First murderer, now enslaver?

With Obama's planned signing of the National Defense Authorization Act,we now face the real prospect of Americans being detained without trial, or recourse to legal counsel or even Habeas Corpus.  I personally am not impressed with the tortuous logic that the Executive Branch, and now the Legislative branch have used to justify this heinous abrogation of our civil liberties.


Obama and his advisors are already guilty of the murder, without trial, of an American citizen (Anwar al-Awlaki), so why should a little arbitrary and without due process detention worry him? 


This whole affair reminds me of the Nazi Party implementing "Protective Custody" to incarcerate their undesirables after the burning of the Reichstag .   Then it was Jews, Communists and Socialists, the Mentally Ill and, well just about anyone they wanted to arrest, and ultimately liquidate.  "Good" Germans sat fearfully by, hoping that the terror the Nazis unleashed on their land would go away.  At first they trusted that the aged Hindenburg would stop the madness, and by the time the woke up to the fact he wasn't able to, it was too late.  Literally millions of deaths, a world war, and the complete and utter destruction of their nation (and every adjacent one as well) later, the "good" Germans were able to say they were never against it, and wasn't a shame.


What will it be for us?  As we're in a perpetual and undefined state of war, and the USA is now the battle field, I guess anyone questioning authority and its decisions are aiding and abetting the enemy in a time of war - Treason under Article Three, Section three of the Constitution:  "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."


No, it's time to end this unconstitutional grab at our liberties.  Time to dust of our sacred documents and remind ourselves that Freedom is never free, is always earned through the blood of Patriots, and that a modern society is based on the consent of the people to be governed.  Our Declaration of Independence stated this, Jefferson held that a society requires a new revolution every 20 years or so, Washington that society need be armed sufficiently to retake power from any government, and Franklin held that those who are willing to give up a few liberties to secure their freedom deserve neither security nor freedom.


So, are you a "good" American?  Or one who understands your duty to resist this newest tyranny?  Will you trust the Judicial branch (bought and paid for by the same corporations that bring you this Congress and President) to protect your rights?  Will you sit idly by, watch your big screen TV and give thanks to the consumer gods for all the useless crap that clutters your life and demeans your existence, or will you pay attention and do something about this?


Time will certainly tell - but remember it only took about 6 months in Germany to solidify the power of the police state.


Tick


Tock


If you're not pissed off by this point, you really haven't been paying attention.

Can we create a police state? Yes we can

Can we create a police state?  Yes we can.

The audacity of totalitarianism - the United States is now officially a fascist totalitarian state with the passing, and presumptive signing, of the National Defense Authorization Act, which defines in Articles 1031 and 1032  that the executive branch can label anyone an enemy combatant, including US citizens in the US, and imprison them indefinitely with no right to habeas corpus, no right to counsel, and no right to trial.

So, out the door goes at least 800 years of legal prior precedence (so much for stare decisis), as the Great Writ of Habeas Corpus precedes the Magna Carta (1215) which states “...no free man shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or exiled or in any way destroyed except by the lawful judgment of their peers or by the law of the land.”

One can argue that this was the seminal issue with the nobles' revolt and establishment of the Magna Carta.  And with one deft (well, two if you count the nifty predecessor PATRIOT act) stroke of a pen, Obama will attempt to eradicate 800 years of civil liberty, citing the endless and undeclared war on terror as the reason.  I'd say we should push for a constitutional amendment to rectify this, but it strikes me we already have one which is being blatantly ignored.  (The Fourth Amendment for those of you counting)

This is a patently unconstitutional law, and should be vigorously assailed at every turn.  It'd be a great time to join the ACLU if you don't already belong.

Media Matters or why you shouldn't necessarily believe what you see / hear / read in the media

Much of what we base our opinions on is based on what we read or see in the media.  The topics that are covered, the content and tone of the discourse we're exposed to, all this shapes and influences the perception we have of the world around us, where we perceive there to be good, and where we perceive there to be evil or bad.


The media can be either a great source of diversity of thought and transparency of society, business and government, or they can be shamelessly propaganda.


Our open and free society is based on several tenets, one of which is a diverse and active free press.  A free press is one of the fundamental pillars of a democratic society, and our founders we prescient enough to mandate it in the Bill of Rights in the First Amendment.

John Mayer got it right when he sang:

"And when you trust your television 
What you get is what you got 
Cause when they own the information, oh 
They can bend it all they want"

A diverse and locally based free press leads to diversity of opinion, diversity of views presented.  If this diversity is narrowed or abridged, then we will have less of what makes us free.


Over the past 30 years, even as the venues for the media have increased with the advent of the internet, we have seen an unprecedented consolidation of the channels of information that keep us informed, and keep us free.  The chart below shows concentration of media over an 11 year period from 1993 to 2004, increasing from 50 companies owning 90% of the news and information outlets in the US in 1993, to just 5 in 2004.

Media Reform Information Center

Just what these five mega corporation own is outlined in the chart below - an astounding concentration of power in a few companies. 

