August 3, 2010

The New Normal






The ACLU recently warned that the Obama Administration was in danger of establishing a "New Normal" by continuing with the WORST policies of the Bush administration.

This includes monitoring our internet use, the recent legalization of what was previously illegal wiretapping, and yet another extension of the police-state loving USAPATRIOT act. Guantanamo bay is still open in blatant violation of international law, 9 years after September 11th.

But now, Obama has exceeded Bush in terms of police-state douchebaggery.

The Bush administration never claimed to have the authority to assassinate US citizens.
The Obama administration, however, has.

And the left has largely been quiet about this. Well hopefully, the left will finally wipe the post-election confetti out of their eyes and wake up to what's really going on in their country. With their president.

The ACLU along with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) recently filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration challenging this very claim to authority, on the behalf of the father of an assassination target- and U.S. Citizen.

Or they would have, that is, except for this legal manuver by the US government. From Glenn Greenwald:

...regulations promulgated several years ago by the Treasury Department prohibit U.S. persons from engaging in any transactions with individuals labeled by the Government as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist," and those regulations specifically bar lawyers from providing legal services to such individuals without a special "license" from the Treasury Department specifically allowing such representation."


So it turns out that the Treasury Dept stepped in two weeks after the suit was filed to label Anwar al-Awalaki a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" which one can only assume was specifically done by the Obama administration to block the suit against them, and retain the authority to assassinate US Citizens.

Well, in response to that, the ACLU has filed a suit agains the US Treasury and Timothy Geithner, saying, that the entire thing is insanely unconstitutional-- that the US Treasury has no constitutional authority to designate people as terrorists, that the US Government has no right to deny US Citizens access to a lawyer.

If the ACLU and CCR lose this case, we're going to be living in a nation where the government can legally pick out "problem citizens" and kill them on sight. Which is actually the country we're living in right now.

If this doesn't bother you, if this doesn't send up a red flag in the pit of your soul that says, "this is incredibly fucked" then maybe it's because you've already adjusted your psyche to accept the New Normal.






2 comments:

  1. I agree with what you are saying, but you really, really need to get your head a little farther from the camera. It's an interesting visual effect for a few seconds, but it is so distracting from what you are trying to communicate.

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  2. Thanks for the feedback. I was trying to use my face to hide all the crap in the basement, which I thought would be even more distracting.

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