the NDAA grants the president the power to kidnap any American anywhere in the United States and hold him or her in prison forever without trial. The president's own signing statement, incredibly, confirmed that he had that power. As I have been warning since 2006: there is not a country on the planet that you can name that has ever set in place a system of torture, and of detention without trial, for an "other", supposedly external threat that did not end up using it pretty quickly on its own citizens.
And Guantánamo has indeed come home: Guantánamo is in our front yards now and our workplaces; it did not even take much more than half a decade. On 1 March, the NDAA will go into effect – if a judicial hearing scheduled for this week does not block it – and no one in America, no US citizen, will be safe from being detained indefinitely – in effect, "disappeared.".
As former Reagan official, now Ron Paul supporter, Bruce Fein points out, on 1 March, we won't just lose the bill of rights; we will lose due process altogether. We will be back at the place where we were, in terms of legal tradition, before the signing of the Magna Carta – when kings could throw people in prison at will, to rot there forever. If we had cared more about what was being done to brown people with Muslim names on a Cuban coastline, and raised our voices louder against their having been held without charge for years, or against their being tried in kangaroo courts called military tribunals, we might now be safer now from a new law mandating for us also the threat of abduction and fear of perpetual incarceration.
We didn't care, or we didn't care enough – and here we are. We acclimated, we got distracted, the Oscars were coming up … but the fake "battlefield" was brought home to us, now real enough. Though it is not "we" versus Muslims in this conflict; it is our very own government versus "us". As one of my Facebook community members remarked bitterly, of our House representatives, our Senate leaders and our president, "They hate our freedoms."
The NDAA is, in the words of Shahid Buttar of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, "the worst threat to civil liberties since COINTELPRO. It gives the government the power to presume guilt rather than innocence, and indefinitely imprison anyone accused of a 'belligerent act' or terror-related offense without trial." He points out that it gives future presidents the power to arrest their political critics. That may even be understating things: it is actually, in my view, the worst threat to civil liberty in the US since habeas corpus was last suspended, during the American civil war.
On a conference call for media last Friday, hosted by the cross-partisan BORDC (which now includes the 40,000 members of the American Freedom Campaign, which we had co-founded as a response to the warning in 2007 that America was facing a "fascist shift") and the right-leaning Tenth Amendment Foundation, we were all speaking the same language of fear for our freedom, even though our perspectives spanned the political spectrum. As the Tenth Amendment Foundation put it, we are a family with diverse views – and families know when it is time to put aside their differences. If there were ever a time to do so, it is now.
This grassroots effort is pushing hard in many places. Protests that included libertarians, progressives, Tea Party members and Occupy participants have been held nationwide in recent weeks. State legislators in Virginia, Tennessee, and Washington have also introduced bills to prevent state agencies from aiding in any detention operations that might be authorized by the NDAA. In other words, they are educating sheriffs and police to refuse to comply with the NDAA's orders. This presents an Orwellian or 1776-type scenario, depending upon your point of view, in which the federal government, or even the president, might issue orders to detain US citizens – which local sheriffs and police would be legally bound to resist.
What will happen next? I wrote recently that the US is experiencing something like a civil war, with only one side at this point – the corporatist side – aggressing. This grassroots, local-leader movement represents a defensive strategy in what is being now tacitly recognized as unprovoked aggression against an entire nation, and an entire people. (Here I should say, mindful of the warning issued to me by NYPD, which arrested me, to avoid saying anything that could be construed as "incitement to riot" and that I believe in nonviolent resistance.)
The local resistance to the police state goes further: midwestern cities, such as Chicago and Minneapolis, are considering "torture-free city" resolutions that would prohibit the torture which civil libertarians see as likely under a military detention regime expanded by the NDAA. (Bradley Manning's initial treatment in solitary confinement, for instance, met some Red Cross definitions of torture.)
But I am far more scared than hopeful, because nothing about the NDAA's legislative passage worked as democracy is supposed to work. Senator Dianne Feinstein, for instance, in spite of her proposed (defeated) amendment that could have defended due process more completely, has nonetheless not fought to repeal the law – even though her constituents in California would, no doubt, overwhelmingly support her in doing so. Huge majorities passed this bill into law – despite the fact that Americans across the spectrum were appalled and besieging their legislators. And this president nailed it to the table – even though his own constituency is up in arms about it.
