The Daily Reckoning | Monday, December 19, 2011
Do you suppose cows have any idea what’s coming as they’re marched
down the chute? Or do they stare with bovine indifference at the tail
and hind quarters in front of them, until they’re suddenly — and very
briefly — startled by the man with the nail gun?
Perhaps Americans will — likewise too late — ask themselves what
happened in the very near future. Perhaps just after the midnight knock
comes and they are taken away into the night.
It is not an exaggeration.
America is now on the cusp of becoming a state that does exactly such
things — things exactly like the things done by 20th-century horror
shows such as National Socialist Germany or Stalin’s USSR. Literally.
Not “this is where it might lead” or “the tendency is
similar.” Exactly, literally, the same thing. The only difference is
that it awaits being done on a mass scale. But the power to do it openly
— brazenly — has been asserted.
And is about to be sanctified by law.
The National Defense Authorization Act will make it official. It will
confer upon the executive branch and the military (increasingly, the
same things) the permanent authority to snatch and grab any person, US
citizens included, whom they decree to be a “terrorist” — as defined or
not by the executive or the military — and imprison him indefinitely,
without formal charge, presentation of evidence or judicial proceeding
of any kind. These “detainees” will have neither civilian rights in the
civil court system nor — crucially — even the minimal rights to due
process and decent treatment conferred upon prisoners of war. (And we are allegedly “at war,” are we not?)
The language of the bill specifically includes American citizens
“caught” within the borders of the United States — aka, the
“battlefield.” It is claimed by sponsors that only those awful them — you know, the enemies of freedom
the Chimp and his successors like to reference as they systematically
gut our freedoms — need worry. But read the actual document, and be
afraid.
The wording is such that any shyster lawyer for the government will
be able to draw up a memorandum at some point in the near future
equating, say, criticism of the federal government’s policies in the
Middle East with “substantially supporting” the enemies of the United
States. As defined by the United States.
That is, as defined by the government.
At its whim. At the personal discretion of whomever happens to be the
Maximum Leader, or even one of the ML’s duly appointed minions.
As the always excellent Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone
recently observed, what happens when some nutjob who attended a few Tea
Party meetings tries to bomb a federal building? Will the Tea Party
itself — and anyone who “substantially supports” it — be thus
transformed into an “enemy combatant”? How about the OWS protestors? How
about this newsletter or website — and this author — which have on
several occasions called b******* on the federal government’s
usurpations and follies? How hard will it be, really, to describe such
actions — such thoughts expressed in an article or an interview
— as “substantially supporting” whatever the government decides amounts
to “terrorism” or the threat thereof against itself?
Surely, the door is now wide open for such an interpretation by some John Woo or Dick Cheney waiting in the wings. Prospective jefe
Newtie is practically turgid at the prospect of getting his hands on
such power. And there is no longer (or soon won’t be) any legal means
available to contest a one-way trip to Treblinka in Topeka — or wherever
it is they will send you.
Taibbi writes:
“The really galling thing is that this act specifically envisions
American citizens falling under the authority of the bill. One of its
supporters, the dependably unlikeable Lindsey Graham of South Carolina,
bragged that the law ‘basically says…for the first time that the
homeland is part of the battlefield’ and that people can be jailed
without trial, be they ‘American citizens or not.’ New Hampshire
Republican Kelly Ayotte reiterated that ‘America is part of the
battlefield.’”
Graham further stated:
“It is not unfair to make American citizens account for the fact that
they decided to help al-Qaida to kill us all and hold them as long as
it takes to find intelligence about what may be coming next. And when
they say, ‘I want my lawyer,’ you tell them, ‘Shut up. You don’t get a
lawyer.’”
The key thing being…it is entirely up to the government to decide
what constitutes “helping” al-Qaida. It can be nothing more than a vague
assertion. Indeed, no evidence of any kind whatsoever is necessary to “hold them as long as it takes” in order to “find intelligence” (not defined, either) by any means it wishes to employ.
As Taibbi notes:
“If these laws are passed, we would be forced to rely upon the
discretion of a demonstrably corrupt and consistently idiotic government
to not use these awful powers to strike back at legitimate domestic
unrest.”
The Fuhrer (oops, President Obama) is about to sign this latter-day
enabling act, and when he does, it will mark the moment that America’s
coffin is nailed shut. The corpse has been on view since Sept. 11. But
there was always some hope that, perhaps, it might be jolted back into
life. Now we know the awful truth. Death is permanent.
And it’s coming for us.
Regards,
Eric Peters,
for The Daily Reckoning
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