Remember the Read the Bills Act? That's the first time I ever paid much attention to a Daily Kos diary. I've always been activist, and always been a cynic, but this diary gave my Cynic Meter™ new life. As in "What? They have to pass a law to make Congress read the legislation they intend to vote on?" Who's gonna vote on it?
Well, fast-forward from 2005, and color me shocked--near as I can tell, this bill still hasn't seen the light of day much beyond a website and a Wiki entry. But, to my pleasant surprise, last night as I was reading, I ran across this diary, which clearly shows there is at least ONE Democratic candidate for President who doesn't need to be legislated into actually doing his job! Good to know--and one more reason to like Dennis Kucinich.
Then, during the ensuing discussion, this post popped up from citizen k, who highlighted something most startling.
WTF is this all about? Please help me work through this...
That thread really got me thinking again, about the power of words, especially the words included in the laws we pass. As a student of the language, I know how one or two well-placed nouns, verbs, or adjectives can make or break things like intent and meaning.
We've surely seen this before--last minute insertions of items into legislation, that surely skewed its original intent to the point of absurdity. There's always an opportunity to debate about that, and I've butted heads with many about it over the years. What I'm concerned with here, now, are a couple of words that don't necessarily seem to be needed.
The passage in question is this, mentioned by Kucinich in his interview yesterday with Democracy Now, from the Defense Authorization Bill:
(Under TITLE XVI, NATIONAL GUARD ENHANCEMENT)
.....
DETERMINATION OF DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE CIVIL SUPPORT REQUIREMENTS
(a) DETERMINATION OF REQUIREMENTS---- The Secretary of Defense shall determine the military-unique capabilities needed to be provided by the Department of Defense to support civil authorities in an incident of national significance or a catastrophic incident.
(b) PLAN FOR FUNDING CAPABILITIES---
(1) PLAN----The Secretary of Defense shall develop and implement a plan, in coordination with the Secretaries of the military departments and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for providing the funds and resources necessary to develop and maintain the following:
(A) The military-unique capabilities determined under subsection (a).
(B) Any additional capabilities determined by the Secretary to be necessary to support the use of the active components and the reserve components of the armed forces for homeland defense missions, domestic emergency responses, and providing military support to civil authorities.
The words jumped out at me like a slap in the face--under "Determination of Requirements". Two little words: military-unique
Remove that, and this is what remains:
(a) DETERMINATION OF REQUIREMENTS---- The Secretary of Defense shall determine the capabilities needed to be provided by the Department of Defense to support civil authorities in an incident of national significance or a catastrophic incident.
So what would the difference be, if those two words were removed? Well, that's a good question, isn't it? If "the Secretary of Defense determines the capabilities that DoD needs to provide civil authorities (read: state and local)", do they have to be military-unique? Why couldn't they be civilian DoD?
Here's another question: why couldn't a department head at DoD help make that determination? I mean, I'm sure that The Secretary would make some sound decisions (snark?), but don't good managers delegate sometimes?
My point--the possibilities are endless, with the insertion of two little words. I'd love to know if those two little words were ever part of the original draft.
And I'm also curious because this is some very scary shit. Why? Well, knowing how BushCO operates, the addition of the words "military-unique" could allow for (indeed scream, to this cynic) Blackwater USA/State/Local , in Stonehenge-sized concrete letters. YMMV.
But the most important question would seem to be along the lines of this:
What's wrong with just bringing the National Guard that we have in Iraq, and God knows where else, HOME?
Surely they're not all deceased? Not that we ever get a straight answer on that--but those who aren't are probably either injured, maimed or mentally-haunted for life, after having seen and done things that they were never in any way, shape or form prepared for by our military "leaders", when they were deployed outside our country's borders. So my guess is they'll probably be in no shape for domestic deployment, once they return (don't even get me started, that's a whole different diary...)
What this says to me, at the very least, is that we apparently need a new National Guard. Or at least, there's legislation pending that certainly makes it seem so.
Am I reading these words--such as they are--correctly? Help me out, Big Orange--is that the idea here? If so, I'm thinking we need to get to the bottom of the Iraq mess--via IMPEACHMENT, NOW--before any more verbose flapdoodle gets past any of our other Congresscritters, and signed into law. If there's a bill up there someplace called The Read The Bills Act, then maybe not all of them have seen this language, or pondered the meaning of those two little words.
Forgive me, please, if some of this seems rather repetitious--I know there's been plenty of discussion about Blackwater, and the possibilities of, shall we say, domestic applications. But that debate has been going on for awhile, and Kucinich just noted this item yesterday, in his interview with Amy Goodman. So in my mind, it's damn sure relevant today.
(thanks to rjones2818 for the original heads-up diary)
UPDATE: Heh. I have to stop posting early drafts...tips to diaries and kossacks who help to make me a better writer :)