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Voting for limitless Gulag powers

On December 1st, 2011, the United States Senate, which colloquially has been referred by the American media as the “world’s greatest deliberative body” was just a few votes away from approving a new controversial amendment to the Defense authorization bill which would have allowed the government to lock up anyone it accused of being “a terrorist” for an unlimited amount of time (until the war on terror is over), without charge.  Essentially bringing the “justice” system of Gitmo to the shores of the US for American citizens.

The following 41 senators voted in favor of this amendment: (via senate.gov)

Grouped By Vote Position, with non-Republican votes in bold.

The above 41 Senators should give one a sense of just how far removed this body is from American values and the spirit under which this country was founded.  These folks essentially were in favor of returning to the feudal system of the past, with the authorities able to secret away any of its citizens – forever.

The history of this chamber of the Congress is storied at best – only added to the constitution in order to appease the slave states who knew they needed a more top-sided control over their populations.  When legislation can be stalled by a Senator from anywhere, a recipe for stagnation and obstruction seems to be created.  The equal power of all Senators dilutes the power of those states which have large populations, effectively making states with smaller populations more powerful than more populous ones, with the all too common result of preventing progressive policies from launching.  The entire premise of the Senate is against “majority rule” – for it takes a super-majority of 3/5′s (there’s that infamous slave ratio ingrained in the institution) in order to get any legislative movement from this body.  In a nearly evenly divided Senate, or in any Senate in which one ruling party or body does not control the critical amount of 60 members, a Senate which deadlocks on nearly all issues is the result.  The Senate of 2011 (the 112^th congress) consists of 51 Democrats, 2 Independents, and 47 Republicans – effectively creating a stalemate factory.

New low with victory claimed in climate “debate”

In early December of 2011, the COP17/CMP7 United Nations Climate Change Conference was held in Durban South Africa.  During the conference, Republican US Senator from Oklahoma James Inhofe had the audacity to proclaim that he was the lone voice in Washington DC still talking about the “myth of man-made climate change.”  Perhaps there’s a silver lining of truth in his statement, and maybe he actually is the last fool to believe man made climate change, known now as  anthropogenic global warming aka AGW, is a myth, tho that’s doubtful.  He declared victory in the Global climate change debate – his side, the conservative side of ignorance and denial, sent a clear message to the UN, in what may likely become an historic milestone quote of cluelessness:

Tossing out any remote possibility of a U.N. global warming treaty is one of the most important things we can do for the economy.

This victory is especially important today, as families in America and around the world continue to face tough economic times.

Of course Inhofe is a Republican who’s top donors are all energy companies, and of course he is backing hydrofracking and exploiting Canada’s tar sands.  By this man’s twisted logic, we’re saving ourselves and our economy by destroying that very being which sustains us.  Well, the Republicans have never really been accused of being trend-spotters, and their true religion seems to be externalization and cost externality.  Privatize profits, and socialize costs & risk.  Like children who do not have the ability to realize they must clean up after themselves, the climate deniers seem to exist on an entirely unlimited, infinite Earth – one which will happily accept any amount of pollutants we forcefully extract, burn and then re-inject into its atmosphere.  This irresponsible fallacy of limitlessness and unconnectedness may be the undoing of our species.

The new rhetoric from the scientific community is most interesting – just who and what is truly “radical” – that the executives of these oil companies go to work every day actively working on changing the chemistry of our atmosphere – profits for them, while poisoning our planet – now that is radical.