Well, I devoted about five minutes this morning watching Mitt's Wife, dressed in blood red, give her speech at the Repug Convention about "love." This she did standing before a backdrop of super-enlarged photos of her and Mitt at their wedding, and others of Mitt dating back to his youthful glory days as a bully of gays and other outsiders. That was about all I could handle without breaking out the booze, and since it was a little early for that, I chose to brave it without.
Big mistake. Five minutes in, I could no longer stifle the wretch urge. I tore myself away from the computer and fled, not even pausing at the bathroom, but stumbling out into the yard--almost tore the screen door off its hinges. Luckily, the urge passed. But then, I turned and saw--horror of horrors--my innocent little kitty sitting outside the window, staring--zombie-like--at the computer screen, as Mitt's Wife blathered on about how she knows all those homeless and jobless people Out There Across America, those poor working mothers, the single dads Out There, working extra hours, and feels their pain. The camera kept cutting away to show the audience of true believers watching her, dewy-eyed--like a legion of zombies--the living dead!
"No! No!! Poor little kitty, don't look!" I shouted, as I bolted across the yard intending to yank her away from the window. But--too late! Before I could get to her, to slam my hand in front of her eyes, I watched her head droop slightly, her rib-cage start to oscillate, like a bellows. Then--oh, the horror!--the poor creature began heaving up on the porch, spewing projectile lumps of yellow curd and bile all over the window. Poor stupid dumb animal! Sick, frightened little beast! She should have known better, I guess. But how? How can you tell a kitty not to look at something? (Go ahead, try it sometime.) Oh, how could she possibly know not to watch anything so obscene, vile, and horrible? Alas, we cannot always shield our little innocent ones from all the smarmy, feckless, dung-slinging deceivers.
I tell you this in hopes that you will spare yourselves this gruesome experience. Whatever you do, don't watch ANY of it! Turn away! Divert your eyes from the screen! Believe me, I know. I lived through it. My cat barely survived. Even now, the poor dazed wretch is sprawled on the porch, her red eyes staring listlessly. . .at nothing. Sweet bleeding Jesus!
I won't let her watch the Obama convention either.
Outside the Balkans, the assassinations made the headlines for a few days, then dropped from sight. In England, the early summer of 1914 was warm and bright, perfect for tennis at Wimbledon and for the upcoming Henley Regatta; the cloud that threatened to spoil everything was the growing likelihood of civil war in Ireland. The Continent seemed far off. It was "difficult to discuss foreign affairs freely," said one member of the House of Commons, "when our home affairs were in such a particularly evil plight."
--Adam Hochschild, TO END ALL WARS, p. 81-2
Empires have come and gone; and after reaching their moment of pomp, they begin scratching in their death cycle, demanding more life blood as the end draws near. There were the Balkan wars of 1912, in the midst of the military rivalries: and in higher circles and even casually in public, there was talk about the General War in Europe that so many thought was inevitable, simply a matter of time.
At the outbreak of the First World War, Britain and France had a defense pact with Czarist Russia, but not much else in common with Russia, politically. The Central Powers stood against them: Germany and the Austria-Hungarian Empire. But some young Bosnians, organized by a Serbian Colonel of the Black Hand secret society, were being trained in their country as terrorists, and sent along to Sarajevo; and they arrived in Serbia on or about June 28, 1914, to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Austria-Hungarian heir to the throne.
Gavrilo Princip, standing just off the street, suddenly saw his opportunity; and when the car carrying Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, stopped after making a wrong turn, Princip sprang up, leveled his pistol, and shot them both.
As Adam Hochschild goes on to observe in his new history, TO END ALL WARS:
If the Archduke and his wife had not been assassinated, might the war have been avoided? Possibly, but given Austria-Hungary's impatience to crush Serbia and Germany's ambitions to dominate Europe, it is hard to imagine a conflict of some sort not taking place--not when we listen, for example, to the Kaiser, at a court ball in 1913, pointing out the general designated "to lead the march on Paris," or asking, fruitlessly, two successive Belgian kings for the right to begin that march through Belgium, or when we read General von Moltke, in 1915, writing to a friend about "this war which I prepared and initiated."
