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October 25, 2006
This Scary Story is Real
The Tale of the Haunted House and the Military Commissions Act
Forget the skulls, ghosts, witches, and frightening caloric intakes. These days, it takes an act of Congress to get us in the Halloween spirit (so to spook).
How many people paid attention last month as our federal Senators and Representatives, taking direction from the administration, significantly undermined American liberty? I don’t think I’ve seen any of those fake tombstones inscribed with “RIP habeas corpus.” MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann has ranted about it, but most people around here likely have dismissed his warnings as street-preacher ravings. A few bloggers, whose politics range from left to right but all fall above the anti-authoritarian axis, have pounded away at their keyboards in the dark of night and the dank of basement — but these missives are read by like-minded bloggers, and not many else.
No, most people sat around watching TV whilst this treason-tempting power was handed to a president from whose hand we should already be looking to take a few keys. In this way, the public became the very horror-flick bimbo they were admonishing for the 13th time to avoid going down that hallway. Our teen romance — with reality shows, celebrity divorces, celebrity divorcées that dance with chefs, gun-and-baby burning amendments, and gay prayer — has our collective back to the wall, one leg in the air, being clumsily fondled by these distractions while grisly monsters lurch from the shadows to rip out our free American souls.
Oh, I’m being over-dramatic, am I? Consider this: A President (and if you like this one, then just wait) can now declare a person, any person, to be an enemy combatant; and that person, or those hundreds of thousands of persons, if need be, you know, shall be imprisoned without charges, or a hearing about the evidence, and could be subject to torture by domestic or international thugs. What’s more, the law is retroactive some nine years — yes, that’s right — to cover all the times we’ve already done those things to people. (It should be noted that this timeframe extends back to when a different administration was in office. This is not a one-party problem.)
The sad part, many have concluded, is that the government is using and promoting fear in order to usher in this legislation. The terrorists, see, it’s the terrorists. That’s all we are aiming this at — the enemies of America. I’m all for using all lawful means to deal with those who carry out threats against our citizens. But wait: haven’t Democrats, God help ‘em, been labeled more than once as belonging to the vague collection known as “our enemies?” Olbermann had better watch his step, or he’ll be goosenecked in Guantánamo before he knows it. (I have no idea what that means; it just sounded sufficiently creepy.)
Recent legislation has temporarily succeeded in authorizing more than the unconstitutional imprisonment and unwise interrogation techniques, however. For example, the chief executive can, after declaring a state of catastrophe, order (i.e., federalize) a state’s National Guard troops to deploy in another state, for up to a year, and without the consent of either state’s governor. This provision is related to terrorism and military commissions because of Katrin...nah, that’s not it. This catastrophe in and of itself can only be attributed to the incessant drive to consolidate power in the U.S. President’s office. Again, be reminded that your worst-nightmare president could be elected by the zombies around you, this coming round or the next.
But don’t (just) blame a fiendish President and his ghouls. Congress seized election season as if a succulent throat, and drank deeply of the body politic. Our fear and our vulnerability draw them like flies. This isn’t the first, nor will it be the last, demonstration by Congress of its pathetic lust for immortality, but it’s a particularly chilling one. Seven of Tennessee’s U.S House delegation are running for re-election, and one more is running for the Senate. Only U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Nashville, possessed the wherewithal to vote against this bill. (Think about that, Harold Ford fans.)
The perpetrators of these vile acts surely know that their little end run around the Constitution will be reversed in due time. The 1997 effective date itself speaks to that (among other things). Our knowledge of their certainty of this surely raises a howl among at least a few of you. Please, let there be somebody else besides me and poor ol’ Keith Olbermann. And U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, and Tennessee blogger Joe Powell, whose article “Putting Out Fire With Gasoline” was how I found the other two. Tell your elected officials that we know that attacks on our liberty are exactly what the bully element among our terrorist enemies would wish, and that we won’t be goaded by these fears.
[This column appears in the October 25, 2006 Pulse.]
Government , Pulsations | By joe lance | 12:45 PM