Media Literacy, Section 001, Fall 2011, at the University of Minnesota

Links to the media holding of each of these companies can be found here: Media Ownership


With less diversity, and the consolidation of news desks from local offices to regional and then national news desks represents has led to less reporting on local issues, and hence less transparency in government and governmental agencies on a state and local level, as well as to a consolidation of media point of view to a very few individuals.  Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but this means that the leadership of these five companies control what the majority of Americans see of the world - the very information they use to form their world views and determine how they interact with each other and society.


Think about the level of discourse you've personally experienced on TV, or the Radio and how this has changed in your lifetime.  I remember the statesmanly Walter Cronkite, the humorous and irreverent Andy Rooney, the insightful yet acerbic William F. Buckley.  Where have these men and their ilk gone?  They no longer exist, having been replaced by charlatans like Rush Limbaugh and sensationalists like Ann Coulter.  Increasingly, young Americans are relying on comedians for their information from Jon Stewart who professes to NOT be a journalist.


Increasingly what is called news contains shameless product placements and corporate press releases, unedited and unchallenged by increasingly complacent news desks.  With no budgets and pressure from corporate to conform with policies and mandates, even the most committed journalist will be beaten into submittal within a few years, or leave the field with no place to go to.


So when you see the latest images on TV with the corporate narrative behind it, remember that you're being fed what the corporations want you to hear.   And they've increasingly gotten unashamedly blatant about twisting or down right misrepresenting the facts - going as far as to fabricate what they present as truth.


Don't settle for this and complacently act on the drivel you're being fed.  Seek out other sources of information.  Read the Canadian or Australian newspapers every now and then.  Try Russia Times for a laugh and a challenging set of perspectives.  Yes, watch the Daily Show for Jon Stewarts humorous and often cutting view on reality.  And armed with multiple perspectives, then decide on your own narrative.  Because you're being fed shite from the mainstream media which, in its arrogance, doesn't even care what you think because they've realized you don't matter.

A Modest Proposal for the 21st Century

Recently there's been a series of articles going around the internet about a couple that lost their home in Tennessee because they didn't pay a $75 annual fee (the firefighters came to the fire, not to put it out, but to make sure it didn't spread to nearby homes that had paid the fee), and more recently about counties in Georgia that are considering using prisoners to augment their fire fighting departments to save money and make vital services more affordable. (On a separate note, where else but the south would they even consider this - I'm looking for the chain gangs of my youth to return in road maintenance projects soon - I sort of dug the striped duds the prisoners wore.)  Of course, ever the realists (unlike administrators who apparently are the dreamers in this situation), The fire fighters complain that having prisoners would break the community trust as homeowners would worry that the combined group would steal from them.  


Which leads me to propose my own Modest Proposal for the 21st of my own (Jonathan Swift watch out!  Newt Gingrich watch out!)


There's any easy fix to both problems, and to addressing scofflaws in society in general.  Eliminate personal bankruptcy completely, and reinstitute debtors' prisons - if you can't pay your credit cards, you go to a debtor institution where you're afforded an opportunity to work off your debt.  The prison would act as a job referral agency, matching scofflaws with value added work in the community, potentially including firefighters.  After paying a modest charge for lodging, security, meals, and administration (say $80 or $90,000 a year), anything the debtor earns above this would be applied to first the accumulating interest on their debt, and then to their debt.  Eventually they would be debt free, and have learned some real market valued skill sets they can apply in the geriatric ward upon their release.


This is a really exciting concept, we could return the concept of legal inter generational debt obligation (as a child of a scofflaw it is your responsibility to pay of the debt as well), and afford the children of debtors the opportunity to learn real, viable, job skills.  None of these namby-pamby liberal arts learnings like music or fine arts (who hires these folks anyways - it's just a poor decision and we should protect them from making it) - no, the children could learn to be janitors like Newt Gingrich is proposing (he's so my hero for this fine, well thought out suggestion, except I worry as a modest proposal it might outshine mine).


The economic benefits of this are astounding.  


First - Debtors have a chance to pay off their debts, rather than living with the crushing reality of never being able to pay for all the stuff they bought with the credit cards they never should have had.


Second - Industry has an opportunity to hire skilled, low cost labor to become competitive with overseas slave societies like China or India. 


Third - the youth of our country could learn real, salable job skills through on the job training.


Fourth - Banks could sell the past due debt to these Debtor prisons, and the individual be incarcerated with I believe only an administrative procedure - no more expensive bankruptcy filings clogging our court systems and draining pubic funds unnecessarily.


I could go on, but you get the point.  The concept is brilliant, timely and resolves many of our deeper societal issues by reinstating accountability for your actions into the equation.


You must admit this is a great idea, - this Modest Proposal for the 21st Century.  Join me in writing your Congressman (chose the one most funded by the prison industry, they'll listen because they know which side of the toast is buttered) to demand a return to debtors prisons as a way to solve our competitive issues and address the lack of moral values that have evolved over the past 40 years.