Syria is under attack by foreign powers, in order to complete a process of softening up the battlefield, to open the way for war against Iran. The economic weapons are used first, followed by covert attacks, such as the recent assassinations of Iranian scientists, followed by an outright aggression against Iran's ally, Syria. And then, when the protections of the alliance are down, Iran will be attacked directly, and severely.
The real crisis, for the current Syrian government, is that it is up against an insurgency that is receiving communications and diplomatic help, as well as money and arms; and it has to cope with mercenary and jihadist soldiers entering the country, which is the most troubling aspect of foreign interference. Russia and China are opposed to direct military intervention and have vetoed Security Council Resolutions that might be used to depose the government by force.
Incredible as it seems, American officials have justified the recent terrorist explosion in Damascus, that killed senior Syrian cabinet officials; and they have further declared a willingness to assist, and arm, religious extremists; if that's what it takes to bring down the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. A statement out of the Council of Foreign Relations, praising the discipline of al-Qaeda, followed this! This could have been predicted in Tripoli, where the final result for Libya was possible only through sustained rounds of NATO bombing and air support,--with an assist from Qatari irregulars, Saudi money and arms, and the Special OPS. And not long after the dust settled, they moved on; and Syria was lined up as the next target.
The US doctrine of dominance is dangerous; if it means setting up missiles on Russia's border, that can be used for a first strike decapitation of their government; also announcing historic future expansion of US Naval Forces into Asia, pushing into China's sphere of influence. All of this will be happening at the end of a long process in which the Empire destabilizes and topples governments, like it did to Libya and possibly will Lebanon,-- playing out its hand of economic war and covert war already underway against Syria and Iran.
The struggle over Syria, in 2012, is connected to something else besides the good or evil, or mixture of good and evil, that is President Bashar al-Assad. And the Syrian president has his side of the story. After a serious international incident, in which shore batteries shot down a Turkish jet, which was alleged to be in Syrian air space, there was an international conference in Geneva; and not long afterward, the national broadcast on SANA featured a Turkish journalist who interviewed Assad:
Journalist: I don’t know, Mr. President, if you followed Clinton’s statement in the press conference in which she said that she understood from what Kofi Annan said that President al-Assad should go. How did you understand what Clinton said?
President Assad: For us, what American officials say has no credibility in general. Second, the American position is already hostile to Syria in this crisis. They are part of the problem. They support the terrorists very clearly. That’s why we are not very interested in what this or that official says during this crisis.
[...]
Journalist: There was talk in the Geneva conference yesterday about a transition in Syria, with or without President al-Assad, and about internal, regional and international demands that should be implemented in order to complete the reform process. What is your position in that regard?
President Assad: Regionally and internationally they have nothing to do with us. We do not accept anything imposed on us from the outside. Everything will be decided internally. If I personally were interested in just holding this office, I would have implemented America’s dictates and the demands made through petrodollars, I would have accepted to sell my stances and principles in return for petrodollars, and what’s more important, I would have accepted the installation of a missile shield in Syria. --Cumhuriyet
US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, had struggled to put words into the mouth of UN peace envoy, Kofi Annan; but no one was fooled. And yet now, in the record heat of mid-August, there is much more to worry about because war fever in Israel seems to have a grip on the leaders: the obsession or urgency for crushing Iran soon, whatever the US president's inconvenience around election time.
George Galloway warns that we are on the eve of destruction. "Crusader intervention and occupation of Arab land" is unacceptable; and sectarian division that pits one religious faction against another is unacceptable; and these are the instruments of violence the empire is using to weaken the people. It is important to admit that the original uprising had every right to rebel against Assad; but they rejected foreign intervention, especially if it meant salafists, or al-Qaeda, or other mercenaries, might destroy the one thing that was best in Syria. The isolation of Iran, and the unending threats of war against it, are the costs to that country, for simply standing up to outside domination, and refusing to surrender to what Galloway calls "the big pirates, the big tyrants".
It's a surreal empire, where as many US soldiers are committing suicide as are being killed in the nation's wars. And a republican candidate for president recently ran on the promise to attack Iran, if elected.
Gideon Levy, the Israeli journalist, warns about the "Escalating Talk of a Military Attack on Iran" going around Tel Aviv at this moment. Levy was interviewed Wednesday, on DemocracyNow!
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Gideon Levy, before we conclude, is it the case that it’s been reported that a majority of Israelis are opposed to any Israeli action against Iran at the moment?
