Thursday, January 19, 2012

the real purpose of this bill is to thwart internal, domestic movements that threaten the corporate state



RT | In the past, journalist Chris Hedges has worked for NPR, The New York Times and the Christian Science Monitor. In his latest endeavor, however, he is teaming up with an unlikely pair: a couple of attorneys that will help him take on the president.

US President Barack Obama is the target of a suit filed by Pulitzer Prize-winner Hedges, and the reasoning seems more than obvious to him. The decision to take the commander-in-chief to court comes as a response to President Obama’s December 31 signing of the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, a legislation that allows the US military to detain American citizens indefinitely at off-site torture prisons like Guantanamo Bay.

Obama amended the NDAA with a signing statement on New Year's Eve, insisting that while the Act does indeed give him the power to detain his own citizens indefinitely without charge, that doesn’t mean he will do so. Specifically, Obama wrote that his administration “will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens.” Under another piece of legislation, however, the government is being granted the right to suspend citizenship of any American if the Enemy Expatriation Act joins the ranks of the NDAA as an atrocious act approved by the president.

“Once again, you just have to be accused of supporting hostilities which could be defined any way the government sees fit. Then the government can strip your citizenship and apply the indefinite detention section of the NDAA without the benefit of a trial,” journalist Stephen Foster Jr. wrote earlier this month of the Act.

In a blog post published on Monday to TruthDig.com, Hedges announces his effort to take Obama to court, and says his team of attorneys will challenge the president over the legality of the Authorization for Use of Military Force, a provision promised under the NDAA.

In his explanation, Hedges says the signing signals “a catastrophic blow to civil liberties.”

“I spent many years in countries where the military had the power to arrest and detain citizens without charge,” writes Hedges. “I have been in some of these jails. I have friends and colleagues who have ‘disappeared’ into military gulags. I know the consequences of granting sweeping and unrestricted policing power to the armed forces of any nation. And while my battle may be quixotic, it is one that has to be fought if we are to have any hope of pulling this country back from corporate fascism.”

Like other NDAA opponents, Hedges addresses in his explanation the issue that vague verbiage throughout the legislation creates an almost open-ended scenario for the government to grab anyone in America and put them behind bars. Instead, rather, the legislation leaves American authorities to go after anyone it can use the Act to attack.

As an international correspondent and world-renowned journalist, Hedges has traveled the globe and says he has been put in some hairy situations. Under the NDAA, he says, he might as well be considered a war criminal in the eyes of America.

6 comments:

nanakwame said...

When these folks get down and dirty against what has happen to black and brown males in the last 40 years then I will believe in this man. The death of the liberal class seems like the whining of the middle class's massmen. Not to say we don't have the wherewithal today to take the mask fully off, but where is the social movement,even if it doesn't come in the same manner? In 1974, the leadership of the PRRWO, did a study on these two question: Will we have another Great Depression and could and how Fascism could come into existence in the US.  I was on the study about fascism. We were correct about stopping Great Depression,as seen in 2007, and we are still correct about fascism. This cry of wolf is concealing the real dangers that are occurring, and of course we were blind then as a group to the Climate/Nature problem. In some ways the Power doesn't need to take the mask off, it has capitulated most of America, and why I am re-reading PKD is he had a better grip on The Empire (growing influence of modern institutions on the persona lives) and the psychic mores' of today.

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/NYPD-Gun-Scanning-Technology-Gun-Detectors-Police-137507933.html 

Makheru Bradley said...

Minister Farrakhan comments on indefinite detention:

http://jessemuhammad.blogs.finalcall.com/2012/01/what-would-elijah-do-minister-louis.html

Tom said...

So Farrakhan isn't taking the (imo) absurd "why should Black people care?" line.  

CNu said...

Farrakhan has his own NOI-limiting issues, but the go-along-to-get-along complacency of the 2nd/3rd line inheritors is not the foremost of these. IMOHO - Farrakhan has struck his own bargain with TPTB - limiting the scope and depth of NOI activities in the U.S. in exchange for unbounded tongue-wagging, tongue-wagging being inherently less threatening than sustainable institution building.

Tom said...

Institution-building-wise, is there anything on the table other than becoming enthusiastic collaborators?  For anyone?  

CNu said...

Tom, I'll hit you up backchannel, you take a look, and then decide for yourself.

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