Chris Hedges: The Final Battle
from truthdig:
The Final Battle
Posted on Dec 23, 2012
By Chris Hedges
Over the past year I and other plaintiffs including Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg have pressed a lawsuit in the federal courts to nullify Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This egregious section, which permits the government to use the military to detain U.S. citizens, strip them of due process and hold them indefinitely in military detention centers, could have been easily fixed by Congress. The Senate and House had the opportunity this month to include in the 2013 version of the NDAA an unequivocal statement that all U.S. citizens would be exempt from 1021(b)(2), leaving the section to apply only to foreigners. But restoring due process for citizens was something the Republicans and the Democrats, along with the White House, refused to do. The fate of some of our most basic and important rights—ones enshrined in the Bill of Rights as well as the Fourth and Fifth amendments of the Constitution—will be decided in the next few months in the courts. If the courts fail us, a gulag state will be cemented into place.
Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, pushed through the Senate an amendment to the 2013 version of the NDAA. The amendment, although deeply flawed, at least made a symbolic attempt to restore the right to due process and trial by jury. A House-Senate conference committee led by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., however, removed the amendment from the bill last week.
“I was saddened and disappointed that we could not take a step forward to ensure at the very least American citizens and legal residents could not be held in detention without charge or trial,” Feinstein said in a statement issued by her office. “To me that was a no-brainer.”
The House approved the $633 billion NDAA for 2013 in a 315-107 vote late Thursday night. It will now go before the Senate. Several opponents of the NDAA in the House, including Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., cited Congress’ refusal to guarantee due process and trial by jury to all citizens as his reason for voting against the bill. He wrote in a statement after the vote that “American citizens may fear being arrested and indefinitely detained by the military without knowing what they have done wrong.” ......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_final_battle_20121223/
= new reply since forum marked as read
... nuff said.
I like that reference to stalin. very apt. I try not to capitalize monsters names. They disgust me so.
"War Is Peace;
Freedom Is Slavery;
Knowledge Is Ignorance"
... but his writing was prophetic, wasn't it? What is the back-story on the writing of "1984"? And what did people think of the book when it was published? Thank you, if you can answer these questions. I know, I could go look it up, but I'm deep in nut bread making right now... 
It will require the support, advocacy and participation of the majority of Americans. Occupy began as a protest against the encroaching fascism in America. Of course while many people agreed with the need for, and the principles of Occupy, due to apathy and the corrupt MSM, the movement has all but folded in most areas.
Without Occupy or some equivalent organization, America will continue in its race to the bottom and the oppression that fascism brings. We are the majority and we are being destroyed by the privileged few in our society. Our only hope comes with strength in numbers and some type of organized resistance to what is rapidly happening to the majority. If we continue to be apathetic and refuse to educate ourselves about why and who is responsible for our declining freedoms and the usury that has become ingrained in our culture, our lives and future will be very bleak.
If the majority would get involved, we could field our political candidates and take our country back(?).
What a schmuck. And he has always been a schmuck. :>
I fear it's probably true of some.
explanation of corporate greed and the evilness of profit being king. Yeah it's coming down the tracks, 1000mph and ain't going to stop until it crashes.
we'll all be in a hardscrabble serfdom like existence sooner than we would all like to think because of the greed and power of the fascist/corporate state of the world. They own the worlds resources, lock, stock and barrel. Look at the billionaires and trillionaires like that goddamn mitshit that ran for public office in this country. They care less about the 98% than they would with a dead dog in the street, in fact they'll probably feel more for the dog. They'll work us to death on minimum subsistence and when we drop, the bulldozer brigade will push our bodies into the mass grave, cover it and move on. Bad times a coming, maybe not like this, but bad times for the 98% for sure.
It can't be wrong. Obama supports it.