History shows that at this point, there isn't much time to mount a defense: once the first few arrests take place, people go quiet. There is only one solution: organize votes loudly and publicly to defeat every single signer of this bill in November's general election. Then, once we have our Republic back and the rule of law, we can deal with the actual treason that this law represents.
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119 Comments so far
Show AllOne of my relatives, David Anthony, brother of Susan B., was Mayor of Leavenworth, KS at the time of the Civil; War. He was arrested and detained by the U.S. Army for refusing to return slaves to their owners. The town of Leavenworth marched en masse to Fort Leavenworth and released him. The point is that no unjust law can exist if the people refuse to obey it
That is very true... problem is, the majority of the population either:
doesn't care
doesn't know
support it
are too afraid
Learning theory suggests that when we hear something that seems too unbelievable, we simply reject it. I believe that this is the case with this issue. However, as former President Bush knew, even the unbelievable, if repeated often enough, becomes true.........meaning......CD and others must keep saying this and saying this and.......
chris: that is an interesting tid bit of family history - i for one would like to hear more
but to your point - i agree that the masses have to be willing and accepting of the nwo debt prison
it drives me nuts to see folks accept the raw deal, the lousy jobs, the reduced hours and the sleazy bosses who don't care about their employees but then they want to go on tv for undercover boss to show how magnificent they are
time for a prison break i say...
Excellent point Chrisll. I guess we will finally find out what the people of this country really represent in the near future. Are the majority "strong and brave" or "passive and clueless" regarding civil liberties. As Naomi states, "There is only one solution: organize votes loudly and publicly to defeat every single signer of this bill in November's general election." That includes everyone from the President to every member of Congress regardless of your party affiliations. This is far more important than being a loyal member of a political party.
Correction, the relative was Daniel P., not David. That's what happens when you get mad enough to write! Daniel was later shot through the heart at the opera but survived and lived to a ripe old age.
What we do to others will be done to us....we have also sleepwalked out of the knowledge of "as you sow, so shall ye reap"
Jesus Christ
The harvest is due! The Reaper is afoot!
"The Reaper is afoot!"
More than just afoot. The Reaper is wearing a jackboot.
One could almost say that this monstrous NDAA is like something out of a Franz Kafka novel. But in point of fact it is even worse because at least in Kafka's story [The Trial] the main character Joseph K was actually given a trial even though that proceeding was rigged against the defendant. But the NDAA, as Ms. Klein points out, does not even pretend that the accused will even be allowed to face his or her accusers.
To use a television reference, this Orwellian procedure could be seen as coming straight out of that cult classic from the the 1960s The Prisoner when #6, played by Patrick McGoohan, screamed out to his abductors that:
"I am not a number! I am a free man!"
Unfortunately, it appears that with the NDAA one would not have the luxury of being able to say this to one's accusers since the right of habeas corpus has now been conveniently done away with.
And yet in this alleged democracy that we live in there will be no independent candidates such as a Stewart Alexander or a Rocky Anderson who will hold the Democrats' and the Republicans' feet to the fire on this extremely relevant issue as the corporate media have seen fit to marginalize any independent candidates who would threaten the two party system in this country at a televised public forum.
We need to all band together as Americans against the fascist republicrats.
If these people are writing laws against the people, then they are really not our government, but a runaway, out of control corporation attempting to imprison us as their slaves.
What government that truly cares about its people would pass these laws?
They were paid off by the banksters. The banksters are writing and passing these laws to keep us enslaved in their debt system. We work and create the economy and they profit. Time for a new system.
Time for a new government.
Time to stand up together as humans with rights to say no more abuse!
We do NOT consent!
Time to arrest the perpetrators!
Did you know that 5 million people died in the Vietnam war! Innocent people caught up in the crosshairs of these warmongers that run around the world looking for someone else to attack and steal their resources. The attacks have come home to roost. They are turning on their own. Blood thursty warmongers.
86 Senators voted FOR passage of this bill. It was very much a bipartisan bill which both Republicans AND the Democratic party supported. So, if you view the Republicans as fascists in regards to this bill, you better give equal time to the Democrats as fascists also.