GIDEON LEVY: No, it changes. The public opinion here is quite brainwashed, like in any other place, and things start changing. It depends how you ask it. There was another poll which showed that, I think, 47 percent of the Israelis are already in favor of an preparation, that over 50 percent believe that if Iran will have nuclear weapons, this means a second Holocaust for Israel. I mean, I wouldn’t go for this, because there is so much information, misinformation in the media that people are really confused and people can be shaken very, very easily. The matter of fact is that almost the entire military and defense establishment of Israel, the present one and the former one, is united in opposing an attack in this time. But still, the decision makers—mainly two, the prime minister and the defense minister, Barak—seem to be very, very devoted to do something.
For 14 hours yesterday I was at work--teaching Christ to lift his cross by numbers, and how to adjust his crown; and not to imagine he thirst till after the last halt. I attended his Supper to see that there were not complaints; and inspected his feet that they should be worthy of the nails. I see to it that he is dumb, and stands at attention before his accusers. With a piece of silver I buy him every day, and with maps I make him familiar with the topography of Golgotha.
--Wilfred Owen, (letter to Osbert Sitwell, July 4th, 1918)
When I sing about love and war I don't really know what I'm saying I've been in love and I've seen a lot of war Seen a lot of people praying They pray to Allah and they prey to the lord But mostly they pray about love and war Pray about love and war I've seen a lot of young men go to war And leave a lot of young brides waiting I've watched them try to explain it to their kids And seen a lot of them failing They tried to tell them and they tried to explain Why daddy won't ever come home again. Daddy won't ever come home again I said a lot of things that I can't take back But I don't really know if I want to There've been songs about love I sang songs about war
Since the backstreets of Toronto I sang for justice and I hit a bad chord But I still try to sing about love and war Sing about love and war The saddest thing in the whole wide world Is to break the heart of your lover I made a mistake and I did it again And we struggled to recover Then I sang in anger, hit another bad chord But I still try to sing about love and war I've been in love and I've seen a lot of war Seen a lot of people praying They pray to Allah and they prey to the lord But mostly they pray about love and war Pray about love and war.
The current argument between Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney over Rom/ObamaCare is nothing but a smoke-screen, a fog that, unfortunately for the country, avoids what should be the real discussion: what a boondoggle this healthcare bill will be for the insurance companies, when the only thing that makes sound economic sense is Medicare for all. The President knows this, of course, even if Romney doesn't. But by targeting his opponent as the original champion for this fraudulent law, the President is merely pointing out how thin the difference really is between these two corporate shills now competing for the title of White House Occupant.
"There is no terrorism like state terrorism." --Arundhati Roy
"...The United States government is now structured so that, like an automobile needing gasoline, it needs war in order to function, in order to operate and be fueled. It's really, I think, best thought of as this insatiable beast, that needs as its primary nourishment, continuous war." -- Glenn Greenwald, Boardman Lecture (22 March) (my bold)
We have come further along now to the demise of democracy, with the gradual erasure of constitutional rights, rubbing out one piece and then another; while a charismatic African-American president just adds further irony to the loss. He alone is not responsible; but is assisted by his own party; and also prevails with a nod from his republican adversaries in Congress. We wanted to turn to someone like Obama, in 2008, who spoke of law and respect for our rights under the Constitution; but whatever we might have expected of him, he didn't really curb state terror and lawlessness.
In his speech of last month, Greenwald starts with some fundamental ideas from military historian, Andrew Bacevich: America is currently in a state of endless war. And war is no longer one of the practical instruments of foreign policy;--nor is it a means by which the policy is pursued,--so much as it has become "a foreign policy goal unto itself."
And Greenwald warns us that Obama has taken the abuse of power further than Bush dared:
The most tyrannical power that any government can possibly assert, which is the power to target its own citizens for execution far from any battlefield, without a shred of due process or transparency;--that's a power that the Obama administration has not only claimed for itself,--but now publicly justified, and in the case of Anwar al-Awlaki, exercised.
You cannot conceive of a more tyrannical power than the power to kill American citizens without due process.
But how can we be sure the persons (even US citizens) that the president wants to assassinate now without any due process at all, are really guilty? They haven't been afforded real trials. How do we know if those assassinated were really affiliated with al-Qaeda?--if they were involved with "associated forces"?--or with those "belligerent" to the US? They could have been framed by some malevolent faction in their country, or condemned by faulty intelligence.
