Terror / Fear

Posted by Amanda Simon, ACLU Blog of Rights

President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) today, allowing indefinite detention to be codified into law. As you know, the White House had threatened to veto an earlier version of the NDAA but reversed course shortly before Congress voted on the final bill. While President Obama issued a signing statement saying he had “serious reservations” about the provisions, the statement only applies to how his administration would use it and would not affect how the law is interpreted by subsequent administrations.

The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield.

Under the Bush administration, similar claims of worldwide detention authority were used to hold even a U.S. citizen detained on U.S. soil in military custody, and many in Congress now assert that the NDAA should be used in the same way again. The ACLU believes that any military detention of American citizens or others within the United States is unconstitutional and illegal, including under the NDAA. In addition, the breadth of the NDAA’s detention authority violates international law because it is not limited to people captured in the context of an actual armed conflict as required by the laws of war.

Jeremy Scahill

Scott Horton Interviews Jeremy Scahill

Jeremy Scahill discusses Yemen, President Saleh, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Al Qaeda, Obama, Bush, Ed Schultz, Libya.
Source: Scott Horton Interviews Jeremy Scahill

Congressman Dennis Kucinich

Scott Horton Interviews Rep. Dennis Kucinich

Rep. Dennis Kucinich discusses his attempt to provoke debate in Congress concerning the authority to declare war. He voted to defund the Libyan War.
Source: Scott Horton Interviews Rep. Dennis Kucinich

Glenn Greenwald

Scott Horton Interviews Glenn Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald talks about Obama and War Powers Act and the Libyan War. He also comments on WikiLeaks Julian Assange and journalism.
Source: Scott Horton Interviews Glenn Greenwald

Nick Turse

Scott Horton Interviews Nick Turse

Nick Turse discusses how JSOC, the Joint Special Operations Command became the president’s own private army. He also comments on why the precision airstrikes in Libya were probably guided by special operations forces on the ground.
Source: Scott Horton Interviews Nick Turse

Play Program or Download(before the fold)

I must confess that I have my own views of the Muslim world. Like most countries they want self-determination. That is the process by which a country determines its own statehood and forms its own allegiances and government. Self-determination is an idea that can't killed with bombs or bullets or autocratic leaders.

Robin Wright

Robin Wright talks with Charlie Rose about the Islamic world
Source: Robin Wright

Al McCoy

SubordiNations

Al McCoy talks about how empires are maintained, why the U.S. empire is in decline, and what the consequences might be depending on how we respond to that decline. Al McCoy is a professor of history at the University of Wisconson–Madison, and author of 'Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines and the Rise of the Surveillance State,'
Source: TomCast for April 24, 2011: SubordiNations

Robin Wright talked about the recent Middle East uprisings and she responded to telephone calls and electronic communications.
Source: Rock The Casbah

Play Program or Download(below the fold)

1984

Great Speeches and Interviews is committed to showing the dark side of civilization. In pursue of that goal we present the radio play of George Orwell's "1984" from the NBC University Theater starring David Niven. He cautions that any government can become totalitarian.

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power....The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power." -George Orwell, 1984

Source: Audio Book - 1984 George Orwell .mp3

Glenn Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald is interviewed by Dylan Ratigan. They discuss how the hopes from 2008 presidential campaign were crushed in 2011.
Source: Glenn Greenwald: Cultivating Hope While Perpetuating Unfairness Is Cruel

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David Cay Johnston

David Cay Johnston is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author. He has worked as an investigative reporter for several newspapers including the New York Times.
He is the author of two bestsellers, "Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich--and Cheat Everybody Else" and "Free Lunch: How The Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expenses (and Stick You with the Bill)". In this interview, he talks with Terrence McNally, journalist and radio host.
Source: Q&A: DAVID CAY JOHNSTON - Pulitzer Prize Journalist / Author

Scott Horton

Scott Horton Interviews The Other Scott Horton

The Other Scott Horton discusses the protest letter signed by top U.S. legal scholars – including Obama’s law professor at Harvard – about Bradley Manning’s illegal and immoral conditions of detainment. They talk about how Manning is subjected to unnecessary security/suicide prevention measures to punish and vilify him.
Source: Scott Horton Interviews The Other Scott Horton

Music includes Earth Anthem, We'll Met Again, Charlie Parker - Scrapple from the Apple, Do You Hear?, Hero of War, drunken lullabies, Strange Fruit, South of the Border, Lodi, I Ain't Marching Anymore, If You Want to Stop Terrorism then Stop Killing Muslims

Play Program or Download(below the fold)

