President Obama’s approval by non-veto of the highly controversial “National Defense Authorization Act for the year 2012” (NDAA) represents, for American citizens across the political sphere, the summation of a series of bipartisan betrayals of American citizens constitutional rights. Policy brutality in Occupy Wall Street protests, the pending of the infamous “Stop Online Piracy Act” (which will allow the US Department of Justice unprecedented powers over free speech via the Internet), and the nefarious accounts of state-sponsored weapon smuggling and money laundering for drug cartels have earned their share of protests, but none have earned the same level of condemnation from across the US political spectrum as the passage of the NDAA bill.
As a presidential candidate in 2008, Obama promised an administration where the Americans’ constitutional rights, specifically that of habeus corpus, were respected. See below:
Yet with the White House’s acceptance of the NDAA bill, President Obama concludes the year 2011 – a year rife with state-led offenses against Americans’ civil rights – with an act that effectively codifies the indefinite military detention of US citizens into American law. Obama’s message of “change”, and specifically his insinuation that his role as a person of color within the White House would represent the positive evolution of American society has played the USA false – a variety of artists of color are responding through their art to protest the direction that American society has taken.
It’s important to note that above all, the passage of the NDAA and similar violations of Americans’ constitutional rights represents a bipartisan betrayal of US citizens – while Obama approved the NDAA, he didn’t conceive of the act by himself in a vacuum. As such, perhaps it is time that US citizens from across the bell curve to ignore partisan divisions and join in protest of legislation like the NDAA. After all, if even MTV has taken time away from “16 and Pregnant” commercials to create adds like the one below, don’t you think its about time you stood up for your rights?
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