George (the shrub) Bush famously remarked that the Constitution was "just a piece of paper". He wasn't kidding.
The First Amendment framers would have been apalled at the conglomeration of media control that exists today. The NDAA is just the latest assault on said Constitution. If there is no viable third party able to get ballot access across the country, it's all over. Sad to say, it may be true that you get the government that you deserve.
The "framers" would have hung both Bush and Obama!
“We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
Stop right now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You're inciting people to riot and commit terrorist acts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No, tj, I'm educating them! When I was in grammar school, we were taught and learned about the documents our founding fathers wrote. The very same ones that established "America" as an independent nation; not governed by "KINGS" or "PRESIDENTS" but three branches of government!
......................So WTF happened?!
WTC happened...
And yet, from what I've picked up from the various people I'm around since this dreadful legislation was signed, I suspect one could walk down a busy street, randomly polling/asking hundreds of passers by if they're even vaguely aware of the NDAA bill, and the overwhelming majority would not, and what's worse, likely couldn't care less ...and that speaks to the efficacy of the somnambulistic brilliance of our media-saturated-hypno-brainwashed Consumer Culture; if those existing within a Police $tate are ignorant as to what a Police $tate actually is and represents, it demonstrates that it *is* possible for them (MARVEL to consider this applies to literally of millions of Americans!) to live within those metrics without realizing it ...and when they're confronted with data that accurately illustrates what *is* happening, they'll either flippantly dismiss or smugly denounce/attack the sources of the info.
As George Carlin charged, it's not the politicians who are the problem, it's the public that sucks.
Double-Plus Un-Good, indeed.
Our public is as good as any public. Your opinion on their level of awareness of the NDAA is right on. Our public thinks that Obama is a Muslim and socialist and is unaware of the NDAA. This ignorance and misdirection has been accomplished by the media, tv, radio, newspapers. These are the disinformation sources that have enabled the war state since the fall of the USSR, even since the start of WW2. The ruling elite know how to keep what is not theirs.
Elmer
Incredibly frightening, to say the very least. And still - still - most people I speak to about this basically either don't really understand the NDAA and what it means, or if they do know they use the typically Amereichan response of "doesn't apply to me. Only terrorists need to be afraid." I.e., - "It Can't Happen Here."
I've said it before, and I will say it again - if you have the means, start planning on getting out of the U.S. - while you still can. I give this dying country 10 years tops before we are an openly fascist police state (as opposed to the faux-democratic wink-nod fascist developing-police state we are now).
Demon: I thought of "getting out" under Bush, and never expected things would get this TERRIFYING on Obama's watch. However, if we think of the elites as lords of a global chessboard, their strategy no doubt came down to lining up the following ducks, before they could claim absolute control of "the board":
1. Own the media to manage what the public gets to know (also very useful for manufacturing consent for war)
2. Create cause to beef up the military and its endless budgetary stream. How better to fund foreign resource grabs, while also insuring that citizens pay for their own future detention facilities?
3. Purchase the president, along with lawmakers by making elections political pay per view (expensive!) spectacles
4. Set up an ultra authoritarian (pro business/fascist) Supreme Court
5. Undo the sovereign, established laws... bit by bit (essentially disabling: Habeas Corpus, The Bill of Rights, The Constitutional guarantees to liberty, along with The Geneva Conventions)
6. Fan the flames of a rising religious theocracy that encourages its followers to obey/follow orders while convincing them that the brutal campaigns of assault on others are jusitified by Scripture, and/or "God's" alleged will.
7. Set up a false flag event to get the call for blood pumping (then conveniently transplant vengeance in the place of justice)
8. Reduce wages and benefits so that all the "little people" fight among themselves and easily set their hostile sights on a convenient scapegoat
Now, instead of seeing the silk suit sociopath as the one commanding these kingly privileges, consider if Newt or Santorum gains the throne! That should scare the bee-Jesus out of any liberal frogs boiling too slowing to notice.
To the Christian theocrat, what may be construed as Enemy of the state is anyone who thinks for him/her self, and stands for justice, not to mention, ecological sustainability. Looks like others will gain something in the way of a crash course in empathy for those previously targeted in witch-hunts.
