National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA)
With the passage of the NDAA, our legislators
overrode constitutional
protections so that Americans who are "suspected" of providing "material
support" to a terrorist organization can be detained
indefinitely on American soil, without access to legal counsel, and without
any charges being filed. Think about this for a minute, you do not even have to
be charged with a crime and you can be locked up indefinitely? What exactly
does "material support" mean? Exactly what is a terrorist? Some states
have actually declared that people who secretly video record animal
mistreatment as "terrorists", even if no property damage was done. If
nonviolent protests can be declared as terrorist acts, it does not take a great
leap of the imagination to see how NDAA might be applied. Imagine if the
government used NDAA legislation against journalists or whistleblowers such as Julius
Assange , Russ
Tice , or even Daniel
Elsberg ? How will we ever know what is happening in a corporate state if
the corporations are successful in indefinitely detaining those who would shed
light on their activities?
This NDAA is another example of dangerous legislation
being passed in darkness. This bill was signed by Obama on December 31, 2011, during
the Christmas break when the media attention would be minimal. In an effort to divide
the opposition to the indefinite detention of Americans, Obama promised that
his administration would never use the provisions. The questions most people
should be asking is: "what is to prevent
any future president or even Obama himself from using indefinite detention, and
if there is no need for concern over this, why was it necessary to make that
signing statement?" Progressive and conservative groups such the ACLU, Gun
Owners Foundation, Tea Party Movement, Institute of the Constitution, US
Justice Foundation, Tenth Amendment Center, Occupy Wall St, and many other groups are joining
forces to fight this legislation. On social media, resistance in the form
of a Facebook group called " Recall
Every Congressman Who Voted for NDAA " has been formed. Now, in
the context of the TPP, think of how useful this NDAA law could be to a global
corporate government in silencing its critics.
Citizens United
Ruling
Americans have long had a sneaking suspicion that there was a "hidden hand" directing our government in Washington and the states, and they were right. The "hidden hand" was actually the corporations, unions, and other self-serving special interests that contribute literally $billions to our politicians in order to influence legislation that will favor them. This has happened even with limits that had been placed on these groups that prevented them from directly contributing to campaigns. Thursday January 21 2010, will go down in history as a dark day. This is the day that a divided Supreme Court, in the Citizens United v. FEC ruling, removed all limits on corporate political campaign spending.
If you thought our politicians were corrupt and beholden to
corporations before, things are about to get a LOT WORSE now that
all limits have been removed. Justices Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas and
Kennedy swept aside decades of legislative restrictions on the money from
corporations in political campaigns and ruled that companies can use corporate
funds to support or oppose candidates. This ruling will certainly take
its place in history alongside other shameful rulings such as Dred Scott v.
Sandford, and Plessy v. Ferguson. These 5 justices opened the floodgates of
unlimited funds to influence elections. The strangle hold the banks have over
the nation's wealth will now be amplified by this Supreme Court ruling now that
all limits on campaign financing by corporations have been removed.
This black day will
go rightly go down in history where the Supreme Court officially validated the
takeover of the government by the corporations. The 2012 primary election cycle
has already seen where approximately 4 dozen people have contributed massively to
the super PACS and decided the outcome of the elections. This type of money
influence will cut both ways regardless of which political party you support.
One donor has stated that he is willing to spend $100 million in this election
cycle. This one single donor "donated" the same amount as 2 million families
sending a check for $50. This type of funding by large donors undermines the
very foundation of our government and creates an environment conducive to
corruption. Now in the context of the
TPP, think of the impact that huge global corporations will have on governments
with their ability to spend unlimited money anonymously.
Corporate domination of media
Media
ownership has now become so concentrated that six corporations effectively
control US media today. These companies are Time Warner, Walt Disney,
Viacom, Murdoch's News Corp, CBS Corporation, and NBC Universal. With this type of concentration, it becomes
very difficult to find diversified news in order to form independent opinions.
One aspect of this concentration is the increasing number of negative political
ads, many of which have no accountability as to their factual accuracy. This
will end badly if we do not stop the media from undermining the foundations of
our election system. This concentration of media ownership allows billionaires
and corporations to ensure that the politicians who will work to pass self
serving legislation favoring these wealthy elites are elected to office.
One
place where the corporate media has not met with great success in controlling
is the independent media on the Internet. Attempts have been made to control
access to it, to create " toll
system " , as well as extreme
copyright rules. We have seen a veritable alphabet soup of acts designed to
enhance corporate profits and limit the flow of information. Some examples
include PIPA ,
SOPA ,
CISPA ,
and it seems as soon as they are knocked down due to public resistance, another
threat arises. For now, the Internet has remained free and a diverse source of
information, but vigilance must be maintained.
Now, think of the effect that the
loss of an open Internet and the
increasingly concentrated media ownership will have on the electorate when
combined with the unlimited funding that the Citizens United ruling allows, as
well as the power that the transnational corporations could gain under TPP.
Increasing Use of
Drones for Domestic Surveillance
The
use of drones for domestic surveillance is becoming more
and more common. The FAA has approved
drones for use over the United States and projects that 30,000
drones will be over our skies by 2020. The EPA is actually using drones to
monitor cattle ranchers in Iowa, police and universities
are using them, and cities
are using drones to keep an "eye on things". New much smaller drones the size of birds and insects
are now in development. These smaller
drones will be cheaper to produce and deploy which will likely raise the 30,000
estimate significantly and will be much harder to detect. Under a government
subservient to the corporations, these drones would effectively be controlled and
"regulated" by the corporations. Can you
imagine the misuse of this technology to violate any privacy we may have left
and to conduct clandestine surveillance?
Militarization of Police Forces
The militarization
of our police forces is proceeding rapidly. After 9-11, the Department of
Homeland Security gave generous grants to police forces across the nation. Some
of the purchases included riot
gear , armored
personnel carriers , and even acoustic weapons for small towns with hardly any violent crime. A nexus has
formed between vendors of military equipment and the nation's police forces.
There are certainly consequences to this militarization of police forces. Once
a police officer is deployed into a situation with full riot gear and military
training, the chances of violence increases significantly even when the
protests remain peaceful. There is significant evidence
of this during the Occupy demonstrations.
The roles of police
and military are totally different. The police are trained to protect lives,
the military is trained to take lives. Consider
how these same military trained riot police would be used when they are under
the effective control of the transnational corporations and how they would be
utilized to silence their critics.
Privatization of
Prisons
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
14
12
6
