Re:The Government’s Addiction to ‘Secret Law’
by eternalban on Tuesday October 18, 2016 @02:25PM
(#12737259)
> He was absolutely right
I am not sure I can agree with this. Whether knowingly or not, Eisenhower coined the term "military-industrial-complex" (MIC) and to me this is a form of disinformation, and unless one is willing to ascribe extreme naiveté to General Eisenhower, disingenuous.
The MIC is the visible portion of a larger complex. The correct term (since his warning was issued post OSS and CIA) is the Military-Intelligence-Complex. And the industrial part is merely the means for the governing plutocracy to milk the national treasury, and, reward the faithful servants of the powerful interests. And unless we are to assume that we have indeed been living under a secret military goverment since WWII, the military of this nation is supposed to take its orders and direction from the civilian authorities.
Secrecy is the domain of spooks.
That said, I also find it 'interesting' for the "august" New York Times to opine regarding the "unsettling" character of the current American regime at such a late date. Where were the ladies and gentlemen of the New York Times editorial board in 2001 when Patriot Act passed without a nod towards even a sham attempt at deliberation?
An entire generation of Americans has been born and raised to adulthood since 2001, and no doubt, just as they find the internet and web to be a 'natural' aspect of life, they likely find nothing objectionable to "secret laws", "warrantless" action by the government, "torture", and the rest of that sordid and entirely unAmerican (at least to this old fogey) laundry list of creeping authoritarianism.
As I skimmed some of the comments in this thread, I also noted that the general theme of corrective actions that are suggested seem to place an unreasonable emphasis on architectural aspect of the system.
But we already had and have standing laws on the book. What, pray tell, would further emblemishments to the constitutional order achieve when existing laws are 'cleverly' circumnavigated and the constitution treated as a dead letter?
A people can not be saved from themselves.
America used to produce a people whose mother's milk was Liberty. The current actors in our system that knowingly and willfully distort or disregard standing laws (such as the War Powers Act) are either America's own sons and daughters or we have been literally subverted by a foreign people whose mother's milk was not and is not and will never be life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness (for all).
The long term, and strategic, response to this malaise is simply this: every single one of you who has children must instill the essential American Values in your children. For unless we are indeed not only subject to secret laws but also to secret occupation, then it is our children, our sons, and our daughters who vie with one another in finding clever ways to trample the American Social Contract underfoot.
I am not sure I can agree with this. Whether knowingly or not, Eisenhower coined the term "military-industrial-complex" (MIC) and to me this is a form of disinformation, and unless one is willing to ascribe extreme naiveté to General Eisenhower, disingenuous.
The MIC is the visible portion of a larger complex. The correct term (since his warning was issued post OSS and CIA) is the Military-Intelligence-Complex. And the industrial part is merely the means for the governing plutocracy to milk the national treasury, and, reward the faithful servants of the powerful interests. And unless we are to assume that we have indeed been living under a secret military goverment since WWII, the military of this nation is supposed to take its orders and direction from the civilian authorities.
Secrecy is the domain of spooks.
That said, I also find it 'interesting' for the "august" New York Times to opine regarding the "unsettling" character of the current American regime at such a late date. Where were the ladies and gentlemen of the New York Times editorial board in 2001 when Patriot Act passed without a nod towards even a sham attempt at deliberation?
An entire generation of Americans has been born and raised to adulthood since 2001, and no doubt, just as they find the internet and web to be a 'natural' aspect of life, they likely find nothing objectionable to "secret laws", "warrantless" action by the government, "torture", and the rest of that sordid and entirely unAmerican (at least to this old fogey) laundry list of creeping authoritarianism.
As I skimmed some of the comments in this thread, I also noted that the general theme of corrective actions that are suggested seem to place an unreasonable emphasis on architectural aspect of the system.
But we already had and have standing laws on the book. What, pray tell, would further emblemishments to the constitutional order achieve when existing laws are 'cleverly' circumnavigated and the constitution treated as a dead letter?
A people can not be saved from themselves.
America used to produce a people whose mother's milk was Liberty. The current actors in our system that knowingly and willfully distort or disregard standing laws (such as the War Powers Act) are either America's own sons and daughters or we have been literally subverted by a foreign people whose mother's milk was not and is not and will never be life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness (for all).
The long term, and strategic, response to this malaise is simply this: every single one of you who has children must instill the essential American Values in your children. For unless we are indeed not only subject to secret laws but also to secret occupation, then it is our children, our sons, and our daughters who vie with one another in finding clever ways to trample the American Social Contract underfoot.