Obama's Attorney General, Eric Holder, got especially squeamish when reporters repeated the term, "targeted assassination"; for as he sees it, a real distinction applies; and he went on to say that "targeted killing"was the right way to describe it. Nothing to worry about. Killing is normal government business; assassination, on the other hand, would be illegal.
Aren't American values just a twisted mutation after all this? The Attorney General thinks that secret life-or-death deliberations over the fate of an accused citizen, and the subsequent decision to carry out execution, and soberly assassinate/kill the person, is quite the normal thing to do. Eric Holder goes on the record, to add that executive due process requires no component of judicial due process. However, the founders of this country wrote due process into the Constitution; and they wrote it with no uncertain words, to include judicial due process as part of the rights of the accused.
Obama has signed terrible bills into law, voicing only some anemic words of protest. The NDAA, for example, which allows for the military to arrest US civilians on the "Homeland Battlefield", if it comes to that: and this new power permits indefinite detention of American citizens, when the president has a mind to declare an emergency.
"Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed". Remember those words?
But to come back to the question of state terrorism, John Pilger writes:
Remember the tear-stained headlines when Brand Obama was elected: "momentous, spine-tingling": the Guardian. "The American future," wrote Simon Schama, "is all vision, numinous, unformed, light-headed ..." The San Francisco Chronicle's columnist saw a spiritual "lightworker [who can] usher in a new way of being on the planet". Beyond the drivel, as the great whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg had predicted, a military coup was taking place in Washington, and Obama was their man. Having seduced the anti-war movement into virtual silence, he has given America's corrupt military officer class unprecedented powers of state and engagement. [...]
On 5 January, in an extraordinary speech at the Pentagon, Obama said the military would not only be ready to "secure territory and populations" overseas but to fight in the "homeland" and provide "support to the civil authorities". In other words, US troops will be deployed on the streets of American cities when the inevitable civil unrest takes hold.
America is now a land of epidemic poverty and barbaric prisons: the consequence of a "market" extremism which, under Obama, has prompted the transfer of $14 trillion in public money to criminal enterprises in Wall Street. The victims are mostly young jobless, homeless, incarcerated African-Americans, betrayed by the first black president. The historic corollary of a perpetual war state, this is not fascism, not yet, but neither is it democracy in any recognisable form, regardless of the placebo politics that will consume the news until November.
The political class, riding on the inflatable US Empire, puffed up near to bursting, on petrodollars of uncertain worth, looks to be increasingly agnostic on the question of democracy. When their bosses (not us, but the 1%) demand their compliance, these politicos jump where they are told to jump. And it seems they are corrupt, operating with an indifference to human suffering, oriented in terms of the rewards they will reap for loyalty and their years of faithful service to the looters, embezzlers, and the officer class, and the defense lobby and war profiteers. When push comes to shove they are indifferent to democracy. The world according to decree is alright with them.
Dick Cheney's long-nurtured vision of the "Unitary Executive"is quite in style now in Obama's White House. Though this could be impeachable, or criminal on the face of it; the Defense Chief, Leon Panetta, nonetheless caused Senator Sessions some dismay, when the senator questioned him about where the administration would go, in order to find the legal basis for going to war. Panetta's evasive replies were aimed at avoiding the sticky issue--that is--the legal responsibility of the president to consult with Congress and obtain congressional approval, before going to war.
The aloof Defense Secretary was unconcerned about the senator's concerns, and less than concerned himself, about coming to Congress, in order to establish a legal basis for going to war; although he took pains not to say so directly. The administration believes it has the authority, in and of itself, to decide which nation it attacks; and this is based on its conviction that it knows best how, and when to defend the United States. As far as the basis of legality was concerned, that would arise, Leon Panetta said, from the consensus of the "international community" or our NATO allies.
Senator Sessions might have been wondering if our president, a constitutional scholar, had known better than to ignore Congress when he ordered the bombing attacks on Libya--that went on for months--without ever bothering to establish a legal basis for war. But Sessions wasn't about to challenge the administration with that question.