These horrors should be reserved for sci-fi only. Heaven help us!
What you list indicates we are already living under corporate facism. We are moving towards a world where an elite group of people will make all decisions... passage of NDAA reflects political elites who are complicit in pushing us in that direction. Regardless of your political philosophy - left, right, libertarian, center, radical, or whatever, the one thing we supposedly agree on is our Constitutional Rights...or do we?
An excellent post...sans astrology mumbo jumbo. Thanks! And honestly, I think you have the outline right there for a very engaging book detailing aka outing "the plan".
You are right, Sioux, and an excellent run-down of the "plan" that has been/is being followed by the Plutocratic/Fascist overlords. And not just here - observe Greece, Spain, Italy, etc. Those that do not (or cannot) believe that there REALLY is an actual PLAN in place to accomplish the complete subjugation of the "99%" by the 1% are walking around asleep. The proof is everywhere, all around us, and getting more obvious day by day.
I have been accused by some - here and elsewhere - of being a coward by promoting the idea of emigrating out of the U.S. It is not cowardice to flee a sinking ship.
spot on! the pieces are in place and the clock is running. what can we do... they (congress) will not listen... no one is accountable in our government.????
obama says that he will waive this indefinite detention... but it is too late... it is now law. corporate FASCISTS are ruining our democracy piece by piece, one civil liberty at a time... the banks are robbing the world blind and destroying humanity in the process.
our democracy is crumbling under our feet and most americans don't get it... even worse it seems that most just don't care, living with their heads in the sand...
my god this is the most depressing time in my entire life...
the good news is that i am coherent and MADDER THAN HELL at this country for it's apathy of it's populace and for it's leaders utter depravity.
Do you really think we have 10 years? I think much less. I think within 1-2 years there will be mandatory registration of all guns. I think within 1 year after that the army will come to your house and demand them. If they find more than you have reported you will be "renditioned" to one of the KBR camps. Then once that has happened the disappearances will begin in earnest.
As today is March1, I'm a little confused by the article and the ACLU site - was the Judicial committee hearing yesterday, or is it next Wednesday - the actual date was not mentioned??
What is most sad is that even at this late date, most Americans are not Paying Attention as our civil rights are being ripped out from under us. I've been literally arguing with and now begging my relatives and friends to freakin' Wake Up!!
My Senator, Robert Casey, kindly replied to the email I sent to him before the NDAA vote with a form letter, essentially saying, "There, there. Don't worry your little head about these things, we're just doing this to keep you safe from the Terr'ists." This week I'll be emailing again and calling his office - so, I'm pretty sure I can expect another form letter.
Amitola: I fully expect the State Dept. forum embeds to show up and paint Naomi as being hysterical, or alarmist about this insidious turn of legal events. They will downplay it the way the pro nuclear power shills downplay the radiation damage streaming over from Fukushima, or in the manner the climate change deniers call those who tell the truth all sorts of disparaging names. If the right wing smear machine, led by the amoral likes of Karl Rove & Frank Luntz, can turn the authoritarian religious nut-jobs' "freedom" into telling OTHERS what they can and cannot do with their own bodies, then Houston, (as is the case in any other time of war), we have a (TRUTH!) problem.
Thank you, Naomi Wolf, for this excellent and courageous article!
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin
This year at Forth of July celebrations, when the occur, a point should be made to educate the public of it's lost freedoms due to the National Defense Authorization Act.
The 4th of July would be a perfect time to educate people on the NDAA- if not sooner!
When I try to talk to the sheeple about NDAA, the standard reply is: What is that? When I explain this fascist act the standard reply is : Well, unless you are a terrorist you have nothing to fear. Yeah, sleepwalking into becoming a police state! If we only had millions more like Naomi Wolf.
I am confused. This HP article published yesterday says Obama "waived' the indefinite detention part of this bill.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/28/indefinite-military-deten_n_1308129.html
Please clarify!
It is, I believe, referring to Obama's "signing statement." He signed the law as-is, and that is the crucial part. His Signing Statement simply says that he doesn't intend to use it on Amereichan citizens. However, that does not exempt future presidents from doing so, since the law gives ANY President the power to do so.
which is why he may likely be a one-term man.
