It is always fun to watch how the leaders of this country can be completely gridlocked on things that help Americans, but when it comes to things that hurt us, they are able to come together and be totally on-board with anything that is said. Recent actions of Congress have shown as much.
The Stop Online Piracy Act was the first big point that was made about this. It would allow the government to censor any site they wanted, under the guise of “preventing piracy.” That means that sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and really any other major social network would be completely at risk, and the sites would start massivel self-policing that would kill us. But we all know that the risk of abuse is so huge that nobody would be surprised when the government just put a damper on any site that they don’t like. For as long as I have been aware, I have seen that they hate the First Amendment, so this isn’t a surprise to me at all.
But now, there is a new Bill which just passed the Senate 93-7. It would effectively give this government the power to extend the same courtesy that we have to those overseas when we take them from their homes and imprison them without trial, for the rest of their lives, and give it to Americans. That’s right, this new bill, the National Defense Authorization Act for the Fiscal Year of 2012 has a stipulation that says -
1031, the statement of authority to detain, does apply to American citizens, and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland.
That was read on the Senate floor by a Republican senator from South Carolina. He is absolutely right. An amendment to this bill would allow for the indefinte detention of American citizens. This should terrify people, outright terrify them. Americans should be sitting at home scared, because if this passes the House, then it will be sent to Obama’s desk. He has said that he will veto it, but since he has shown himself to be a spineless coward, that seems very unlikely.
This is the first real example of how this government is trying to legalize fascism. There cannot be any other viewpoint on this topic. That’s what this is. No trial, no jury, no charge, no nothing. They can take you from your home and put you in a military detention facility for the rest of your life, all while not having to say anything to you, and being allowed to torture you, like we do other inmates.
Fear should be in the air. For the first time in a long time, the government has made very clear that it wishes to have all of us under their thumb. It has been becoming more and more clear with the Occupy movement, but now, it is just becoming the sad twisted version of a bad joke. The joke that we all have control of our democracy, and that we are able to change things. Here is proof, beyond any doubt, that not only doesn’t this government care about its citizenry, but it will do whatever it takes to make them behave.
Imagine the terror when you see your friends and neighbors getting hauled off by military police and you never seeing them again. The idea gives me chills, and it should scare a lot of you. I wish I was fear-mongering here, but that is the stakes that are at play, if our House is just as insane as the Senate, and Obama once-again fails to deliver on a promise.
This is how it works, America. We are given a piece of legislation that is beyond horrible, and the people never get angry, never get upset, never bat an eyelash. They just don’t care. There is no huge amount of outrage. Just blind submission. Me, I’m scared. Look through the bill, and you all will be too. Hopefully, anyway.
Until next time, a quote,
“Obama has said that he’s gonna veto the Bill. He’s gonna come in and save the day. That’s an Obama-promise, so you know that it’s worth, you know, nothing. And hey, if he does, good. But if he doesn’t, that’s also good, because this bill commemorates the day that America stops being like the drunken dad that comes home and beats the wife and the kids, and the day that he instead just gets the shotgun and kills his whole family and himself. Which is good because it relieves such narrative tension for the past ten, twenty years.” -TJ Kincaid, FASCIST AMERICA: Coming Soon?
Peace out,
Maverick
“This is how it works, America. We are given a piece of legislation that is beyond horrible, and the people never get angry, never get upset, never bat an eyelash. They just don’t care.”
That’s the part that scares me. That and the general public’s understanding of patriotism (a.k. a. 90% apologetics, 10% impotent criticism). We love killing the fascists in Call of Duty, love watching them fail in Captain America, but we turn a blind eye to the fundaments of it being laid in our own back yard.
It’s similarly ironic to how we don’t see how fundamentalist Christians are not a scrap better than fundamentalist Muslims they so hate. Same repressive BS, different color.
They don’t see the economic terrorism America has been inflicting upon the world in form of the “world” bank and economic hitmen, don’t see how America has and still is supporting terrorist states and regimes as long as “they’re with America” on certain policies, don’t see why their country should be seen as a savage, “you take an eye, we’ll take your entire heads” state in the eyes of the terrifyed world, when they prefer to call it “peacekeeping”. They don’t see the danger in having a doom-loving, shallow and sensationalist media, don’t see the danger in the tremendous rise of poverty all over the country, or the sub par education children recieve in schools. After all, stupid people are easier to rule, give them an enemy to hate and a flag to love, and let them be happy with that. People are too busy spinning conspiracy theories to notice the level of shit in the cesspit they’re standing in is rising to a dangerous level. Critical voices are absorbed and drowned in the endless mass of BS, every voice can be heard, but no voice seems to matter anymore, as people find it increasingly hard to seperate spew from fact, criticism from hatred and myths from journalism. People no longer even know how to spot half-truths, rhetoric fallacies, propaganda and outright lies from the truth, don’t know how to verify a source or a reference, rely on others to think and act for them. What could possibly go right?
It is the best and the worst of times to live in with humanity. It is the best because our age of information and our technology allows us to live very comfortable lives. It is the worst because it is so easy to drown out voices in the choir in this country. Things are going to hell, but nobody cares. They didn’t care then, and they don’t care now. It’s completely tragic, if you ask me.