Yes indeed, there's a beast already loose in this land. It extracts wealth and resources from people who can't defend themselves; and this same beast has been exporting misery and hideous violence to foreign lands for as long as any of us can remember. It runs on insatiable greed. It's been busy for decades with its obscene work: seeing to the dismantling of democracy, hammering on public education, corrupting information; and all the while pretending to make us safe. Hypnotizing us with its endless military bullshit. It's no problem for the beast to rummage through our computer disks, our financial and medical records; nothing to do but infiltrate our political life with spies and hostile agents who try to sabotage peaceful change. Even the word, peace, has been evicted from our political vocabulary by this beast.
Speaking for the beast, Panetta's responses in the US Senate signaled the true apotheosis of imperial power; and not just its supremacy, but what the word signifies, the real deification of this kind of power: murder premeditated in secret, and carried out by executive decree.
The Repug campaign has taken on all the aspects of a carnival nightmare, complete with gargoyles, spooky clowns, and a musical sound track by Saint Saens or Maurice Ravel. As I watch it unfold from day to day, the one thing about it that I look forward to is its shock and awe quality as a perversion of entertainment--its appeal to the baser instincts.
It's as if the entire American audience is massing nightly to witness a hideous traffic accident, to applaud and cheer at the sight of crunched metal, smoke and fire, severed limbs and decapitations. Thus, as one after another candidate breathes his or her last gasp and drops out, having spent millions for a brief star performance in what appears to be less a presidential campaign than a Jerry Springer reality show, I can't help but feel a little--how can I say it?--a little let down. A sinking feeling, like watching the air leak out of a cut tire. First Michele Bachman, now Rick Perry. Romney may be next. Gosh, I'm gonna miss all those crazy loons. But hey, Santorum's still in. And Ron (Let 'em die) Paul--God bless him! And look--is that Herman Cain peeking up from the swamp? Bless you, Stephen Colbert. There's hope for this thing, yet. But I do wish Trump would come back. At least Donald knew what it was really all about.
Meanwhile, it seems that Facebook is making people sad. Yes, it's true. According to some university studies--one from Stanford, for instance--people who spend a lot of time on Facebook tend on average to be unhappier with life and have a vague sense that life is not fair. Gee, I'm not on Facebook, and somehow I already knew that life wasn't fair. Well, I guess the Facebook people are not looking at life in quite the same way that I am.
At any rate, it seems that the more time one spends looking at hundreds of one's friends, near-friends, pseudo-friends, friends from the past, friends from the future, associates and pseudo-associates, one begins to get depressed. The reason for that is that finally, one can only take so much of: "Gee, look at me, look at my smiling face, look how happy and successful I am. See me playing, see me with my dog, see me on vacation, dining out, partying down with my friends, living it up. See me, see me, see me. . . ." The whole thing it turns out apparently gives off a false impression. So you begin to compare yourself. You begin to feel less happy and more like a miserable, pathetic excuse for a human being, compared with all those legions of leering grinning people. The same study showed that those who actually spend time with other real people out in the world, instead of vicariously sucking up pseudo-friendship on the web, tend to have a happier, or at least, a more realistic outlook on life.
he wasn’t dead yet
but he would die just a few hours later
after I left
after I sat there looking him over
feet gnarled from old frostbite
swollen ankles, those hobbled legs
and skin like wax paper colored by the quitting
of his liver—
and he quit that broken body broken by booze
on the seventh day of October
just a few days after the cold rain had finally begun to fall
Harley said he was there when Joe collapsed
so he waved down a cop
who brought the ambulance to take him along river Clark Fork
away from the streets he slept on
to at least have the dignity of departure
washed and laid out on soft fabric and plush drugs
his sea of blood leading slowly to that stillness—
the dark October clouds outside the window—
Joe knew he was drinking down death
but he honored certain codes
and though proud of hustling, insisted no cussing
during business hours because (he told me once)
there might be kids around
the local paper would call him transient and
be done with him
this local poet says fuck that, his name was Cock-Eyed Joe
and I hope he finds peace beyond
because there is none here
There is no proper farewell that can be said to the people of Iraq that would not announce reparations, that would not include expressions of remorse, along with an admission of crimes committed and wrongs done by the US military. President Obama's official ceremonies marking the end of the war were occasions for broad smiles and declarations of unqualified success.
What was begun with bravado and a disregard for the deaths and suffering of Iraqi civilians, has ended with the same superficial rhetoric, the same military preening, the same myths, the same contrived proofs to justify the war and its horrible toll of torture, grief, maiming and killing. Perhaps a permanent war economy is what Obama and the US Generals meant by using the word, success.
