[GPSCC-chat] Fw: There Goes the Republic - Robert Scheer on defense authorization bill

[John Thielking]

Thanks for sharing this.
 
Last night, Occupy San Jose had a march and a candlelight vigil from 6pm-7:30PM to mark the passage of the NDAA.  We marched up the middle of 5th street to the site of the memorial for the Japanese who were interned during WWII. A couple of us were actually Japanese American, with one woman saying that her great grandmother had lived in this same area of San Jose. We wore black armbands, some of which had the names of the internment camps on them.  There were benches in front of the memorial that represented each of the internment camps.  Various people gave speeches about human rights and the violations that have occurred since Sept 11, 2001.  It was pointed out that Muslim men over the age of 16 are required to register with (Homeland Security? I think) and right after Sept 11, 2001 many of these men were promptly arrested and deported to whatever country Homeland Security thought was appropriate, even if they were native born US citizens.  When
 it was my turn to speak, I gave a short speal about how I would like to see us be consistent when we talk about rights, and consider the impact on little people and small businesses when we promote stuff such as Section 1 of the MTA amendment that will take away all rights of artificial entities. I focused on the 4th amendment, and said that I didn't want cops busting into my house looking "only" for my business records and taking everything while they sort out what is business related or not. I pointed out that 99% of artificial entities are small, and that we should be carefull what we actually end up doing when we attempt to go after the big bad corporations that we are so focused on.  There will be a few more simillar memorial marches planned in the coming days.  The organizers were pleased that they got such a healthy turnout (about 25 people) on only 2 days notice.  The SJ Occupy action from earlier in the day (Carolling at Banks Action) was
 shown on the 10PM Ch2 news and they also mentioned the march to Japantown in protest of the passage of the NDAA on the broadcast, though they didn't mention WHY we were concerned.
 
John Thielking

From: Caroline Yacoub <carolineyacoub at att.net>
To: sosfbay-discuss <sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org> 
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2011 6:26 PM
Subject: [GPSCC-chat] Fw: There Goes the Republic - Robert Scheer on defense authorization bill






----- Forwarded Message ----
From: shane que hee <squehee at ucla.edu>
Sent: Thu, December 15, 2011 8:57:06 PM
Subject: There Goes the Republic - Robert Scheer on defense authorization bill


Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2011 19:28:15 -0800
>Subject: There Goes the Republic - Robert Scheer on defense authorization bill
>From: Thomas Scott Tucker <scott at tstucker.com>
>
>
>There Goes the Republic
>
>By Robert Scheer <http://www.truthdig.com/robert_scheer> 
>
>EXCERPT, use link for full text:    
>http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/there_goes_the_republic_20111214/ 
>
>Once again the gods of war have united our Congress like nothing else. Unable to agree on the minimal spending necessary to save our economy, schools, medical system or infrastructure, the cowards who mislead us have retreated to the irrationalities of what George Washington in his farewell address condemned as “pretended patriotism.” 
>
>The defense authorization bill that Congress passed and President Obama had threatened to veto will soon become law, a fact that should be met with public outrage. Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth, responding to Obama’s craven collapse on the bill’s most controversial provision, said, “By signing this defense spending bill, President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in U.S. law.” On Wednesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney claimed “the most recent changes give the president additional discretion in determining how the law will be implemented, consistent with our values and the rule of law, which are at the heart of our country’s strength.” 
>
>What rubbish, coming from a president who taught constitutional law. The point is not to hock our civil liberty to the discretion of the president, but rather to guarantee our freedoms even if a Dick Cheney or Newt Gingrich should attain the highest office.
>
>Sadly, this flagrant subversion of the constitutionally guaranteed right to due process of law was opposed in the Senate by only seven senators, including libertarian Republican Rand Paul and progressive Independent Bernie Sanders.
>
>That onerous provision of the defense budget bill, much discussed on the Internet but far less so in the mass media, assumes a permanent war against terrorism that extends the battlefield to our homeland. It reeks of a militarized state that threatens the foundations of our republican form of government.
>
>This is not only a disaster in the making for civil liberty but a blow to effective anti-terrorist police work. Recall that it was the FBI that was most effective in interrogating al-Qaida suspects before the military let loose the torturers. Under the newly approved legislation, that bypassing of civilian experts will be codified as a routine option for a president. 
>
>As The New York Times editorialized, the bill “would take the most experienced and successful anti-terrorism agencies­the F.B.I. and federal prosecutors­out of the business of interrogating, charging and trying most terrorism cases, and turn the job over to the military.” Not only has FBI Director Robert Mueller III opposed this shift in the law, but so has Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who previously ran the CIA. 
>
>What’s alarming is not just that one pernicious aspect of the defense spending bill, but the ease with which an otherwise deadlocked Congress that can’t manage minimal funding for job creation and unemployment relief can find the money to fund at Cold War levels a massive sophisticated arsenal to defeat an enemy that no longer exists.
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