This is me every time I see another link or #NDAA hashtag:
The National Defense Authorization Act is the Department of Defense budget. It has been passed forty eight times, and does not include war spending. The sections of NDAA that everyone is freaking out over? That’s the war party trying to take constitutional powers away from the presidency. If these sections worry you enough to get upset, then I’m afraid there is nothing you can do about stopping them: they’ve become law. But they don’t have to stay that way, and that’s why I’m challenging the peace party to focus on the forty-ninth iteration of NDAA.
You know, the one that will be passed by the 113th Congress.
Not this congress. This congress will not overturn those sections of the 2012 NDAA.
This 112th congress was responsible for putting them in the NDAA.
The NDAA is an act of Congress, so to change NDAA you must change Congress.
Fortunately, it is possible to put one whole House in order and alter the composition of the Senate this November. Two of the most hawkish men responsible for the indefinite detention sections, Joe Lieberman and Jim Webb, will already be leaving in 2012, making things even easier. The internet peace-and-freedom party can therefore be most useful by less reaction and more organizing: instead of talking about past chances, focus on the chance coming round again.
