Chris Hedges: The Post-Constitutional Era

[marmar]

from truthdig:


The Post-Constitutional Era

Posted on May 4, 2014
By Chris Hedges


The U.S. Supreme Court decision to refuse to hear our case concerning Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which permits the military to seize U.S. citizens and hold them indefinitely in military detention centers without due process, means that this provision will continue to be law. It means the nation has entered a post-constitutional era. It means that extraordinary rendition of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil by our government is legal. It means that the courts, like the legislative and executive branches of government, exclusively serve corporate power—one of the core definitions of fascism. It means that the internal mechanisms of state are so corrupted and subservient to corporate power that there is no hope of reform or protection for citizens under our most basic constitutional rights. It means that the consent of the governed—a poll by OpenCongress.com showed that this provision had a 98 percent disapproval rating—is a cruel joke. And it means that if we do not rapidly build militant mass movements to overthrow corporate tyranny, including breaking the back of the two-party duopoly that is the mask of corporate power, we will lose our liberty.

“In declining to hear the case Hedges v. Obama and declining to review the NDAA, the Supreme Court has turned its back on precedent dating back to the Civil War era that holds that the military cannot police the streets of America,” said attorney Carl Mayer, who along with Bruce Afran devoted countless unpaid hours to the suit. “This is a major blow to civil liberties. It gives the green light to the military to detain people without trial or counsel in military installations, including secret installations abroad. There is little left of judicial review of presidential action during wartime.”

Afran, Mayer and I brought the case to the U.S. Southern District Court of New York in January 2012. I was later joined by co-plaintiffs Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, journalist Alexa O’Brien, RevolutionTruth founder Tangerine Bolen, Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir and Occupy London activist Kai Wargalla.

Later in 2012 U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest declared Section 1021(b)(2) unconstitutional. The Obama administration not only appealed—we expected it to appeal—but demanded that the law be immediately put back into effect until the appeal was heard. Forrest, displaying the same judicial courage she showed with her ruling, refused to do this. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_post-constitutional_era_20140504

[struggle4progress]

1. Poor Hedges evidently can't read judicial opinions with any understanding

The court properly went through the legislative history of the NDAA section in question; found that Congress had been embroiled in a dispute about the current status of the law on indefinite detention as it might apply to US citizens, permanent residents, and persons captured/arrested in the US; determined that Congress had accepted compromise language, not describing the current status of the law, but simply stating that the NDAA did not change the current status of the law on indefinite detention as it might apply to US citizens, permanent residents, and persons captured/arrested in the US; and concluded that the NDAA section in question took no stand on the current status of the law and simply stated that the NDAA did not change the current status of the law

Let us repeat: there is continuing disagreement about the current status of the law on indefinite detention as it might apply to US citizens, permanent residents, and persons captured/arrested in the US; and the NDAA simply said it could not be construed as having any effect on that law

Hedges should be ashamed of himself for promoting this bullshizz

[cantbeserious]

2. Your Opinion Only - Others Disagree With Your Viewpoint

eom

[Cryptoad]

4. Funny,,

how people proclaim failure of the Constitution after the court produce an opinion that they disagree with. Sorry, but the Constitution is fine and working just as it was intended to work. It is you that is the failure. If you disagree with the courts outcomes , you best get off your ass and work harder to insure that more like-minded politicians remain in power. It is those that appoint and confirm court appointees that determine the outcomes of the courts in the future.

[woo me with science]

6. And the drumbeat of propaganda continues.

Seriously. Take a rest.

[cantbeserious]

3. Hedges Has Nailed The Continuing Erosion Of Civil Liberties, Yet Again

eom

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

5. I feel the root of the problem...

Is towards the end of the piece....

"The goals of corporate capitalism are increasingly indistinguishable from the goals of the state. The political and economic systems are subservient to corporate profit. Debate between conventional liberals and conservatives has been replaced by empty political theater and spectacle. Corporations, no matter which politicians are in office, loot the Treasury, escape taxation, push down wages, break unions, dismantle civil society, gut regulation and legal oversight, control information, prosecute endless war and dismantle public institutions and programs that include schools, welfare and Social Security. And elected officials, enriched through our form of legalized corporate bribery, have no intention of halting the process."

This is where our real battle is...

Just my humble opinion.

[KoKo]

9. +1

[woo me with science]

13. Excellent post.

[woo me with science]

7. It's just a goddamn piece of paper

after all...

What a surreal decade and a half it's been. The count of amendments that have been trashed keeps growing, and with it grows the insistence of the propaganda machine that everything is just A-okay in the U.S.A.

[KoKo]

10. +1

[MohRokTah]

8. Hyperbolic rhetoric never helped anything. eom

[BlindTiresias]

11. As usual

Hedges is correct.

[Octafish]

12. Impeach Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, Alito.

If they don't uphold the Constitution, they are worse than crooks nominated by crooks; they are traitors.

[marmar]

14. PM kick

[woo me with science]

15. kick

[WillyT]

16. K & R !!!