And even "doesn't intend" is a weasel-phrase.
It contains an implied counter-disclaimer: "... unless crowded by circumstances".
Not only Unitary Executives, but actual ordinary human beings often end up doing things they honestly had "no intention" of ever doing.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
I did complain about the treatment of Brown people. Their rendition, their torture, their murders.
I complained that the US had no right to invade other countries who were no threat to us.
I complained about the FISA bill and every other heinous bill that came out of the false flag attack.
And was met, with silence, or WTF you talking about? it will never happen here.
And yet, here it is.
I podcast Naomi years ago Shock Doctrine.
She said, when they start locking up journalist.
Guess what. They did this year during the protest.
It is here now.
to stay.
GO quiet?
Not "sleepwalking" into totalitarianism, but running headlong to embrace it as a security measure. Nation of superstitious cowards.
This fascist assault on our freedoms is BIPARTISAN!
BOTH my "Democratic" senators voted for it. Debbie Stabenow has LIED to me in writing, saying:
"I voted to ensure that only terrorists who are members of al-Qaeda and who commit an act of war against the United States can be detained. For the first time, detainees now have the right to a hearing before a judge with a defense lawyer present. The bill, which passed the Senate by a vote of 93-7, also protects the right of habeas corpus. In addition, I voted for an amendment, which passed, explicitly stating that nothing in the bill shall be construed to affect existing law related to U.S. citizens, lawful resident aliens, or any other persons who are captured in the U.S."
This is a barefaced LIE!
As a result, I'm going to work to get Stabenow out of office next election.
It's time we stopped falling for the "good-cop/bad-cop" SCAM of the corporate parties that gets us to support fascist Democrats out of fear of the more-fascist Republicans.
The Green Party has my support!
Both of my so-called "Democrat" senators (Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand) in NY also voted "Yea" for S.1867: NDAA on December 1, 2011. That said, I wasn't surprised!
There were several different votes on this bill as they moved through the amendment process. However, each vote favored the passing of the bill through the senate.
In the final vote, the following senators voted "Nay" on the NDAA:
1) Tom Harkin (D-IA)
2) Rand Paul (R-KY)
3) T. Coburn (R-OK)
4) Jeff Merkley (D-OR)
5) Ron Wyden (D-OR)
6) Mike Lee (R-UT)
7) Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
3 Dems, 3 Republicans and 1 Independent
If I have posted any incorrect information, please post the corrections!
Yesterday, I was back at the DMV in NYC attempting to secure a NY state ID. The state/local authorities continue to add hurdles/requirements to the process! Now, we have to present 8 points of ID -- with the only single piece of ID listed as equaling the 8 points being a drivers license. Of course, if your address changes, you will have to present additional ID in order to prove the address change. Hundreds of thousands of people in NYC don't drive and therefore, these people don't have a drivers license.
As a female, my birth certificate doesn't match the name on my social security card -- due to marriage. Therefore, my birth certificate and social security card don't count. You can't get the one ID without the other, and you can't get the other ID without the one ID. It goes around in circles. Since going through this procedure, I have spoken with countless people here in the city who simply gave up. The system has become more difficult to traverse since 9/11 -- of course. Yesterday, finally, I walked out of the building with a temporary NY state ID. In 2010, when I tried to change my address in order to vote, the authorities wouldn't change my address, nor would they change my party affiliation.
BTW -- it's still much easier to apply for and receive a U.S. Passport than it is to get a NY state ID. However, a passport is only worth 4 points.
Posted at the NYC DMV:
FOR YOUR PROTECTION
We have strengthened our identification requirements and have increased the scrutiny of all documents presented. This may result in an increased wait for processing your transaction. We appreciate your patience and understanding.
This is underlined by the following statement:
A Salute to Those Who Served!! (Army, Navy, Air Force, etc.)
I can't help but think that the additional hurdles/requirements are -- in the long run -- meant to disenfranchise citizens and voters, and NOT meant to protect us. The authorities mean to control us and to manage us. Certainly, the system doesn't serve the public interest, and many seem to forget who pays the bill!
I'm glad that Naomi Wolf is speaking out -- I was down on Hudson Street with others protesting Andrew Cuomo, the Democrat governor here in NY, when Naomi was arrested and taken to jail on October 20, 2011. She walked out of the restaurant and joined us.
