With $662 billion for military, indefinite detention for all

Source: Guardian Bradley Manning hearing -- live updates

Honor Bradley Manning today on his 24th birthday -- his second in custody -- by calling the White House message line to register your outrage at the passage of the worst annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) ever. Number to vent your spleen: 202-456-1111. Why not also call Congress while you're at it? 877-429-0678.

No one in either place cares what you think, but it may possibly relieve some of the intense anger you feel in response to habeas corpus being legislated away under the false pretense of making you safer. It's icing on the cake to have it signed into law by a faux constitutional law professor the 1% hope to scare you into voting for come November. Hey, Obama didn't invent indefinite detention. It's been in place since the outset of the war on terror.

NDAA  also approved expenditures of $662 billion for military, including wars, next year. Polls indicate most Americans don't want war against Afghanistan, didn't want the U.S. doing business as NATO to attack Libya, and don't want more than about 6% of their taxes being spent on the military in any case. Current spending on military constitutes 57% of the pie. What's wrong with this picture?

source: Waterville Morning Sentinel

Of course the outrage over continuing to make defense contractors obscenely wealthy while cutting funds for heating assistance, medical care, and food for the nearly 50% of U.S. residents now living below the official poverty line got muted by the civil liberties issue tacked on to NAAA.

Indefinite detention for all at the whim of the military, or perhaps with some power retained by the president selected by leading campaign contributors, alarmed the few who were paying attention. The Democrat party loyalists pretended to believe Obama would veto it. Now they will probably pretend that his hands were tied and he couldn't veto it. Just like they pretend Democrats oppose gutting social programs even as they agree to do so.  These people are like abuse victims who make excuses for the abuser and return to him again and again and again. Some of them grow quite nasty lately as they can feel the 99% slip away from even a whisper of belief in the false dichotomy Punch and Judy show that national  electoral politics have become.

So let's not pretend that our voting or our phone calls do anything significant to resist the shredding of the constitution, or the bankrupting of the U.S. taxpayer on behalf of Lockheed Martin, et al.

The whole system would grind to a half in an instant if the 99% simply stopped cooperating to uphold it.

Whether they realize it or not, is another matter.

So here's what I'm going to do after making those futile calls. I'm going to get with others that are as concerned as I am, I'm going to listen to their ideas, and I'm going to do my homework on the effective use of nonviolent methods (Gene Sharp documentary Dec. 18 free at SPACE gallery in Portland 7pm).

I'm going to keep working as a citizen journalist to the extent of my abilities. I'm going to watch and share the "Collateral Murder" video from Iraq, the one Bradley is accused of leaking, plus more revelations from Iraq as the ghastly first phase of its subjugation draws to a close.

Citizen journalism is what we depend on now for news. If not for a tweet, how would I know and rejoice that yesterday someone in the courtroom called out "Bradley Manning is a hero!".

If I'm indefinitely detained for speaking out? So be it. We are all Bradley Manning. (Contribute to Manning's defense fund here.)