The Fourth Reich aka the USA

[RikuoAmero]

So, its been done. Stand up Obama and take a bow! He's just signed into law what effectively turns the United States into the Fourth Reich - the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2012

In case you don't want to bother clicking the link, it transforms America from a democracy into a military dictatorship. Don't believe me? The Act allows the US Military to arrest and detain, INDEFINITELY, any terrorist suspect, without CHARGE OR TRIAL. Yes, that's right, the Military now has the right to go up to you in broad daylight, say "Terrorist!" and chuck you in Guantanamo Bay. It's legalized what's been happening in the Bay over the past ten years. And if you're lucky, the military will give you a trial but only in a military court, not a civilian one.

I thought Obama was alright. Turns out he's the worst fuckin' traitor that the US has ever seen. I remember when he campaigned, he promised to shut down Gitmo. Well, now he wants and has the ability to turn the entire country into Gitmo.

By the way, I don't live in the US. Will never visit it. Doesn't mean I can't still be outraged. With the two most powerful countries in the world now hard line dictatorships (US and China), I am now plenty worried.

[DrumRoll]

Fire the missiles.

[lemmingllama]

Sigh... Well really this just shows that governments are out just to protect themselves. So, anyone up for a cheery round of "lets all come visit lemmingllama in Canada for a really long time?"

[RikuoAmero]

Found this online, and what it says actually makes a lot of sense. I'll just copy-and paste it, and leave the link as well.

"TL;DR The President's opponents played the electorate like a fiddle and will get away with it because people don't seem to realize they've been tricked into being angry at the wrong person.

He signed it because if he didn't, defense spending including benefits to veterans and their families would not have been authorized. The sections of NDAA that many people here seem to have a problem with are sections that were added into the document by primarily Republican legislators and which the President adamantly opposes but was powerless to stop. I'll repeat that: the parts of this bill that many people here hate were included against the President's wishes and in a way that he is powerless to stop. The only way he could have stopped these sections from being included would have been to try to veto the bill in its entirety, a move that would have been both political suicide as well as being futile, as Congress would simply have overridden him. He is explicit in his opposition to exactly the parts of the bill everyone here hates, going so far as to detail exactly which sections he opposes and why.

You'll notice that the bill also restricts his ability to close Guantanamo Bay; this isn't coincidence. These sections are openly hostile to the President's stated mandate - they are effectively a giant 'fuck you' to the President, as well as a nasty way of eroding the President's support with his own base. Observe:

1. Draft legislation that is almost guaranteed to piss of the President but more importantly piss of his base.
   
2. Attach said legislation to another piece of larger, more important legislation like, say, the Defense Spending budget for the entire year so that any attempt to dislodge the offensive legislation will result in a political shitstorm, as well as place the larger legislation in jeopardy.
   
3. Once attached, begin a PR campaign that highlights the offending legislation and brings it to the attention of as many media outlets as possible - not just the traditional media, but alternative media outlets as well (Fox news, MSNBC, Media Matters, Huff-Po, Infowars, etc.)
   
4. Here's where it gets tricky: Simultaneously, speak to both your party's base and the opposition's. To your base, argue that the legislation is necessary to 'Keep America safe' and that the President, by opposing it, is clearly soft of terrorism and endangering the military by trying to strip the legislation out. At the same time, sit back and watch your opponent's liberal supporters tear into the offending legislation as being dangerous, anti-democratic, and a threat to civil liberties. You know they will; that's what they care about most. You've designed legislation that will make them froth at the mouth. You don't even have to keep flogging the message; one look at the legislation will be enough to convince most people that it is anathema to everything they hold dear. Because it is.
   
5. Pass the 'parent' legislation. Doing so forces the President to sign it or attempt to veto it. Since the legislation in question just so happens to be the military's operating budget, a veto is out of the question. The President must sign the bill, you get the legislation you wanted, but you also practically guarantee that your opponent's base will be furious at him for passing a bill they see as evil. Even if he tries to explain in detail why he had to sign it and what he hates about it, it won't matter; ignorance of the American political process, coupled with an almost militant indifference to subtle explanations will almost ensure that most people will only remember that the President passed a bill they hate.
   
6. Profit. you get the legislation you want, while the President has to contend with a furious base that feels he betrayed them - even though he agrees with their position but simply lacked the legislative tools to stop this from happening. It's a classic piece of misdirection that needs only two things to work: A lack of principles (or a partisan ideology that is willing to say anything - do anything - to win), and an electorate that is easy to fool.
   

This is pretty basic political maneuvering and the biggest problem is that it almost always works because most people either don't know or don't care how their political system actually functions. The President was saddled with a lose-lose situation where he either seriously harmed American defense policy (political suicide), or passed offensive legislation knowing that it would cost him political capital. To all of you here lamenting that you ever voted for this 'corporate shill', congratulations: you are the result the Republicans were hoping for. They get the law they want, they get the weakened Presidential candidate they want. And many of you just don't seem to see that. You don't have to like your country's two-party system, but it pays to be able to understand it so that you can recognize when it's being used like this. "

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/nxu96/obama_signs_ndaa_with_signing_statement/c3ctkzz

[CaNzCo]

Riders in general are the most annoying tactics in all of legislation. I am glad that I am not the only one who read the full bill here, and yes, Obama did have his hands tied figuratively.

I also love how everyone immediately attacks the president for laws being passed, yet no one ever looks at the place that establishes them in the first place. USA may not have the best presedent in the world, but our biggest waste of tax money is the congress. It takes an act of god to get these people to do anything other than take bribes, but when something does get passed it looks like that atrocity of a bill.

