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.)

A good reason to go to war?

April vacation, 2009, with Martha and Liz -- same problem, higher cost every day.

I am in Washington DC for some citizen lobbying during my week of school vacation. Ok, I'm also here because pea-size hail was falling on my husband in Maine as we spoke on the phone yesterday. I admit, the warmth and cherry blossoms do beckon in April.

To get up to speed on events around town I called Medea, and she pointed me toward a public policy discussion of the current situation in the graveyard of empires, Afghanistan War: Containing or Leveraging U.S. Power? The Afghanistan Study Group has a good report just out and executive director Matthew Hoh was one of the panelists; Ray McGovern was in the audience, and there were also a number of right wing types who hate the war in Afghanistan. That is, they hate it now that it's Obama's war; before that, they loved it.

CODEPINK wants to pressure the president to bring troops home in large numbers in July, like he promised. So I went to see who else wants to do the same.

Ann Coulter might say that's what she wants to do, but I doubt that she's clear on that point.

During the panel discussion previous to hers, wonky types served up the usual hash of conflicting priorities and unintended consequences. Hoh, a former Marine officer who resigned from the State Department in protest of U.S. policy in Afghanistan, was a beacon of clarity, describing the current situation as a "stalemate" and pointing out that the U.S. is neglecting political efforts in favor of just applying force -- which has not, and will not, get the job done.

Georgetown assistant professor C. Christine Fair participating via video link made some good points,  describing what she termed "the certitude surplus," ridiculous in the face of a lack of real intelligence about Al Qaeda or for that matter the Taleban in Afghanistan. She also wondered how apologists for the war could talk about supporting women's rights "when there are basic human rights lacking. And I say this as a full ovulator." LOL

Malalai Joya (with C.J. Minster) April 7, 2011 in Los Angeles: “War will never help Afghan women. If we have the opportunity, I am sure Afghan women will liberate ourselves with the support of progressive Afghan men.”

By the time Ann came on I'd been listening for a couple of hours, so although she was both as vapid and as snarky as the meanest cheerleader at your high school, her performance was good comic relief.

McGovern, a former CIA analyst, had earlier asked the panel if the fact that there are significant natural gas deposits north of Afghanistan might be driving policy. You think? If Ann believed him, she'd probably be all gung-ho for Afghanistan conquest (again) because she did say of the "good" war, Iraq: "Of course we shuld go to war 'just' for oil -- it's like going to war 'just' for oxygen."
Coulter's bewildered main message on Afghanistan (or maybe it was Libya): Could there be any explanation for why the Democratic party supports wars (she used to support) that serve no American interests? Other than that liberals are totally disloyal and hate our country?

I was pretty sure I knew a reasonable explanation so I put my hand up several times and eventually got called on. Did I mention that when I entered wearing a pink Bring Our War $$ Home t-shirt the event hosts became visibly nervous, and a journalist asked me point blank if I planned to create a disturbance?

Me: "In attempting to understand U.S. foreign policy under a succession of administrations, I'm curious why you overlook the role of the immense profits for corporations that build weapons systems, contract security services, and so forth? It seems to be a very large factor, yet I'm not hearing that."

Coulter's snappy comeback: "That would be one of the advantages of the war." Then apparently sensing that she had just dealt Obama a backhanded compliment, she added: "Obama's spending all this money on, on, on stimulus bills -- oh we're providing jobs for public school teachers, if that were true I'd be more in favor of it --  except, alas, it doesn't serve the United States national security interests."

How did she know I was a teacher? Perhaps because mean cheerleader types have a 6th sense for potential areas of vulnerability. Then again, maybe it was my apron.

Joan, Josie, Larry, and my apron March 19. 2011 Wash DC

5/1 NOTE: Amended my blog to more accurately quote myself and Ann Coulter after I was able to view an online video of our exchange here, starting at 49:41.

Standing up for Bradley in the House of Commons

Michael Whitney on Firedoglake published this terrific news that the UK House of Commons debated Bradley Manning's long detention (300+ days) under inhumane conditions. You can see a video of the points raised by MP Ann Clwyd , who represents part of Wales.

Manning lived there for a time, and his mother still does. Can Bradley be considered a British citizen? Apparently there is some ground to think he might be able to claim this status since his mother is Welsh.

Foreign Office minister Henry Bellingham first said that the U.S. is a beacon of human rights around the world (which made this viewer LOL) but then that his government intended to continue bringing pressure on the US about their cruel treatment of Bradley Manning.

 Support Bradley here.