This kind of war spreads beyond Iraq, with constant adaptations and a fluid concept of enemy; with its battlefield declared to exist almost anywhere, including our own country; and this is what has made possible the militarization of our whole society. The legacies of our presidents are intrinsically arranged by making war and have their origins in violence. Neither George W. Bush nor the current president, Obama, is to be satisfied with the destruction of one foreign country only, or the deaths of thousands upon thousand of innocents, or the bombing into rubble of works built by the labor of generations. And governments are their targets: some of these are changed, others erased. And the societies are ordered to conform, or else face chaos and disintegration.
The horror of Fallujah doesn't bother "no shock" Obama, as it didn't bother Bush; not the dogs howling during the attack, nor the smell of death saturating the city, a place described after the siege as "a city of ghosts". Bedridden invalids, white-haired husbands and wives, were shot to death in their beds. Families were machine gunned while trying to swim to safety. Boys were denied the opportunity to flee the city with their parents because, for the sake of revenge, the Americans had marked them for death; and one of the young ones was photographed dead, lying face up on the sidewalk, still clutching in his right hand the white handkerchief, with which he tried to surrender.
These wrongs to which we are all answerable cannot be evaded, they cannot be covered over with bluster or national piety; and we remain responsible for holding our leaders responsible.
Chris Floyd is eloquent as he writes about this, and comes directly to the point:
[President Obama] spoke of suffering, he spoke of sacrifice, he spoke of loss and enduring pain -- but only for the Americans involved in the unprovoked war of aggression, and their families. He did not say a single word -- not one -- about the thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of Iraqis killed by this "fulfilled mission," this "extraordinary achievement," this" success." These human beings -- these sons and daughters, fathers, mothers, kinfolk, lovers, friends -- cannot be acknowledged. They cannot be perceived. It must be as if they had never existed. It must be as if they are not dead now.
The divorce from reality here is beyond description. It is only the all-pervasiveness of the disassociation that obscures its utter and obvious insanity. There is something intensely primitive and infantile in the reductive, navel-gazing, self-blinding monomania of the American psyche today. Think of the ancient Greeks, who constructed their psyches and their worldview around an epic poem, the Iliad, that depicted their enemies, the Trojans, with remarkable sympathy, understanding and insight -- while depicting their own leaders as a band of shallow, squabbling, murderous fools. Here was a moral sophistication, a cold-eyed grasp of reality -- and a level of empathy for one's fellow human beings -- far beyond the capacity of modern American society, and infinitely beyond the reach of the murderous fools who seek to lead it.
Democracy and empire cannot coexist. By the time the plutocrats took control of Ancient Rome, they too had stopped paying taxes, and destroyed the republic in pursuit of their selfish aims. They too were intoxicated with the plunder, the profits of military exploits, the pure rapine, the sights of destruction and submission in the Colosseum , the lust of the eye. In the 21st Century, the financial terrorism we are seeing is about constructing obedient and submissive subjects; and it, too, is war waged by other means. This financial malevolence is not only tolerated by our political class but also facilitated by them, because they are willing to sell their services and betray the people. They and their masters have no moral compunctions; and will not hesitate to use war, state terrorism, and financial anarchy, to make slaves of the rest of us.
Our country failed in Iraq. Our leaders told lies about the reasons for going to war. And we were defeated in Iraq because we fell into depravity in that country. And to not be clear in our minds about that war's depravity, is both unacceptable and dangerous, because it invites a deeper defeat.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich sounded alarms last week, concerning the National Defense Authorization Act that passed through Congress, and was handed to President Obama, to sign into law:
This bill authorizes permanent warfare anywhere in the world. It gives the president unchecked power to pursue war. It diminishes the role of this Congress. The founders saw Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which places in the hands of Congress the war power, as essential to a check and balance against the executive abuse of power. This legislation diminishes Congress’ role in that regard.
This legislation authorizes the military to indefinitely detain individuals without charge or trial, including the detention of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil. In short, what this bill does is it takes a wrecking ball to the United States Constitution and gives enormous power to the government or the state. I want friends on both sides of the aisle to understand this; we are giving the state more power over individuals with this bill. It’s the wrong direction.
Our children deserve a world without end, not war without end.
