May 21, 2012, Pretend democracy, meet pretend constitution
I don't know what to make of the Grey Lady's op- ed lamenting an unsuccessful House bill to dial back part of last year's National Defense Authorization Act providing for... wait for it... due process of law (by civilian law enforcement) for Muslims dark-skinned people terrrrrrrrrorism suspects.
The Grey Lady's op-ed rightly lauds a decision from Manhattan federal court Judge Katherine Forrest striking down certain portions of the loathsome NDAA. Good for Judge Forrest. I agree, Still... my problem with the whole tenor of these stories is that, now, ten years after September 11th and the demonstration project known as Guantanamo is that these stories imply a background semblance of "normalcy" of which there's simply no evidence.
The thing with the NDAA is that it changed nothing... it simply "codified" what a series of corrupt court decisions, executive decisions, press collaboration and public complicity in our current status quo of summary executions of citizens, arbitrary detention of "the other," penal servitude and/or supervision of more people than any nation in the history of the world, permanent total war with the entire world, and... you get the picture.
Maybe it's because it's 2012 and we're getting that Apocalypse; maybe it's because my own personal health issues are seemingly unrelenting; maybe it's because my college classmate, the alleged Constitutional law scholar, has done his damnedest to eviscerate any Constitutional protections traditionally thought to be "rights" of his countrymen, presumably in exchange for campaign contributions from the financial sector, which doesn't want its authority questioned (even if its sole hold on power is bribes paid to politicians).
Whatever it is... I'm finding it harder and harder to play along-- play along with the idea that "the election" means anything, or that "the economy" is due for "a recovery," or that anything in our "culture" is worth, well, anything as we seem to have a societal-wide suicide pact working.
Don't know. After a while, one just looks for anything to grab on to, and you realize that what would have made our ancestors happy hundreds of years ago-- family, friends, long-handed-down-stories and cherished avocations ("gardening" comes to mind)-- things, interestingly, that don't involve money, compound interest, technology, energy waste or environmental degradation-- still make us happy. Have to grab onto those, and not pay attention to the "macro," which is... problematic. Oh... and not so... "real"... unlike say, the things that make you happy.
Just saying...