1/13/2007

militant authoritarianism at work

(P) Unbelievable. Except, it's not; it's exactly what authoritarian conservatives want. It's official, the notion that we should further consolidate the militarization of our society was one part of the massive 2007 Defense Authorization bill. Now, I'm using authoritarian conservatism very broadly here. I mean it as the notion that we can have a better society by increasing the usage of armed employees of the government controlled by ever fewer, more centralized power sources; Republican and Democrat categories do not overlap very well with this issue of deploying military forces. In both houses of Congress, majorities of both parties voted for the bill (although, there's certainly a reason they didn't introduce this as stand alone legislation rather than sticking it in the larger defense bill). The Insurrection Act (which is the exception to the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of the armed forces domestically) was amended to further militarize our society and place at the hands of the President control over the country.

In the future, governors will no longer control their own states' guard troops in an emergency. Instead, the President of the United States will now control the deployment of armed forces against American citizens. Apparently, simply deploying Blackwater forces in New Orleans wasn't enough. In case you were worried, big brother is still alive and kickin'.

Here's the letter the Governors, who obviously oppose this, sent to Congress last summer.

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