I got an email reply from my Democratic Party Senator, it also told me not to protest the thing because "the Feinstein Ammendment passed" - which it didnt - the Feinstein ammendment failed with only 45 votes.
Obama hates us, the Democrats hate us, they lie to us, they never lie to their friends.
Starting on 12/21/11, a lawyer named Joanne Mariner posted an excellent discussion of the NDAA on Justia.com. Check it out. The language of NDAA, including the Stabenow amendment mentioned in the comments, is ambiguous, but that shouldn't make us feel safer. it's very ambiguity gives authoritarians cover to interpret as broadly as possible. NDAA is also internally contradictory, exempting US citizens yet covering them at the same time. Further complicating things is Obama's ridiculous "signing statement", in which he does an admirable job of identifying and correctly characterizing the fascistic elements of the NDAA, (which Congress denies are present), then says, the White House will not allow it to be enforced that way, then signs the goddamn thing anyway with "reservations"! Reservations? Hello! Reservations are your brain's little way of letting you know you should STOP and think again before acting. Apparently, however, by acknowledging and explaining in detail his "reservations", Obama believes he has done his duty as a citizen, a free thinker and a President. Well, the President's job is not to have reservations about authoritarian attacks on our most fundamental freedom's. The President's job is to protect us against them; it's right there in the Oath of Office, which Obama swore to uphold.
This is what passes for leadership among the "wonkish", "bi-partisan", "3rd way, "pragmatic", "non-ideological", "responsible" Democrats who live inside "the consensus". The rest of us can fuck off as far as they are concerned.
You give the current king too much moral cover. He knows what he's signing... c'mon the guy graduated from law school. He's pulling a "John Yoo" on the American citizenry. Ask all those who want to believe that the ambiguity clauses will protect them if they'd feel so secure when the next unapologetic, right-wing sociopath takes the Oval Office?
Alan MacDonald has posted compelling data about the U.S. morphing with gigantic corporate entities into a global Empire. And being an Empire means never having to say you're sorry... nor answering to citizens, especially pesky intelligent ones capable of calling out illegalities. What better way to shut them up, or let any principled voice of dissent know what they will be up against if they attempt to hold this corrupt Empire to account! The punitive approach to whistle-blowers added to the precedents established to abort justice in the case of Quantanimo "Enemy combatants," are Exhibit A of how far the usurpers of The Rule of Law will go.
When a nation champions militarism, as ours has done, that itself stands as the ENEMY to law. This idea of the "law of war" is nothing but an oxymoron. After all, "War abroad leads to tyranny at home." (Hannah Arendt) What we're seeing is the natural end result when MARS rules.
Well-said. And now add the 30,000 drones that will soon be flying over Amereichan skies monitoring all of us to what you just said, some of them armed and quite capable of "taking out" anyone, anywhere, anytime.
Anyone who still thinks "It can't happen here" is in for a nasty shock in the not-distant future.
And the Emperor signed it on New Year's Eve no less. A huge slap in the face and F-U to everyone. Like Bill Clinton used to say "If they [democrats] don't like it, too bad. What are they gonna do? vote republican? [chuckle]"
In addition, the Obama regime has gone after more whistleblowers than the Cheney regime did. Obama is more rabidly neocon than Darth Cheney himself. Here's more outrage:
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/02/27/is_the_obama_administration_abusing_the_espionage_act
From a moral, as well as legal perspective (lest we're down to: when the Prez. says or does it, that means it IS legal) the signing date is symbolic of a drunken orgy. Also, once every 29 days the sun and moon meet for new moon. I call it a marriage of The Lights, and like any fruitful marriage, it bears fruit. This month's new moon took place on February 21, at 2 degrees of Pisces... the slippery sign of the 2 fish swimming in opposing directions. Not only is it the celestial event shaping the tone of this month (and thus relevant to the NDAA signing), it grants Pisces dominion; and no other sign is more linked with deception, camouflage, and subterfuge. Adding yet more celestial weight to the portent is that Neptune, returning home to its own sign Pisces after a 165 year absence (those years represent its orbit around the sun), joined the sun and moon for this significant lunation.
