My wife can’t stand any of the news of the last few days. More for what it does to me, perhaps, but is it any wonder? I don’t agree with everything Christopher Ketcham writes in this refreshingly brutal essay, but he has both eyes open:
Well, that tears it. I read the Military Commissions Act of 2006 on my shitty little dial-up connection here in the cabin, and immediately went to the pawn shop in Moab and bought another rifle. Five of them now in the stash, plus a couple pistols. Ready enough to arm seven people altogether. Have you read the Military Commissions Act of 2006? I mean, read it through to its poisonous black heart, its implication for our basic freedoms, its tolling that the system of checks enshrined in the Constitution and entrusted to the three balanced branches is gone? That’s extreme language, I know, but it approaches the truth…
…any American now can be declared an “unlawful combatant” to be arrested, held indefinitely without hearing or charge or trial, tortured without cease or until such time as hell freezes over. There is no guideline for how the designation of “combatant” is to be made; it simply falls from on high at the whim of the president’s office. This is the secret meaning of the document. [my emphasis] The right of habeas corpus, a right as old as the germ of democracy? Gone. Never happened. Confronting your accuser? Sorry. Hearing the charges against you? Not applicable. Right to counsel for a public trial? Forget it. The protections against cruel and unusual punishment? Your hands and feet are tied, pal. Our Congress passed this law, violating its own duty to protect the Constitution. It is now federal law that the Bill of Rights no longer applies.
From my perspective, Ketcham’s friggin’ nuts to buy another rifle. He has my sympathy, though, because the above is literally what’s been done. Whether or not some congresspeople voted for it thinking the Court would throw it out is immaterial to me. They did it, and that’s the main thing. I don’t think it’s soaked in yet because it’s so unbelievable. It’s like dragging Old Glory in shit and feeding it to your mother. It’s like giving your kids up for a gang-bang. I can’t find words strong enough, and that’s the reason I feel this not-voting energy for the first time. It really surprises me, too.
P.S. I’m not telling anyone not to vote! — just expressing how I feel. This is my own trip, and it’s not over yet.
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