You may have missed this while you were watching American Idol or Dancing with the Stars, but last Thursday, the US Senate voted to repeal the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, Habeas Corpus, the Magna Carta, and 900 years of Anglo-American jurisprudence. S3930, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, explicitly gives the President power to decide who is considered an “enemy combatant,” and to seize these people – whether foreign or American – and hold them indefinitely without trial, and with no recourse whatsoever to challenge the legality of their imprisonment. Moreover, while not explicitly denying the Geneva Conventions, it gives the President the power to decide what torture techniques are and aren’t illegal under those Conventions. None of these vast new powers are subject to any kind of overview, either from the courts or from Congress.

Simply put, torture and permanent detention are now legal in the United States of America. And, just in case you think a change in Congressional leadership this year would make any kind of difference at all, keep dreaming: while the administration’s Republican lickspittles in the Senate rammed this bill through, the Democrats did absolutely nothing to stop it. No flilbuster, nothing. (Hell, 12 of ‘em even voted for it.)

Maybe you’re counting on the American public to rise up against this affront to democracy and basic human rights? Puh-lease. Turns out, 60% of us are actually in favor of torture. Yeee haaa! When do we break out the iron maiden?
(all preceding links via Badtux )

How did we get here? How did it all go so deeply, seriously wrong in just five short years? How did 9/11 change us into a nation of snivelling cowards, willing to sacrifice all of our freedoms, responsibilities, and morals in exchange for an illusion of safety and mindless escape via the latest idiotic soma spewing from the lobotomy box?

And how is it that I can barely feel any outrage over this, only a sense of weary contempt? The transformation of America from a republic into an empire has been so shockingly swift, and accomplished with so little public outcry, that I feel numbed.

Maybe it’s time to just give up.