Scripture tells us that the forces of evil (some define it as an actual entity, Satan) rely most on the power to deceive. If Creator bequeathed FREE will to human beings, the cessation of that freee will is, in my book, evil. Therefore, it cloaks itself behind law, wins the imprimatur of too many church (added to Zionist) bodies, and in less than a Hollywood stylized depiction of evil, swoops down to steal sovereign (hard won) rights from citizens.
The timing is no accident. "As above, so below." This law signed on March 1 is very much in keeping with Neptune's reputation for deception. Humanity is navigating the confusing Transition phase between one great Age (these span 2200 years each), and another. Neptune must turn over its dominion to Uranus, the truth-oriented planet that governs the sign of Aquarius (the Age next to assume dominion). Like the corrupt leaders unwilling to grant sovereignty to citizens, Neptune resists The Transition by alloting to elites the trickery (in the form of inverted "laws" like NDAA) to hold back the destiny of humanity... and its inevitable passage into another (more just & egalitarian) phase.
NOTHING can ultimately hold back the flow of time... as every collapsed Empire learns... of course much blood baptizes this form of education.
Your astrological rants Siouxrose, are no better than the rabid-right's rants about their skygod. In my opinion, it makes you lose credibility.
Actually, it's much more in keeping with Right Wing authoritarian controls to silence a subject that looks at the phenomena taking place in our world from the perspective of a unique, and to those who take the time to study it--exceptionally clarifying, if not enlightening framework. Since I am well-educated in this field, it is my privilege and spiritual responsibility to present the evidence as I see it. Allow readers to judge for themselves. While I posted that many things would come apart, given the telling formation of a grand cross that took place in August 2010, few have had the courage to say that I was right.
Astrology is a language of relationships. And it can help us to understand the cycles that imbue this world with very ostensible and regularly occurring themes. Just because your mind is as closed as any right wing Christian's (that's the demographic that has silenced precisely this sort of material--on threat of death--for centuries) hardly means you have the right to determine what another might learn... or discover.
It's time that the finger pointed to those who ask that others be silenced, for the very notion is 100% Regressive, as well as repressive. To me, Spiritual Truths represent First Cause, while politics and economics follow... I like to point out how the various factors fit together. It's SAD that you have a problem with that.
To use the word "mysterio" in your post and then come off like an intolerant Rush Limbaugh, suggests a misuse of the term. But I forget, the Right is now framing ITS freedoms as the caapcity to determine what other people are permitted to do with their bodies, beliefs, words, and practices.
Well. Let me tell you the origin of the handle "elmysterio". It was assigned to me in 1997 by Delphi Forums (they auto-generated handles) and I just kept using it. It has NO meaning or significance other than being the handle I've used for 15 years. I'm quite tired of people using my handle as a character attack. You've done it a number of times.
One thing I've really noticed here Siouxrose is that you're very quick to jump to conclusions about people, very quick to become abusive (in a passive-agressive manner) to people who disagree with you, while coming off as someone who is so 'enlightened'. Every time I post something that disagrees with something you've said, you become abusive. Comparing me to that sack of shit Rush Limbaugh because I think Astrology is a bunch of hokum is pretty low. Shame on you.
Me telling you that I think there's no difference between you going on an on about astrology and christian fundamentalists blaming/crediting God for everything that happens is not an attack, it's my opinion. It's not intolerance, it my opinion.
Me telling you that I THINK using a pseudo-science such as astrology to explain happenings in the world causes you to lose credibility, is MY OPINION. You're entitled to your, I'm entitled to mine.
I don't know much about astrology, but I do know that outside western "civilization" almost everyone believes in astrology and other forms of divination such as Tarot and many others. In Colombia, brujas and brujos read the ashes on Piel Roja (Redskin) cigarettes (I know for empirical experience that if you smoke one Piel Roja you will die, but then I saw all these people live). In Asia, few people make an important decision without consulting an expert in astrology or other form of divination. The western negation of what everyone else embraces, and even contempt for what everyone else embraces, causes a huge gap in understanding between cultures. Instead of insulting people, admit that you don't understand them and don't understand their cultural background. Traveling helps you to learn this necessary human skill.