Ndaa

[RedSunsZenith]

I've been hearing a lot about the NDAA, and I was wondering what other people on here think about it. Is it as bad as everyone seems to think? Is it worse?

[Arlekino]

What is NDAA mean?

[Krano]

What is NDAA mean?
National Defence Authorization Act which allows the US military to arrest suspected terrorists including US citizens indefinitely without a trial.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

National Defence Authorization Act which allows the US military to arrest suspected terrorists including US citizens indefinitely without a trial.

Basically, its a law that gives the US government power to do what it can already do, except to citizens as well as non-citizens. People are pissed because it was so much better when it was only Afghans, Albanians and Saudis going to Guantanamo Bay or "black sites" and not good, loyal US born and bred folks.

[piet11111]

National Defence Authorization Act which allows the US military to arrest suspected terrorists including US citizens indefinitely without a trial.

Or those supporting terrorism but the exact definition is so deliberately vague that almost everything can fall under this including posting on revleft in support of say the FARC if they wanted it to.

You can be thrown in a military prison without any means to challenge your arrest without legal representation and probably without the outside world ever hearing about it maybe even without ever hearing what charges you are arrested for in the first place.

It makes me think about the disappearances under Pinochet and i have no doubt that is what they want to have as a tool should social unrest spiral out of control.
This piece of legislation creates the legal framework to make this possible and it doesn't matter if Obama will or will not resort to such things the fact he is now enabled to do so is enough to send chills down my spine.

[ckaihatsu]

Also:

NDAA 2012: Is this the beginning of the end?

http://www.revleft.com/vb/ndaa-2012-beginning-t166060/index.html


What comes to *my* mind here, anyway, is if the Obama Administration isn't severely overreaching with this tack it's chosen. Would it be able to get away with what the Bush neocon administration only *wished* and *planned* for, meaning its hit-list of Iran, North Korea, China, etc.

Of course this militaristic trend has been the basic trajectory, anyway, with Clinton getting away with policies that the Reagan Administration only dreamed of -- but in terms of having a mass popular base for escalating aggression and warfare, I just don't see it in the present day compared to the crude war hyping that Bush and the neocons successfully foisted on the public in the first half of the last decade.

If there's *too* much of a disconnect between the powers-that-be and the political sentiments of the populace, then the result is invariably revolts and uprisings, and revolution. The general mood that brought Obama into office was based on hope, not jingoism, and that general mood continues to define the national body politic, even if it's not seeing the actual fulfillment of that sentiment reflected from the White House.

Another ongoing example of banking with insufficient political capital:


Proposed Chicago anti-protest laws to be permanent

http://wsws.org/articles/2012/jan2012/chic-j09.shtml





[...]




BG: What do you think would be the consequences of a war with Iran?

DG: There are all sorts of possibilities. The most obvious one would be the destabilization of Iraq, where Iran has considerable influence. Possibly also Afghanistan, where they have some influence. Iran has been very cooperative with US objectives in Iraq, and to some extent in Afghanistan as well. You could get a re-ignition of the Iraqi civil war. In terms of the longer-term or larger consequences, there is a range of possibilities, including the use of terrorism. The danger of a generalized destabilization is a possibility.

BG: Do you want to say anything about the consequences of the general militaristic policy for democratic rights at home? Obama just signed the defense authorization act.

DG: A basic point of the American system historically has been a high degree of protection of freedom of expression, generally higher than countries such as Britain, with its official secrets act, its libel laws and such. The United States has historically been better than Britain and most European countries in that respect. What we have been seeing in the war on terror is a reversal of that historical tendency. Now one thinks of the period of the war on terror, seeing foreign policy leading to repression at home. With Obama, it is becoming bipartisan.

http://wsws.org/articles/2012/jan2012/gibb-j07.shtml