Well, that’s it then, it’s finally out in the open. George Walker Bush has solidified his place in history as the worst American President, surpassing even the blinding ineptitude of James Buchanan. In fact, the 109th Congress has also secured its place in history as one of the worst to ever sit under the dome. With their help, with the stroke of a pen, the American democratic experiment has effectively ended. And I don’t personally believe that to be too dramatic a statement.
The United States of America, no matter how you’d prefer to justify it to yourself for the sake of your own comfort, is now little more than a police state with the President wielding absolute and uncontested power over Constiutional rights when deemed ‘necessary’, the very document that anyone holding the office of President swears to defend when sworn in.
Probably the best article that I’ve read about the passing of the Military Commissions Act is by Christopher Ketcham (Mother Jones, Harpers, etc). An excerpt…
“I read the Military Commissions Act of 2006 on my shitty little dial-up connection here in the cabin, and immediately went to the pawn shop in Moab and bought another rifle. Five of them now in the stash, plus a couple pistols. Ready enough to arm seven people altogether. Have you read the Military Commissions Act of 2006? I mean, read it through to its poisonous black heart, its implication for our basic freedoms, its tolling that the system of checks enshrined in the Constitution and entrusted to the three balanced branches is gone? That’s extreme language, I know, but it approaches the truth.
The Military Commissions Act was offered by legislators in collusion with the Bush White House to legalize CIA and other government tactics of torture against so-called “unlawful enemy combatants.” For this reason, the Military Commissions Act is now referred to by its critics as the Torture Act. In violation of the Geneva Convention and our own Anti-Torture Statute passed by Congress in 1994 – legislation that makes torture a felony punishable by 20 years in prison – the Torture Act has now “legalized” a mind-shattering array of techniques for gleaning information from the “enemy.” Conveniently, it also pardons ex post facto “our brave men and women” (as George W. Bush describes them) who since the dawn of the “war on terror” have been committing crimes against humanity. The acts of torture now made legal and wholesome include the burning of flesh, the breaking of bones, the placing of needles under fingernails, the tearing of limbs, the disfiguring of faces, and the infliction of general bodily injury that may or may not entail – the fine print of the law isn’t clear, making it all the more nefarious, as fine print always is – the loss of a finger or a toe or a testicle.
This is horrific enough. Upon further investigation of the document, however, one discovers that the enemy is not just the faceless Islamic horde but the American people – unsurprising from a regime, abetted by its legislative branch, that already illegally wiretaps its citizens. According to the Torture Act, any American now can be declared an “unlawful combatant” to be arrested, held indefinitely without hearing or charge or trial, tortured without cease or until such time as hell freezes over. There is no guideline for how the designation of “combatant” is to be made; it simply falls from on high at the whim of the president’s office. This is the secret meaning of the document. The right of habeas corpus, a right as old as the germ of democracy? Gone. Never happened. Confronting your accuser? Sorry. Hearing the charges against you? Not applicable. Right to counsel for a public trial? Forget it. The protections against cruel and unusual punishment? Your hands and feet are tied, pal. Our Congress passed this law, violating its own duty to protect the Constitution. It is now federal law that the Bill of Rights no longer applies.
Our answer as citizens should be clear. You can be paranoid and go out and buy more guns. In the near term, this is probably a bad idea, though it certainly makes freaks like me sleep better at night, knowing there is a vast armed populace ready to defend against its own government. But are Americans really willing to do so? Time will tell. Violent insurrection against the United States by New Yorkers and Ohioans and Utahns together may be necessary at some future point… when the televisions flicker out and the shelves at the Wal-Mart run short. Until then, there are other possibilities. Chief among them, in this vaunted election year, is not voting Democrat. “The problem is that the Democrats are part of the problem,” observes political scientist Paul Craig Roberts here at Antiwar.com. “Democrats, no less than Republicans, have permitted the Bush regime to violate the separation of powers and the rule of law. A branch of government that no longer defends its power is a branch of government that no longer believes in its power. Just as the Reichstag faded away for Hitler, the U.S. Congress has faded away for the Bush administration.”
I never thought that I would become such a proponent of the Second Amendment with regards to the formation of public militias to safeguard against the tyranny of the federal government. But to be honest, maybe it’s time for real Americans to think about unfortunate alternatives. As far as Canadians are concerned, pay very close attention to what is unfolding south of the border in between being spoon fed bullshit American pap on television. Because like good ideas, bad ideas also have a tendency to spread. Just look at Dancing With The Stars.