Andrew Bacevich

Harry Kreisler talks with Andrew Bacevich, Professor of International Relations and History at Boston University, for a discussion of the causes and consequences of the militarization of U.S. foreign policy. Bacevich explores the origins of militarization and the factors that sustained their existence for more than six decades.
Source: Conversations With History: America's Path to Permanent War

Ray McGovern

Scott Horton Interviews Ray McGovern

Ray McGovern, former senior analyst at the CIA, discusses why the corrupted mainstream U.S. media needs to be supplanted by WikiLeaks. They comment on the State Department’s successful interference with Spanish and German courts seeking to indict U.S. officials.
Source: Scott Horton Interviews Ray McGovern, December 13, 2010

Music includes Earth Anthem, house on fire, Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, Robin Williams on Reagan, Freedom Trilogy, Who's Next, 900 Miles, We'll Meet Again

Peter B. Collins interviews Scott A. Bonn

The book “Mass Deception” connects propaganda and distortions by the Bush administration to elite deviance and state crimes and violations of international criminal law. Dr. Bonn's book illustrates how those in the highest seats of power deceived and manipulated ordinary, hard-working, trusting Americans. Those Americans then sent their sons and daughters to fight in needlessly wars.
Source: Peter B. Collins on January 10, 2011, Bush’s Rehtoric and Lies Produced “Mass Deception”
 

Capturing Geothermal Energy

What if, right below our feet, we had enough potential clean energy to keep the U.S. supplied for thousands years? That's what the U.S. Department of Energy calculates. But there's a catch: we have to get to all that potential geothermal power. Reporter: Craig Miller. From the California Report.
Source: The California Report, 33x20: Capturing Geothermal Energy

This isn't the followup I wanted to do with this post, because what I have in mind is much more extensive than what's below. But if you have any relatives or friends who are still telling you the right-wingers aren't calling for, and encouraging violence ... I give you Exhibit A

Glenn Beck in June 2010: 'You're Gonna Have to Shoot Them in the Head'

Would-be assassin Byron Williams referred specifically to Beck's June 2010 shows where he had warned of 'communist' takeover in DC by Pelosi and other 'revolutionaries'...

But, of course, "both sides do it!"...sigh...[via Stephen Webster at RAW STORY]...

The video above was from June 10, 2010.

"You need to go back to June --- June of this year, 2010," said would-be mass murderer Byron Williams, referring to Glenn Beck in a jailhouse interview. Williams had been stopped by police in a San Francisco shoot out on his way to assassinate members of the ACLU and the progressive Tides Foundation in July of 2010. "Look at all his programs from June, and you'll see he's been breaking open some of the most hideous corruption," Williams, who viewed Beck as a "schoolteacher on TV," later said.

Tweet from Michael Moore: "If a Detroit Muslim put a map on the web w/crosshairs on 20 pols, then 1 of them got shot, where would he b sitting right now? Just asking. "

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

UC Davis professor discusses swastika on Casspi mural

A Sacramento Kings mural featuring Omri Casspi at 16th and R Streets in midtown was recently vandalized with a swastika symbol and police are currently investigating the vandalism as a hate crime.

The mural’s artist has said this is the second time an incident like this has happened.

Omri Casspi told Sam Amick of Fanhouse that he is “not shocked” that it happened but that he is "hurt.”

Bleed Black and Purple spoke with UC Davis professor David Biale, who is part of the university's Jewish Studies program, about the incident. UC Davis experienced similar acts of vandalism earlier this year. In the spring semester, swastikas were drawn outside a Jewish students’ dorm room as well as on the social sciences building.

Biale is the chair of the department of history and is the Emanuel Ringelblum Professor of Jewish history. Last year Biale published a new book, Blood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol Between Jews and Christians and has completed a draft of another book entitled Not in the Heavens: An Intellectual History of Jewish Secularism.

Below are his comments regarding the Casspi mural.

(This is from a week ago but because of computer issues I couldn't post it) Be prepared to be shocked by the videos in the next few posts in this series

Northeast Nevada wild horse roundup suspended after mustangs die

CARSON CITY, Nev. — The U.S. Bureau of Land Management suspended a wild horse roundup in northeast Nevada on Monday after seven animals died of dehydration and another was shot after it broke its leg in a holding pen.

Animal rights activists were outraged, saying the outcome was predicable given the sweltering temperatures and helicopters used to gather the animals.

The BLM said the animals appeared in otherwise good shape when two groups were herded by helicopter to holding pens in northern Elko County on Saturday. But the roundup was halted Sunday morning after four horses were found dead in the pens and others showed signs of colic and brain swelling.

In all, seven died of what the BLM called dehydration and complications from "water intoxication" that can occur when dehydrated animals drink excessive amounts of water.