[Bluenoser]

Sigh... Well really this just shows that governments are out just to protect themselves. So, anyone up for a cheery round of "lets all come visit lemmingllama in Canada for a really long time?"

Assuming of course Harper doesn't make us USA GOP North as has been his agenda for the past quarter century now during this majority government. Not an assumption I am comfortable making given his history to date, especially where it concerns the rule of law and precedents whenever they get in his way. Remember, his is the first PM and government in our history to be found in contempt of Parliament and the reason for it was summed up when he declared that his minority government was superior in power to the Parliament as a whole, which is the exact opposite of how our structure of government/power actually works. The government gets its power/authority from the Parliament as a whole (which is why a majority government is so much like a dictatorship btw) which is elected by the people voting for their individual MPs to the House, it is basic Constitutional law and the way Westminster based Parliamentary systems work. Since he has already shown his utter contempt for that even in a minority, given his decision to close all Parliamentary committee hearings essentially turning legislating into a black hole for the voters (those that actually pay attention to begin with of course), given that his government has seen fit to subpoena a judge over a court ruling to explain himself, given that he refuses to follow the law in his rush to destroy the Wheat Board and placing his government above the law, I wouldn't be thinking we are at all safe from the same insanity which has infected and now dominates the right wing powers within the USA. I really wish it did, but with Harper those powers finally got their foot in the door firmly and I rather doubt they will simply do nothing with it after working so long to get their agent into place.

Seriously dude, Harper is to us what Dick Cheney was for the US and they come from the same core political philosophy, Straussianism. If you don't know what that is all about, look up the name Leo Strauss and follow where that takes you. Cheney and his core people were his followers, and the Calgary School of political thought of which Harper has been a standard bearer is also heavily influenced by the writings of Leo Strauss. Things like the Noble Lie, the belief that only the Elite has any right to have any say about political policy, that the common man should have no say in things, these are core elements of Straussianism, hardly good things for those that claim to care about democratic values now wouldn't you say? Harper is not a Canadian rooted Conservative, not at all, and what is worse his conservativism is one of the more extreme even by American standards let alone Canadian.

I am very worried about how his government is going to corrupt the power structures and rule of law in this country during its time in office, I was always opposed to him because he scared me for abuse of power issues, which I find far worse than simple thievery of tax dollars. I'd much rather someone ripped off the people in the wallet than in the core powers and protections of the law (yes ideally it would be nice/preferred to not be stolen from at all, but lets be real we ARE talking about politicians after all regardless of stripe, those that are attracted to the pursuit of power will almost always have some sort of weakness in their natures when it comes to this sort of thing, for me it always was more was the level of corruption kept reasonable and good government generally speaking provided, that was my measure of good government, the more practical way instead of living with my head in the clouds of idealism). With Harper though we have someone who hates our system of government and our social culture and wants to as much as possible create the right wing extreme GOP model as much as possible into our system of government and use it to condition us into a more acceptable to his notion of us as America GOP North nation and society. He scares me more than any Canadian political leader ever has, I really hope I am overly anxious (I'd be glad indeed if that proves out to be the case) but unfortunately I tend to have a fairly good read on politicians and politics going by my predictions of the past quarter century in both Canadian and American federal politics.

[FuzzyDunlop]

He signed it because if he didn't, defense spending including benefits to veterans and their families would not have been authorized. The sections of NDAA that many people here seem to have a problem with are sections that were added into the document by primarily Republican legislators and which the President adamantly opposes but was powerless to stop. I'll repeat that: the parts of this bill that many people here hate were included against the President's wishes and in a way that he is powerless to stop.

Althugh partly true, I would argue that Obama very much likes the new power he has been granted. Obama was the one who ordered an assassination on a US citizen. Did Anwar al-Awlaki deserve to be assassinated? Well, theres not really much evidence that he is anything other than a middleman. He is not influential, he is just a student who is an outspoken advocate of known terrorists. I do not know of any evidence that he was organizing a plot to attack America. Now, maybe he was, but we will never know, because there was no trial. In other words, Obama assassinated a US citizen without a trial of any sort.

I do not for a second take Obama to be authentic when he puts on a frowny face and says "Gosh darn it I wish I could prevent this from passing". <sarcasm>You know, if only as president of the US Obama was in a position to prevent an American law from passing </sarcasm>. Bush used line-item vetos often, or Obama could have just said to Congress "go the fuck back to work and give me a real bill that doesnt violate the constitution." But he didnt.

And maybe, deep down, Obama knows its wrong. But no Democrat wants to appear weak on terrorism in an election year. Its just politics

[Leviathan87]

the usa has some corrupted people in the government.

[Koby]

the usa has some corrupted people in the government.

I think the same can be said about pretty much any countries politics and government.

[Dan Den]

I think the same can be said about pretty much any countries politics and government.

And you would be right there, pretty much like you said it as long as the country is ruled by a government style way then it is obviously corrupt or power hungry controlling bastards. But I believe why most people hate the USA (not it's people) is it's God style kind of attitude and this new bill just goes to show you that the USA government see themselves as the Gods Of This World. (Death Note)

[lemmingllama]

And you would be right there, pretty much like you said it as long as the country is ruled by a government style way then it is obviously corrupt or power hungry controlling bastards. But I believe why most people hate the USA (not it's people) is it's God style kind of attitude and this new bill just goes to show you that the USA government see themselves as the Gods Of This World. (Death Note)

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. You are completely right, the US still thinks that its the superpower of the world when there are other nations with just as much, if not more, power. Bills like this are just to make Uncle Sam feel good and think that he still has control. However, the US has never been great with diplomacy if the opposing force doesnt agree with them, and so in the world of diplomacy now then they are slowly losing influence and money. Really the USA needs another big war to bring it back up to the head of the pack