<story><title>Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA</title><url>http://rt.com/usa/obama-ndaa-appeal-suit-229/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>spodek</author><text>&amp;quot;Congress granted the president the authority to arrest and hold individuals accused of terrorism without due process under the NDAA, but Mr. Obama said in an accompanying signing statement that he will not abuse these privileges to keep American citizens imprisoned indefinitely&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;If you want to influence someone, it helps to understand their motivations. I can&amp;#x27;t conceive of what Obama has in mind with pursuing this law against resistance.&lt;p&gt;Is it not obvious to everyone the unwanted side-effects of this kind of power? Is it not obvious how much this flies in the face of the intent of the people who wrote the Constitution. Or more relevantly the Declaration of Independence? Obama is a &lt;i&gt;lawyer&lt;/i&gt;! He&amp;#x27;s intelligent. What can he be thinking? Did he forget the purpose and spirit of the Bill of Rights as he and advisors schemed to get around its letters?&lt;p&gt;Those revolutionaries would have all been labeled terrorists today. With the King in England, any colonist would have been an enemy combatant, stripped of rights, jailed or worse arbitrarily, and who knows what else.&lt;p&gt;Whether the United States has become what we rebelled against is not the question. If nothing changes, it&amp;#x27;s only a matter of time. This country has gotten rid of slavery and overcome major hurdles of sexual and racial inequality. Let&amp;#x27;s hope we have what it takes to overcome this centralization of power and unaccountability. And that we act on it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>roc</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;I can&amp;#x27;t conceive of what Obama has in mind with pursuing this law against resistance.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think, logically, we&amp;#x27;re down to only a few options:&lt;p&gt;1. &amp;quot;he&amp;#x27;s lying&amp;quot;: His stated opinions&amp;#x2F;positions don&amp;#x27;t reflect his beliefs at all.&lt;p&gt;2. &amp;quot;he&amp;#x27;s powerless&amp;quot;: despite being President, he has no practical control over what is pursued, so his speeches and signing statements are essentially a plea for people and historians to not blame him for that which he cannot control.&lt;p&gt;3. &amp;quot;he&amp;#x27;s corrupt&amp;quot;: Power has corrupted his ideals, and he truly believes he can fairly wield dangerous powers such as the drone kill list and suspension of citizenship&amp;#x2F;rights, despite their risks, and that having these tools available to him today is more necessary&amp;#x2F;important than denying them for fear of future abuse.&lt;p&gt;And none of those possibilities are particularly encouraging.</text></comment>
<story><title>Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA</title><url>http://rt.com/usa/obama-ndaa-appeal-suit-229/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>spodek</author><text>&amp;quot;Congress granted the president the authority to arrest and hold individuals accused of terrorism without due process under the NDAA, but Mr. Obama said in an accompanying signing statement that he will not abuse these privileges to keep American citizens imprisoned indefinitely&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;If you want to influence someone, it helps to understand their motivations. I can&amp;#x27;t conceive of what Obama has in mind with pursuing this law against resistance.&lt;p&gt;Is it not obvious to everyone the unwanted side-effects of this kind of power? Is it not obvious how much this flies in the face of the intent of the people who wrote the Constitution. Or more relevantly the Declaration of Independence? Obama is a &lt;i&gt;lawyer&lt;/i&gt;! He&amp;#x27;s intelligent. What can he be thinking? Did he forget the purpose and spirit of the Bill of Rights as he and advisors schemed to get around its letters?&lt;p&gt;Those revolutionaries would have all been labeled terrorists today. With the King in England, any colonist would have been an enemy combatant, stripped of rights, jailed or worse arbitrarily, and who knows what else.&lt;p&gt;Whether the United States has become what we rebelled against is not the question. If nothing changes, it&amp;#x27;s only a matter of time. This country has gotten rid of slavery and overcome major hurdles of sexual and racial inequality. Let&amp;#x27;s hope we have what it takes to overcome this centralization of power and unaccountability. And that we act on it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jvm</author><text>&amp;gt; Those revolutionaries would have all been labeled terrorists today.&lt;p&gt;This is one of the huge ironies about contemporary conservatives. They practically worship the founding fathers like gods, but they would have hated many of them if they met them today, as many were godless radical liberals.&lt;p&gt;The most extreme example of this for me was when D&amp;#x27;Souza and other republicans accused Barack Obama of being anti-colonialist [1], specifically in the context of British occupation, and they meant that &lt;i&gt;in a bad way&lt;/i&gt;(!) Surely if nothing else, our country was founded on the principle of opposition to British colonialism.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/07/AR2010100705485.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;wp-dyn&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;2010&amp;#x2F;10...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>