IN THIS BLOG, i WILL NOT MAKE IT A HABIT OF REPRINTING OTHERS' ARTICLES. THIS, HOWEVER IS SO IMPORTANT THAT IT MUST BE PRINTED. EVERYONE IN THE USA NEEDS TO UNDERSTAND THE RAMIFICATIONS OF THE NDAA, AS SIGNED INTO LAW BY BARACK OBAMA ON THE LAST DAY OF 2011, THE DEATH DAY OF THE USA BILL OF RIGHTS.
Barack Obama has betrayed the American people. I hope I am not picked up and detained indefinitely because I write that. The days of our being able to speak freely and without fear of are of the past. Now anybody can be detained indefinitely without being charged with anything. I feel sick, but I will not shut up. My political philosophy has not changed. I remain a Progressive. I am now a betrayed Progressive.
I hold some controversial opinions. I will continue to hold these openly. A few of these are:
I support the establishment of an independent Sikh homeland
I oppose USA (and Canadian) military intervention in the affairs of other nations unless said nation is directly attacked by that other nation
I support the right of private citizens to own and use firearms and ammunition.
I support the right of any two consenting adults to marry.
I support the legalization of marijuana.
I support the right of the people to rise up against an oppressive government and to change it by any means necessary.
I support the USA Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in their entirety. I suggest the reader print out a copy of each and hide it away somewhere because they may soon be either completely ditched or altered beyond recognition. I do not support the Constitution of the Republic of India which denies my existence as a Sikh.
I support my right to write whatever I damned well please as long as it is neither fraudulent nor libelous, with truth being an absolute defense against libel.
I suppose that's enough jellybeans in the machinery for now.
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Monday, 02 January 2012 21:40
Bob Alexander
On December 17, 2007 Senator Christopher Dodd spoke on the Senate floor
against George W. Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping and telecom company
amnesty compromise, “Clear, first-hand whistleblower documentary
evidence [states] that for year on end every e-mail, every text message,
and every phone call … hundreds of millions of private, domestic
communications … have been copied in their entirety by AT&T and
knowingly diverted wholesale … into a secret room controlled exclusively
by the NSA.”
Then Senator Barack Obama announced he supported the amnesty "compromise" saying, “So
I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as
President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by
the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any
additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives -- and the
liberty -- of the American people.”
I didn’t want George W.
Bush, Barack Obama, or any future president of the United States to
“carefully monitor the program.” I wanted a president who would stop the
wiretapping program, restore the Fourth Amendment, and protect the
Constitution of the United States. That’s his goddamned job. But that’s
not the president I got for Christmas in 2008. The eavesdropping on
every call, text, fax or email hasn’t stopped. It’s just being
“carefully monitored.”
Fast forward to December 31, 2011 when Reader Supported News editor Marc Ash wrote, “President
Obama today signed the highly controversial Defense Spending Bill. The
National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with its so-called Homeland
Battlefield provisions, allows, according to many legal scholars, the
indefinite detention of US citizens by the US military. What is most
striking is a lengthy signing statement by Obama, in which he maintains
his reservations about the Homeland Battlefield provisions, saying, 'I
have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain
provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution
of suspected terrorists.' His defense of civil liberties in the signing
statement was passionate. Nonetheless, at the same moment, he signed the
bill into law.”
So as of now … anyone … anywhere … can be detained indefinitely by order of the President of the United States. Obama said. “I
want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the
indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens.”
But what he just signed says he can. We just have to trust him … and all
future presidents from now on. Florida Democratic representative Debbie
Wasserman Schultz says she’ll be working with other Democrats to repeal
the Homeland Battlefield provisions as soon as Congress reconvenes.
Good luck with that one. What are the chances a Republican controlled
house will repeal provisions it had already passed in a 283 to 136 vote?
If
the provisions are not repealed, or if the president changes his mind
and decides to use the law he signed … then any of us could end up like
Al-Jazeera journalist Sami Al-Hajj. He was arrested in Pakistan on
December 15, 2001 and detained at Guantánamo for over 6 years. According
to documents published by Wikileaks, the government wanted Al-Hajj “to
provide information on the al-Jazeera News Network's training program,
telecommunications equipment, and newsgathering operations.” He was beaten, sexually assaulted… and released without charge on May 1, 2008.
We
are all now officially … small prey animals. We have the same rights a
field mouse has against a hawk. Prey animals can’t get a lawyer or a
trial. Prey animals get eaten.
So let’s kick off The New Year with what we know about Late Great The United States.
War criminals are immune from prosecution.
The president can declare martial law by declaring a public emergency and this public emergency can be anything he says it is.
The president can scoop up U.S. citizens and detain them forever if he wants to because Habeas Corpus is now a memory.
This
government doesn’t mind backsliding into slavery. One of Project
Censored’s top stories from 2008 was about how our government used slave
labor to build the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. “Thousands of citizens
from countries that banned travel or work in Iraq were tricked and
smuggled into brutal and inhumane labor camps and subjected to months of
forced servitude ... all in the middle of the US-controlled Green Zone.”
The borders of closing … or in some cases … closed.
From the CODEPINK website, “In
October 2007 Ann Wright, retired U.S. army colonel and former diplomat
who quit in opposition to the Iraq war, and Medea Benjamin, co-founder
of CODEPINK were on their way to Toronto at the invitation of the
Toronto Stop the War Coalition but were denied entry into Canada.” The border was closed to them.
Our email and phone conversations are monitored by the government.
Is
my phone tapped? Is yours? We don’t know. Was this email read by some
government stooge? We don’t know. How many U.S. citizens will disappear?
We don’t know. Somebody goes out for a loaf of bread and a pack of
cigarettes some night and then … poof … vanishes. Did he run away from
his life; or is she in a secret prison somewhere? We’ll never know.
How bad is it? How bad could it get? When is it too late?
What
exactly are we waiting for? What incident, what sign, what great
shocking event has to happen to make us realize The American Dream is
over, dead, and done with?
Naomi Wolf, author of The End of
America, has said that she will stop speaking out when someone she knows
has disappeared. I suppose it is a natural delusion to think that
someone else will be disappeared first. I guess Ms. Wolf believes that
people are renditioned in alphabetical order.
I did not expect
Barack Obama to be this nation’s savior. But I did not think he could
turn out to be as bad, or worse, than George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. In
2008 Obama gave us the Audacity of Hope. Less than four years later the
only hope we have is the desperate hope that it’s not as bad as it
seems.
The President wants us to believe what he says … not what he signed into law.
On
December 31st 2011 the “Lesser of Two Evils” argument finally,
completely, and utterly collapsed. Any liberal who tries to put a
positive spin on this steaming pile is as delusional or corrupt as the
rightwing lunatic gasbags on Fox. By signing this perversion,
Constitutional professor Barack Obama has put himself above the
Constitution. From now on the President of the United States is a king.
We have to depend upon his noblesse oblige to keep us out of the gulag.
Jesus Christ I’m starting to agree with Sarah “I’ve Lost My Goddamned
Mind” Palin. This hopey, changey thing turned into a Dick Cheney wet
dream.
The next time some liberal zombie tells me to vote
Democratic because these freakin’ Republicans are out to destroy the
country I’ll subtly disagree by throwing up on his shoes.
Published under under the GNU/GPL License.
